Over Freezing Altitudes

by Kate MacLeod

  “They aren’t there yet,” Minato said. “Hold on. This is going to be bumpy.”

  Scout clutched the edge of the panel again, but when the floor first pressed up underneath her then dropped away so suddenly she felt like she was falling, she opted to sit down on the floor instead, hugging both of her dogs close.

  Daisy, on the other hand, had a manic grin on her face, leaning forward to watch the last of the clouds peel away from the viewscreen as Minato increased their acceleration.

  Just as they started slowing down again, having reached the limit of what the balloon could do, she fired the rockets. Scout yelped even louder than the dogs as they were suddenly tumbling backward, the nose of the ship now the ‘up.’

  They piled on top of each other at the back of the cabin, narrowly missing a longer tumble down the hallway. Shadow was trembling, and even Gert seemed shaken.

  Daisy was laughing. So was Minato.

  Clearly, they were insane.

  “How much further?” Scout asked when the acceleration finally stopped and they were moving at a constant velocity. She released the dogs, and they slowly settled to the floor close to the back wall. Not quite freefall yet.

  “Nearly there,” Daisy said, but then pointed. “You’re going to run out of fuel.”

  “Yes,” Minato agreed. “I have enough left to navigate to that ship’s airlock, but this is as fast as we’re going to get there.”

  Daisy studied the dot that represented the Ming Yue then the dot that was their ship. “It’ll be enough,” she said with certainty.

  “What about after?” Scout asked. “How are you getting back down?”

  “Balloon,” Minato said. “That, and gravity pulling me down. It will take a while, but I’ll get there.”

  “But your father,” Scout said.

  “I can’t help him,” Minato said, her hands tightening on the controls. “But I can help you. And I need to be doing something helpful.”

  “Thank you,” Scout said.

  “Yes, thanks,” Daisy added. “You have no idea what this is even all about, but you didn’t hesitate to do your part.”

  “I don’t know the specifics, but I know she arrived on a tribunal enforcer ship,” Minato said, tipping her head towards Scout. “Whatever you’re mixed up in, if it involves the likes of them, it’s huge. And I don’t get the sense you’re on the side of the bad guys. The tribunal enforcers treated you with respect.”

  “Look,” Daisy said, pointing to another screen. Minato looked at it, then moved it to the central screen and enlarged it. Scout didn’t know what they were looking at. It was all scrolling data to her. But Minato’s face hardened.

  “What is it?” Scout asked.

  “Their engines are warming up,” Minato said.

  “They’ll be firing them soon,” Daisy said. “How fast can you dock once we’re alongside?”

  “I’m the fastest,” Minato said. No one who was bragging would do it with such a grim look on their face. Scout believed her absolutely.

  Minato dismissed the data screen, and they were once more seeing the view from the nose of the ship. The Ming Yue was clearly visible ahead of them, the soft blue glow of its engines intensifying.

  Scout looked away from that light. Even just looking at the color of it was making her head feel swimmy. She remembered her close encounter with a warp field back on the Months’ ship. And that one had just been idling.

  “Hold on,” Minato said, and Scout looked up again as the ship around her lurched to one side. They were past the engines, matching velocity with the ship now. Minato reached for a different control and pulled a trigger.

  Scout caught a hold of a panel just in time to keep from spilling to the floor again. Whatever Minato had done, it felt like they were a fish on the end of a line now, being dragged after the Ming Yue at high speed.

  “Hold on,” Minato said. At first, Scout thought she was giving that warning a touch too late, but then the airship starting bucking under her feet, up and down and side to side. The dogs yelped in protest.

  “What’s happening?” Scout asked.

  “I’ve harpooned on to their ship,” Minato told her through gritted teeth. “I’m reeling us in. Once we’re locked down, I can extend the walkway and force their airlock open.”

  “Force it? How?” Scout asked.

  Minato just gave her a maniacal grin. “Trust me. I’ve done this before.”

  Scout had a million questions, plus the image of Minato dressed like the pirates that flocked to the Months’ court.

  They had picked the right girl to ask for help, that was for sure.

  Scout saw the side of the Ming Yue drawing ever closer on the viewscreen. Then the shaking ride was over as suddenly as it began, ending with a loud clang that echoed throughout the airship.

  “We’re docked,” Minato said, turning to them with a proud grin.

  “You’re awesome,” Daisy said. “We better hurry through the airlock.”

  “Yes,” Scout said, running to collect the dogs.

  The image of Minato’s delicate airship getting bashed to pieces as the much larger deep space vessel accelerated to its full velocity wouldn’t leave her mind.

  They had to get off her ship so she could detach before that happened.

  And even still, she was going to be left without fuel far from the harbor, in a much higher orbit than her ship was designed for.

  “I’ll be fine,” Minato said as if reading Scout’s thoughts. “You two take care of yourselves. And the dogs, of course. I have a feeling you’re the ones who are about to be in real danger.”

  “I hope we meet again,” Daisy said, then sailed through the airlock, landing neatly on her feet the moment she reached the Ming Yue’s artificial gravity.

  “I hope your dad is okay,” Scout said, pushing first Gert and then Shadow through the airlock to Daisy’s waiting arms. “Be safe.”

  “You too,” Minato said, giving Scout a little push out the airlock. Scout’s feet pressed against the hull of Minato’s ship and she launched herself down the white tube to the far ship.

  The gravity grabbed her the moment she passed through the Ming Yue’s hatch, and she somersaulted out of the way so that Daisy could slam the door shut behind her.

  Scout scrambled to her feet and found a viewscreen near the airlock door. As Daisy spun the wheel to seal the door, Scout watched the airship fall away behind them.

  It looked so small in all that black. She hoped Minato would be okay.

  “Come on,” Daisy said. “However Minato did it, it seems no one knows we came in through the airlock, but we can’t stay invisible to the ship’s systems forever. Let’s get moving.”

  Scout unclipped the leashes from the dogs in case they need to run. Daisy dropped her pack to the floor and drew her gun. Scout did likewise.

  Whatever they were about to face, cold weather gear and mountain climbing equipment were not going to be any help.

  Scout was afraid the gun wasn’t going to either. She had that feeling again like she was about to find another layer above her when she was already in over her head. But there was nothing to do but press on.

  Somewhere, the Torreses and the McGillcuddys needed her. She couldn’t let them down.

  25

  The hall outside the airlock was dark, the only source of light a thin red line running along the walls at about the level of the handrails. Scout turned on her night vision, but it didn’t help much—she could already see the general outlines—so she toggled it back off again.

  Daisy took the lead, gun in both hands, although she kept it pointed down towards the floor. Scout mimicked her posture, assuming there was a reason behind everything Daisy did.

  The dogs didn’t like the dark. They stayed close to Scout’s heels, sniffing the air but not making any noise.

  Daisy paused when the hallway ended in a larger cross corridor. She looked both ways, but they both led off into a red-tinged darkness with no signs of doors or anythi
ng.

  “Why is it empty and dark?” Scout asked in a whisper.

  “Skeleton crew, probably,” Daisy whispered back. “We never got off the shuttle, and we weren’t told why. If this ship is uncrewed, that might be part of it.”

  “Doesn’t she trust her assassins?” Scout asked.

  Daisy’s mouth twisted as she thought that one over. “I don’t think that’s it. There might have been someone else on the ship who she didn’t want to know about her assassins. I don’t really know.”

  “So which way?” Scout asked. Daisy looked both ways again then picked the corridor on the left.

  Scout was pretty sure it was a random choice, but she had no better ideas, so she just followed along.

  This corridor ended in another, even larger one. The walls had two narrow bands of red lights running down them. But even with twice the light source, the hallway felt no brighter.

  “Does it mean something?” Scout asked, running a hand over the two lines. Daisy just shrugged and took the corridor on the right.

  The two-lined corridor ran on for hundreds of meters. They passed closed doors and other cross corridors with only the single band of light to guide the way, but Daisy didn’t give any of them more than a passing glance.

  Scout had a prickling feeling at the back of her neck, like she was being watched. She had had that feeling before, when she had been surrounded by assassins and hadn’t known it. She kept looking back, focusing intently, when suddenly her glasses seemed to understand she was looking for possible surveillance. They flagged several dots at regular intervals down the corridor, then labeled them as cameras tracking their motion.

  But there was no sign of life.

  “Someone somewhere is watching us,” Scout whispered.

  “Most assuredly,” Daisy agreed.

  A sudden rush of dizziness nearly sent Scout stumbling over her own feet. She stopped and pressed one hand over her eyes; the other braced against the wall. She felt like she needed that wall’s help in staying upright.

  “What is it?” Daisy asked.

  “I feel weird,” Scout said.

  “Weird how?” Daisy asked, looking around as if for something in the air itself.

  “Weird like . . .” The words floated away from her. Daisy was still speaking, but those words floated away too. Like Scout was hurtling through space too fast for speech to catch up with her.

  “Scout!”

  Scout snapped back into the moment to find Daisy violently shaking her by the shoulders.

  “Sorry,” Scout said.

  “What happened?”

  “I think we’re moving,” Scout said. “Hyperspace. I have a weird reaction to warp fields.”

  Daisy gave her a skeptical look but said nothing.

  “I felt it on the Months’ ship when I was looking at their engine, and they weren’t even moving at the time. Then again on the tribunal enforcers’ ship when we were in hyperspace. But that was just like being a little off, and I didn’t even know why until it was over. Nothing like this.”

  “Stronger engine,” Daisy said, although she still looked like she wasn’t sure she believed what Scout was telling her. “Different effect.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you okay now?” Daisy asked.

  Scout blinked, and for the brief moment when her eyes were closed, she felt that rushing, falling, plummeting-forward feeling. But she still had her hand on the wall. The wall gave her strength.

  She swallowed hard and nodded.

  Daisy kept looking at her as if waiting for Scout’s head to explode or something.

  “Tell me if anything changes,” Daisy said. “I need to know when I can rely on you and when I can’t.”

  “I’m good,” Scout promised. “I’m getting used to it. I’ve got it under control.”

  Daisy nodded, then continued down the hall. Scout took a breath and followed, working hard to ignore the feeling that she was moving so much faster than one step at a time.

  The corridor ended in a short flight of steps up to a pair of double doors that stood open as if someone was expecting them.

  Daisy held up a hand, and Scout took that to mean she wanted to go on ahead and look around before Scout and the dogs followed. Scout nodded, then squatted down and grabbed the dogs by their collars to hold them still.

  Daisy still had her gun pointed to the floor, but her arms were more rigid now, like she was prepared to lift and fire inside of a breath if she had to. She stepped back against the wall, then slid slowly over to the doorway to peek inside.

  Scout watched Daisy’s face as she looked around the room. She saw her eyes widen momentarily and her body twitched as if she were catching herself before rushing in. Only after a thorough sweep of the entire vicinity did she take a step further inside. Then more looking, then another step.

  Then she waved for Scout and the dogs to follow before moving quickly out of sight.

  Scout let the dogs go and drew her own gun again, just in case. The dogs ran up the steps to find Daisy.

  It took Scout a little longer. Looking down at the steps made that forward-tumbling rushing feeling come back again, and she was certain she was putting her feet down wrong, that she was about to fall trying to go up three very shallow steps.

  She closed her eyes and ran up them. When she reached the doorway, she opened her eyes and saw Daisy kneeling on the floor beside a body. She was touching their neck even as her gaze was still sweeping the room around her looking for threats.

  Then Scout took another step inside the room and saw there was more than one body on the floor. Far more.

  Daisy rolled the body she was touching over onto its back, and the hair that had been covering the face fell away.

  It was Mary Grace Torres.

  “No!” Scout cried.

  “She’s not dead,” Daisy said. “None of them are. Just unconscious.”

  Scout was standing over Daisy now and saw that the other bodies were John Carlo and Emma and her sons.

  “Why are they tied up if they’re unconscious?” Scout asked.

  Daisy stood up and shrugged. She was about to say something when the doors hissed shut.

  It was such a soft sound, and yet it reverberated around them.

  “Dogs!” Scout called, panicked that they might have been in the hallway. Shadow ran to her side, then a moment later Gert appeared from behind a workstation.

  Licking her lips. Did Scout even want to know what she had gotten into?

  “Were they gassed?” Scout asked as another wave of panic hit her. Were she and Daisy about to join the others unconscious on the floor?

  “I don’t know,” Daisy said, looking up at the vents in the ceiling over them. Then she walked over to one of the workstations. “This is a navigation station. That one there is communications. And this is flight control. We’re on the bridge.”

  “But there’s no viewscreen,” Scout said. It looked like any other room to her, if dark and lit only by the red lines that still ran along all the walls.

  “It’s not necessary,” Daisy said. “But someone must be here running things.”

  “A crew?” Scout said. She saw no sign of anyone hiding behind any of the workstations or crouching under the panels.

  “I think a single person could do it,” Daisy said. “They’d have to be able to hold a lot of tasks in their head at the same time and prioritize them appropriately, but it could be just one.”

  “You are correct,” a woman’s voice rang out, and the lights blazed to life. Scout threw an arm over her eyes. She hoped Daisy’s eyes adjusted faster than hers.

  “Shi Jian,” Daisy said.

  “I almost thought you two wouldn’t make it,” Shi Jian said. Scout lowered her arm, still blinking furiously as her eyes adapted to the bright light. Shi Jian was just a black outline in a white space for the first few blinks. Then the room gained detail and Scout could see Shi Jian’s face.

  She was smiling at them, like all of this was some
delicious game.

  Then she realized what Shi Jian had just said.

  “You wanted us here?” she asked.

  “Both of you, yes,” Shi Jian said. She was leaning one hip against the corner of a workstation, arms folded, no sign of a weapon anywhere.

  But anything could be tucked away under the loose folds of her cloak.

  “So you really were after me the whole time?” Scout asked.

  “So simplistic, your thinking,” Shi Jian said, still smiling. “This isn’t the sort of game where I can only make one move at a time. And as Daisy said, I can give many tasks my full attention at the same time and prioritize them accordingly. I promise you, everyone who is on this ship is here for a specific reason.”

  “The kids?” Scout asked, pointing at Emma’s sons.

  Shi Jian just shrugged, her smile never faltering.

  Scout had a sick feeling that they were going to be recruits.

  “Who do you work for?” Daisy demanded.

  “Please,” Shi Jian said. “That’s not what we’re here to discuss.”

  “What are we here to discuss?” Daisy asked.

  “Why, a team-up,” Shi Jian said.

  “What?” Scout asked, not even sure she had heard Shi Jian correctly; the idea was so outrageous.

  “I’ve refused your orders once,” Daisy reminded her.

  “I know,” Shi Jian said. “I can’t order either of you about. You never took to the training, and Scout is far too old to start the conditioning now.”

  “So what are you saying?” Daisy demanded.

  “That you two should join forces with me. Willingly. Wholeheartedly.”

  “Why would we do that?” Scout asked.

  “Because if you don’t, I will destroy you,” Shi Jian said glibly, and the smile cranked up another notch.

  “Why would you even need us?” Daisy asked.

  Shi Jian shrugged. “Obviously I don’t, but I like you both. I don’t really want to destroy you. I’d rather keep you as sort of an advanced class. A more freethinking class than the younger cadre, but that could be a good thing. The more indoctrinated have limitations.”

  “There’s no way we’re ever agreeing to that,” Scout said, then glanced at Daisy. “Right?”