by Rob Boffard
She remembers the first time she went out in the Belt, remembers how difficult it was – and she’d had a whole month of training beforehand. You didn’t move like you expected out there. Everything was exaggerated. Every single movement had consequences.
Jack probably doesn’t know the specifics, but he’s got an idea, and it isn’t hard to see that he’s on the verge of freaking out. So she keeps an easy smile on her face, relaxes her shoulders as she helps him into his suit. It’s not as hard to do as she thought it would be. If they make it through this, she thinks, maybe she should consider politics, like Anita. Run for office somewhere.
If they make it.
They have no idea when the other ship is going to arrive – Roman couldn’t tell them, saying it was a decision that would have to be made by the commander, back at their outpost. They decided to get him and Jack ready, so they can leave as soon as it appears. This is going to be tricky – and not just for Jack.
For the thousandth time, she tries to think of a way she can take Jack’s place. She keeps coming up on that one thing: if they’re going to get to the other ship’s bridge, whoever is with Roman has to pass as military. She can’t.
Corey and Malik are still on the main deck, and Hannah has made her way to the cockpit, leaving only Everett, Anita, Jack and Roman in the bar. And Seema, of course, her body lying on the far side of the room. Thank God Lorinda doesn’t have to look at her.
Brendan is out, too. They talked about it, but decided to use the handcuffs that previously restrained Roman on him, rather than keeping him locked in a frigid bathroom. He’s sitting on the stairs, hands cuffed behind him. Everett is with him, gripping his upper arm. His eyes are bleary, wincing in pain every time he moves, his face a mangled, red mess.
He hasn’t said a word, and although he tried to fight them when they opened the bathroom door, they subdued him without too much trouble. Roman got him in a headlock, and Anita cuffed him. He got docile after that, too dazed to keep struggling.
Lorinda locks Jack’s right glove in place, while Roman busies himself securing the seals on his neck. His suit is still on, and, despite its bulkiness, he moves with an efficient, focused grace. Lorinda catches Jack’s eye. “Almost done,” she says, still smiling.
Jack nods, swallowing.
“Take me through it again,” Lorinda says to him.
“We’ve done it twice already.”
She doesn’t budge. “Again.”
Jack lifts his left hand, showing her the joystick module. “This controls where I’m facing. Up, down, side to side.” He taps the rocker switch on top of the stick. “Forward and backward.”
“Good.” She looks at him expectantly.
He sighs, eyes closed, as if trying to remember. “Gentle movements, I got it.”
“Yep. Short, controlled bursts on the thrusters. Everything you do out there is going to be magnified. Now what are you not going to do?”
“Move my arms?”
“Exactly. This isn’t like a swimming pool. You can’t—”
“I know that.”
She ignores him. “You can’t swim through it. Every movement you make is going to affect your attitude and your position. Eyeball your target – there should be a set of red lights above the airlock.”
She looks to Roman for confirmation, and he nods. “You listen to her,” he says, jerking his chin at Lorinda. “She knows what’s she’s talking about.”
“Yeah, well.” Lorinda checks Jack’s right glove seal, still not quite satisfied. “Forty years on the belt will do that to you.”
“You were a miner?”
“That’s right.”
“Helium-3?”
“Uh-huh.” She starts checking the other glove seal. “Some tungsten too, on occasion.”
“Knew a couple prospectors. Not an easy job.”
“We did OK.” She gives him a tight smile, then turns back to Jack. “Now you stay close behind Roman, but give him room to manoeuvre. Let him take the lead.”
She waits for him to respond. He doesn’t.
“Jack. Look at me.”
He looks at her.
“I’ll be there every step of the way.” She taps her ear. “Just listen to my voice on your comms. I can’t see your suit HUD, but I’ll be able to see you. If I tell you to do something, you don’t argue, you just do it. Got it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, OK. Sure.”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll be right behind you.”
The corners of Jack’s mouth twitch. “You’d better.”
Roman secures his neck seals. There’s a click-hiss as they tighten, making Jack wince. The soldier’s grey suit stands out in contrast to Jack’s white one, high-level military tech next to the cheapest, most cost-effective space solution that Sigma Destination Tours could afford.
Still, the story they’ve worked out sounds pretty plausible. The Resolute suffered a catastrophic engine failure, and Roman and Jack were the only ones to make it out. They took refuge in the Panda – which they’ll maintain they boarded, taking care of the passengers, a detail that made Lorinda uneasy.
Jack’s military suit was damaged, so he swapped it for one on board the Panda. He isn’t wearing the same military clothes as Roman, underneath the suit, but that’s something they’re just going to have to live with.
Roman looks towards the airlock, impatient. None of them are looking towards the back of the bar, so none of them see Seema stir, see her foot twitch.
“And when we’re on the bridge?” Roman says.
“What is it with you people?” says Jack. “I’m not five.”
Roman gives him a hard look.
Jack sighs. “Fine. I control our drift during the jump using the two sticks below the display. Reticle in the centre. Should be fine.”
“And?”
“And what?”
Roman waits.
“And,” Jack says, sounding annoyed, “it’s not always possible to get a read on how close we are to the edge of the bubble, just from reading the display. I have to watch for the vibration or we’ll be ripped right out of it. See? I got it.”
Roman speaks in a focused monotone. “Now, like I said, I won’t be able to help you. I’ll be on the other side of the bridge, working on the matter shielding. If you get into trouble, you’re on your own. Understand?”
“Wait!” Corey and Malik are at the top of the stairs, older brother supporting younger. Corey’s face is twisted in pain, his skin shiny with sweat. Lorinda blinks in astonishment. A second later, it’s replaced by an almost embarrassed warmth. He wants to be a part of it. His leg is smashed up, and he still wants to be here.
“Did you tell him about the thrusters?” Corey shouts.
“I did, dear, thank you.”
“Because if he doesn’t know to go easy on the—”
Seema explodes out from behind the bar.
Whatever trauma her body suffered has shut down her mind, turned her eyes red and unfocused. But her body is still working, stumbling, lurching, charging towards them, like a cornered animal lashing out. There’s muscle memory there, a thousand fights guiding her, and it gives her strength. Her feet thunder on the floor plates, and the noise is so startling that it locks everyone into place for a crucial half-second.
Roman reacts first, darting out from behind Jack. But at that moment, Brendan charges off the stairs, yelling his wife’s name.
His hands are still cuffed behind him, and at that moment Lorinda isn’t sure if he even knows what he’s doing. Roman tries to slip past him, but his suit makes the move awkward. He can’t get out of the way in time, and Brendan collides with him, sending them both crashing into the bar.
Corey yells in horror, as Everett scrambles to intercept Seema, Lorinda finds she can’t move. Can’t look away from those insane eyes. Sticky spittle dribbles out of the corner of Seema’s mouth.
She’s heading straight for Jack.
Lorinda reacts before she can think about it, stepp
ing in front of him, her only thought that they need the suit, that they’re finished without it.
Seema hits her with the momentum of a meteorite plunging through the atmosphere, bending her in half at the waist. Roman has got out from under Brendan, but he’s too far away to help. Lorinda crashes into Jack, Seema’s hands gripping the neck seal, twisting it –
For a second, the three of them are locked together, and Lorinda sees the room frozen. Corey and Malik at the top of the stairs, mouths formed in shocked Os. Confusion on Everett’s face. Roman and Anita reaching for Seema, not even close to catching her.
Then momentum rips all of them apart. Jack goes flying, skidding across the floor. Lorinda goes right over the top of him, slamming against the closed airlock door, the back of her head colliding with it.
There’s a pop, deep in her mind, like an overloaded fuse burning out. Things go soft, and dark, and silent.
Chapter 58
Everett gets to Seema a split second too late. She whirls, distracted, which is when Roman reaches round and snaps her neck.
It’s a single, quick motion, a jerk that owes more to careful placement than to raw strength. The sound is a grisly crack.
“No!”
It’s Brendan. He’s stumbling away from the bar, stunned fury on his face. Everett and Anita grab him, holding him in place. He’s so angry he nearly throws them off.
Hannah’s voice comes crackling over the ceiling speakers. “Hearing weird noises from down there,” she says, trying to sound casual and failing miserably. “Someone come give me a status update?”
Roman is clicking his fingers rapidly in front of Lorinda’s face. Her head is tilted to one side, her eyes closed, skin pale. Jack can see the beginnings of an enormous bruise feathering the edge of her hairline, just behind her ear.
“Nothing,” Roman says.
“What do you mean, nothing?” Anita is back on her feet, staring down in horror at Lorinda.
“No response.” Roman touches the bruise. “She’s had a TBI. If—”
“TB – what the hell is a TBI?”
Roman’s voice doesn’t change. “Traumatic brain injury.”
“Is she OK?” Corey shouts. He and Malik are still frozen on the stairs.
“How can you be so sure?” says Everett, still on top of the handcuffed Brendan.
Roman lifts Lorinda’s eyelid, exposing nothing but white. “She’s unresponsive to external stimuli. And this bruise? Here? Subcranial swelling.” He pops his glove, putting a finger to Lorinda’s neck.
“No pulse,” he says.
And that’s when Jack realises: he never checked that Seema was dead. No. That’s wrong. I …
He didn’t. He was going to, but his nose was a throbbing nightmare, his brain a mess of adrenaline. And he’d heard the crack when her neck hit the edge of the bar. No way anybody would survive that. He’d pushed the whole thing out of his mind, telling himself there was no point, his exhausted body eagerly complying.
His gaze lands on the airlock door, on the spot where Lorinda’s head hit it. The surface is actually dented, and there’s a tiny smear of blood nestled inside it. She’s gone. Because of him. Inside his suit, Jack starts to shake. He’s going to pass out, can already feel the blood draining out of his skull.
Anita has her hands on her head, fingers knotted in her hair. She glances back towards the stairs, remembering that her sons are there, and moves towards them. Corey is sobbing, Malik staring in stunned, uncomprehending horror.
“Someone talk to me,” Hannah says over the speakers. Her voice is no longer calm.
“What do we do?” Everett says to Roman.
The soldier shakes his head.
Everett looks at him like he’s gone insane. “We have to help her,” he says, speaking the words slowly, as if Roman is a child.
“It’s too late for that.”
“Don’t you dare say that. Don’t you d—”
“Hey.” Roman grabs Everett’s shoulder. “We can’t do anything for her. She’s got no pulse. Even if we were to relieve the pressure, even if she did somehow make it, we’re talking major brain damage. We do not have time for this, not when we need to be ready to go as soon as the other vessel shows up.” His tone softens, just a little. “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now, but if you don’t get it together, none of this is going to work.” He looks at Jack. “Are you five-by?”
“What?”
Irritation on Roman’s face. “Can you handle this?”
Jack doesn’t know how to answer that. Terror doesn’t begin to describe it. Lorinda was the only thing keeping him from breaking down completely, and now she’s gone. If he’d checked Seema like he meant to … but he wouldn’t have needed to if he hadn’t got Volkova –
It’s too much. Is he five-by? He can barely move.
But at the same time, there’s only one answer. The one Hec would have expected him to give.
He’s screwed up a lot of things in his life – most, if he’s totally honest with himself, and really, when has there ever been a better time to be honest, when they’re all this close to ending up as fucking space debris?
But he’s not going to screw this up. He can’t. Or, if he does, it’s not going to be because he got drunk, or didn’t work hard enough. It’s not going to be because he forgot to do something. Lorinda … she deserved better than that.
He’s not responsible for everything that’s happened to them. But he did make it worse. He can’t do that any more. He’s got to pull it together.
“I’m five,” he tells Roman.
“Five-by.”
“Fuck you.”
Chapter 59
Roman has always gone quiet before a mission.
He’d use the few minutes before deployment going over the briefing materials, gear checked and rechecked, infil points and exfil points. He’d withdraw into his own world, ordering his thoughts, putting everything in front of him like a field of neatly sown crops he could survey in a single glance.
What he hadn’t thought about – had never needed to – was that it only worked because every other operator around him was doing exactly the same thing. The dropship was always quiet. Nobody talking to each other. Just pure, clean focus.
He can’t do that here. Even before the events of the past two minutes, it was too loud. Too chaotic. He told the kid he’d help. Gave him his word. But is he really about to do this? Betray everything that’s kept him going.
He makes himself look at the boy. His brother is lowering him to the stairs, having been told by his mom to head up to the cockpit to tell Hannah what happened. Corey’s eyes meet Roman’s, and he makes himself hold them. Do it for him. Him, and Madhu.
Thinking of Madhu sets off the anger inside him, the tiny ball of hate pulsing in his gut. He ignores it, makes himself move, checking Jack’s suit, running his fingers along the seams and the pack.
Without even looking, he can feel something is wrong. He leans over Jack’s shoulder, squinting at the data readouts on top of the pack. “We’ve got a problem.”
“What do you mean?” Jack says, trying to twist his head to look where Roman is looking.
“Here,” he says, running his fingers along the neck seal. “Your seal’s torn. And the pack’s readouts aren’t right. I think something inside got jogged loose.”
“Can you fix it?” Jack asks.
“I can,” says Everett. He still looks like he wants to pass out, but he moves with purpose, striding across the bar.
“Ev?” Anita checks Brendan’s cuffs one more time, then springs after him. “What are you doing?”
Roman frowns at him. “You’ve worked on suits?”
“No. But I’m good with my hands. If I can get inside …”
“Just let him do it,” Anita says, pointing to Roman. “He’s the one going out there. We need to look after the boys. You—”
Roman is about to tell her that he’s no suit tech, when Everett turns around and
grabs his wife by the shoulders.
“Anita,” he says. “You’re the most brilliant woman I’ve ever met. You’re great at your job, and you’re an incredible mom. I love you and our boys more than life itself, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. But right now, you need to let me work. You need to look after Corey and Malik, and watch Brendan, and let me fix this suit.”
“Ev …” Anita can barely form the word. She’s crying now, tears running down to the corners of her mouth.
He hugs her tight. “I know.”
At that moment, Hannah’s voice bursts through the speakers. This time, there’s no disguising the raw panic in it.
“Ship!” she says, shouting so loud that her voice distorts. “We’ve got a ship! Far away but closing fast.”
A ship. Almost certainly the Victory. Hayes, tired of waiting for his team to return from their mission. Decided to burn another jump core, figure out what went wrong.
Rodriguez would be on that ship. His squadmate, the one who’s fiancée had been blown to pieces at Bellatrix. Hayes had selected him as part of the backup team. Roman’s mouth is suddenly very dry.
It’s not just his own revenge he’s turning his back on here. What would Rodriguez do, if their positions were reversed? Would he have gone down so easily?
“I can’t do this,” says Roman.
“What are you talking about?” Corey is staring at Roman like he’s gone insane, tears still tracking down his cheeks. Everett comes to a halt, almost tripping on the stairs.
Roman hangs his head. “You’re asking me to betray my …”
He can’t finish. He was going to say friends, but that’s not right. The people on the Resolute, and on the Victory, aren’t friends in a traditional sense. They aren’t even a unit – just a group of individuals with the same axe to grind. But he knows what every single one of them is going through, has felt it every day for the past decade. He can’t turn on them. He can’t.
He looks over at Corey, as if the boy will have the answer. Corey just stares back at him, mouth slightly open.