collapsed next to him, wished my hands could massage my neck and shoulders.
Sweat soaked my blouse and the recirculating oxygen picked up my body odor. I found it ironic that in an atmosphere hundreds of degrees below zero my exertions were overtaxing my temperature control unit. I tilted my head back. The tunnel stretched without end. I didn’t know how much more I could climb. “How much further?”
“We’re halfway there. Fifteen to twenty more minutes of climbing.” He peered into my faceplate. “You’re exhausted. Take a breather.”
I nodded and leaned back against the side of the spar. The Captain did the same. I turned to look at him. If we were going to die, I deserved to know where he really stood. “Captain, only a Ku’wahine would approve of what Haunani did. But all Havayians want to be able to decide our own future. Not have it dictated to us by Earthers. Is that so wrong?”
He raised his hand to cut me off. “It doesn’t matter, Nalani. We’re Beamers. We have a job to do. Save your breath for the climb.” He pushed himself up and began climbing again.
Earthers always regarded a discussion of sovereignty as a waste of time, and the Captain and I had precious little time. We weren’t going to live long enough to settle issues that had been brewing since the Earthers overthrew Queen Kalama.
I climbed in pursuit, arm over arm, ring by ring. The more I climbed, the more pissed I became at both Haunani and the Captain. Each regarded me as a dispensable pawn whose only purpose was to further his or her goal. Neither cared that I didn’t want to die in the name of their cause.
When I reached the grated-steel walkway that spanned the length of the Sail’s bottom, my anger had boiled into a churning rage at the unfairness of it all. Sweat poured down my forehead and dripped into my eyes. My eyes began to tear. I tried to blink away the tears. Between blinks I examined the Sail’s extender joints. “She preset them in position to start the detachment sling.”
“What’d you expect? They’d be frozen in place?” the Captain said sarcastically. He bent over, pushed his faceplate against mine. “Don’t give me those crocodile tears. She was your sister. You vouched for her. That’s why I gave her the access codes. I should have known better than to depend upon the word of a Havayian.”
Veins pounded on both sides of my neck. My temper exploded. “Go to hell, Earther. Your precious Earth can be blown to bits for all I care.”
With all my strength, I shoved him out of my face. His shoulders slammed against the sail extender. His legs flew out in front of him and he reached down with his hands to grab the rail. One hand hit the trigger of the laser pistol. A bolt sizzled out and sliced my temp-control tube. Raw cold surged into my suit. My body quaked as if it’d been plunged into cryo without preparation. Beads of sweat turned icy on my face. Within minutes, I’d be frozen. I closed my eyes, prayed to Lono to take me to Po’ele.
The Captain bumped into me. “I’ve got a backup hose. We’ll share the heat from my suit.”
He pulled a hose out of his temp control unit and attached it to my severed hose. A surge of warm air entered my suit. I inhaled, welcomed the warm air into my lungs. Frozen beads of sweat turned to slush and slid down my cheeks.
“Why?” I mumbled with my numb lips. “You can overload the sensors. Not worry about me.”
“You’re the mechanic. I don’t know the sensor wiring. You have to do it,” he said in an emotionless tone.
That said everything. He didn’t have a clue how to overload the sensors and needed me to do it. Such a typical Earther. He could demean me as a Havayian, but I was supposed to forgive, forget, and do his bidding. I made up my mind. They’d taken advantage of our aloha too many times. They deserved to feel the sting of Ku’wahine vengeance.
I shivered and glanced at his temp hose. If I tore it loose, we’d die frozen in place. Much less painful that the other choices.
I pictured myself frozen in place. By Lono’s blessing, I didn’t have to die. It had been so obvious. If I could get to the sensor compartment, I could save myself.
I stood. The hose went taut. I couldn’t get there without the Captain. “Get up,” I said. “I think there’s a way. We’ve go to get to the sensor compartment.”
His eyes widened, but he stood without asking what I intended. “Stay close to me,” I said. “The hose snaps and we die.”
We shuffled in tandem across the grated walkway. Between the heat generated by my movement and the warmth from his heater, the numbness in my toes and fingers faded. I flexed my fingers and the prickly needles of sensation returned.
When we reached the compartment, I told him to open it. He turned the handle on the sensor compartment’s cover and swung the panel open. He exhaled. “Damn her.”
I looked over his shoulder and didn’t have to search to see what had upset him. All of the finger-sized sensors had been torn from their connections to the control wires. The wires floated out the compartment like squid tentacles and the connectors rose like air bubbles in water. Haunani had been thorough. Without the connections, the sensors couldn’t be overloaded to blow the Sail.
His fist slammed the panel. The concussion echoed throughout the spar. “It’d take days to reattach this mess and blow the Sail.”
“I didn’t intend to blow the Sail,” I said.
The Captain spun to face me. “You bitch,” he screamed. “I hope your people are prepared. Earth will seek revenge. Billions will die on Havayi too. No one will win. Everyone will lose. Something the Ku’wahine can’t seem to comprehend.”
He slumped against the panel. “We were the last hope to keep this lunacy from happening.”
I stepped closer to the compartment. “Get out of my way so I can save your ass.” I surveyed the six-foot depth of the box with its jumble of floating wires.
“What are you doing?” the Captain asked. “It’s over.”
I glanced at him. “Remember what you said a few minutes ago? The extenders weren’t frozen in place.”
His helmet bobbed. “So?”
“I’ll sever the control wires while the Sail’s in its current position. Freeze the Sail in place before it can reach the extenders and traverse to sling.”
“How?” he asked. “We don’t have a torch.”
“Laser them with your pistol.”
He pulled the pistol out of his belt, held it in his hand, and stared at it. I could almost hear his thoughts: Will she shoot me if I hand her the pistol?
“Five minutes until sling.” He handed me the pistol. “Is that enough time?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I have no idea how long it’ll take me to find the right set of wires in this mess.”
I leaned my faceplate closer to the panel, grabbed the floating sensors, and cradled them in my arm. I stuck my head and shoulders into the compartment. One by one I examined the loose wires, matched the break in the sensor to the break in the wire’s connector to determine the wire’s function. Minutes passed and I hadn’t found the wires that matched the break in the extender’s sensor. Only two sets of wires remained, but they floated at the rear of the box beyond my reach. I lay on my stomach and crawled into the box. The body hose snapped taut. I stopped moving.
“Captain, you’re going to have to get closer to me somehow. The set I want is in the back of the box.”
His hands grabbed my hips and he pulled himself along my legs and onto my back. His helmet rested on my shoulder. “That’s as close as I can get.”
His chest moved up and down. “We’re almost out of time.”
With him on top of me, I squirmed forward a few inches, then a foot. I grabbed both sets of wires. “One set controls the Sail extenders, the other the cryo controls. I can’t tell which is which.” I wasn’t sure if it was my heart or the Captain’s heart pounding against my pressure suit. “I’m going to sever them both.”
I pointed the barrel of the pistol torch at the one set of wire
s and gently squeezed the trigger. The laser beam extended in a thin white line. I sliced the wires, released the trigger. “Got one set,” I whispered. I moved my aim to the second set. I flicked on the beam. With my hand shaking, I sliced the second set. I realized I’d been holding my breath. I exhaled coppery breath. “Done,” I said, my heart still pounding. “Let’s see if it worked.”
In unison, we inched backwards until we cleared the box. We turned and stared at the Sail. The extenders and joints clicked into sling. I counted to sixty. The Sail didn’t move. I could feel the Captain’s smile.
“You did it,” he said. “You saved Earth and Havayi from disaster. You’re a hero.”
I snorted. “I wasn’t worried about anyone but myself. All I wanted to do was to keep from dying. I’m no hero.”
“You’re wrong,” he replied in a gentle tone. “You gained them time. Cooler heads will prevail on both sides when they realize the disaster that would have occurred.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Perhaps, but we’ll never know. We’re locked on the Beam. We don’t have an escape pod. No ship’s fast enough to catch up with us. I destroyed cryo, so we can’t freeze and hope some day some one finds us. There’s not going to be any rescue.”
As soon as I said it, the realization of what I’d doomed myself to sunk in. “I’m alive, but I’m stuck all alone with you for as far as the Beam goes. Then we drift and wait to die.”
Nalani's Choice Page 2