by Amie Kaufman
“I can shoot,” he says quietly.
Mason stares at Malikov for a long moment. Finally nods.
“So shoot for me,” he says.
Malikov just tilts his head in question, smoke drifting from his nostrils.
“These fighters Mao is carrying.” Mason nods to the hangar bay behind them, the sleek shapes docked inside. “Chimeras. They’re two-man ships. If I’m gonna fly one, I need a gunner. You know how to shoot. And to be honest, most of these people Boll has me training aren’t great shakes.”
“I guess it doesn’t help that they all hate your ****ing guts, huh.”
Mason blinks. “How did you…”
“Heard ’em griping on the way in.”
Malikov smiles as the bigger boy’s face turns dark.
“Ungrateful ****s,” Mason spits. “You know what they call me behind my back?”
Malikov shrugs.
“Lieutenant Babyface,” Mason growls.
Malikov laughs, smoke spilling from his nostrils. “You do have a certain cherubic quality about you, Flyboy. Just saying.”
“Hey, **** you, chum.”
Malikov holds up both hands in mock surrender, cig bobbing at his lips. “Not many folks like taking orders from kids half their age, I guess.”
“It’s bull****,” Mason hisses, voice dropping to conspiratorial levels. “Most of those mother****ers flew tugs and ice haulers before all this. They don’t know the first thing about flying combat. I mean, I’m no demon at the stick, but at least I’ve shot at something that was shooting back at me. They’re gonna be fighting for their lives when we hit the Churchill, and half these *******s spend the training sessions *****ing rather than listening.”
A long moment passes with nothing but engine song. Malikov hits his smoke, a thoughtful expression on his face. Speaking soft.
“And you’ve got me pegged for a killer, huh?”
Mason looks him up and down. Shrugs.
“Aren’t you?”
Malikov just stares. Saying nothing.
“Look,” Mason continues, “that BT transmission told us they’ve got at least one semi-functional dreadnought at Kerenza. Plus whatever defenses they have on the Magellan. If we go through with this attack, it’s gonna be balls to the wall. Everything we’ve done to get this far doesn’t mean a thing. We lose there, we lose everything. And I don’t wanna bust up your bad*** party, but if you want people to look at you and see something more than that ink, you’ve got to do something more than spend your time smoking in the goddamn airlock.”
“Do I look like the kind who loses sleep over what people think of him, Flyboy?”
“Maybe not most people,” Mason replies. “But what about her?”
Malikov narrows his eyes.
Exhales gray.
“Touché, good sir.”
Mason stands, looming over Malikov. And leaning down, he extends his hand.
“We got a deal?”
“You really think el Capitan is gonna let an untrained eighteen-year-old like me anywhere near one of those fighters?”
“Chum, she’s so busy trying to hold this ship together, she won’t even know.”
Malikov shakes his head. “If you think your minerboys hate you now, wait till they hear you pulled in another kid to fly with—”
“No bull****,” Mason snaps. “No excuses. You can sit here on your *** and mope, or you can do something to help. Now, are you in or out?”
“I’m not calling you ‘sir,’ if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Shoot straight and you can call me whatever the **** you want.”
“Lieutenant Babyface?”
“Don’t push it, chum,” Mason scowls. “In or out?”
Malikov grins.
Kills his smoke with his boot heel.
And, reaching up, he takes Mason’s hand.
“All right. In.”
To: FLINT, Jess
From: BOLL, Syra
Incept: 13:41, 08/27/75
Subject: Impending violence
Hi Jess,
Please see the email I’m about to forward.
I have a PhD in theology, so I can tell you with total authority that not even divine intervention is going to stop me punching this pompous *** if he wakes me up again. I had him pounding on my door during the THREE HOURS OF SLEEP I have had in the last 24.
I will break his nose. I will break his smug ****ing FACE. I remember a time when I didn’t harbor dark thoughts like this. Do you remember that time, Jess?
Can you please find somebody to take a meeting with him at some point? Maybe one of the junior officers handling the rosters. There might be something we can give him to do. I don’t dispute the guy has some valid points, but he had a BeiTech infiltrator sitting right under his nose for almost a year, and frankly, given BT might have had other plants on the station, I’m not really willing to put anyone I don’t know in a command position.
Speaking of rostering, how are we doing recording all the Heimdall skill sets that came aboard? Specifically, do we have anyone with plumbing experience? This is not an idle question.
Thanks, Sy
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------Forwarded Message------
To: BOLL, Syra
From: GARVER, Ben
Incept: 12:30, 08/27/75
Subject: Fw: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: URGENT MEETING REQUEST
Captain Boll,
I am resorting to written communication once more after three failed attempts in the last twelve hours to meet with you in person. I have been continually blocked from accessing you and was told on one occasion, by a comms officer who appeared to be underage, to “pull my head in.”
I wish to protest this exclusion in the strongest possible terms. I am the head of security for a major Wallace Ulyanov Consortium installation and the most senior and experienced WUC security staff member aboard. I have military experience, and I should be present at the meetings I understand you are conducting with United Terran Authority military staff.
Frankly, Captain—and I say this with the greatest respect—as the former second in command of a research vessel, you are simply not qualified to make the decisions that must be made in our present situation. Our mutual employer would, I assure you, prefer that I was a major part of this conversation.
My immediate concerns include, but are not limited to:
• The equitable distribution of rations, including to families
• The three allegations of physical assault I have encountered in the past 24 hours
• Representation of the needs and views of Heimdall residents, who had no knowledge of the illegal WUC hermium operation on Kerenza and who, frankly, want no part in this fight
• Our strategy as we hurtle toward Kerenza and an encounter that will result in, at best, high fatality numbers for our people and, more likely, annihilation
• Rumors that you have enlisted the aid of an artificial intelligence that is reportedly responsible for the deaths of thousands of UTA and WUC personnel
I again request a meeting as soon as possible. I have valuable contributions to make to the current conversation, and put simply, I demand the right to do so.
I await your immediate reply.
GARVER, Ben
Heimdall Personnel, Please Enter Title into System
ID 291fp90/WUC
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I saw Keiko and Claire. I should have gone earlier, but somehow I knew we wouldn’t have anything to say.
They were my friends back on Heimdall, but I’ve always been good at making new friends each
new place I go. And then I move along.
I wanted so badly for there to still be some connection, for them to have the right words to comfort me, but the three of us were just silent. They’re refugees, waiting and hoping. I was one of the people making things happen, back on Heimdall. I want to be again.
There’s a barrier between us now.
They were in the atrium when it all went down on the station. They saw what happened, with Dad. I wanted to ask them…I don’t know. Whether he knew, what he said. But I didn’t, because I don’t want that picture in my head.
I keep on thinking that at some point it will be over. It’s so hard. Every morning, the moment when I wake up, everything’s okay for a few seconds. And then it comes crashing down on me, crushing me beneath its weight, as the memory arrives.
He’s gone.
A dozen times a day I think I’ll ask him something, or tell him something, or I turn to see where he is. Or I see a man walking down a hallway, and just for an instant my brain lights up with recognition, thinking it’s found a match for a familiar silhouette, before the truth shows up again. He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone.
At first, I think there was a sense of…that I could wait it out. That if I was just good, if I somehow held on, waited, took care of things in a way that would make him proud, that I’d get my reward.
And of course, my reward would be my father. I didn’t consciously think that—I mean, I’m not delusional—but some part of me thought, somehow, that if I could just last until the end of it, he’d show up. He’d praise me for having made it through that horrible trial. He’d tell me what a great job I did.
But slowly, painfully, it’s beginning to settle over me like a blanket. This knowledge that never goes away, but beats like a drum in the back of my head all the time.
This is forever.
Welcome to the good ship Mao.
On Level 4, folks are about one meal away from full-blown food riots. Level 3, they’re packed in so tight it’s hard to breathe. But here on Level 9, things are a little more civilized. Cara Douglas and her son, Luke, are among the luckiest of the Heimdall refugees—they’ve managed to stake out the corner of a room all for themselves.
They fled the Heimdall entertainment center with nothing but the clothes on their backs, the contents of Cara’s handbag and a battered toy rabbit called Mr. Boots. Mr. Boots’s ears are tatty from being chewed over the years, but Luke is a young man of four now and is past such things, except in times of great trial.
He and his mother are sitting on a blanket that, as it happens, once upon a time graced the bunk of the ill-fated James “Cricket” Orr. A blanket is a valuable thing here—though Level 4 is a mass of sweltering bodies and rising tempers, the climate control having almost utterly failed, Level 9 is quiet and cool. Too cool—subdued by the effort of keeping themselves warm, the inhabitants are huddled together, too tired to speak or, in most cases, complain.
Spread on the metal floor, its edge rolled over to keep Luke warm, Cricket’s blanket is their bed, their best source of warmth and their way of marking out their tiny piece of territory on the Mao. Their place in the world, as their world has now shrunk down to the size of this one ship.
Cara’s husband and Luke’s father, Shane Pangburn, died when Travis Falk bled all the oxygen out of the Heimdall’s habitation sectors. Shane had gone back there just before the invasion to pick up another couple of toys for Luke. Cara remembers a dozen times each day how she argued for staying home—Luke had been out of sorts all day with the start of a cold, and they weren’t sure they could trust him to behave. But Shane talked her into heading to the entertainment center just for an hour or two to see Shane’s best friend. It was Terra Day, after all—surely they could manage a small celebration.
In the dark, cold nights on Level 9, she reflects on the fact that if she’d had her way, they all would have died together in the habitats. Instead, only Shane—the one who wanted to go out—slowly choked at home, fading into nothing.
And Cara was stuck, screaming helplessly as his fate was announced over the loudspeaker in the entertainment center. Lying to Luke, trying desperately to hide the truth from him for a few moments longer. Collapsing into Ben’s arms, deaf to his words as her husband’s best friend tried to find some way to comfort her.
She’s been trying to keep going, the last few days, for Luke. It’s hard to see the reason behind it, most of the time, but Ben insists, and so she tries. Luke doesn’t seem to understand what’s happened and placidly accepts his new place in life.
Ben should have been in the atrium, listening to the commander’s speech. But he bucked duty just for once, slipped out to see his friends and check up on his godson. The Mutual Adoration Society, Cara used to laughingly call them, Ben and Luke.
Cara doesn’t think she’ll ever laugh again now.
Suddenly Luke’s a kicking, scrambling mess of arms and legs, clambering to his feet, trying to untangle himself from the blanket. She blinks herself awake—she mostly dozes, when she can—and watches as he dodges nimbly through the sea of arms and legs, refugees lying on the floor, curled up for warmth with their loved ones.
Luke makes it most of the way to the door, and there he meets former Heimdall chief of security Ben Garver, who stoops to scoop his godson up in his arms, setting him on his hip with practiced ease and promptly lifting his free hand to nip at the kid’s nose with two fingers, then push his thumb up between them.
“You make this too easy,” he informs Luke, solemn.
“Give it back!” The kid wriggles, delighted. “I need my nose!”
“Are you sure?” Garver asks, eyes dancing. “This place doesn’t smell so good—maybe you’re better off without it.”
“Uncle Be-en!”
So Garver relents and returns the stolen appendage, then makes his way through the crowd with considerably more care than his young charge did, to crouch beside his mother. “Cara,” he murmurs, infinitely gentle. “Did you pick up your rations today?”
She frowns, trying to remember, and then slowly shakes her head.
“I’ll take you in a few minutes,” he says. “I can’t do it for you, they’ll only sign them over in person.”
“All right.” Her voice is hoarse, and she clears her throat. “Thank you.”
He gazes down at her for a long moment, searching for something he can do. Then he peels his jacket off, helps her sit up and, like he’s dressing a child, feeds her arms through the sleeves one at a time. “Lukey, you make sure your mother keeps her new jacket on, okay?” he says, voice lighter. “You keep an eye on her.”
“Okeydoke,” Luke replies, wriggling down to stand and wrap his arms around Garver’s neck, hanging off him like a climbing frame.
“I’m going to do the rounds a little, and then we’ll get the rations,” Garver says, leaning down to catch Cara’s eye, make sure she hears him. He knows she’ll need a little time to work up to the effort of moving.
She nods.
So he leaves her, and he moves around quietly, keeping Luke with him to allow her a rest. He speaks to each small group, listens to their concerns, sympathizes, nods, offers what comfort he can. He doesn’t allow himself to show a moment’s frustration on his face, though there’s not a single promise he can make—not even to get these complaints to the captain’s ear.
And in the end, he helps Cara to her feet, leaving her neighbors to guard her spot and her blanket for her, and the two of them take one of Luke’s hands each, making their way down the hallway slowly to stand in the line for rations.
And though he watches the strain on her face as if he’s afraid she might break, he keeps up a steady chatter with little Luke Douglas-Pangburn, asking after the health of Mr. Boots and listening to the boy’s trials and tribulations without missing a beat. This he does for his dead best friend, because it’s the only thing left that he
can do.
But it’s easy to see why he so badly wants to do more.
We open in the infirmary, where Isaac Grant’s still stuck in what passes for the ICU, Ella Malikova’s still hooked up to subpar life support, and a variety of other bit players in the Mao’s ongoing drama are in various states of recovery from the many Things That Can Kill You In Space. There’s no such thing as visiting hours here—there’s barely any doctors, given most of the fleet’s medical staff died with the Copernicus. So it is that nobody stops Kady Grant when she creeps in at 22:12 hours, weaving through the packed beds to check on her father. The audio on this recording is a symphony of beeps as the machines trailing wires in every direction report on their patients, protest their misuse or quietly complain about their diminishing batteries.
Grant eases back the curtain to find Hanna Donnelly sitting by Isaac Grant’s bed already, head resting against the wall, eyes half-closed as she keeps vigil. She has a battered scrap of paper resting on a medical chart in her lap, a half-finished illustration on the page. Isaac himself is out cold, chest rising and falling slowly. Donnelly’s eyes snap open when she registers Grant Jr.’s presence, and she starts to stand—the slow, awkward movement of someone whose every muscle is hurting.
“No, stay,” Kady whispers, moving around the bed to lean against the wall beside Hanna. “You saved his life, you get to make sure he holds on to what’s left of it.”
Hanna has to clear her throat before she can reply. “We all saved each other, really. I put him back together. He got us out of there in the end. Nik, Ella, we all…”
Kady only speaks again when it’s evident the other girl won’t continue. “He told me about your father. I’m so sorry. It’s ****ed up.”
Hanna nods slowly, silently agreeing that it is, indeed, ****ed up. “I’m sorry about your mom,” is all she says.