Lunar Colony VI

by A Keuser

  “How many of the prisoners are already dead?”

  “Seven, but that doesn’t matter. There is no Face to hand them over to. As far as I know there are only a handful that made it out alive when the UN and Lunar Colony Alliance stamped them out.”

  She heard the implication in his voice and fiddled with her bag’s knotted strap to ignore it.

  She did not want to fight about that here, or now. “Who’s on your side to help?”

  “The incendiary specialist is on her way over from Tower C. I sent everyone else to deal with evac. I figured they’d just get in your way.”

  So they were alone.

  She laughed, though the prickling sensation in her eyes suggested she was closer to crying. She wouldn’t do that.

  “Do you think this is some sort of cosmic karma? I mean… today has been a real shit storm, and now this?”

  “Don’t start with that.”

  “Two blown toilets, a buggy stove, the chem lab spill, and some kid decided to use the boiler pipes as a drum set. Don’t even get me started on the wild goose chase this afternoon. And now this?”

  The Face glared down at her, unblinking. She had no idea how much time she had left. “If it was anything else, I wouldn’t wonder… but The Face?”

  “The Partners think it’s a left over from before they rounded the stragglers up for execution.” Ethan said, his voice fuzzing loud and then quiet again. “I’m not going to lie to you. Right now, the partners feel their best option is to let this play out.”

  “I thought it might come to that.”

  Ethan kept talking as though he hadn’t heard her. “But I refuse to let that be the only thing we do. We’re going to try to get you out. And our incendiary specialist is here. ”

  “Hey Angela, thanks for making the trip.”

  “No worries,” Angela’s voice came through the comm chipper as always. “If a bomb blows on this colony, I’m the one who looks bad. And I’d be pretty upset if we lost you. Who would my little Annie have to play dolls with if you don’t get out of here?”

  The comm connection cut out and she looked up at the gray image on the screen. Ancient and interrupted by bursts of static, The Face had an air of smug self-importance. A computer construct shouldn’t make her skin crawl.

  As Ethan worked on the other side of the door, she crossed her fingers this wouldn’t link back to anything she’d done.

  Even if Angela defused the bomb in Tower A, there was no telling if she’d have time to get to Tower B to deal with the second one. The Face wanted to drop the skywalk. It would make for a beautiful headline. And the anti-colonization movements would latch onto any disaster they could.

  Shaking away that thought, she looked back to the door behind her.

  Depressing the comm button again, she asked, “How’s it looking out there?”

  “We’ll have you out of here in no time whatsoev—” The pause stretched into eternity before a faint static told her he was back on the line. She waited for him to answer the question she wouldn’t ask. “Small hold-up, but I promise you we’ll have you out in a jiffy.”

  Angela shouted in the background, noise filtering through the speaker.

  The line cut out again, and Nala stalked back to where she’d dropped her bag. Squatting down on the floor, she dug through its contents again and looked out to the black.

  Glittering through the industrial haze, the star field appeared exactly the same as it had

  yesterday. And the day before. How could the stars look the same… so close to death?

  Worrying her lower lip between her teeth, she sucked in a long breath.

  And let it go.

  Stars were nothing more than plasma and gravity… they had no capacity to care.

  “You still with me, Cowgirl?”

  Boudri’s voice crackled through the comm and she dropped her head back against the curved window, cursing. “I swear, Boudri, if I get out of here in any condition short of a body bag, I will make sure you never have kids.” He knew she hated when he called her that.

  The short walk back to press the button felt like a death row march. Her finger mashed the red circle labeled “talk” and she puffed out a quick sigh. “I’m still here.”

  “While Angela works on getting to the bomb on this side, you and I are going to try to get you through the access panel.”

  She gaped at the metal box bolted to the wall in front of her for a full minute in disbelief before she snorted and ran a hand over her face. “I’ll never fit through that,” she said, turning to look at the all-too-small panel to the right of the door.

  “Humor me.”

  Pulling the necessary tools from her bag, she knelt beside the access hatch. Four bolts later, she pried the panel from where it clung to the wall, finally giving way with a slurping pop, as the seal formed by decades’ old dust and grease broke.

  She hefted the half meter square of painted metal from the bulkhead. It dropped against the floor with a gentle thud and she bit her tongue. The pain coursing through her mouth was the only way she knew to keep herself from muttering epithets. Whoever had been foolish enough to call them access panels should serve time in a hard labor camp. Inside the wall, the access narrowed to a single square foot – an artery clogged with the plaque of conduit and cabling.

  A matching string of curses filtered through the cramped space and kept her from making a snide “told you so” remark.

  As she lay on the floor, looking through the tiny opening to freedom, she caught a glimpse of Ethan among the wires. Round face contorted, his jaw locked in a grim but determined frown as shadows danced over his midnight-dark skin. She watched his amber gold eyes as they searched the too-small escape route for a solution. Macabre humor made her bite back a laugh. Boudri always loved having a difficult problem to solve. She considered asking if that was why he liked her when she caught his eye for the briefest of moments.

  Then he was gone.

  Nala wasn’t about to sit around and wait for The Face to kill her, or for Angela to save her. Pushing herself to her feet, she snatched up her loose tools and her bag and jogged across the expanse of the skywalk.

  There were six locations The Face could have placed the second bomb to be sure of the sky walk’s destruction. Two of those were places she wouldn’t have discovered during routine

  maintenance. Two of the remaining four were on the other side of the Tower B door, and one would require a walk outside. If Nala had been the one to place the bomb, she would have chosen the option only accessible from within the skywalk. The likelihood of trapping the incendiary specialist inside was slim.

  But it was The Face….

  Changing out the head on her multi-tool, she snapped in a hex driver and pulled out the bolts holding the floor panels in place beside the Tower B door. The space between deck plating and bulkhead ran through with large tubes of conduit and piping for the colony’s environmental systems. Tucked between those was a too-familiar package.

  Lifting it gingerly out of the small space, Nala set it on the floor. Careful to keep her hands far away from the antenna, she pulled her smallest set of tools from her bag. The device was compact. Initial damage didn’t need to be as spectacular as it did on Earth where the atmosphere did not play into a bomb builder’s favor.

  On the colony, all a bomb had to do was make a big enough hole and it did enough damage to be worthwhile.

  This one was tiny, but packed a punch. Nala would know. She built it.

  Spinning the tiny screwdriver, she removed the screws securing the wire plate and lifted it away. Hissing out a long breath, she turned it over and smiled as she ran her hands over the textured surface. Written on the interior plate in scrolling letters, she’d etched the word Verity. It seemed so stupid now.

  “Lemon and lime,” she said under her breath as she snipped the yellow and green wires. Yellow first, yellow banded with green second and green third. She’d made sure her bombs were easy to diffuse. More importantly, s
he’d made them in a way that was easy for her to explain how to diffuse.

  Setting the diffused bomb aside, she replaced the flooring, snatched up the cover plate and moved back to the Tower A side. “How’s it looking out there?”

  “Well, Angela is swearing, so… I’d assume we’re right on track. I’m pretty useless right now.

  “Is she within earshot?”

  Ethan looked to his left and turned back, shaking his head. “No, I can go get her if you want.”

  “No. I don’t want her to hear this.” She handed the plate through the small opening. “I found the bomb on the face claimed would be on Tower B’s side. It was in here, under the floor. It’s disarmed.”

  He cursed under his breath and looked up at her though the wire-crowded opening. “So they’re yours.”

  “Looks like. At least Angela will know how to defuse this side. She’s mentioned reading the message sent to all the lunar colonies after I… retired.”

  Retired wasn’t the correct word, but it worked as well as any other. She’d given up the cause when she’d realized she was wrong. And though she’d been out of the game for a decade, only a handful of people knew she was the bomb builder the media dubbed “Verity” for her use of the word.

  “Won’t it be ironic if I die because of my own bomb?

  “You’re not going to die.”

  Angela shouted something and Ethan gave her a pained smile before he disappeared from view.

  He returned before she had a chance to guess why Angela’s tone was strained. His scowl was disheartening.

  “The senior partners want us out of here. Angela hasn’t been able to get to the bomb out here. They don’t care that one of the bombs has been diffused. They’re looking for minimal losses. Apparently they’re willing to part with you and the sky walk.”

  Nala didn’t answer. She’d expected it… but it still hurt.

  “If it’s any consolation, Dendrond fought for you. She’s resigned because of this decision.”

  “No one else cares… I guess they can always hire a new maintenance tech… promote one of my guys.” She laughed in spite of herself. “This sucks. Because there’s nothing you can do.”

  “They’re used to people bowing to their every whim.”

  Silence met her through the small space.

  The Face would do what it was programmed to do. Emergency protocols would fill the access with environmental foam and she would die. What killed her first was the only question – exposure to the vacuum, the explosions themselves, or the skywalk’s impact with the lunar surface below.

  “You still there?” she asked. The silence went on too long.

  “Yeah. I’m not going anywhere until we get you out. Screw what the Partners want.”

  “Listen, if I don’t make it—”

  “There’s still time, you don’t need to confess you’re head over heels in love with me just yet.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. I want you to tell my mom something.”

  “Oh.”

  She paused, did he sound upset?

  Letting out a defeated breath, she turned back to the disarmed bomb. Her mother had always been proud of her previous profession, but then, ecoterrorism ran in the family. “Never mind. Mom would likely slap you and holler that she knew taking this job would send me straight to hell.”

  “I’m going to get you out of there,” he said as his hand reached through to her, and she took hold of his fingers. A cocktail of regret flooded her – two parts fear and frustration mixed with one part exhaustion, shaken – and filled her to the brim.

  A gentle squeeze and he was gone. She pressed her eyes shut, fingers still warm from his touch.

  The sound of the panel bolting back into place pulled her off the floor, and she sealed up her side as well. Platitudes were one thing. Minimizing damage and saving lives were Ethan’s first priority as an administrator. It did not matter that they were friends. She understood that.

  The crackle of the intercom made her flinch.

  “I’m about to do something really stupid, Nala. Just… trust me, and stand back from the door.”

  The scuffling sound of boots on deck plating and the low, harsh tones of an argument filtered through the channel as she gathered her tools again and moved back to the middle of the skywalk. Eyes falling on the locked door, her exhausted mind began to wander. The thought that Boudri was telling her something to make her feel better crossed her mind. He’d never seen the harm in white lies.

  The gray Face continued to scowl down at her. Unblinking, unmoving, it was a constant and ugly reminder of the situation’s morbidity – and her own brand of odd karma.

  A clicking from behind the door pulled her away from her irritation with The Face and she stared at her warped semi-reflection in the metal doors. Confusion wrote its manifesto in the twist of her mouth and she stood, wondering if this was the end.

  A hot red line raced across the top of the door cutting a sharp horizontal jag before it fell, dropping to the deck plating in a swift descent.

  The jagged square of metal – edges still smoldering a brilliant red – fell forward, clattering. Beneath the broken portal, the threadbare carpet began to smoke and she looked up, incredulous at the man framed by four glowing lines in what had once been a safety hatch.

  Boudri pulled the welding mask from his head, and tossed it down the corridor. His wrinkled brow played juxtaposition to the smug smirk on his lips. “Knock knock.”

  Nala stepped over the smoking line and onto the thick metal door that just seconds before was a barrier to her escape. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  His smile faltered. “That I wasn’t going to let you die in here.”

  Heedless of the welding pack in his hand, she gave him a shove. “And if we can’t diffuse the other bomb and it blows, it’ll take out three sections in each of the towers!”

  Staggering backward, he shook his head at her and gave her his familiar eye-roll. “They’ve been evacuated, and sealed, in case we can’t get this dealt with on time. But we’ve got our best people on the job.”

  Her eyebrow quirked up involuntarily as he took her hand and tugged her out of the tube that had been her prison.

  Angela stood in the deserted hallway staring at them both. Nala’s gaze traveled past the incendiary expert to the sealed pressure doors behind her. An eerie shiver wriggled its way down her spine and she clutched Boudri’s hand tighter.

  “Everyone has pulled back to a safe distance,” Angela said. Her voice was quiet as she blinked at the gaping hole in the wall. “You should have told me that was your plan.”

  Nala let go of Boudri and moved to the panel that was giving Angela trouble. It was one thing to risk his own life, but Angela had a daughter to think about. If she’d had more time, she might have kneed the bozo in the balls.

  The panel was a mess. Tangled wires and loose pipes filled the hole like the squirming tentacles of a parboiled squid.

  “Well, Ethan has cut open a safety door… do you both have flash lamps?” Nala dug out her own as she asked, grabbing out a knife.

  Without answering, they both produced the requested items.

  “Good,” Nala said. “This is going to take me a minute or so. Talk amongst yourself.” She pulled a pair of current diverters from her bag and snapped them around a bundle of wires.

  Behind her, Ethan said, “Don’t look at me like that. I did what I had to do.”

  “What about us? We could die.”

  Ethan shrugged and stepped to Nala’s side as he looked back to Angela. “I told you to leave. You demanded to stay. I didn’t have time to argue.”

  “You said you could handle the problem without me. I thought that meant you had a back door. Some way we could get out of the section if I couldn’t figure this puzzle box out.”

  “There is no back door.”

  “What were you going to do without me? Once Nala gets that panel cleared out…”

  Nala looked up as Angela’s
narrowed eyes turned to her.

  “She runs station maintenance… she doesn’t defuse bombs,” Angela said, the doubt was evident in her voice.

  He looked at Nala with an apologetic grimace, nose and mouth scrunched sideways.

  She could see what he was about to say in the lilt of his lips. So, with a sigh, she beat him to it.

  “You’re right. I don’t defuse them. But I used to build them.” Nodding toward the cut open skywalk, she said. “And I’ve already dismantled the one inside the skywalk. It was, unfortunately, one of mine.”

  “You…” Angela didn’t finish her sentence; instead, she looked at Ethan. “And you knew about it this whole time?”

  “We’ve known each other since we were twelve. But if it’ll make you feel better, I didn’t know about it until after she’d quit.” Ethan said. “Her mom was an ecoterrorist until she wound up homebound. Her brothers both died when Lunar Colony Three met with a non-passive failure that sent them into critical. She was raised in it and just needed the time to get her head straight.”

  “Thanks for talking about me like I’m not here.” Nala said, looking over her shoulder at them both. “Flash lamps on.”

  Three beams flicked on and Nala cut the circuit wires. They fell against the bulkhead like shorn hair, leaving the fringe of bangs at the top

  “Those are still live. Don’t touch. We have to work fast. The lights and environmental systems aren’t going to kick back on.”

  “What about our backups?” Ethan asked.

  “I cut those out of the panel first because they weren’t energized. Shine your light on my bag, please.”

  She pulled out a pair of puffy, insulated gloves and slid them on. The padding went all the way to her shoulders. With a deep breath, she leaned forward and slid her arms through the live wires. Even with gloved fingers, she could feel the incendiary package.

  Not daring to look Angela in the face, she wove the device out of the cramped space and set it on the floor, moving them all away from the live wires. It was the same standard design she’d always used, but it felt bulky. Shaking away the thought, she pulled the gloves from her hands. It was silly to think she’d remember the weight and feel of a bomb she’d made over ten years ago.