Children of Scarabaeus

by Sara Creasy

“Do you have my Pegasaw pegs?” he asked one day.

  “No. You threw them away.”

  “I wish I had them back. Now I only have the board and it’s no use without pegs.”

  “Perhaps you can make some more.”

  “If I tell Finn I’m sorry, maybe he’d make me some more.”

  “He can’t do that right now. I’m sure he knows you’re sorry,” she said, and he brightened a little.

  It was so easy to forgive a child anything.

  Each day that passed brought the Molly Mei one day closer to Falls Station. One day closer to saying goodbye to Finn. Except that she couldn’t say goodbye to a man who couldn’t see or hear or touch her.

  She’d made her choice. She would stand by the children, and that had to be enough.

  On the eleventh day, Lieutenant Vlissides had sobering news.

  “We’ve lost contact with Colonel Theron. He arrived at Scarabaeus six days ago and since then we’ve had four daily hails from his ship, the Plantagenet. Then…nothing for the past thirty hours. Central hasn’t heard from them either.”

  “Could there be trouble in the system?”

  “I doubt it. No one knows that planet even exists. Probably just a problem with the commsat. But I’m canceling our detour to Falls Station. We can’t afford a four-day delay. We’ll go directly to Scarabaeus instead. Our ETA is about twenty-eight hours.”

  “What about Finn and the others?”

  “That will have to wait. After we transfer you and the children to the Plantagenet, we’ll go back to Falls and drop them off. Can’t imagine the colonel will be anything but pleased when we arrive early.”

  Being woken up by sirens was unpleasant at the best of times. The accompanying screams of terrified children wasn’t exactly a welcome twist. Edie stumbled out of bed. On the bunk above hers, Pris was sitting up—the only one not making any noise. Galeon, on the other top bunk, was shouting questions and seemed more angry than scared. The screams came from the two younger girls, sharing the lower bunk.

  “See if you can calm them down,” Edie told Pris. “I’ll find out what’s happening.”

  Edie pulled on her boots, snapped the hatch, and headed toward the bridge. Private Gleick rushed past in the other direction, ignoring her. She couldn’t fail to notice his sense of urgency. She ran to the bridge. Through the open hatch, she glimpsed the hurried gestures of the crew as they punched consoles and exchanged curt questions and responses. Their manner reeked of a dire emergency. Vlissides paced the deck from one console to another.

  “What’s going on?” she called out.

  As if in response, the ship lurched sharply. Edie grabbed a panel on the bulkhead to keep her balance. The gravplating took a moment to stabilize.

  “We’re crashing into the planet, that’s what’s going on,” the engie screamed from his post behind the navpilot’s seat.

  Edie went onto the bridge. Vlissides had stopped at one of the workstations, his expression serious but not panicked.

  “No sign of the Plantagenet when we came through the jump node a few hours ago.” He barely glanced at Edie as he studied garish readouts and flashing telltales. “Then, as soon as we fell into low orbit around Scarabaeus, our nav guidance went haywire. We’re spiraling downward, can’t escape the gravity well.”

  “Can I help?” Edie said, certain she could not.

  He looked at her now. “Seems trouble follows you everywhere.” There was a resignation to his voice. “Is there something on that planet that could do this? I heard whispers that Theron was talking about an intelligence, crazy as it sounds. Well, something took over the commsat and used it to fuck up our systems.”

  Or someone. After hearing the way the children talked about that sim, Edie was prepared to entertain the idea of an intelligence. But it hadn’t evolved on Scarabaeus, she was sure of that. Those tangles of code weren’t O’Mara’s so-called emergent property. They were superimposed on the datastream—and badly. It was the work of a hacker, a trick of some sort. It had to be. They were being played. Now the game had become dangerous.

  Before she could voice her theory, the ship listed again and Edie was thrown against a railing on the walkway. It jammed painfully into her back.

  The junior milit—an op-teck and Vlissides’s fourth crew member—called from the other side of the bridge. “Sir! I’ve found the Plantagenet.”

  Vlissides covered the five strides to cross the bridge by grabbing onto railings and seats as the Molly Mei continued to roll and tilt. The op-teck showed Vlissides her holoviz while Edie peered over their shoulders from her vantage point on the walkway. The display, an aerial landscape captured by a drone, zoomed in on a rocky landscape. Scattered across a wide area were smoldering pieces of wreckage.

  “Damn. I’m guessing the same thing happened to them,” Vlissides said. “The commsat’s hijacked, so like us, they couldn’t even send out a distress call. No sign of their lifepods—must’ve happened fast.”

  “We’ve lost stabilizers!” yelled the engie. He turned frantically to Vlissides. “Once we hit atmo, the gravplating won’t hold.”

  “How long?”

  “If we can’t pull out of this…fifteen minutes.”

  “Too late to eject the lifepods into space, then. We’ll have to hit the dirt in them.”

  That was bad news. The stats for a lifepod surviving reentry and a hard landing weren’t good—the pods did a much better job sustaining life in space.

  Vlissides punched a series of commands into the console. The high-pitched siren changed to a lower, repeating horn. Edie had heard that before. “All hands, abandon ship. Five minutes.” He pointed at the engie. “Program the lifepods to land as close as possible to the crash site. We’ll rendezvous there and look for survivors from the Plantagenet.”

  The engie nodded, wild-eyed, and left.

  Vlissides hit his commlink. “Gleick, get the prisoners into lifepods.” He closed his hands around Edie’s shoulders. His skin felt clammy against the thin fabric of her tee. “You’re responsible for getting the children to the lifepods.” He indicated a side corridor outside the bridge. “Can you do that?”

  “Yes, of course. What about Finn?”

  “I’ll send someone to fetch the cryo capsule.”

  “Please…please don’t leave him behind.”

  “Get the children!”

  She hurried out while Vlissides gave more orders. Back in the cabin, the children were already pulling on sweaters and boots over their PJs. Despite a sheltered upbringing, their instincts for detecting impending disaster were fully functional.

  She herded them through the corridors to the lifepod bay. A small crowd had already gathered there. The engie, still checking the pods. Gleick, guarding Achaiah and Corinth. And—

  “Cat!” Edie was irrationally pleased to see her. The emotion was wildly out of place considering the situation.

  “Who the hell are all these kids?” Cat said, shrinking against the bulkhead to put some distance between them and herself.

  “Can you get them into a pod for me?” Edie said as the op-teck came running toward them from the bridge and started ordering people into pods. Vlissides and the navpilot would no doubt remain on the bridge until the last moment.

  So who was going back for Finn?

  CHAPTER 26

  Edie slipped away. She wasn’t about to let Finn die, helpless and unaware. Rushing into the cargo hold, she found it abandoned and blissfully quiet. That didn’t last. The ship shuddered and the engines made a terrifyingly unfamiliar whine.

  There was no one here to rescue Finn. No one had been sent—or whomever Vlissides had sent had ignored the order. The cryo capsule glowed green in the far corner of the hold. Surrounding it was a jumble of dislodged crates and equipment, some broken apart by the tumbling ship.

  Edie gave a cry of frustration as she pushed through the rubble. She couldn’t possibly clear a path for the capsule and drag it out in time. Once the ship hit atmo, it would be too la
te to eject the lifepods.

  There was nothing to do but try. Her hands fumbled at the brackets that held the capsule to the bulkhead. They released abruptly, and the frozen coffin slid a few meters along the deck until it crashed into a wall of crates. Edie climbed over it, dropped to the other side, and began to push.

  Her efforts were close to futile. The capsule was impossibly heavy and it caught on every damned ridge of the gravplating. She needed a gravlift or a pallet. Panic rose in her throat as she looked around for something she could use.

  Precious seconds ticked by. Edie returned to the cryo capsule and tried again. She pulled from the front this time, tugging upward on the leading edge to help the capsule over the ridges.

  A second pair of hands was suddenly beside hers. Tiny, white-knuckled hands.

  “Galeon! Get back to the lifepod!”

  “Pull harder! We can’t leave him.”

  “I won’t leave him. But you have to go back.”

  She released the capsule and grabbed Galeon’s arms to wrench him away. He fell onto his backside on the deck. She hauled him up and pushed him in the direction of the hatch.

  “Go on!”

  Galeon clambered back to the capsule. “Get him out of there. Wake him up!” He pounded on the window, as if Finn might hear.

  To do that safely would take an hour or more. “We don’t have time.”

  “Wake him up! Wake him up!” Galeon was near hysterical, his cheeks smeared with tears.

  He was right. Rapid emergence from cryosleep was dangerous, but it was Finn’s only chance. They’d never get this bulky capsule to the lifepods in time, even with more help.

  Edie pulled up the capsule’s holoviz to access the controls. The screen showed clear instructions on how to manually wake up the occupant, along with the recommended timeframe. She hit the switch to pump warm plasma into Finn’s blood, to replace the cryo fluids. Ignoring the warning beeps, she cranked it to max and then flipped open the catches around the lid. It slid aside, frustratingly slowly.

  Vlissides’s voice came over the shipwide comm. “Six minutes until we hit atmo. Report immediately to the lifepods.”

  She wanted to scream back at him that she needed help. Why had no one come to look for them? Surely they wouldn’t leave a child behind.

  “Hurry!” Galeon pushed on the lid’s edge. “Why hasn’t he woken up yet?”

  “It takes time.”

  Too much time. The readout showed Finn’s plasma replacement was less than two-thirds complete and his heart rate was deathly slow.

  Edie took hold of Galeon’s shoulders and crouched to his level. “Listen to me, Galeon. You have to go to the lifepods. I’ll get Finn out.” He shook his head emphatically. She tried a different tack. “I need you to find someone to help me. Get back up there and send someone.”

  “You find someone. I’m not leaving him.”

  Leaning into the cryo capsule, he pulled on Finn’s shoulders in a futile effort to haul him up. Finn remained unconscious, but Edie thought she saw his eyes move behind the lids. The plasma replacement was up to eighty percent. She touched his hand—it was ice cold. But his upper arm was merely cool, his face almost warm. His heart rate was up a little, too.

  An automated voice over the shipwide announced a five-minute warning.

  “We have to get him out of this,” Edie said. “Help me tip it.”

  Galeon followed her actions, hooking his little fingers under the side of the capsule, and together they lifted the edge to tilt it. Finn’s body rolled to the side of the chamber.

  “That’s it. Just a little more…”

  Edie wedged her shoulder against the side and gave it a hard shove. It tilted a few more degrees, and Finn rolled out. Galeon dropped his end and ran over, calling Finn’s name. Edie lowered her end more carefully, not wanting to damage the capsule while it was still attached to Finn. He lay sprawled facedown on the deck and connected to the capsule by an umbilical cord of wires and tubes running into the cuff on his forearm.

  “Finn, wake up, wake up, wake up!” Galeon yelled as he tugged on the leg of Finn’s pants.

  Edie leaned into the empty capsule and found the bag of IV fluid attached to the other end of Finn’s cuff. She peeled it off the inside chamber, complete with the tiny pump clipped to the edge. The monitoring wires were not portable—she ripped those out.

  She fell to her knees next to Galeon and jammed the IV bag into Finn’s belt. Then she lifted Finn’s arm over her shoulder and dragged him into a half-sitting position. His body was twisted awkwardly.

  “Finn—get up. Move!”

  She squeezed his trapezius muscle as hard as she could, her fingernails digging into his cool skin. The pain elicited a groan and he attempted to pull away. Edie kept a firm hold of him.

  “Get up, Finn. The ship’s going down. We have to get out of here.”

  He shook his head slowly, then sharply, as if to wake himself up. Leaning heavily on Edie, he pulled himself to his feet…and lost his balance. He collapsed to the deck. She helped him up again and kept up a string of encouraging words while Galeon echoed her in his high-pitched voice.

  They made it a few meters toward the hatch before he fell to the deck again. Over the shipwide came a three-minute warning. They would never make it.

  A shadow crossed the light spilling in through the hatch.

  “Hey! Help us!” Edie yelled.

  Whomever it was backed up and came inside. It wasn’t one of the crew.

  “Achaiah…”

  He stepped into the cargo hold, his pale blue eyes glowing in the emergency lighting.

  “The captain sent me to look for you.” He grinned charmingly. “Said he wouldn’t let me on a lifepod unless I came back with you.”

  “Well, you found us. Are you going to help?”

  “You and the boy, that’s who he told me to find.”

  “Help me with Finn.”

  Achaiah cocked his head slowly, as if that course of action hadn’t crossed his mind.

  “Damn it, Achaiah, we had to freeze him because of that detonator you made for Natesa. This is your fault. You owe him!” When Achaiah didn’t move, she felt despair close in. “Then take Galeon. Get him to safety.”

  Galeon tilted his pale face to her, his brow set stubbornly. Edie looked from him to Achaiah, waiting for some response. Something flickered across Achaiah’s face. It might have been remorse. Edie found the man incomprehensible. He’d done despicable things without ever giving a thought to the people he hurt, and he’d also shown moments of compassion. Those two sides seemed to war within him now.

  To her relief, he stepped forward and grabbed Finn’s arm. Edie took the other and together they hauled him up. Finn had enough wits about him to get his legs moving so they could drag him out.

  As the Molly Mei hurtled into the upper atmosphere, the gravplating destabilized. It switched on and off randomly, making them lurch and stumble. Galeon ran ahead, stopping frequently for them to catch up. Whenever Finn fell, Achaiah helped him up. The calm, impersonal voice on the shipwide gave them two minutes, and then, as they turned into the last corridor, one minute.

  Galeon bounded ahead. “This way—hurry!”

  They passed the bridge hatch. Vlissides backed out, reluctant to leave. He spun around at their approach.

  “Where the fuck were you?”

  “You said you’d send someone for Finn. Where were they?”

  “I sent Private Isaacson.”

  “Well, no one came.” Private Isaacson, the op-teck, had apparently chosen to disobey that order in the confusion.

  “Come on.” Vlissides swung Galeon into his arms and ran the last twenty meters to the lifepod bay, where two pods stood open. One was empty, while the other held the rest of Vlissides’s crew. A third pod had been ejected, and a quick headcount told Edie that Cat, Corinth, and the four children must be aboard. Cat must be overjoyed at that arrangement.

  An explosion ripped through the ship. Edie lost cont
act with Finn and tumbled out of control as the grav switched off, then slammed to the deck as it came back on. With a terrific wrenching sound, part of the corridor caved in and the bulkheads ripped open. Smoke filled the air.

  Vlissides was at her side in seconds. “Explosion in the engine room. The altitude stabilizers can’t handle the strain.”

  When he tried to help her, she pushed him away. “Help me with Finn.”

  He didn’t waste time arguing. Finn was nearby, unconscious again. They dragged him the last few meters to the empty lifepod and maneuvered him inside.

  “Strap yourselves in.” Vlissides turned to the other pod, the one with his crew. “Isaacson, eject,” he told his op-teck, and snapped shut the hatch.

  As Edie strapped in Galeon, she realized what was wrong. “Where’s Achaiah?”

  They both looked back down the corridor. Achaiah was on the deck, his legs trapped by a twisted piece of plazalloy paneling.

  Vlissides wavered. He looked at Edie, turned back to look at Achaiah, looked at Edie again. She knew they were both thinking the same thing.

  Is he worth it?

  She loathed Achaiah. She’d never forgive him. But…

  She stepped out of the pod, her body making the decision before her mind caught up. She and Vlissides ran back to Achaiah. While she lifted up the paneling, Vlissides pulled him out. His legs were a mangled bloody mess. Vlissides lifted him over his shoulders and staggered down the corridor. Edie supported him as best she could as the ship squealed and shook and began to break apart.

  They sealed themselves in the pod and it lit up under its own power. A holoviz bloomed out of a console near the hatch. The pod shimmied and jarred, and then the display showed it falling away from the ship.

  The lifepod had a med brace, little more than a strap to secure a patient to the floor. They had two unconscious pa tients before them. They’d just risked their lives for Achaiah, but he was in a bad way, bleeding heavily from gashes in his legs and other wounds in his torso that Edie hadn’t seen until Vlissides pulled open his shirt. His chest was a jumble of blood and bone that Galeon couldn’t stop staring at. Finn was pale and motionless and still had poisonous cryo fluids in his blood, but his chances in the next few minutes were better. Weren’t they? Edie had no hope of being objective about the decision. She hurried to secure Finn.