Firewall

by R. M. Olson

  She swallowed hard, and Lev looked away quickly, turning back to his holoscreen.

  “Give me a moment,” he said. “Assuming we don’t want to blow a hole in the casino ship’s airlock, I’ll need to send through the access codes we got from Grigory. I believe they should work.”

  He glanced up a moment later. “Got it. I’ve sent the coordinates of the airlock we want to your screen.”

  She touched the thrusters gently, and as the massive airlock doors slid open, she nudged the Ungovernable inside.

  She glanced down at her com as she lowered the ship gently to the hangar bay floor.

  Nineteen minutes left.

  She took a deep breath and turned to Lev. “Well,” she said. “Guess it’s time to get everyone on board.”

  But the thought of the people inside the ship, the panic on their faces as she’d run past them on her way out—the ones who were going to die—made something tighten in her stomach.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “GET EVERYONE AT the lifts,” Lev panted into the com as he and Jez ran for the lifts.

  They had eighteen minutes, and on balance, it was still likely to be faster to get everyone down the lift on Masha’s lift-card than to melt through the doors.

  “Lev,” said Tanya through the com, her voice steel. “Listen to me. We can’t leave these people here to be killed. I won’t do it. And we can’t leave Grigory to take over the government. That, I won’t do either. I don’t care if it means the minister we want to kill survives. We are going to save them.”

  “I don’t like it any more than you do,” came Ivan’s voice, thick with concern. “But at this point, who we get off this ship is probably limited to who we can fit aboard the Ungovernable.”

  There was a moment of silence. Finally, Ysbel spoke.

  “Listen. My wife believes that we shouldn’t leave all the people on this ship to die. And yes, it means that the minister will survive this, and perhaps I don’t feel exactly the same way as she does—but I support her in this. It will take a few minutes to get everyone down the lifts, anyways. Until we’re on the ship, and eighteen minutes are up, we still have time to look for a solution.”

  Lev shot a glance at Jez, and she quirked an eyebrow at him, grinning. “Guess they always say you have to compromise in a marriage.”

  They’d reached the lift, and Jez pulled out the lift card.

  “The Ungovernable has an escape pod, yes?” asked Tanya. “We could put the explosive on there, perhaps?”

  “Maybe,” said Lev shortly. “But as Masha said before, it likely wouldn’t make any difference. I’m certain Grigory’s tracking the timing on the bomb. The time limit goes and the bomb hasn’t exploded, he’ll simply shoot a hole in the casino ship’s shell. Then everyone on it dies anyways.”

  “There is—one other option,” said Masha quietly. She was speaking on the private line, and he glanced down at his com, frowning.

  “Masha?” he said quietly, tapping his com to the private line as well.

  “What—” Jez whispered. He shook his head, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

  “I only wish to point out that our options are not only, leave our very powerful explosive on board, or throw it out the airlock,” Masha said.

  He paused a moment.

  Another option. That’s what they were all looking for, another option, but—

  He looked up, staring at Jez.

  “Wait,” he said slowly. He hit his com. “Ysbel. It’s not moving it that sets the explosive off, correct? It’s the lack of pressure.”

  “That’s right,” said Ysbel.

  “We can’t throw it out the airlock into space. But we could put it on the Ungovernable. And Grigory’s airlocks have pressure, I assume.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Well,” said Ysbel at last, “if you’re fast enough, I suppose that would work. Although that doesn’t solve the problem of—”

  “I’ve looked at his ship specs,” said Lev. “It wouldn’t take his whole ship down, but if an explosive that large went off in his airlock, it would crack the hull on at least one of his compartments. That kind of breach would shunt all power to emergency systems. There’s no way he’d have the capability to shoot down anyone after that.”

  “Well then,” said Ysbel at last. “I suppose that’s our solution. You’d best hurry up. You have about twelve minutes left.”

  Lev tapped his com off.

  “Jez,” he asked quietly, turning to her. “Can you do this?”

  She nodded, without speaking, but he could see the stark fear in her eyes.

  She’d almost lost her ship once, when Lena was after them, and it had almost killed her, and he was pretty sure that, given the alternative, she’d happily jump out the airlock herself with the explosive rather than risk hurting her ship a second time.

  But it wasn’t like they had a lot of options at this point.

  “Alright,” he said quietly, “Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going to drop it?” Jez asked, her voice almost a whisper. “Don’t know if you remember, but we blew a damn hole in the hangar bay on our way out.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing the ship specs. “The airlocks in the front of the ship, where Grigory and the crew are, are too heavily secured. But there’s three or four airlocks near the rear of the ship. They’re for loading cargo planet-side, not designed for ships, but if you can hold her steady I think we can still hook the Ungovernable on and get the explosive across.”

  She took a deep breath, then gave a tense nod. “Alright. Better get moving, then.” She hit her com, and there was a forced jauntiness to her voice when she spoke into it. “Ysbel, Tanya, we’re coming up the lift. You want us to take your damn explosive, might want to have it waiting.”

  She slapped her com as the lift doors slid open.

  There was a brief moment of awkwardness, and he tried not to think too hard as they both squeezed into the cramped space.

  When at last the door slid open and she half-fell out, the sudden absence of her left a lightheadedness that made him almost dizzy.

  He shook his head, willing his brain to start working again, and his legs to stop being so damn shaky he wasn’t sure they’d hold him up.

  Ysbel arrived a moment later, cradling the explosive gently. There was sharp worry on her face.

  “You don’t have to worry about jostling it,” she said brusquely. “Just make sure you never open an airlock unless its pressurized, or we’ll be wiping pieces of you off the outside of the ship.”

  He nodded. “How long do we have?”

  She glanced at the explosive. “You have ten minutes.”

  The device was heavier than it looked, and awkwardly large. Finally, they ended up with Jez against the wall of the lift, him facing her, both of them shoved together like they were attempting a new and awkward sex position, the explosive tucked between both their legs.

  He somehow managed to force his brain not to think. He wasn’t sure if he actually breathed the entire slow ride down the lift, but somehow the fact that not only was he crammed into the lift with Jez, he was also crammed into the lift with an explosive that would take the entire ship apart, made it somewhat easier to stay focused.

  The ground floor was utter panic now—people were screaming, muttering on their coms to family members or friends trapped upstairs, fighting with the locks between the decks—but none of them seemed to have realized yet that they were about to be damn well vaporized, so the passageway to the hangar bay was uncrowded. He hit the seal, and the moment the door slid open, he and Jez slipped through and ran for their ship.

  The moment the loading ramp clicked shut, he typed in the access code. The outer doors slid silently open and the air from the hangar bay crystallized into a frozen white vapour.

  And then they were out.

  “Coordinates,” Jez muttered, voice tense. He pulled the specs up on his com and glanced at them quickly.

  �
��Lev,” said Masha, through the com. “Listen to me. Use the airlock that’s marked number two on your specs.”

  He frowned.

  It didn’t matter, specifically, but—

  “I need specs, genius! Figure we have less than five minutes at this point.”

  He blew out a breath and hit the coordinates for airlock two into the com.

  Grigory’s ship was sitting just outside what he assumed would be the blast radius. The moment they came around the side of the casino ship, it was in full view.

  The Ungovernable dived gracefully towards it, responding to Jez’s touch like it was reading her mind. Her eyes were half-closed in that way she had when she was concentrating, and there was the blissful smile on her face that she always got when she was behind the controls of her ship, even, apparently, if she and the ship and everything on is was going to be vaporized in a matter of minutes. Possibly seconds, at this point.

  She hit the airlock control, and there was a faint hissing sound as it sealed onto Grigory’s ship.

  She turned to him. “Alright genius, I’ll hold it steady. Get that damn thing off my ship.”

  He was already sliding out of his seat. He grabbed the explosive from the main deck, half-staggering at the unfamiliar weight as he ran down the corridor to the Ungovernable’s airlock. The door slid open, revealing the sealed airlock of Grigory’s ship.

  Damn.

  He shifted the explosive awkwardly so it was supported between his hip and the airlock wall and bit the inside of his cheek as he glared down at the pad.

  “You done yet?” Jez’s voice was strained. “Because pretty sure in about thirty seconds we’re all going to be done, if you get my meaning.”

  He scowled, and gingerly tapped in a code.

  The airlock door slid open, and he sucked in a quick, relieved breath.

  He laid the explosive down gently, then hit the controls for Grigory’s airlock as he stepped back through the door. The moment they were closed, he was sprinting back towards the cockpit, the Ungovernable’s airlock doors sliding shut behind him.

  “Jez, go,” he shouted through the com, and there was a slight jolt as the two ships disconnected, and he reached the cockpit just as Jez hit the throttle.

  The Ungovernable hurtled forward, and Lev barely caught himself on the back of the copilot’s seat. And then a wave of energy slammed into them, hurling the Ungovernable sideways, spinning away at a speed that reminded him of—well, of Jez’s typical flying, honestly—and the world spun around him and he clung to the copilot’s seat with all his strength, and Jez was laughing in sheer delight, playing the controls between her fingers with a look of such joy that she was almost glowing. The ship slowed, slightly, as she brought it back under control, and with a sigh of relief he loosened his grip on the seat.

  And then the ship jerked one final time, and he lost his balance, and landed practically in her lap.

  She grinned at him with that delirious, infectious joy, and his eyes caught hers and held them, and for a moment, just one moment, he could hardly breathe.

  And then he remembered, and he almost flinched at the pain of it.

  Jez, too, sobered abruptly, and looked away.

  “You OK genius?” she asked at last.

  “I’m—fine,” he said, voice unsteady. “Sorry.” He pushed himself up out of her lap and slid into the copilot’s seat, his legs almost too shaky to hold him.

  She was still watching him. “You sure?” she asked quietly, and looking at her face, he knew she knew.

  He managed a small smile, although he wasn’t completely sure how. “I’m fine,” he repeated. “I’ll be fine.”

  She watched him a moment longer, then, at last, she nodded. “Yeah,” she said, and there was something tired and sad in her voice. “Guess we’ll both be.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  MASHA SMILED SLIGHTLY as she glanced around the small room on the casino ship that had been their prison.

  Tanya and Ysbel and the children clung to each other, hardly seeming to notice there was anyone else present. Tae had collapsed back in his chair, shoulders slumped with relief, and Ivan was watching him, a soft smile on his face.

  She closed her eyes for a moment.

  They’d done it.

  And right now, she wasn’t gong to concern herself with what would happen next.

  The door swung open, and Jez and Lev slipped inside. Jez was uncharacteristically quiet, and Lev’s face was paler than usual.

  Tae glanced over, then stood quickly, a familiar concern creasing his face. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  Jez gave a tired grin. “Yep. Figure that worked out pretty damn well, all things considered.”

  She dropped into a chair, and Lev followed suit. And for just a moment, Masha thought that perhaps, just perhaps, Lev was tired enough and distracted enough—

  “Masha,” he said finally, turning to her.

  She kept the pleasant smile on her face.

  It wouldn’t make a substantive difference now, of course. She’d planned for this, after all.

  She hadn’t planned for the slightly sick feeling in her stomach, the sudden difficulty in meeting Lev’s gaze.

  “Yes, Lev?” she said.

  He was watching her, and there was appraisal behind the exhaustion in his eyes. “Masha. Why airlock two? You knew it wasn’t going to take down Grigory’s ship, Ysbel told you that, and I’ve seen the specs—there are blast doors separating the sections of the ship from each other. Why did it matter?”

  She could lie, of course. But Tae was already pulling up his holoscreen, and any lie wouldn’t last longer than it would take for him to hack into Grigory’s communication system.

  “I—spoke with Grigory extensively, before he caught on to your plan,” she said at last. “I knew what his contingency plan was, in case his original plan failed.”

  “And that was?” asked Lev, his voice still soft.

  It was strange, how difficult it was to say the words.

  And then Tae sucked in a sharp breath, and she knew she wouldn’t have to.

  He turned to stare at her, and the betrayal in his face hurt more than she’d expected it would.

  “What?” asked Ivan, frowning. “What happened?”

  Tae didn’t take his eyes from Masha’s face. “Those government officials he grabbed from this ship, before he left,” he said, his voice dazed and slightly sick. “All of them.” He turned to glance at Lev. “How many were there?”

  Lev frowned. “Forty? Fifty?”

  Tae turned back to Masha, his expression still dazed, but there was a sharp hurt under it. “We killed them,” he said, without taking her eyes off her. “Airlock number two was the one that connected with the room in the back of the ship where Grigory had put them for safety.”

  For a long, long moment, no one spoke. She could feel all their eyes on her, but she simply smiled, that bland smile that had served her so well over the years.

  “Yes,” she said finally. “That is correct.”

  For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Lev stood abruptly.

  “That was stupid, Masha.” His voice was harsh. “That was a stupid damn move. Is that what you were planning for this whole time? Is that why you didn’t help us stop this? You wanted Grigory’s plan to work, didn’t you? This whole time.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I had no desire whatsoever for Grigory to succeed.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Masha,” he snapped. “You’re not stupid enough to think I’m not going to see through it.”

  “I never had any question of that, Lev,” she said, voice pleasant. “But you are wrong. I assumed, at all times, that you would figure out Grigory’s plan, and that you would work to stop it. I had no desire for Grigory to stage a successful coup of the government. I left you to do what you do best, while I gathered information.”

  “But nor did you want us to succeed,” Lev said slowly. There was a sharp anger behind his tone. “You never intended fo
r us to stop the explosion. You simply wanted to control who died. Because Grigory’s backup plan, to move his people to his ship if things went wrong—you knew far too much about that. What he was doing, how he was doing it. Where he’d put his people when he got them on his ship. You’re smart, Masha, but you’re not a mind-reader. So.”

  He leaned back against his chair, a small, bitter smile on his face. “Did he tell you? No, of course not, I suspect you were the one who suggested the idea. You knew it was likely we’d manage to throw a wrench in Grigory’s plans, and you needed some alternate way to gather the people you wanted to die.”

  She didn’t bother to deny it. There was no point. He was far too clever for that.

  “So this whole time, you were working behind our backs,” said Ysbel, at last, her tone flat and heavy. “You planned to use us to kill fifty people. And you didn’t tell us. You didn’t tell us about the backup plan that you gave to Grigory. And because we didn’t factor that in, we were almost killed right here in this room. My children, Masha, were almost killed.” She paused a moment, her voice trembling slightly with anger. “So you won. You killed the people you wanted to kill. But understand this: you’ve lost your crew.”

  Misko, and Olya. They were watching from between their mothers’ legs, faces pale.

  Misko certainly didn’t understand what had gone wrong. Olya, perhaps, did. She was very bright for her age.

  She hadn’t, of course, planned to put the children in danger. She hadn’t planned for Grigory to use the backup plan when the fire alarm went off, rather than shut down the explosive and wait for a better opportunity.

  But, she’d known this outcome would be a possibility.

  Lev was still watching her, eyes narrowed.