by Kass Morgan
“No, there was nothing,” Vesper said as she stared at the radar screen in a daze. “I’ll show you the playback from the last few minutes.” The shaking had subsided enough for Vesper to stagger back to her seat, but when she reached her chair, she found she couldn’t sit down. Her feet wouldn’t even stay on the ground. The ship’s gravity had gone out.
“Shit,” Arrezo grunted as she scrambled along the wall, trying to find something to hold on to. “They must have used some kind of electromagnetic pulse to scramble the gravity and Antares knows what else. Mills, reverse course!” she called to the pilot before turning to Vesper. “Find the ship that attacked us now. I have to alert the Academy.”
“I’m on it.” Vesper pushed off the wall and managed to wrap her legs around the base of the chair long enough to hook her harness. She expanded and collapsed the radar screens, examining the surrounding area from all angles, but there was no sign of movement anywhere. Where the hell did they go?
“Arran, do you see anything?” There was no answer. “Arran?”
The harness dug into her shoulder as she twisted around, trying to get a glimpse of Arran’s chair. Surely he would’ve returned to his post after hearing Arrezo’s command. But to her confusion, his seat was empty. “Arran?” she called again, then twisted in the other direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she could just make out the shape of a still body floating outside the entrance to the bridge. “Arran!”
Vesper unhooked her harness, grabbed on to the chair for leverage, and then brought her feet against the back of the seat and pushed off as hard as she could. The momentum was enough to cover nearly half the distance between her and Arran, but she didn’t want to get stuck floating in the middle of the cabin, so using a technique she’d learned from her hours playing around in the zero-gravity room, she landed in a crouch and pushed off again, touching down lightly next to Arran. Wedging her foot in the doorway that led to the stairs, she was just able to hold herself in place.
Arran was floating only a few inches above the ground, pinned under a piece of metal that’d been jarred loose from the ceiling. “Arran,” Vesper whispered as she gently squeezed his shoulder. His eyes were closed and his skin had a grayish cast. “Are you okay?” The words had barely made it out of her mouth when she saw the blood blooming on Arran’s leg. Vesper swallowed a gasp as her gaze followed the blood to its source—a piece of jagged metal sticking out of Arran’s thigh.
“No…” Vesper brought her fingers to Arran’s neck. His pulse was still strong. She just needed to stop the bleeding. “I need help back here!” she shouted.
“What’s going on?” Captain Arrezo called as she bounded toward them, performing a maneuver similar to Vesper’s.
“Arran’s hurt. I’m not sure what to do.”
Captain Arrezo knelt down to check his pulse. “Medical attention required for Cadet Korbet,” she said into her link before cursing under her breath. “The medical attendant is stuck in the infirmary. The door’s been jammed. You’ll have to follow the instructions and do your best.”
“What?” Vesper said, staring at Captain Arrezo in horror. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Mission control is asking for you, Captain,” the pilot called hoarsely.
“I have to get back over there,” Arrezo said. “Ask your monitor for instructions. I’ll be right over there if something goes wrong.” She launched herself back toward the command center, leaving Vesper alone with Arran.
“Help me, please,” Vesper said into her monitor.
“Emergency mode activated. Please await instructions.”
“Oh, Antares, Arran,” Vesper whispered, squeezing his hand. “Please, hold on. Please.”
“Scans show that your skin contains negligible hazardous microbes. You may remove the foreign object from the patient’s leg.”
Vesper’s stomach clenched as she stared down at the piece of metal sticking out of Arran’s thigh. “Will it hurt him?”
“The pain will not last long.”
Her heart was pounding, and she felt sweat beginning to form on her palms. She almost wiped them on her jacket but caught herself just in time. She couldn’t risk contaminating them any further. “Okay, Arran, I’m going to do this as quickly as possible, and then it’ll be over. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”
Gingerly, she placed her hand on the object, which looked like a piece of the filtration system, adjusting the angle of her grip a few times before she tightened her hold. She anchored herself to the wall with one foot, then took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and tugged. It came out easily, and Arran’s eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. She dropped the metal object and left it floating in the air. “Okay, what’s next?”
Vesper’s monitor talked her through creating a makeshift tourniquet, which she tied around Arran’s leg, just above the wound.
“Vesper,” he said groggily as his eyes opened. The color had returned to his cheeks, thank Antares. “What’s going on?”
“There was an attack and the gravity’s out. I’ll help you back to your chair.”
“No.” He shook his head with a wince. “I need to find Sula.”
“Absolutely not. You just almost bled to death!”
“Low oxygen warning,” a calm, automated voice announced from the speakers as the lights began to flash. “Life-support system has been compromised.”
“What the hell?” Arrezo said from the captain’s chair. “That’s impossible. We can’t run out of oxygen that quickly. Not on a ship this size. Sula, check the readings.”
She paused, but there was nothing but static. “Sula, we need a report on the damage.” The silence that followed sent a ripple of fear down Vesper’s spine.
“Low oxygen warning,” the voice said again. “You have… eleven minutes of life support remaining.”
“That’s impossible,” Arrezo said again, though this time she sounded less convinced.
“That’s not enough time to make it back to the Academy!” the pilot shouted.
“Cadet Korbet,” Arrezo called over her shoulder. “Do you think you can make it down to the control room to help Sula? Even if the oxygen converter was damaged, there should be enough to get us back to the Academy. Find out what’s going on.”
“I can try.”
Vesper started to protest but then bit her lip. If anyone could figure this out, it was Arran. She double-checked that his bandage was secure, then told him to wait while she peeked down the stairs. The ceiling had collapsed, revealing a web of singed wires that sparked dangerously. “It’s blocked!” she called over her shoulder. The words came out more like a gasp than a shout, reminding her how foolish it was to waste oxygen right now. By the time she managed to pull herself along the wall to investigate the blockage, she was already light-headed. She took a deep breath to steady herself, then immediately regretted it. Surely the efficient thing was to keep her breathing steady and even.
“Warning,” her monitor rang in her ear. “Blood oxygen is below optimum levels.”
“No shit,” Vesper muttered. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t a mistake with the readings. The oxygen was truly running low.
The web of exposed wires was wide enough to block the stairs, and it would be impossible to pass safely through the sparking and sizzling circuitry.
Cursing to herself, she turned around and, by pushing herself along the wall, managed to make it back to Arran. “The stairs are blocked. You’ll have to walk Sula through the repairs over your link,” she said calmly, as if this were a routine exercise instead of a matter of life or death.
“She hasn’t responded yet,” Arran said. “I think she must be hurt.”
“Warning,” Vesper’s monitor rang in her ear. “Blood oxygen is dangerously low. For information on asphyxiation, say tell me more.”
From the look on Arran’s face, it was clear he’d received the same update from his own monitor. “I’ll have to find another way to the control room,” he said as he loo
ked around the cabin with a grimace. “There. Look.” He nodded at an air vent near the ceiling. “Based on the schematics I’ve studied, that vent should lead to the control room.”
Vesper tried to shake her head but found that she couldn’t quite muster the energy. “You can’t. Not with your injury.” But Arran was already on his way, floating through the air with his injured leg sticking straight out, motionless, as he used the rest of his body to propel himself toward the ceiling. He reached the vent, which he opened with a deft flick of his wrist, and then, holding on to the edge, repositioned his body so his back was against the opening.
“Be careful,” Vesper croaked, her lungs suddenly too tired to produce the force required for a shout. She watched anxiously as Arran guided himself into the air vent, wincing as his injured leg bumped against the side.
Vesper forced herself to wait a few minutes before speaking into her link. “How you doing in there?”
“Fine.” Arran’s voice sounded faint but composed. “I’m going as quickly as I can. There’s smoke coming up from somewhere.”
“Take your time,” Vesper said just as her monitor pinged. “Blood oxygen is dangerously low. You have… six minutes left before risking permanent brain damage.”
“How’s it going with Korbet?” Arrezo called hoarsely from the front of the ship, where she was directing the pilot, preparing for the next Specter attack.
“He’s trying to get to the control room. Through the air vent.”
Arrezo made a sound Vesper couldn’t quite identify, but she decided to take it as a grunt of approval.
“I’m almost there,” Arran said with a wheeze. “I just need to…” He took a shallow, whistling breath. “I just need to open the grate.” Vesper heard a faint clatter followed by a gasp.
“Everything okay?”
“The control room is full of smoke. There’s a fire somewhere—that’s what is eating up all the oxygen.” Arran coughed, then began to shout hoarsely. “Sula… Sula, are you okay?”
“Can you see her?” Vesper asked.
“Sula!” Arran called again. “Oh, god, no… no, no, no.”
“What?” Vesper said, though her frantically pounding heart seemed to know the answer already. “Arran, tell me…” She trailed off as a wave of dizziness engulfed her. Her head was spinning, but every time she tried to take a deep breath to steady herself, the room only spun faster.
“She’s not moving… I don’t think she’s breathing.”
“Warning… Blood oxygen is dangerously low. You have… four minutes left before risking permanent brain damage.”
“I… I don’t know what to do. How do I help her?” Arran’s voice cracked.
“You have to try to repair the life-support system first. Then we’ll do everything we can for Sula.”
“I don’t think there’s anything I can do,” Arran said faintly. “It… looks like the pulse fried the converter, and the fire next door is eating up all our available oxygen. It seems too big for the sprinklers to contain.”
“Warning… Blood oxygen is dangerously low. You have… three minutes left before risking permanent brain damage.”
“You have to do something,” Vesper said, her voice growing ever hoarser. “Arran, please…”
“Okay, okay… hold on. This is really strange…” Arran’s faint voice trailed off, and it was unclear whether something had distracted him, or whether he’d succumbed to weakness and fatigue.
“What’s strange?”
“It looks like the vents are closed. I think there must’ve been a hydrogen buildup. That’s what caused the explosion. No wonder the sprinklers aren’t putting it out—it must be an inferno.”
The fear in his voice made Vesper’s heart constrict. “So there’s nothing we can do?”
“We need to expel the hydrogen. If I manually open the vent, the emergency systems should be able to contain the fire.”
“Try it. Just hurry.”
“Wait, hold on, I might be able to…”
“Warning… Blood oxygen is dangerously low. You have… one minute left before risking permanent brain damage.”
This is it, Vesper thought. This is how I’m going to die. She closed her eyes. Goodbye, Rex, she thought, wishing with all her might that she could send the words through the dark void of space into the mind she’d spent so long trying to understand.
The alarms went quiet.
“Arran? What happe—”
“I flipped the manual valve,” he said hoarsely. “The hydrogen is venting and the sprinkler system is putting out the fire.”
“Systems normal,” the automated voice announced.
“Arran, you’re a genius,” Vesper said as she closed her eyes in exhaustion and relief. “Stay where you are. I’m coming for you. We need to get you secured in case we sustain another hit.”
“There’s still no sign of them,” the shaken-sounding pilot said over the comm system.
“What? They just disappeared?” Vesper asked, startled.
“They don’t call them Specters for nothing.”
When Vesper half led, half carried Arran out of the battlecraft, a crowd was already waiting on the Academy launchport, including a team of medics who deftly settled Arran onto a stretcher suspended between two attendants and then whisked him away. Vesper started to follow, but someone grabbed her arm. “Vesper, thank Antares.” Before she could respond, she was pulled into a tight hug she would’ve recognized if she could count on more than one hand the number of times her mother had embraced her.
“I should go with him,” Vesper said as she took a few shaky steps toward the swiftly retreating attendants.
“He’ll be fine,” Admiral Haze said in her closest approximation of a comforting tone. “You saved his life. Now, I know you just experienced quite a shock, but I need you and the rest of the crew to come with me for debriefing. We need you to tell us what happened during the attack.”
Vesper nodded, too exhausted to do anything more than allow her head to succumb to gravity, then she slowly turned to investigate the source of the commotion behind her. Another stretcher was emerging from the battlecraft, but this time the attendants’ movements seemed more cautious than urgent.
Unlike Arran, whose pale face and bloodstained shirt had been plainly visible, this figure was covered by a white sheet. But as the attendants glided by, the sheet shifted enough to reveal Sula’s cold, still fingertips—fingertips that would never again clutch the controls of a fightercraft, or clasp the hand of someone she loved. Vesper’s head began to spin, overwhelmed by the force of her grief and horror. Get it together, Haze, she commanded, but her insubordinate body refused to follow orders, her cowardly knees threatening to give out.
She struggled in vain against the dizziness, trying to blink away the blurry edges of her vision, but her efforts weren’t enough to keep the floor from rushing toward her.
“It’s okay,” a deep voice murmured softly. “I’ve got you.”
The last thing she felt was the warmth and support of Rex’s arms around her, and then everything went dark.
CHAPTER 4
CORMAK
The first-year common room was usually bustling at this time of day—packed with cadets gossiping with friends, cramming for an exam, or ordering snacks from the attendants to tide them over until dinner. This evening, however, the common room was as quiet as the Devak Barrens before a sandstorm.
In the wake of the second Specter attack, the one that’d killed Sula and nearly destroyed Vesper and Arran’s patrol ship, the Academy had been placed on the highest alert. Commander Stepney had extended the range of the patrol ships to create a perimeter around the entire solar system, since no one knew where or how the Specters would strike next.
Almost no one, Cormak corrected himself grimly. If Orelia was truly a Specter spy, if she’d indeed been the one to transmit the Academy’s coordinates to the enemy, then there was a good chance she knew all about the Specters’ strategy. She could have s
topped this, he thought, as he clenched and unclenched his fist. But then again, she had stopped the last attack—telling Cormak and the others about the spread spectrum and allowing them to blow up the Specter ship moments before it launched a missile at the Academy. His head spun as he tried to make sense of it all. If Orelia was really a Specter sent to destroy the Quatrans, why would she turn around and help them kill her own people?
He glanced down at his link and frowned. Only thirteen minutes had passed since he’d left the medical center, where he’d spent the afternoon going back and forth between Vesper’s and Arran’s rooms. Visitors weren’t normally permitted, but Cormak was given special dispensation as the patients’ squadron mate, a relationship that trumped all others at the Quatra Fleet Academy. He’d heard that Vesper’s ex-boyfriend, Ward, had also tried to see her, only to be turned away. The fact that he’d even tried to visit Vesper revealed the endless depths of Ward’s stupidity. There was no way she’d take him back after learning he was the one who’d defaced the corridor with the hateful message Go Home Edgers.
Ward had resented the Settlers—people born on Loos, Chetire, and Deva—before he’d even arrived at the Academy, and his ire had only grown worse throughout the term; he blamed his “Edger” squadron mates for his subpar performance in the tournament, and his animosity had reached a fever pitch when he realized that Vesper had fallen for her Devak captain. Yet despite being outed as a bigot, Ward continued to move through life with the grating good cheer of someone who’d never met an obstacle that couldn’t be removed with a favor or a bribe. That’s why, despite all evidence to the contrary, he seemed to believe he had a shot at winning Vesper back.
“Hey, Rex,” a weary voice said. He looked up to see Mhairi, a Chetrian first-year. He didn’t know her that well—Arran didn’t mix his Chetrian crew with his squadron mates all that often—but one glimpse was enough to tell that something was wrong. Her hair was lank and straggly, and faint shadows hovered under her normally bright eyes.