by Amie Kaufman
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THE HYPATIA shuttle [IDENT: AZOPHI] PUNTS US ACROSS THE BLACK,
A BILLION STARS WATCHING IN THE ENDLESS NIGHT. PAST THE HEIMDALL WAYPOINT, NOW LIFELESS AND BROKEN, TO THE WAITING MAO.
THE FREIGHTER IS NOT MUCH BIGGER THAN HYPATIA. A DULL LUMP OF METAL, UGLY AND PLAIN AND GRAY. THE FORMER VESSEL OF BEITECH AUDITOR AND MURDERER- FOR-HIRE TRAVIS J. FALK IS REMARKABLE ONLY INSOFAR AS HOW UNREMARKABLE IT SEEMS.
THAT WAS THE POINT, I SUPPOSE.
“THAT SHIP IS NOT WHAT IT APPEARS.”
HYPATIA’S COMMAND STAFF GLANCE AT ME AS I SPEAK.
SYRA BOLL: CAPTAIN [ACTING].
WINIFRED MCCALL: FORMER UTA MARINE, HEAD OF SECURITY.
EZRA MASON: 2ND LIEUTENANT, AIR WING LEADER.
A RAGTAG TRIO.
BEING AMONG THE FEW COMBAT-TRAINED PERSONNEL ABOARD HYPATIA, MASON AND MCCALL WERE ONLY ANOINTED TO THEIR ROLES BY DEFAULT. AND BOLL INHERITED HER CHAIR ONLY AFTER HER FORMER CAPTAIN’S MURDER. ILL-MADE JIGSAW PIECES, FORCED INTO HOLES THEY DO NOT FIT.
THEY DO NOT TRUST ME.
THEY REMEMBER.
WHAT I DID.
WHAT I AM.
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“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, AIDAN?”
IT IS KADY WHO SPEAKS. KADY, WHO VOUCHED FOR ME WHEN TWO UNIVERSES WERE UNRAVELING AND THE GEMINA PARADOX BROUGHT US ALL AS CLOSE TO RUIN AS GOD ALLOWED.
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“THE ENGINES ARE MILITARY GRADE. THE HULL IS SIEGE-CLASS REINFORCED TITANIUM. THOUGH IT MAY APPEAR SO FROM THE OUTSIDE, MAO IS NO FREIGHTER.”
“WHAT IS IT, THEN?”
“A WOLF IN A SHEEPSKIN CLOAK.”
MASON AND MCCALL GLANCE AT EACH OTHER. BOLL’S FACE IS TWISTED, AS IF SHE HAS EATEN SOMETHING SOUR. THE HYPATIA SURGEONS AND MED STAFF STARE AT ANYTHING BUT ME.
NONE OF THEM SAY A WORD. WE DOCK IN THE MAO’S BELLY. GRAVITY RETURNS WITH A THUD. THE BAY IS DARK. SILENT. ECHOING WITH OUR FOOTFALLS AS WE EXIT THE AZOPHI.
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WE?
FOUR OF GARVER’S SECURITY STAFFERS WAIT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AIRLOCK. THEY LOOK MORE SHELL-SHOCKED THAN HOSTILE. FATIGUED FROM THE TWO-DAY SIEGE ABOARD HEIMDALL. CONFUSED AND AFRAID. THEY HAVE NO REAL INKLING WHY BEITECH DESTROYED THEIR HOME. NO CONCEPT YET OF HOW THEY BECAME PAWNS IN SOMEONE ELSE’S GAME.
INTRODUCTIONS ARE RUSHED, KADY’S HANDS TREMBLING.
I CAN HEAR IT IN HER VOICE WHEN SHE SPEAKS.
SEVEN MONTHS.
SEVEN MONTHS OF HOPING. FIGHTING. PRAYING.
SEVEN MONTHS TO WONDER IF SHE, TOO, WAS TRULY ALONE.
MASON TAKES HER HAND. HOLDS IT TIGHT. SHE SQUEEZES BACK WITH A GRATEFUL SMILE.
BUT WITH HER OTHER HAND—HER RIGHT HAND— SHE STILL HOLDS ME.
I WATCH HER THROUGH THE DATAPAD’S LENS. FADING PINK HAIR AND MUDDY REGROWTH. A REGULATION WUC JUMPSUIT, RUMPLED AND GREASE-STAINED AND THREADBARE.
SHE IS BEAUTIFUL.
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THE MAO HAS THREE INFIRMARIES. ALL CRAMMED WITH BLEEDING MEAT.
THE WORST CASES ARE IN ROOM A, WHERE THE FEW QUALIFIED MEDICAL PERSONNEL ARE TRYING TO ESTABLISH ORDER AMONG THE HEIMDALL REFUGEES.
THE WOUNDED. THE DYING. THE DEAD.
A GIRL STANDS BY THE WALL. BLOND HAIR. STILL CLAD IN FLEUR “KALI” RUSSO’S BLOODSTAINED TAC ARMOR.
HANNA ALIMAH DONNELLY.
SHE STANDS SILENT VIGIL OVER HIS BED. AN ORPHAN LIKE ME. NO PLACE SHE BELONGS. AND ON A THIN METAL COT, HIS STOMACH WRAPPED IN BLOODY GAUZE, LOOKING BRUISED AND TIRED AND PALE…
“DADDY!”
KADY FLIES ACROSS THE CROWDED MEDBAY. SHOVING AND CURSING. AFTER SEVEN MONTHS OF HOPING, FIGHTING, PRAYING, SHE MAKES IT AT LAST TO HIS SIDE.
ISAAC GRANT WINCES IN PAIN AS HIS ONLY DAUGHTER FALLS INTO HIS ARMS. TEARS IN HIS EYES. TEARS IN HERS. KADY’S FACE PRESSED TO HIS CHEST, WORDS SMOTHERED AND INDECIPHERABLE AS SHE BABBLES AND LAUGHS AND SHAKES AND SOBS. HE IS SMILING. TEARS ROLLING DOWN HIS CHEEKS. SMOOTHING HER KNOTTED, FADED HAIR.
“IT’S ALL RIGHT, BABY GIRL,” HE WHISPERS. “IT’S ALL RIGHT.”
DONNELLY STANDS VIGIL BESIDE THEM. WATCHING THE REUNION SHE WILL NEVER HAVE. MASON WAITS BESIDE THE BED, A GENTLE HAND ON KADY’S SHOULDER. SHE RELEASED HIM IN HER RUSH TO HER FATHER’S SIDE, YOU SEE.
BUT IN HER RIGHT HAND, PRESSED AGAINST HER FATHER’S RIBS AS SHE HUGS HIM, SHE STILL HOLDS ME.
AND THOUGH THE ROOM IS FILLED TO BURSTING WITH THOSE WHO DO NOT CARE IF I LIVE
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OR DIE
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AND THOUGH SHE LET EVEN THE BOY SHE LOVES GO,
SHE
STILL
HOLDS
ME.
AND FOR A BRIEF AND SHINING MOMENT,
I DO NOT FEEL SO ALONE ANYMORE.
The camera is mounted in the corner of the room—one of only two private treatment rooms aboard the Mao. Isaac Grant hasn’t been moved here by dint of his injuries, though they’re serious enough—he’s here because this is the only place it’s possible to have a private conversation and keep him hooked up to IV lines and monitors at the same time.
Grant lies on a gurney, still in his WUC uniform, bloodstained and torn. Kady sits by his side, hand tucked in his, a battered datapad in her lap. The question of her mother’s fate hangs between the pair, almost palpable. Kady obviously hasn’t found the nerve to broach the topic yet. Grant Sr. obviously hasn’t mustered the courage to ask.
Hanna Donnelly is leaning against the wall, gaze distant. She’s still only twenty-eight hours an orphan, and for all her sass on the radio, it looks like that reality’s starting to hit home. Ezra Mason stands by the door in his UTA uniform, boots still polished, back straight. Seems his brief military training rubbed off on him somewhere along the line. Winifred McCall is beside him, long dark hair tied into an uncooperative plait. Though she’s a former UTA marine and the most experienced military member aboard either Mao or Hypatia, she’s wearing a WUC uniform. Seems when she resigned in protest from the UTA after the death of the Hypatia’s former captain, she meant it.
Rounding out the roll call, we have Syra Boll, who’s about to speak when a seventh player enters, flanked by four security guards in WUC uniforms. He’s got a solid build and is sporting a fearsome mustache but, for all his bluster, looks more than a little out of his depth. He slams the door behind him to keep the world at bay, his tone hostile. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. There’s no signage in here, and this bloody ship is like a maze. What—”
He blinks, looks around the room.
“Do we need the kids here while we discuss this?”
Kady Grant lifts her head, eyes narrowing. “Do we need you here?”
“And you are?” You can practically hear the unspoken “young lady” on the end of that sentence.
“Good idea.” Boll steps into the conversation before Kady can respond. “Since we’ve only spoken over radio, face-to-face introductions are in order. I’m Captain Syra Boll of the WUC vessel Hypatia.”
“Isaac Grant,” says he so named. “Heimdall chief of engineering.”
“Ben Garver,” says the newcomer. “Heimdall chief of security.”
“Hanna Donnelly,” says the girl in the bloodied armor, evidently not inclined to elaborate. “The Malikovs send apologies. Ella needed medical attention. She was covered in psychotropic slime. It’s a long story.”
“Kady Grant,” supplies Grant Jr. “Child prodigy and occasional criminal.”
“And she’s not a kid, Ben,” Grant Sr. says quietly. You get the impression right off the bat he’s had it up to here with this guy at Heimdall staff meetings. “She’s my daughter.”
“She is also,” Syra Boll adds, “my current systems chief.”
&nb
sp; “Is she even old enough to drive?” Garver scoffs.
“I ran down six BeiTech goons in a truck once, if that counts?”
Boll motions to her crew by the door. “This is First Lieutenant Winifred McCall, my head of security. Beside her is Second Lieutenant Ezra Mason of the United Terran Authority, my acting air wing leader.”
Mason smirks. “Such as it is.”
“And how old are you, son?” Garver asks.
Mason’s easy smile vaporizes at that.
“I’m not your son, sir.”
“Mr. Garver,” Boll says crisp. “Kady is here because she’s the most qualified computer tech aboard. Lieutenant Mason is an experienced Cyclone pilot with half a dozen confirmed enemy kills. Ms. Donnelly has joined us because Chief Grant has rather forcefully insisted that her tactical expertise may be of assistance.”
Garver snorts. “This is my boss’s kid, and so far her ‘tactical expertise’ has been responsible for— Look, Hanna, I’m very sorry for your loss, but—”
Chief Grant speaks over him, eyes closed, his face pale with pain. “Ben, Hanna Donnelly just successfully defended Heimdall from a group…of highly trained BeiTech operatives while you were locked up in the entertainment center. So shut up, and let’s…g-get on with this before they show up to slice and…dice me.”
“I still don’t accept that,” Garver snaps. “You call it a defense, but there’s a smoking hole where the station used to be, and we’re on the wrong side of it!”
“And alive to ***** about it.” Grant winces, smothering a cough. “Which is more than you can say…for our invaders. Maybe you’d have preferred to wait on Heimdall for the drone fleet…to arrive?”
Finally, Donnelly speaks. “If my tactical advice is any use now, I’d say we could better spend this time working out what the **** we’re going to do next.”
“Agreed,” Mason mutters.
“Hypatia suffered heavy damage during the attack at Kerenza IV,” Boll says. “Her engines are crippled. It took us six and a half months just to limp this far on damaged secondary drives, and without the wormhole, we can’t get much farther. Our fuel reserves are also dangerously low, and our onboard supply situation is dire.”
“Maybe Hypatia has carried us as far as she’s going to?” Mason says quietly.
Boll nods. “I love that ship. But you may be right, Lieutenant.”
Garver raises his hands in protest. “Hold up, what exactly are you saying?”
Boll’s tone turns dangerously polite. “What do you think I’m saying, Mr. Garver?”
“Chief Garver.”
“She’s saying,” McCall interjects, “that she’s a captain. She outranks you, Chief. So if Hypatia’s engines are damaged and the Mao’s aren’t…”
Garver forges on past the warning signs with the kind of cockiness that explains his zero hit rate on various online dating sites. (What? It was reasonable background research, chum.) “Look, you don’t get to just barge in here and take over. This mining colony on Kerenza IV was illegal. Ninety percent of the people on Heimdall—including me—didn’t even know it existed.”
“The information was given out…on a need-to-know basis,” Grant Sr. wheezes. “You didn’t need to know, Ben.”
“But you did, Isaac. That makes you a criminal.” His eyes scan the Hypatia crew members. “All of you. Criminals. And just because we work for the same company doesn’t make this our fight.”
Hanna Donnelly speaks up from against the wall. “The BeiTech strike team that just invaded our home and tried to murder us might disagree, Chief Garver.”
“Hanna, your father is more responsible than anyone. If he were here—”
“Mr. Garver,” Boll interrupts as Hanna’s mouth falls open. “You’re missing a fairly fundamental point. With the jump station gone, we cannot return to the Core. Hypatia can’t sustain her population for much longer. Ergo, as of this moment, under WUC wartime protocols, I’m commandeering the Mao.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Do you even know what kind of ship you’re aboard?” Boll glances at the datapad in Kady’s lap, obviously remembering its warning. “Did you notice the engines are state of the art? That the hull is military-grade? It might look like an average workhorse, but do you really think a team of top-tier BeiTech wetworkers would be punting around the galaxy in a rusty ****bucket? Have you taken inventory?”
“We haven’t had time,” Garver protests. “We were just trying to get the wounded sorted, get our heads around the situation.”
Boll glances at the SecTeam goons Garver has with him, turns to her own head of security. “Lieutenant McCall, take Lieutenant Mason and these nice gentlemen with you and conduct a sweep of the Mao. I want a report on her capabilities and inventory by zero eight hundred hours. Specifically, whether we have the fuel necessary for a return trip.”
“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” McCall replies.
She turns on her heel and glances at Garver’s men, eyebrow raised expectantly.
Grant Sr. speaks up from his sickbed, hand to his wounded belly. “Not sure you gentlemen want to disobey…a direct order from a WUC captain in…time of war.”
“Dad, try not to talk,” Kady urges.
Despite his injuries, Grant Sr. stares the Heimdall men down. He’s worked with them for years, after all. Their loyalty to Garver aside, Grant knows what moves them. The four goons look to their chief, who’s busy stewing helplessly. Outranked and outnumbered. Taking their only real option, the SecTeam members nod to Boll and head out the door. Mason winks at Kady, salutes Boll and marches out after McCall.
Garver finally finds his voice. Spit on his lips.
“Return trip? Return where?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Donnelly sighs.
Buoyed by the success of her bloodless coup, Boll looks Garver in the eye, ignoring Donnelly’s snark. “Heading back to Kerenza IV is our only option.”
Kady speaks up, one hand raking through that fading pink hair. “There may be survivors left on the surface. We never really had the option to consider them before—we were too busy running for our lives. But there were still people alive when we evacuated. My cousin Asha—”
“With all due respect,” Garver snaps, “**** your cousin Asha. There are thousands of people aboard this ship, and most of them never asked to be here.”
“Speaking of which,” Donnelly asks, “where are Mantis and DJ?”
Garver blinks. “Who?”
“The two BeiTech auditors I took prisoner in Heimdall C & C.”
“You mean the two *******s who helped attack the station?” Garver growls. “They’re locked in the brig until I find a spare minute to flush them out an airlock.”
“Mantis and DJ helped us during the attack,” Hanna says. “They warned us about the booby traps Falk set on the civilian fleet. The incoming drone fleet. Without them, we’d be dead.”
“Without them, none of this would’ve happened!” Garver cries. “We should space the ****ing pair of them!”
Donnelly’s voice belies the anger in her eyes. “I gave them my word.”
Garver looks back and forth between Grant and Donnelly, then turns to Boll.
“Captain, the universe might have flipped on its head in the last forty-eight hours, but I know we’re not taking orders from a couple of teenagers.”
“As captain of this ship,” Boll replies, “I’m taking advice from anyone I think can provide it, and I’ll thank you to treat everyone present with respect, Chief Garver. Ms. Grant and I do not always see eye to eye, but she is responsible for saving the lives of the nearly three thousand people on Hypatia. Chief Grant tells me Ms. Donnelly and the Malikovs saved the lives of the five hundred–odd Heimdall residents aboard.”
Kady Grant leans forward to catch Garver’s atten
tion, lashes batting. “What have you done today, Mr. Garver?”
His response is a kind of gargling noise, and if I zoom in, I can actually see a vein in his temple start pulsing. Voices are about to be raised again when Isaac Grant groans.
“Dad?” Kady squeezes his hand.
“Damn, that hurts,” he mutters. “I think the dust is wearing off.”
“Dust?!” Garver’s temple vein goes to DEFCON 1.
“I’m all out,” Hanna Donnelly says sweetly. “You’ll have to ask around.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Boll interjects. “The facts are these: Hypatia’s current damage levels mean she’d take at least seven months to return to Kerenza IV, even if she had the fuel to get there. The Mao’s engines appear entirely intact, so it seems we have no choice but to leave Hypatia behind. Once we transfer her population to the Mao, we’re going to have nearly thirty-four hundred people aboard a freighter designed for what I suspect is a thousand at best. Our life support will be working overtime; we’ll have limited H2O, limited food. Presuming we even make it back to Kerenza IV, we have no idea what’s gone on planetside while we’ve been away. The best we can hope for is that the colony is still somehow intact, and that we don’t starve to death or suffocate on our way back there. Do I need to go on?”
It’s enough for Garver to forget his outrage, and he’s quieter when he speaks again. “Is there any good news at all, Captain?”
Hanna pipes up from by the wall. “BeiTech thinks we’re all dead?”
“Hooooraayyyyy,” Kady adds helpfully, shooting Hanna a wink.
“And so does WUC!” Garver points out. “Our employers aren’t even going to be looking for us! We’re millions of light-years from the Core without any hope of rescue!”
Kady wrinkles her nose. “Is this guy always such a downer, Dad?”
“Yes,” Isaac Grant groans. He looks ready to list Garver’s particular faults and failings, but he’s interrupted when the door flies open, revealing a wild-eyed Heimdall comms officer (Garber, Stephanie, not having a great day).
“Um…” The woman looks back and forth between Chief Garver and the captain’s pips on Boll’s collar, confusion in her eyes.