by Rachel Aukes
She avoided him by pushing off from the wall and glided toward the doorway. “We need to move the sleepers so I can start running preflight checks on the Scorpia.” She frowned as she considered something. “Do you think you could cram more food and water—especially blue tea for hydration—into the Scorpia’s cargo hold?”
“Trying to buy us more time in the black?”
“Even one day could make the difference.”
“Yeah, I bet I can find somewhere to squeeze on more food,” he said as he pushed himself out of the room.
She floated from the room and flew down the hallway. Short bursts from her suit had her speeding through the air.
Few spoke as they stacked the pods into the best insulated cargo hold on the ship. As new pods were brought in, Eddy connected them to a daisy-chain setup of batteries, which were feeding small space heaters.
Hopefully it would be enough, though nothing would be enough to make Throttle feel any better.
Afterward, she didn’t return to the room she shared with Birk. She’d already packed all her possessions into her cryopod and left it for him to move. Instead, she went straight to the landing dock where the Scorpia waited. When she arrived, she took a moment to look upon the gunship. Dark, smooth rilon covered its hull. Two photon guns, one at the bow, the other at the stern, were the only things that broke the ship’s sleek lines. The ship was a work of art, making up for its lack of cargo space with its speed and features. Unlike the Gabriela, the Scorpia was capable of flying both in space as well as within a planet’s atmosphere. It would be the most valuable resource when they reached a viable planet for colonization. Or, at least it would have been until the entire mission failed.
When she heard movement behind her, she spun around to see Sylvian entering the dock with two battery-powered bots guiding her pod.
She jumped when she noticed her captain.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Throttle said.
“You got down here fast.”
Throttle motioned to the tech’s pod. “I could say the same about you.”
Sylvian shrugged her duffel bag higher on her shoulder. “I, ah, wanted to get my things loaded so I could see about helping load extra supplies on board.”
“Good plan,” Throttle said.
Sylvian turned back to her pod, controlling the bots through her wrist-comm to maneuver it to the ship.
Throttle turned to enter the ship first, but a blinking light on the pod caught her attention. She looked over her shoulder and noticed then that Sylvian’s pod was operating. She frowned. “Your cryopod is running.”
“Oh? I’ll be sure to shut it down as soon as I get it on board.”
Throttle stopped and moved toward the pod. “You know, you’ve always been a lousy liar, Sylvian.”
The tech held out her hands to block Throttle. “It’s nothing, really. I’ll take care of it.”
Throttle slapped Sylvian’s hands away and grabbed the pod. She looked inside to see a man in cryosleep. She activated the gravity on her boots and turned to Sylvian. “Who’s that?”
The tech halted the bots before looking up at her, stretching her neck to stand taller. “I won’t leave him behind.” The words were barely above a whisper, yet they were spoken in the most forthright tone Throttle had ever heard from her friend.
Throttle’s frown deepened. “Sylvian, you know we don’t have the supplies to take any sleepers with us.”
The tech blinked. “He can have my supplies, then. I’ll stay behind.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
Sylvian shook her head, adamant. “I won’t leave him behind, so you have to choose. Just him or both of us.”
“Who. Is. It?” Throttle gritted out.
“His name’s Finn, and he’s Sylvian’s lover,” Aubree called out as she approached with her pod and several bags of medical supplies.
Throttle’s gaze shot between the pair before hardening on Sylvian. “You knew about this?”
Aubree gave a small nod and looked to Sylvian.
Sylvian shrugged. “I wanted to tell you, I really did, but it was never the right time.”
Throttle’s jaw slackened. “Never the right time? We’ve spent over seven of the past fifteen years working together. Trust me, there were plenty of ‘right’ times in there.”
The tech grimaced. “It’s just—I don’t know. As time went by, it just seemed more awkward to tell you. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”
“Yeah, you should have.” Throttle took a deep inhalation. “Just get him loaded already. Then wake him up and get him into a chime suit before he freezes to death. If he’s going to be a part of the crew, he can at least help load the ship.”
Sylvian blinked as though she didn’t understand her captain. Then she nodded fervently. “Thank you. You won’t regret it.”
She waved Sylvian off. “And you’d better get extra creative on finding more space to store supplies on board, especially now that we’ll have an extra mouth to feed.”
Sylvian rushed to restart the bots. “I will.”
Throttle watched as the tech navigated the pod through the ship’s open airlock.
“Finn’s a good man,” Aubree said.
“You knew she was going to try to sneak him on board?”
“I had my suspicions.”
Throttle’s jaw tightened. “How long did you know about them?”
Aubree nodded. “I knew something was up the first time I woke him up. I’d just woken group sixteen for their three-day health cycle, and Sylvian was assisting me with helping the passengers to their feet. Let’s just say she was overly helpful in assisting Finn. That girl can’t act to save her life. When I pulled the truth out of her, she swore me to secrecy.” She smiled. “Sylvian was there every time group sixteen was up for their health cycle. She even had me wake her during her sleep cycles so she could be there.” Then she sobered. “I would’ve told if you I’d thought there was any danger to you or the rest of the crew for not knowing.”
“Her sneaking him on board the Scorpia with food and battery power calculated for only seven puts the entire crew in danger. We need to look at all our numbers again.” Throttle pursed her lips. “She should’ve told me.”
“For some reason, I think Sylvian had the irrational fear that you’d send him back. I’ve seen Finn come of cryosleep; he has more than his fair share of scars. I don’t know what happened, but the pair clearly tried to draw as little attention to him as possible. Then, after a couple of years went by, they seemed to have settled into their quiet routine.”
Throttle clasped the woman’s shoulder. “No more secrets, Bree. This crew will fall apart if members hide things from one other that could impact the mission or the crew.”
Aubree seemed bothered for an instant before she nodded. “No more secrets.”
Throttle turned off her boots with a switch on her suit and launched herself toward the Scorpia. She flew through the outer airlock, the pressurization chamber, the inner airlock, and wound through the kinked, narrow hallway to the bridge. Two stations were built into the small space—one for the pilot and one for the navigator. Both stations had full control of all of the ship’s systems, a handy setup that Throttle and Birk had used on several occasions. She settled into the pilot’s seat, powered up the systems, and set the electromagnetic system to 0.2 g throughout the ship to make loading easier.
She was curious about her newest crew member but running preflight system checks demanded her attention. Hours bled by as she programmed her selected flight path into the nav system. The Scorpia had jump speed capable of the current human limits of point three four light speed, which could cut their flight time down by months, even a year or two, before it ran out of juice, but there were no navigation charts that far into the black. Though, not having charts had never stopped Throttle before.
She’d flown a colony ship into the unknown. She’d taken the Gabriela through a hundred jumps until they ran out of juice and h
ad to run off solar sails. After the first twenty jumps, she’d captained the ship beyond charted space. Without charts, she could’ve jumped through an asteroid. But she hadn’t, so she tried not to think about the odds she faced now.
The crew came and went, loading pods and supplies while Throttle ran her checks. After she finished, she looked out the front viewscreen to see Birk staring at the ship, his head cocked as though he was in deep thought.
She tapped the letter B on her wrist-comm. “Birk, what are you doing?”
He raised his wrist-comm near his face. “I’m wondering if I can fasten the printer onto the hull somewhere.”
She laughed. “It’s nearly as big as the ship. Trust me, it won’t fit.”
He frowned. “I don’t want to leave it behind.”
“I don’t, either,” she said. “Finish loading what you can. Then we need to get to work on opening the docking bay doors.”
He trudged back to grab a crate he’d left floating behind him.
Throttle stood. Her leg braces held her steady, and she went to the small cabin nearest the cockpits. Two cryopods filled the cramped compartment, leaving only a narrow gap to walk from the door to the bed. Her wheelchair lay folded near her pod. She ignored that and opened her cryopod to make sure everything she owned had been carried in. A single bag of clothing, a bag of tools—mostly for charging her blasters and sharpening her knives—and, most importantly, a small black box.
She lifted the box and opened it to make sure the biome kit remained undamaged. Should they reach a habitable surface, the kit would launch a host of biological content that would adapt to the specific environment and build out an acre of sustainable plant life, expanding over time. Under the right conditions, it could turn a dead rock into a lush garden in under a century. Biome kits could be invasive to any preexisting biological life, but they were miracles on planets, moons, and asteroids with atmospheres but no significant life.
A good friend had given her the biome kit as a parting gift, and she cradled the precious resource, knowing that it could be the beginning of a permanent colony.
Her heart panged.
The Trappist system’s first colonization mission was a complete failure.
No one would pick up their emergency beacons. They’d traveled nearly forty light-years farther than any ship before them. Throttle couldn’t hold on to an idiotic hope that someone would come to their rescue. Leaving the colonists alone and asleep was the only compassionate choice while they searched for a miracle in a black ocean devoid of life.
She swallowed the ache in her chest, gently rubbed the outside of the biome kit, and set it back into her pod. She’d unpack everything later—there’d be plenty of time for that and second guesses after the crew evacuated the Gabriela.
She left her cabin to check on the rest of the crew. Since it was a gunship, the Scorpia didn’t have the luxuries of yachts, the most notable being a single shared bathroom for the crew near the cargo hold. The crew common area consisted of a tiny pantry with enough seating for two. The ship, designed for a crew of four—two in the cockpit and two support techs in the mechanicals hold—had only four tiny cabins.
Throttle left the cabin that Birk and she had shared since claiming the ship. In the next cabin, she found Sylvian and a pale-skinned, fit man with cropped light brown hair. They were unpacking their belongings into the wall of drawers.
“You must be Finn,” Throttle said.
He turned. “Captain Reyne.” He pushed stiffly to his feet, moving slowly after just being awakened from the induced cryogenic coma. She waited as he approached. He held out his hand. “Thank you for allowing me to join your crew. You won’t regret it.”
“But you might regret it. We have no idea what lies before us. You likely would’ve been better off staying in your cryopod.”
“Whatever it is, I’d rather face it head-on,” Finn said.
“We’ll see, won’t we.” She glanced at her tech before turning back to the newcomer. She reached out and clasped Finn’s forearm. “Welcome to the crew, Finn.”
His features relaxed, and he returned the gesture. His grip was firm, and he carried himself with a poise she’d rarely seen in a colonist. Curiosity needled her, and she made a mental note to review his file later.
She left to find Nolin in his and Garrett’s cabin. He was working on building something out of black rilon rods. Their two pods were stacked vertically like toothpicks against the far wall.
“Systems are all green,” Throttle said. “We’ll be ready to go as soon as we get the bay doors open.”
Nolin turned. “We’ll be all wrapped up in a few minutes.”
She nodded toward the project on the floor. “What are you working on?”
“We’re building a rack to stack the pods,” he said as he returned to his work. “We figured we may as well use the printer one last time.”
Someone bumped into Throttle’s shoulder.
“Watch out. Coming through,” Garrett said, his arms filled with more rilon rods and tools.
She stepped back to allow the dark-skinned man to squeeze through the doorway.
“Any chance you printed enough to build racks for all of us?” Throttle asked.
Garrett grinned. “I’m one step ahead of you. I’m already printing enough rods for every cabin. I was going to print enough for Eddy, but he said he’s already working on his own setup for his pod. Something he says is better than ours, evidently.”
“Of course it is,” Throttle said sarcastically. On her way out, she paused. “Oh, and be sure to print enough for one more pod. We have another crew member joining us.”
Both men seemed taken aback. “What?”
“His name’s Finn. He’ll be Sylvian’s roommate, and Aubree gets her own room since Eddy doesn’t want a roommate.”
With that, she left the pair to their work and found Eddy where she’d expected to find him. He’d chosen to set his cot near the mechanicals. He’d strapped his pod to the floor near the engineering panel, and he’d fastened his cot on top of the cryopod’s cover. He was sitting on the cot as he went through screens on the panel before him.
“Nice use of space,” she said. “Using your pod as a frame for your bed and seating area.”
“I didn’t have much choice. This ship is too small for these pods,” he said without looking away from the panel.
“You could always room with Aubree.”
Eddy looked aghast. Throttle smirked and left him to his project.
She headed into the cargo hold to see Birk tying down the final crate. Every wall, even in the constrictive corridor she’d just passed through, had food and water packets strapped to the surface. She noticed that many of the packets were blue tea, a specialty blend that sharply reduced the need for water for short periods but was known to cause kidney failure if relied upon for too long.
The cargo hold had been filled not long after the mission began, as soon as they finalized their evacuation plans, but Birk had managed to fill it with even more supplies.
“Need help?” she asked.
He glanced up. “Just finishing up this last crate. I was able to fit in six more months of food, but that’s as full as she’s going to get.” He stepped back and wiped his hands on his legs. “One good thing with everything packed tight, our air system and heaters won’t have to work as hard. I remember stealing this one Alluvian yacht that was easily three times the size of my ship. We had everything crammed in so tight that we used less than half the power on air and heat than we’d used on the outbound flight. That’s when I came up with one of my more famous quotes, ‘if it fits, you take its.’”
She cringed. “That’s the worse abuse of grammar I’ve ever heard.”
He grinned. “But it rhymes.”
“Birk, there’re a lot of things I like about you. But your abuse of the universal language is not one of them. Now, if you’re done slaughtering our language, I need you to help open those bay doors. They’re being obstinate.�
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The docking bay doors did not open willingly. With the Gabriela’s power out, the heavy doors could only be opened with a manual override, and that override was operated in the docking bay.
Throttle and Birk activated all the remaining service bots still functioning off battery power on board the cargo ship. But they were small and lacked the strength to pull the levers. Next came Birk and Garrett in their fully enclosed chime suits. She couldn’t see their expressions through their helmets as the pair stood at the first of five levers, with both pulling at it. Throttle watched from the cockpit, managing the Scorpia’s controls to keep it steady now that the engines were on.
After a lengthy moment, they managed to move the lever. A sensor lit up on Throttle’s display, noting that the bay was no longer sealed, and she looked at the image from the ship’s stern camera to see that the first panel in the bay doors was opening. She turned back to the men. The invisible vacuum of space sucked at the two men, but their grav boots held them to the floor.
Birk and Garrett worked at the second lever. The process would go faster with more crew members, but working in the vacuum was always dangerous, and Birk agreed that having only the minimum required force outside was the most practical.
It was also nerve-racking.
The men strained at pulling each lever, with each lever opening one more panel in the bay doors. She didn’t breathe easier until they’d pulled the fifth and final lever. After they finished, they jogged in what seemed like slow motion to the Scorpia. As soon as they climbed the ramp and closed the ship’s outer airlock door, Throttle retracted the ramp. Her sensors showed the inner airlock door had opened and then closed, and her wrist-comm chimed.
“Birk and Garrett are on board and through the lock,” came Birk’s voice through her wrist-comm.
“Good,” she muttered to herself before tapping the ship-wide comm. “All right, everyone. Strap yourselves in for takeoff. Get ready for detachment in thirty seconds.”
She ran a few final checks to pass time. Birk had removed his helmet and took his seat to her left in the cockpit. “Did you know there’s a new guy on this ship?”