by L S Roebuck
North thought of Amberly.
“Yeah, the mother planet,” Twig said. “Let’s get moving.”
Amberly could not remember ever having such intense feelings of nervousness. Her palms sweated inside her space suit, even though it was environmentally controlled to be around 20 degrees. Dek wasn’t exactly comfortable with Raven One’s plan either. The pair, along with the elder Macready, had just donned the space suits and were standing by the Firebird’s main hatch. They could now only communicate over the internal radios. The suits were plain white, except for the brightly colored Magellan flag patches adhered to the suit breasts.
“Sparks, are you sure you can pull this off?” Dek said over the radio to his cohort-mate.
“Hell, yeah,” Sparks was alive. “It’s just a quick bounce maneuver. And as soon I’ve broken through, I’ll switch the computer nav back on.”
Sparks was also wearing a vacuum suit. It had no environmental control units like the ones Dek and the others were wearing, but it did supply oxygen to her sealed helmet unit. The suit was made of a dark black polymer and fit the woman’s body tightly, revealing her physique. The flight suit was made so someone could still pilot the craft even if the atmosphere had suddenly been vented. Paranoid pilots would wear the flight suit always. Then, in an emergency, putting on the suit was just a matter of twisting the helmet on. Suits were fitted, custom made for a pilot.
Sparks’ lighter gloves also provided greater range of movement than the bulky gloves on a spaceworthy suit. Sparks punched a few buttons in the magnetic screen and then pulled up the rarely-used manual yoke from a boxed unit next to the pilot’s chair on the bridge. The yoke controlled the Valkyrie thrusters using hydraulics in the event of a complete computer shutdown.
In this case, the computer shutdown would be intentional, because Sparks intended to force a collision. If active, the computer’s safety measures would have used the ship thrusters to prevent impact.
Her right-hand fingers slowly gripped the stick. She flexed each finger, getting a comfortable grasp.
“Let’s do this,” Sparks said over the radio.
“Okay, Sparks,” Kimberly said. “Chasm is counting on you. With any luck, you’ll be able to escape. We’ll meet you at the rendezvous.”
“Oh, I’ll race you there,” Sparks said with a jocular tone. “Tell Jayden I said hello once you take the command center.”
“On my mark then,” Kimberly said. “Three, two, one… mark.”
“Hold on to something,” Dek said. In response, Amberly grabbed a handrail next to the sealed Firebird hatch.
Sparks smiled and started to press into the yoke.
On the Magellan command center, a civilian monitoring the station’s exterior sensors shouted to the center chair, where Moreno was reviewing a tactical report with Remus.
“Ma’am, ma’am! The Firebird is on the move.”
Moreno looked up from her infopad. “Where to?”
“Looks like a collision course onto the topside dome. Impact any second!”
The governor who was reassuring members of the Magellan legislative council on a video call stood to attention as well. “The gardens!”
The Firebird’s port thrusters had the ship accelerating sideways at more than 400 km/hr. The runabout smashed into the plexiglass dome, shuddered and bounced off the dome. Inside the dome, a loud cracking sound echoed, as stress at the molecular level on the transparent dome started to give way to fissures.
The Firebird itself struggled to steady after ricocheting off Magellan. Sparks pulled hard on the yoke and fired the starboard side thrusters to stabilize the ship relative to the waypoint.
The jolt threw both Amberly and Dek across the room, their grips on the handrail insufficient to keep them grounded. Kimberly, on the other hand, possessed the needed manual dexterity to not lose her grip, and her body merely jerked at the impact.
“Well?” Kimberly called through the radio. “Are we a go?”
Sparks answered back. “I see some small cracking, but no entry point yet.”
“Give her another whack, and hurry,” Kimberly said. “Moreno must know how we are trying to break in now.”
“Check your suit integrity, Amberly,” Dek said. “Make sure you didn’t damage anything in that last hit. And hold on.”
This time, Amberly grabbed the handrail with both arms.
“It’s going to take me about two minutes to set up for the next run,” Sparks said.
“Hurry, hurry,” Kimberly implored again.
North, Twig and Adams had reached airlock 16b, the closest to the Marine base. It was at the end of a long, exceptionally narrow corridor.
Twig indicated with the wave of his stun gun for Adams to step into the airlock.
“I’m not going in there,” Adams said. “Why should I? What, is North going to hit me again?” Adams rubbed his bruised cheek.
“Your choice, Adams,” Twig said. “This is your funeral. Do you want to go out wide awake? Or we could just stun you and throw your comatose self in there. Just know as soon as I pull this trigger, you’ll never wake up again.”
“We’re arguing over minutes,” Adams said.
“But they are your last,” North said.
“Please, Jayden,” Twig said. “Tell us what we want to know. There doesn’t have to be any more death today.”
“My death is on your hands, cowards,” Adams said. “And soon, you’ll be with me in death.”
Adams spoke boldly, but his trembling body revealed his fear. He eyed the stun gun pointed at him, and then decided to step into the airlock voluntarily. “I guess I am going to end this eyes wide open.”
North tapped a control that sealed the airlock. North spoke solemnly. He knew a part of his humanity would die if he carried out this execution, but he was a solider, trained to follow orders. North believed with all his being in the afterlife and held to the orthodox Christian view that only those who believed in Jesus Christ would go to heaven.
North quoted from Christian scripture, “‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Make peace with your maker now. You have 30 seconds. God have mercy on your soul.”
“Spare me your religious platitudes,” Adams said. “This is my end.”
“It doesn't have to be,” Twig asserted. “Please, tell us what we need to know.”
A red light started to flash and a pleasant female artificial voice started to speak. “Warning. Airlock depressurization in 30 seconds.”
North looked through the viewport into the airlock at Adams. Both men had tears forming. North, who just weeks ago enjoyed a life of peace, was now fully broken. His soul cracked over the duty that forced him to execute another living human. It wasn't just that duty was forcing him to kill the subdued Adams. He felt himself wanting to kill Adams, to take revenge for those already killed by Chasm, and for what was next to come.
Twig stood at attention. A series of snap hisses came from the magnetic locks releasing on the circular exterior airlock. When the countdown was complete, an electric motor would twist open the dog lock-style door and man and atmosphere inside the airlock will vent out into space.
The computer voice spoke again. “Twenty seconds.”
“She’s coming!” Jayden started to yell. “She’s coming!”
“Who is coming? Who?” North said.
“Raven One,” Jayden said. “You can’t stop her. She’s unlike anything you’ve ever encountered.”
“Who is Raven One? Tell me now!”
“She’ll have hundreds of troops. She’ll overwhelm you. Her strategies are mind-boggling. She cracked the code. She’ll take the waypoint and destroy it from the inside.”
“Ten seconds.”
“Who is she? Last chance!” North pounded the window.
“Seven. Six. Five.”
“Okay, Raven One is…”
“Three, two…”
North pounded the emergency abort button. The magnetic locks resealed.
“She is Kimberly Macready.”
Jayden hung his head in shame. He had now betrayed both his waypoint and Chasm. North was right, Jayden had been playing both the angles, hoping he could survive the coming destruction. Jayden knew now that if Raven One did win, and found out he revealed her, she wouldn’t hesitate to space him.
And in his heart, he knew she would win.
North was sure he heard incorrectly.
“Are you kidding me? Did you say Kimberly Macready? She was lost at space six years ago.”
“No, she had cracked the Magellan master codes, but was worried that she would be discovered so she went into hiding until our escape ship arrived and we were ready to execute the master plan. Instead of waiting for six years on Magellan, she decided it would be safer to hide in the Spencer Belt. She’s on the Firebird now. With her daughter, North. With Amberly. Now let me out of here!”
North was in semi-shock. This answer exploded a thousand new questions, but one surfaced first to his mind.
“Where is Kimberly’s husband? Where is Amberly’s dad? Where’s Alroy?” North demanded. “Is he part of the Chasm plot as well?”
“No,” Adams said softly. “He was a good man, but a sap. I’m sure she spaced him the moment they were clear of Magellan visual range.”
“No, no, no!” North pounded the interior door of the airlock.
Twig and North’s comm units simultaneously beeped on the emergency channel.
Twig answered first, “Twig here, ma’am. The condemned has starting spilling infor—”
“Twig, North — I need you to head to the topside garden access tubes right away. The Firebird is trying to … punch a hole in the dome. Skip thinks they may be trying to land on the gardens since they can’t get into the hangar.”
“What?” North said. Using a runabout to wreck the Magellan’s farming apparatus to find a landing spot was the most crazy thing he’d heard in his life.
“I don’t need to tell you how catastrophic it would be if we lost the gardens,” Moreno said. “I’m sending a team of Marines and civilians to meet up with you at Rick’s. From there you can assess the next course of action.”
“We’re on our way. Rita, is this a secure channel? No civilians listening in?” North asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“Adams started coughing up information at the last second. Please don’t tell this to Kora, but he claims that not only is Kimberly Macready alive, but she is Raven One, the leader of the Chasm operation here on Magellan. It’s so crazy: I don’t know if I believe it.”
“Wow,” Moreno said, sincerely surprised. “Understood. I don’t know if I believe it either. Get over to Rick’s ASAP. Contact me when you are there. The rest of the team is leaving here now. Moreno out.”
Twig tilted his head toward Jayden. “What do we do with him now?”
“We don’t have time to deal with him now,” North said. “Either we space him or we leave him … locked up in the airlock.”
“You can’t leave me in here,” Jayden protested. “What if someone comes along and … lets the air out?”
“Too bad,” North said. “If we survive, we’ll come back for you.”
With that, North and Twig started moving for the nearest tube station at a rapid clip.
“North! North!” Jayden’s shouts slowly became softer as the pair of Marines double-timed down the hall.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sparks was having the time of her life. Who else has gotten to ram a runabout into a waypoint? she thought as she gave the Firebird a little more running space. Still manually piloting the ship, she aimed for a second collision with Magellan, hopefully not causing too much damage to the Firebird’s primary thrusters. But it didn’t matter. Within a half hour or less, she was going to be ditching the Firebird entirely anyway – or the ship would be her tomb. The life-threatening danger thrilled her like nothing before. She had never felt so alive.
“Ready on the hatch,” Sparks radioed her companions waiting near the main aft cargo hatch. Amberly Macready and her mother, the infamous Raven One, stood waiting. Amberly was white-knuckle anxious and feeling nauseous. Kimberly was focused. With the two women was Dek, somewhere in-between focused and anxious, ready at the manual release for the hatch to make a jump for Magellan. He had the code breaking box strapped to his space suit — the same box he had used to access the gardens the day he met Amberly. Only this time, he needed it to unlock the hatch to get out of Magellan’s green paradise. Once the hull had been compromised in the gardens, the exit hatches from the gardens would be automatically locked down.
When they touched down on the gardens, the three spacewalkers would have to remove their suits because they were too bulky to fit through the hatch into the main Magellan levels. Dek would use Kimberly’s hacking box to open the hatch, and then they’d have to fight against the flow of venting atmosphere and seal the hatch behind them. The chances of missing whatever fissure Sparks created on the second ram during the jump, of getting blown out into space, of getting impaled by debris, or suffocating before they could get safely inside Magellan were high.
Dek knew he would have to be sharp to survive. He needed to make sure both the Macready women made it alive. Getting Kimberly to the command center was vital for the mission success. And the mission had to succeed for Dek to survive the day.
Amberly had to survive, well, because Dek loved her. He knew that eventually the Chairman, Kimberly and the rest of Chasm’s leadership wanted to completely destroy that binary emotional attachment between a man and a woman, that foundational representation of everything Earth was, the basic building block of Earth’s society for thousands of years.
The love of a man and a woman had no place in the coming Arara order. In its place was the love of the greater good and a covenant commitment to the planet and the community that lived there. The pursuit of pleasure, that would remain, but a genderless pleasure, at best. But any thoughts of self-sacrifice would never be for the benefit of another individual, spouse or otherwise, but instead for the corporate best.
Dek knew all this, and in his head, he agreed with this new order. But Dek didn’t want to give Amberly up. He couldn’t. He didn’t know how he would reconcile those feelings once Earth and its ways had been discarded and lost forever. But he would figure it out when the time came. He might not be Kimberly Macready-level genius, but he was still a clever man. Dek looked through his suit helmet at Amberly and smiled.
Amberly looked out of the tiny aft portal at Magellan. Were her friends even alive? Was there anything even left to go back to? She had wanted so desperately to find out what had happened to her mother that she was willing to lie and steal for Dek — and for Chasm. And she sold her soul for what? To find a loving, caring mother who was waiting to meet her and restore their relationship of love and support? No, her mother was a genius, murderous tyrant on a mad crusade to change the course of history and the nature of humanity.
For a moment, Amberly hoped that she and her mother would die in the spacewalk, that she could get off this speeding tubecar of life. Everything she loved and held dear was destroyed or about to be.
Maybe.
Her friends could still be alive. They could need her. The thought gave her a reason to live. She thought about North, about being with him. The idea seemed so beneath her back at the Shard Cave, but at this moment the patriarchal idea of being protected by his powerful arms was extremely appealing.
Dek suspected Amberly’s unease, and moved to comfort her. He took her thick-gloved hand in his. “Everything is going to be all right, Amberly. This is the rough birth of a great, new future. I’ll be here for you.”
Dek knew that last sentence would draw the ire of Raven One, but he chanced it. If the male protector undertones did bother Kimberly, she did nothing to let him know.
Sparks’ voice came over the radio. “We’re in position. Here we go!”
The Firebird sped stern first at great speed into the already cracking Magellan dome. The impact exploded pieces of ship and dome in every direction.
Shards of plexiglass were projected out into space as a jagged hole, about 10 meters wide opened in the garden dome. The immediate pressurized rush of air escaping the garden blew the Firebird out of the hole it had created, flipping the ship into an end-over-end spin.
Amberly tumbled rapidly in the belly of the spinning Firebird, colliding with the walls, Dek and her mother. Kimberly shouted into her radio, “Sparks, get us stabilized! Sparks!?!”
There was no response.
The Firebird was rotating nearly once a second and was drifting away from Magellan. Kimberly had a firm grip and a safety rail, holding herself down. Dek had floated to the center of the hold as the room span around him. But Amberly couldn't get clear of the various desks, boxes and stations that were bolted to the hull. A box full of emergency food supplies came loose and smashed into Amberly’s helmet, and the woman was pushed into the spinning ceiling of the room and caught a lamp bar hard in the arm. Amberly cried out in pain, and the radio fed her outburst into Kimberly’s and Dek’s helmet.
Kimberly felt a trickle of worry seep into her thoughts. “Sparks? Do you copy? Get us stable!”
“Sorry,” Sparks came over the comm. Underneath his helmet, Dek eyes showed visible signs of relief. “I was thrown out of my chair. I’m engaging the computer pilot now.”
Once the computer had control of the ship, it quickly started calculating and executing the appropriate thrusts to bring the ship upright relative to Magellan.
Dek looked to Amberly. She had recovered and nodded at him, putting a hand forward to indicate she was okay. Dek looked out the hatch portal at the gaping hole in the top of Magellan.
“Can you get us any closer to Magellan?” Dek said. “We’ll get blown into space before we get caught in the waypoint’s artificial gravity jumping from this distance.”
“Give me a second to see if I can get you a wee bit closer.” Sparks expertly navigated and stabilized the Firebird just several hundred meters from the growing hole in the garden dome.