Grand Cross

by Merethe Walther

  He looked away, clearly letting the conversation drop. Aralyn wondered precisely what Eladia had done to Apollo to get him angry enough to risk stealing her most private information from her, but she didn’t want to pry anymore.

  “I always wondered if finding out more about Eladia would humanize her for me; make it harder to do all of this to her, or if I’d have some kind of moral dilemma about it. After all, I thought she was my friend once upon a time.” Aralyn unholstered her gun.

  “Do you feel bad about it, now that you know?”

  Aralyn shook her head. “Not one fucking bit.”

  She lifted her gun to her hand, unused to the lightweight feel of the mostly plastic weapon after carrying the shotgun around. Then, she walked toward the airlock, careful where she planted her feet, and rested against the wall.

  “Five minutes until we are within the ship’s scanning range,” said the ship’s AI.

  “Phantom AI,” she said. “Get within range of the ship and match speed.”

  The ship adjusted its course, gliding ever closer to the small speck in the distance that was growing larger in the on-screen view. Apollo gathered his weapon and joined her on the other side of the airlock.

  “Are you ready for this?” Apollo asked.

  “I meant what I said,” Aralyn told him. “Don’t get in my way.”

  Apollo leveled his gaze at her. “Please try not to kill her. And if you have to, at least don’t shoot her in the head. I don’t know if we can recover it when she’s dead.”

  She glared at him, balking at how quickly he’d guessed her intention.

  “It’s what I would do if she’d done to me what she did to you. Just aim for the heart; the head is too risky. You might destroy the drive, and then we’ll have nothing.”

  Aralyn said nothing, choosing instead to focus her gaze on the screen. They drew steadily ever closer, and once they were within better range of the ship, Aralyn commanded the AI to draw the two closer, to see how the pilot would react. But they only continued onward as though they weren’t aware. Alarm bells began to shiver in Aralyn’s mind, but she shoved the feelings aside.

  “We are within proper scanning range,” said the AI.

  “Can you read life signs aboard the other ship?” Aralyn asked.

  After several beats of silence, the ship replied, “I am showing no life signs.”

  “What?!” Apollo erupted. “But there was a passenger recorded on the manifest.”

  “The ship has been set to autopilot. It is following the preset course to a destination within the Kuiper Belt.”

  “What the hell,” Aralyn seethed. “This has to be a trick. Maybe she’s found some way to confuse the sensors or something. Maybe injured in the escape? The life support is on; we’re going to check. Phantom AI, can you cancel the UDA ship’s autopilot?”

  “As this ship is a registered S-class UDA Inspector ship, I am capable of rerouting the transport vessel in case of emergencies or foreign occupation.”

  “Do it,” Aralyn said. “Then bring up the coupling links and attach the sheathe for boarding.”

  “You still want to go through with this?” Apollo demanded. “Maybe you’re just rubbing off on me or something, but now I am not feeling so certain about this either, jameela.”

  “We need to check at least, trap or not. Taav will need to know it was a ruse.” Aralyn shuddered at the fact that she was reporting back to the UDA agent at all, but she couldn’t deny that he had helped save her life when she’d needed it… And she hated to feel like she owed him.

  The ship’s engines cooled as they approached, and the Phantom began the docking sequence, bringing the two ships together. There was a slight shake as the sheathe extended out to latch onto the transport’s airlock, and then a massive clang! as the walkway pressurized.

  “Is that supposed to happen?” asked Apollo.

  Aralyn shrugged. “I don’t know. This is my first time being the boarder and not the boardee.”

  The two waited with bated breath as the seal on the airlock released and the door slid open, revealing an accordion-style walkway to the other ship’s airlock. On cue, the door opened, revealing a transport ship devoid of any life signs. Aralyn looked over to Apollo and nodded, then took a step forward, her stomach lurching momentarily as she moved from being on solid ground to floating in the sudden zero-g of the walkway.

  At least I don’t need my legs for this part, she thought, aiming her gun straightforward and keeping her eyes on the sights, sweeping to the right and left of the interior as she went forward. When she reached the other side, she held an arm out until she could grab the handle along the side, then dragged herself to a halt, scanning the interior. Although a UDA ship, the cockpit had been designed to hold only one to two people at a time. In order to allow the cargo hold to carry as much as it could, they’d sacrificed the open area design and space of the Inspector crafts. There were two bunks along the back wall next to a closed pocket door that probably led to the bathroom.

  “Aralyn,” whispered Apollo, nodding toward the pilot’s seat. “Look.”

  There was a knee poking just into view to the right side of the cockpit area. Aralyn aimed her weapon and took a step cautiously into the ship’s artificial gravity, readying her legs to dive forward if someone were to pop out. Carefully, one foot after the other, she crept toward the seat, then went to the left around it as Apollo moved to the right. They covered both sides, then jumped out, guns ready to go.

  “Shit,” Aralyn said, looking down at the dead person staring back at them, a small goatee adorning his narrow chin. She whispered another curse as she looked him over. “Stevens, you asshole.”

  There was an obvious bolt burn to his gut, and he was clutching it with one hand, the other resting up on the control panel as though he’d reached for it as he died. His shocked eyes and open mouth stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

  “You know this guy?”

  Aralyn nodded. “He was assigned to transport us to Purgatory, but it was only part of the escape plan. Taav suspected he was working for Eladia. Guess his hunch was right.” She realized belatedly that it meant that Hooper hadn’t been a mole after all, but Aralyn didn’t have time to feel bad about sedating him before she kicked him off the ship.

  “Who shot him?” Apollo asked, kicking his boot to make sure it wasn’t a trap.

  “Had to be Eladia. Who else could it be?” She pressed a couple buttons on the dashboard. “What the stars? Everything’s been disabled.” Aralyn lowered her gun and headed back over to the walkway. “I don’t like this one bit. C’mon, let’s get back―”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Aralyn gasped as she looked across the walkway back at the Phantom, where Kita stood, a gun to her tear-stained face. Behind her, Eladia peered just over her shoulder, a malicious grin lifting the corners of her mouth.

  “We really have to stop meeting this way, Aralyn,” said Eladia, pushing the gun deeper into Kita’s temple, causing the girl to grimace. “Or pretty soon you’ll run out of friends for me to kill.”

  Aralyn grit her teeth, rage filling her mind and sending a wave of shock through her chest. She’d suspected when she saw Eladia again that she’s be angry, of course; but it wasn’t anger that poured through her now. It was pure, unadulterated wrath. Without thinking, Aralyn snarled her fury and ran forward, hoping to push off fast enough that the zero-g would carry her straight into them both.

  But Aralyn’s left leg didn’t respond. She toppled to the floor, sprawling onto her stomach just as Eladia pointed the gun at her and fired. The shot went wide, landing with a bang into the hull of the transport behind them. The soft shh of air escaping raised the hair on Aralyn’s arms.

  We’re coupled to this thing. Shitshitshit―

  “You’re not going anywhere!” Eladia screamed, keeping the gun aimed at them over Kita’s shoulder. “You can stay on that ship and die.”

  She shot again, and the bolt landed disturbingly clo
se to the first one, punching open a hole in the hull between the bunks about the size of a fist.

  “Oh, and before you think I’m being ungrateful, let me thank you for getting me safely out of that UDA blockade. I enjoy this ship; I might even keep it for a while.” Eladia grinned.

  Above them, alarms went crazy in the transport ship and a light flashed, warning about the hull breach. Air began ripping from the room, getting sucked out into space. Loose bits of clothing, wires, and anything not battened down started rattling across the floor. From the Phantom came the AI’s warning of hull depressurization and the imminent need for the release of the coupling mechanism.

  Eladia slammed her fist into the button to close the door, but it refused to shut, the AI’s warning playing on repeat. With a roar of rage, Eladia shot again, aiming for the wall and landing three more hits into a tight cluster around the baseball sized hole. A red-light began flashing from the transport’s cockpit, warning of depressurization, and Aralyn grit her teeth as the soft escape of air became a howl as another piece of the hull broke open, turning the small hole into the size of a dinner plate. Aralyn felt herself sliding backward toward the hole and grabbed onto the side of a small metal chair that had been bolted to the floor to stop herself.

  Apollo, a determined look on his face, took a running jump and leapt through the zero-g boarding sheathe with enough force and speed to send him flying forward. Eladia tried to turn the gun on him, but Kita sank her teeth into the arm wrapped around her throat. The orachal kingpin screamed her rage and her shot went off-target. The bolt only grazed his shoulder instead of landing in his chest, though the singe was severe, and blood lifted in droplets from the wound into the air.

  Apollo grabbed Kita’s outstretched arm and yanked from Eladia’s grasp, sending her tumbling back down the sheathe toward Aralyn. He kicked off the side of the tube once she was clear and dove like a spear into Eladia’s stomach, sending them both sprawling into the artificial gravity of the Phantom. They collapsed on the floor, breathing hard.

  Kita grabbed desperately for the edge of the doorway with a small shout, but her fingers only skimmed it. The escaping air had created a vacuum that was suctioning everything into it, and since she had been thrown into the zero-g, Kita steadily slipped into the walkway and was pulled further down into the cockpit of the disabled transport ship. With a quick stumble, she avoided kicking Aralyn in the face and instead grabbed hold of her belt with her prosthetic arm, holding tight.

  “What the hell just happened?” Aralyn shouted, putting her gun in her holster and grabbing the chair with both arms to compensate for the added weight.

  “Eladia was in the back of our ship this whole time! She was waiting for you to come back there and she was going to blow everyone’s heads off.” Kita answered with a scowl. “Her plan was either for us to board the decoy ship and leave us here, or just kill us all and then take the Phantom.” Kita crossed her arms. “And she really likes talking about her evil plans, by the way. In excruciating detail.”

  “I guess it makes sense then that everything on board is disabled.” Aralyn grimaced. No comms, no drive controls. We would have just kept going until we ran out of environment.”

  In the Phantom’s cockpit, Eladia reached for the gun that had tumbled from her hands, but when Apollo reached for his own weapon, she kicked his wrist. He cried out, launching his other fist and catching her alongside the jaw, sending her stumbling back into the ephemeris table with an angry cry.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Aralyn said. “This ship isn’t going to hold much longer, and neither am I.”

  She grit her teeth as the hole behind them began to yawn even wider, the hull breaking bit by bit as pieces of loose items in the ship slammed into and through it. They cracked the already weak areas where the scorching bolts had pierced or dented the metal, tearing it. She wanted to wipe the sweat from her palms but was too afraid to risk letting go.

  “We’re going to run out of air,” Kita called out above the sound of oxygen rushing from the ship and the warning alarms blaring overhead. “Try pulling us up.”

  “Easy for you to say, miss ‘I have a robot arm,’” Aralyn answered, trying to reach for the other table leg. It seemed to dance just out of reach.

  Apollo and Eladia traded blows, kicking and punching each other so quickly Aralyn could barely keep up. Blood trailed down Eladia’s mouth and chin, but also ran freely from a cut on Apollo’s forehead; it flowed directly into his left eye, effectively blinding him. Though he sent punches flying toward Eladia, he clearly favored his right side, hunching over the injured shoulder and moving much slower than usual. Eladia seemed to have the upper hand.

  “Just like she always does.” Aralyn whispered a curse under her breath.

  The breach in the hull was wide enough that either she or Kita would probably fit right through it. The suction and pull on her arms was becoming too difficult to maintain; it felt like their weight had more than doubled and her fingers were screaming with pain, her torso lifted off the ground toward the tear.

  “Ari,” Kita said, her voice weak beneath the noise, her face filled with the shadow of sad realization. “We’re not going to make it. …I’m weighing you down.”

  “I don’t care! Don’t you even try letting go,” Aralyn snapped. “Let me think for a minute.”

  “Ari―”

  “No!” Aralyn let go with one arm, reaching behind her to grab Kita’s prosthetic by the wrist, holding tight. “Give me a minute!”

  Breath was getting harder to come by and needed to be stolen from the veritable wind tunnel now rushing past their heads. The strain on her arm was overwhelming, stretching the muscles in each limb and across her chest and back. Desperately, Aralyn pivoted her head, looking around them for anything that could be used to block the hole even slightly, but the only thing she saw was Stevens’s body, half out of the cockpit area, hands raised above his head as they got pulled toward the suction. His boot had been caught on a belt strap, which was keeping him pinned there like a macabre pennant waving in the wind.

  “Kita, kick the pilot’s seat!” Aralyn screamed.

  “What?!”

  “Just do it!”

  Kita didn’t hesitate, but kicked off with her right leg and swung herself out to strike the seat with her left leg. Nothing budged, but Stevens’s body trembled.

  “Again!”

  Kita swung out again, pulling painfully on Aralyn’s arm, and kicked the seat. The belt loosened its hold only slightly, and Stevens remained where he was. Without prompting this time, Kita continued to kick off with her right leg and strike the chair with her left. After nearly four tries, Aralyn’s arm felt ready to rip out of the socket, but with a final shudder, Stevens unhooked from the belt and his body shuddered along, slamming into the top bunk and then sliding down sideways. He slammed into the hole on his chest and torso. Immediately, the pull of the depressurization lessened, and Aralyn let go of Kita’s arm as it went back to a low hiss instead of a roar.

  “Looks like… he actually was useful for something after all,” Aralyn gasped, pulling herself back to her feet.

  “That’s not going to hold for very long,” Kita said, eyeing the body between them and certain death. “Let’s go.”

  Kita helped her up and the two of them hurried into the walkway and toward the ship, where both Eladia and Apollo were panting. Eladia’s back was to them, and it appeared that over the Phantom’s constant warnings about detaching from the ship and the transport’s depressurization alarms, she hadn’t heard them come in. Aralyn staggered back into the gravity on their ship, then stumbled over to the cockpit and began the detachment sequence. Immediately, the airlock door slid shut and the ship shuddered as the sheathe retracted.

  Eladia spun to face them, but it was too late. Apollo gave her a kick to the abdomen that sent her flying into the computer, crunching the thin screens beneath her. Aralyn drew a gun and leveled it as she limped forward, left leg almost not responding at
all. Panting, she made her way over where Eladia had been sprawled against the consoles and pressed the gun to her temple, feeling dark satisfaction slip into her. Alarm filled Eladia’s face when the barrel was deep in her flesh.

  “You’re going to die. Right here, right now, you bitch,” Aralyn said.

  “You gonna… shoot me now?” Eladia wheezed, breathing hard. “Get your petty fucking revenge for the old blind man? Oh, or was it for the boy?” She laughed, reaching slowly into her chest pocket, holding her free hand up.

  Aralyn pushed the gun against her again as a warning, and the older woman winced. “Relax,” she said. “That was my last-ditch effort, okay?” She pulled a vinyl pack of crushed cigarettes from the pocket on her jacket and freed one, putting it up to her lips and lighting it with a small metal lighter tucked in the cigarette case. “I’d ask if you mind”―she waved the cigarette back and forth for a moment―“but I really don’t fucking care. Let me have this and then you can kill me.”

  “Aralyn, you can’t!” Kita exclaimed. She tried to walk toward them, but Apollo grabbed her shoulder with his good arm and shook his head. “What about Taav?”

  “Fuck Taav.” Aralyn felt hot tears running down her cheeks and was disgusted that she was still crying. “This bitch took everything from me.”

  “Caden isn’t dead, jameela,” Apollo warned. “Nor are we, for what it’s worth. But if you’re going to do this, remember what I told you.”

  Don’t shoot her in the head.

  Eladia laughed. “Caden’s safe all right. Proctor’s been frothing at the mouth to get that boy away from you for years. But your old man? That was just the cost of doing business.” She feigned a pout. “Sorry.”

  Aralyn’s finger came down harder on the trigger almost subconsciously. She sneered at Eladia. “You’re a piece of trash. You’re nothing. You don’t get to talk about them.”

  Eladia shrugged, took another drag on her cigarette, and flicked the ash to the side. “Then shoot me. I know they won’t send me back to Tartarys now. I’ll just end up stuck in some shitty UDA torture room for the rest of my life. So c’mon. Do us both this one last favor. Get your damn revenge.”