“Are you going to sit there, or are you going to help?” she asked.
I don’t even want to imagine how much I blushed. I jumped to my feet and fumbled around with her boiler-suit’s loose sleeve as I tried to get it on her. Once I did, she zipped up the outfit and faced me.
“Cora, I—” I said before she placed one of her slender fingers over my mouth.
She smiled. “Find somewhere to sit in case this gets bad,” she said. “We can talk after.”
The smile I returned grew wider and wider. It was beyond my control, like I was intoxicated. When I didn’t say anything she just giggled again, planted a kiss on my lips, and hurried through the curtain.
I stood with a goofy grin on my face for a few moments before deciding to get dressed myself. I had to sit down on the bunk to do it, and not because the ship was shaking. After the worst tremor it’d actually almost entirely stopped. But my legs were woozy, in no small part due to the best night of my life.
I finished dressing and sat up. The weight of my boiler-suit felt off without the compromised hand-terminal in my pocket. I wondered if it’d finished uploading the program, which I assumed was going to somehow tap into the captain’s credit account and rob him. Something like that at least. I didn’t care. If someone found it I decided I’d say I left it up there by accident while I was with Cora. Everything had gone perfectly, and my mom would have no choice but to forgive me for what I’d done after she got out.
On the other side of the curtain, the Ringer crew was running amok trying to figure out what was going on. The usual protocol for a storm was for Cora or the captain to announce whether or not we needed to strap down over the ship’s main com-system. The speakers remained silent. I could manage to think of only one thing other than a powerful storm that could knock a ship the size of the Piccolo around like it was a pool ball—one of the dual engines blowing out. Of course, that would also have involved us taking a nosedive straight into the heart of the gas giant to join the Sunfire, and the force of gravity tugging on my body hadn’t gotten any stronger to indicate that had happened. The ship seemed to be flying as steady as it was when there was no storm at all.
I slid forward and rested my feet flat against the floor. It vibrated gently, like it always did from the ship’s engines. I placed my hand against the wall, and it felt the same there. The worst storm I’d ever experienced on the Piccolo also seemed to have been the shortest.
I stood and took a step toward the curtain. I stopped when I realized that I was about to walk into a crowded rec room directly from Cora’s bed. I’d never hear the end of it from Desmond and the others. It was better to stay put and wait it out…
A crack rang out, so loud it resonated in the pipes. It sounded like a piece of the Piccolo’s wing snapping off. The ship dipped again, throwing me forward through the curtain and onto my chest. Red disaster lights along the edges of the ceiling and floors flashed on. Shrill emergency alarms began wailing.
I sprung to my feet and bolted toward the dorm’s exit. It should’ve been sealed, but it was wide open, decon-chamber and all. Desmond managed to get to his feet quickly enough to catch up with me.
“What was that?” he shouted over the alarm.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
We emerged into the hallway. A crowd of Earthers was gathered outside of their dorm. Culver lay in the center of them, howling in pain.
“What happened?” I asked one of the security guards. When he looked at me, I realized he was the one I’d snuck past earlier.
“Whatever that was tossed Culver into the wall,” he replied. I leaned in to get a closer look. Culver’s leg was twisted, a sharp piece of his tibia poking through a bloody gash just below his knee. “Step aside, Ringer!” the guard growled.
“Fuck them,” Desmond hissed.
A series of bangs rang out from the direction of the command deck. They were softer than the one that had preceded the ship’s staggering, but they sounded like gunshots, and not just from a single gun.
“Cora!” I yelled. I sprinted as fast as I could toward the central corridor, Desmond right behind me.
We popped out into the intersection and saw Captain Saunders sprinting toward us from the command deck. Cora was behind him, the G conditions slowing her down, but he had one hand around her wrist to help pull her along. With the other he fired his pulse-pistol blindly over his shoulder. Two other Earthers ran alongside them. One was promptly struck in the back by a spray of automatic rounds and toppled onto his face.
Bullets whizzed by Desmond and me. I was just able to grab him and heave him back behind the corner as one zipped by his ear like an angry hornet from ancient Earth. He was in shock, and when the captain and Cora joined us soon after they were equally shaken. I grabbed her and pulled her close, but she couldn’t focus on me. Her eyes were glued open. Captain Saunders clutched the handle of his pistol, hands shaking. The other Earther hadn’t made it.
“Captain, what the hell’s going on?” Desmond asked, his voice cracking.
I would’ve asked the same thing if I could have mustered the words. Almost getting shot had my heart pounding, but seeing Cora so near the same fate had my legs wobbling. As I held her, I found that she was helping me stay upright as much as I was her.
“They came…” Captain Saunders panted. He sounded like he’d just run all the way around Pervenio Station. “They came through the viewport on the bridge. Fired right through the glass.” He paused to breathe again and then popped his pistol around the corner. “Bastards!” he yelled as he fired off more shots at whatever was down the hall.
“Who?” Desmond questioned.
“I don’t know! They’re in heavy armor and tinted visors. Three of them, I think. Got automatic pulse-rifles too.”
The footsteps of the attackers drew nearer. “Do we have any weapons?” I asked. I knew it was a stupid question, but it was the first thing that popped into my head.
“This is a harvesting ship—what the fuck do you think? This is it.” Captain Saunders gestured toward his pistol and then reached out to fire another shot. His features darkened when he heard the click indicating that the clip was empty.
“We should get everybody we can into the harvesting bay then,” I said.
“Run?” Desmond said. “That’s just like you, Kale. We’ve got numbers.”
“Yeah—and fists.”
“Kale’s right,” Cora addressed the captain meekly. “We can lock the blast door down from the inside.”
Captain Saunders didn’t wait for any more opinions. “You heard her: Let’s move!”
He sprinted back down the straight corridor toward the galley. Desmond grumbled something before following. I glanced back into Cora’s eyes to make sure she was ready. Every echoing footstep of the nameless invaders seemed to be making her shudder. She forced herself to nod, and I did the same before we fled.
“Everyone to the harvester bay!” Captain Saunders shouted as he ran past the dorms.
“What is it?” an Earther roaming the corridor asked.
“Emergency protocol! Let’s move, let’s move!”
Ringers and Earthers poured out of their respective dormitories ahead. They were staring at what was behind us, and I didn’t need to turn around to know our assailants must have rounded the corner. The faces of both races filled with dread before they all started sprinting down the hall.
Three Earthers tried to help Culver up, but two of them were the ship’s security guards. They decided to drop the head mechanic and fell in behind John toward the harvester bay as soon as he exited the dorm. He may have been injured, but his legs appeared to be working fine. That left only one Earther with Culver, and we all blew by them.
The deafening clatter of pulse-rifle fire erupted, making the pipes running along the metal walls rattle and clang. Culver cried out in pain and collapsed with a thud. I didn’t risk looking back. Out of everyone, I was the slowest under Earth-like G. Desmond and Cora weren’t much faster, but th
ey’d been working on the Piccolo longer than I had. Scrubbing canisters and controlled lifting we could handle, but Ringers weren’t built for sprinting while on Saturn. Plus, there’d been no opportunity to take my usually issued morning G-pill before getting to work.
The next turn in the passage would take us down to the harvesting bay. It was a long, straight run away, especially with bullets peppering the walls and ceiling behind us. Even with the alarm continuing to cry, they were all I could hear. Hisses and snaps. Instruments of death all around me. I hadn’t pushed my legs so hard since the time my mother had caught me running foundry salts for Dexter when I was ten.
The captain yelped and smashed into the wall ahead of me. Turning my head to see what happened couldn’t have wasted much more than a millisecond, but it was enough of a hesitation for me to be hit as well. A bullet clipped the meaty part of my thigh, causing me to trip. I would’ve smashed my head on the floor if Desmond hadn’t caught me and dragged me to safety around the corner.
“You okay?” he gasped.
Exerting myself in High G had my heart racing so fast I thought my chest was going to explode. I could hardly breathe. My muscles burned like I’d been dipped in a vat of acid. Cora kneeled over me and frantically checked my injured leg. I couldn’t see straight enough to decipher her reaction to what she saw.
“There’s no blood,” she said. She was nearly as winded as the rest of the Ringers were.
I rubbed the area of the wound and brought my fingers close to my dizzy eyes. My leg hurt like I’d been hit with a hammer, but there was no blood.
A flurry of bullets struck the back wall of the adjacent hall. I forced myself to focus, and that was when I noticed that many of the bullets were bouncing back onto the floor. They were flathead rounds, used on ships in space in order to prevent piercing the hull, or during riots when security didn’t want to kill anybody. Luckily, the bullet that’d hit me had done so in one of the few places on my slim Ringer body where there was some extra meat; otherwise it might’ve shattered a bone.
“I’m fine,” I said, still catching my breath.
“Good,” Desmond said. “We’re close.” He grabbed my arm, groaning as he tried to lift me.
I pulled away and peered back around the corner as furtively as possible. Captain Saunders was slumped over a cluster of conduits. His bloody head rested against the wall, and he wasn’t moving.
Beyond him, three attackers clad in heavy, powered armor marched down the hall, pulse-rifles in their hands. Half-sphere helmets enclosed their heads, with tinted visors that made it impossible to determine who they were. I tried to see what color the suits were to get an idea of what faction they might belong to—Pervenio, Venta Co, pirates—but the ship’s emergency lighting was too red to allow me to tell.
“Would you come on!” Desmond implored.
“Kale, what are you doing?” Cora asked. “We have to go.”
I knew I should listen, but just then the captain’s eyelids fluttered. Because his fall hadn’t been stopped by human arms he’d been knocked unconscious, but he was still breathing.
It seemed wrong to leave him out there with a faceless death squad bearing down on him. While I was trying to decide what to do, a hungover member of the Piccolo’s crew who’d been left behind stumbled out of the Ringer dorms right in front of the attackers. He didn’t make it far before a bullet caught him on the hip and sent him twisting through the air and into the wall.
The distraction was exactly what I needed. I fought every survival instinct in my body, held my breath, and plunged into the hall. I threw my arm under the captain’s broad shoulder and hauled him backward. The Earther’s body was heavy, especially while I was dealing with
overstrained muscles and an injured leg I could hardly put any weight on. I was fortunate we didn’t have to get far. By the time the attackers noticed what was happening, I’d dragged him safely back around the corner.
My leg suddenly gave out, and I staggered along with his body toward another wall. I was cramping all over. Breathing hurt so bad it felt like someone inside of me had a knife to my ribs. I moaned and grasped at my chest.
“Kale!” Cora yelled. She lunged forward and caught me. Captain Saunders slipped from my grasp, but Desmond reluctantly placed his arm under the captain’s shoulder to keep him upright.
“He wouldn’t have done the same for you,” he remarked.
There was no time to catch my breath. Cora and I joined Desmond in carrying the hefty captain and we set off toward the harvesting bay together. Our three exhausted pairs of legs were going to have to do. Up ahead I could see that the harvesting bay doors were open, but under the emergency lighting it’d be impossible for anyone inside to tell who we were until we were closer. None of us had the energy to call out over the alarms.
The attackers were just coming around the nearest corner when a group of Earthers finally recognized us and ran out. I’d never been more grateful for them. Their strong arms grabbed hold of all of us and took the weight of the captain off our limbs. Bullet fire clattered again right before we were heaved into the harvester bay. The blast doors sealed shut behind us and the ship’s alarms grew quiet.
—
Everyone in the harvesting bay stared while Cora, Desmond, and I crumpled to the floor, wheezing. I was relieved to finally give my legs a rest, but it still pained me to breathe. Cora was behind me, her arms wrapped around mine to keep me from tipping all the way onto my side.
A relatively equal split of Ringers and Earthers were present, only twenty or so altogether. The rest were either caught in the carnage outside, lying somewhere wounded, or dead. The Earthers who’d taken Captain Saunders from us carefully laid him on the floor in front of Doctor Varrick, who used a pile of dirty harvester rags to prop up his head.
Captain Saunders wasn’t exactly a friend, but we’d known each other for years. I couldn’t ever remember seeing him vulnerable. Blood trickled down the ends of his hair from a gash on his head, and Varrick was using the cleanest cloth he could find to wipe it off, his hands trembling.
“He’s still breathing,” Varrick said.
“What happened?” John questioned, glaring in our direction. He sat near the captain against a rack of canisters, bandage still wrapped around his skull.
“He got hit,” Desmond replied.
“You see who they are?”
Desmond shook his head.
“Soldiers, I think,” Cora said.
“Heavy armor…guns…” I panted. I pulled up my pants leg. There was a welt the size of a cherry on the back of my calf. “Nonlethal rounds.”
“Makes sense,” John said. “They don’t want to blow us all to bits.”
“Or they want us alive.”
“For what?”
All I could manage was a shrug. I had no idea if or why they’d want that. Worst-case scenario, I’d heard rumors of a black-market slave trade that went on in the asteroid belt where even the most influential corporations of the USF had trouble governing, and it could’ve reached Titan. Best-case scenario, we were being robbed of any gas we’d harvested and our robbers were being kind enough not to kill us. Though any group smart enough to locate a ship in the midst of Saturn’s stormy atmosphere should have been smart enough to wait longer than a few days into a harvesting shift to hit it for that.
“Des!” Yavik yelled. His eyes were bloodshot from salts. He shoved his way toward Desmond, pushing aside the Earthers. He offered to help his friend up, but Desmond seemed content on the floor.
“Lester?” Desmond asked.
Yavik frowned. “Too hungover to get up,” he said.
Desmond didn’t have a response.
“We’ve got to message for help,” John said. “Cora, are you okay?” For a moment it sickened me to think that he was pretending he cared about her after what he’d attempted in the galley, but then I remembered that as XO he was in charge with the captain unconscious. He needed her. Nobody else with enough knowledge of navigatio
n or communications appeared to have made it.
She nodded.
He gestured toward a control console that secondarily governed the harvesting machinery in case of malfunction. “Good. Get onto that control console and…” He lost his train of thought. His mask of composure slipped away, and it became clear he was as petrified as the rest of us. “See if you can contact anybody. Pervenio Station, another harvester…hell, a luxury cruise liner—anything!”
“I don’t know the com-systems that well,” she replied.
He pounded on a canister. “Just do it, dammit!”
If I wasn’t still so exhausted, I would’ve said something. Cora squeezed my arm to make sure I didn’t.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, smiling at me. It was a frail smile, barely noticeable, but it was enough to calm me. She released me and was helped over to the console by one of the less tired crew members. Once she was there, her fingers fluttered across the keys.
“How does it look?” John asked.
“Not well,” she replied as she continued to anxiously type away. “There’s another storm passing, and they’re infiltrating our systems from the command deck. Main communications are down. It’ll take some time to find a workaround.”
“Get it done.”
“I didn’t sign up for this,” said a Ringer sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees by the harvesting pumps. He was new to the Piccolo.
“None of us did, yet here we are,” Desmond said. He finally accepted Yavik’s help up. “Never thought I’d die with a bunch of stinking mud stompers.”
“Why don’t you come say that to my face!” one of the Earther guards barked.
Desmond stopped and turned around. He was still breathing so heavily I could see his chest heaving, but that didn’t stop him from jumping at a chance to fight. “Gladly. Then I’ll toss you out to those fucks. Bet the cap’n will do the same to us once he comes to, just to save his ass.”
“Watch your mouth, ghost!”
“Quiet, all of you!” John ordered. He used a rack of canisters to pick himself up. “Captain’s out, which means I’m in charge. Both of you, all of you, get to barricading the blast door. It might hold long enough for Cora on its own, but if it doesn’t we need to buy time. I don’t feel like dying in here with any of you shits.”
From Ice to Ashes Page 12