by M. ORENDA
If she succeeds, it’s likely she’ll remain a target. The same people who attacked a base, who attacked a cruiser, would welcome the opportunity to wring additional intel out of a smuggler who can’t fight back. And she couldn’t be that hard to find, operating on a limited map of illegal clients and deliveries.
The knowledge refuses to settle. Rather, it rips a hole in his gut, as the man who has always, for some reason, survived the battles that others didn’t.
“You have somewhere to go after this?” he asks, bringing her gaze back. “Somewhere you’d be hard to find?”
Her expression darkens, thin brows furrowing. “Does your executive have such? Towers of Fort Liberty are made of thin shielding, clear as glass, because of the oh-so-pretty view of red plain. My kind’s used to what destruction might be wrought upon us through greed, or lust for power. Your masters are used to getting their way all the time. They’re not prepared for this kind of warfare, up-close and personal. This executive of yours is DOA, no matter what transpires between us and one particular striker.”
“You’re worried about my ‘executive’ now?”
“You’re surviving on the low, only you’re not so good at it.”
“Oh.” He smiles. “So you’re worried about me.”
She stops on that, like she didn’t know that she was, or didn’t think he’d figure it out. Her eyes narrow, fixed on him in hostile admission. “Now you’re just trying to piss me off.”
“No.”
“Then don’t you think it’s time for truth? What kind of human attracts this much mayhem? No one in Red Filter’s worth the trouble, all data secure, all functions redundant. All those executives who got blown out into space have already been replaced by others just as special, I promise you that. No one they can’t do without. So who the hell you got in that cabin?”
Voss nods, acknowledging her right to ask. “Better to focus on the threat.”
“Do you even know what they got you into?” she asks, anger straining the words, making her sound vulnerable. “You could’a burned to death. Could’a been you and your team screaming to be let out of those cruiser compartments.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Still could be. Your team, my crew, all of us.”
“No,” he says, as if he’s talking to a fresh kid on his team, a recruit who doesn’t know better than to chase the rabbit, allow fear to define the environment. “We’re not going to let that happen. This is a different scenario. We expect an attack. We have the advantage of knowing they’re coming.”
She looks pained, as if the divide between soldier and smuggler has never been wider. “Just tell me it’s worth it. Look at me and tell me that I’m risking this ship, good people and good profit, for one of those honorable causes that Assaulters so famously defend. Tell me it’s not all for nothing, some idiot in a white suit, high on greed. Tell me this isn’t going to end with you getting killed the minute you cross into red sky, after all the trouble you’ve been.”
He hesitates, not sure how to take… any of that.
But then she reaches out, her fingers tentative, tracing the scars that root their way through the light growth of his beard, veins of white through silver. And he feels it. Human contact, as raw as it gets, in the thin, frozen air of a metal cockpit, the empty burn of worlds glinting through its flight shield.
He doesn’t move, but she does, close enough for him to feel the warmth of her breath, the nudge of her lips against his. It’s a Petra kind of kiss, its softness edged with her particular brand of fire, impatient, demanding.
Not a goodbye kiss, though maybe she’d thought it would be. It’s electric, filling his blood, provoking the need she’s only teased at before. It hits him in the gut this time, hooking him with this lush, open-mouthed kiss so sexual he can feel in his groin. Damn, Petra…
The woman isn’t subtle. She tugs at his shoulders and he slides one arm around her, pressing her up against him. He hears her breath catch and knows he’s got her, knows how good he could make it for both of them, if there’d been time…
“Col?” Wyatt’s voice calls from the corridor.
Petra pulls out of reach, swearing, at herself, or at him… he isn’t sure.
Voss blinks, breathing hard, taking a second to let her go. “In here.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt replies, as if he might have known that. “Gojo’s getting some tools, be here in a sec. I, uh… ”
“Came right down,” Voss finishes for him. “Good.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt’s tone brightens. “So where is the lovely lady?”
“What?”
“The gun.” Wyatt says, enthusiastic. “Heard you found a new girlfriend for me, and she’s got seven barrels.”
Interior lights go red. And it comes, a shudder through the ship’s metal skin. Ladders vibrate. Light panels rattle. The air itself is trembling with it… all three accelerators cycling up to full burn. Petra grabs for the closest rung in the cargo hold, heavy thrust mimicking the effects of gravity, able to yank bodies back toward walls, hurl unsecured items across compartments.
It kicks in. and suddenly she’s time-and-a-half her weight, thrown toward the panels and left dangling, one boot scuffing at a shining metal rung. She grits her teeth and finds footing, sliding both boots onto the ladder with an extra thirty kilos of drag to lift all the way to the flight deck.
Crew members are now waiting in the two largest evac units, shuttles attached to the cargo hold and packed with the richest merchandise. She passes one airlock, then another, and sees them all staring out at her, squeezed into slim suits between cases of rare gemstones, relics and vodka—and unhappy about it—nothing to say as she heaves herself up another rung.
Captain fucked up big… that’s all they know.
She climbs toward the tube, hot in the suit and breaking a sweat.
The ascent’s got the look of nightmares, narrowing to a tight cylinder bathed in red light. A pathway once like home, always drifted through without thought, is now surreal, a crushing ladder… an organized life disintegrating with the sparkle of caution indicators.
It comes in pieces, in the heat, in the glow, a flash of Voss’s smile, like nothing in the world’s gonna go wrong. In that one kiss, in what already seems like last moments, as if she’s looking back on a life of pain, and looking forward into the nothing and that’s the thing she’s choosing to face it with.
There are other memories, brighter, closer to the heart, but burdened by such loss as can’t be faced… so it’s the idea of an Assaulter which brings the courage.
Just so, and no regrets…
She grits her teeth, pulling up past compartments, all powered down except for the Assaulter cabin, which sits in the thrum with its hatch still closed, the VIP executive not moved to an evac shuttle, despite the danger.
The personal comm on her collar hisses, followed by Clara’s voice pitched through the device’s tiny speaker. “Will you move on that ladder? Like double what you’re doing? We got sightings.”
“Sightings of what?”
“What do you think?”
Petra sucks in a breath, so sharp it feels like panic, and grabs the next rung.
Clara’s strapped into the seat, cheeks flushed with color, gloved fingers awkward along the console. Data streams in blue—messages through light comms—and she’s sorting through them, switching between feeds with a curse. The suit’s too tight, in too many places, restricting her movement, forcing a hiss as she reaches across the control panel.
“Where is it?” Petra asks.
Clara shakes her head, her eyes locked on the screens. “Captain Rico’s one position back on the grid, says he saw something right after the attack.”
“And he’s just now announcing it?”
“Wanted to be sure. Only being discussed on the low, ‘cause there’s no admitting of a striker on official channels… though all the laser cannons at grid checkpoints are supposedly powering up, so what does that say?”
&nb
sp; “Says the NRM knows that cruiser wasn’t hit by a rock,” Petra replies, grabbing her own suit from one of the wall cabinets. A slim suit is a wrestling match in zero G, but easy enough to pull on with years of practice and a sudden dire motivation. She jams her legs in the stiff fabric, yanking the damn thing up over her shoulders.
Clara watches, still talking. “Yeah, only those cannons are not of much help, with the closest checkpoint in red orbit. We’re on our own.”
“So what’s Rico saying?”
“Saying it looks like a debris field, or ice chunks, in holo—not on an intersect path—so it gets filtered out by the system… so no one sees it. But older systems like ours, you can mess with. You can disable the filters, and so it shows up on holo. Look up.”
Petra lifts her gaze to the holo grid, which is now a liquid sheet of light stretched above her. The spherical rings of Midstation are behind them, with a few small ships between, and some sailing along flight path ahead. And then, running parallel, there’s a blurry cloud. It’s star-shaped, with what looks like several pieces clustered together, racing fast up the grid.
It’s close.
It’s almost on top of them.
Clara shakes her head, a tremor in her voice. “Rocks don’t move that fast. We’re at full burn, and it’s accelerating to come alongside us. That thing is man-made. It’s closing starboard, on a non-intersect path.”
“Change our path.”
“Yeah, I’ve—”
The alarms sound, a reeling blare from the ship wide intercoms. The grid flashes red, collision object detection warnings… too late.
“Projectiles incoming,” Clara says. “We’re getting shot at.”
No way a machine like that fires a dumb round. We’re getting hit—a missile?
“Lock your helmet,” Petra orders.
“I can try to outrun it.”
“Which’ll do nothing but jeopardize evac. Lock your helmet, cut engines, and launch crew shuttles. Now.”
Clara grabs her suit helmet and locks it into her collar, swearing in a ruthless streak as she initiates engine shut down, flipping switches to close the crew shuttle airlocks and launch the cargo units.
Petra presses the key for the ship wide intercom. “Incoming. Close suits. Lock helmets. Brace for impact. Voss, do you copy?”
A second. “Copy.”
“I’m getting your exec. Tell your man inside Cabin Two to follow me to the evac shuttles. Make sure that gun is hot when I get there.”
“I’m coming up.”
“No, you are not.”
“Captain—”
“Helmet on, switch to comm three.” Petra locks in her own helmet, the reflection of the grid splashed bright across her visor. One small hiss, and the suit’s life support powers up, projecting the head’s up display and scrolling through lines of system checks.
“Two minutes to impact,” Clara says, already out of her seat. “Proceeding to armed evac unit.”
“Go.”
“You coming?”
“Right behind you.” Petra reaches back into the wall cabinet and draws out her personal firearm, slipping it into a zippered suit pocket in case she’s picked up by a striker crew and has got no other form of greeting.
Engine thrust shuts down, acceleration dropping to nil, pulling them both into weightless air. Clara grabs for the ladder and sails down the tube.
Petra follows, stopping by the Assaulter cabin.
She keys her master code into the compartment’s keypad. The hatch unlocks and slides back… and there he is… the fourth Assaulter. Younger than others, and out of his element, teeth bared behind the visor of his helmet. He’s under strain, equipment roped to his waist, his arms locked tight around… a girl.
A girl.
A half-starved Earthbounder, drugged, feverish, or both, clawing at her helmet and screaming, putting up as much fight as she’s able. “Leave me! I am not yours to take, not yours to force! Leave me!”
Force.
As in prisoner.
As in held against her will by four men.
Petra glares at the Assaulter, who concedes this with a grimace, like he’s not proud of it, like looking her in the eyes is a special kind of torture.
Voss… you…The rage is instant, welling up from places which have got no control, no reason.
The tube jolts, metal tearing apart.
Sparrow’s hit. Petra grabs tight to the rungs as the flight deck shreds away on a bright clap of fire, tearing the tube open to the nothing. The vacuum sweeps in, drowning collision alarms, vaporizing moisture to the glitter of ice crystals.
The ship is spinning, its rotation sweeping them up against the walls. Breach locks activate. One hatch seals the tube at the damage point. Emergency power engages, light flickering through the panels.
The Assaulter’s kept himself and the girl just inside the compartment, and now he propels them both out, dragging his prisoner and pushing Petra down the tube. She skims along one wall, half-floating, no right-side up, or upside-down, just the struggle to move against the force of spin.
The Assaulter drops down and pushes her again, his message clear. Grab onto anything, kick anything, drag, roll… just move.
Yeah, like I was gonna.
She grabs onto the rungs and regains control. She slips out of the tight passage and into the weightlessness in the cargo hold, where she’s touching no walls. The Assaulter comes after, plunging into the open space and grasping for handholds, the girl thrashing against him.
“Incoming.” Clara’s voice in the comm, proof that she’s now sitting at her station in the armed evac shuttle. “Object on collision.”
“Almost there.”
“The thing’s headed straight for us.”
Petra curses, grabbing the Assaulter by the collar and pushing off a crate, flying across the distance with him and the girl in tow. The walls of the cargo hold rotate around them, rolling in violent arcs, flashing with silent alarms.
“Incoming,” Clara’s voice is tight.
“Launch your shuttle before impact.”
“This is before impact. Not going to launch this shuttle without—”
Another jolt in the metal. The hull compacts. Bulkheads crumple inward, shearing panels, vapor misting through crushed pipes. The Sparrow goes pitch black, waiting for the last blow.
Lost in the cold.
“Petra.” Voss is there, a voice in the darkness.
Petra’s without words, time frozen, heart stopped in her chest.
“Petra,” he says again. “Shuttles are intact. Are you close?”
Are you close? Shuttles are intact.
“Close.” It’s all she can say, all she can think. “Light.”
Her helmet light activates, releasing a spray of white in the cold.
The young Assaulter, with girl, is holding onto a cargo net nearby, his visor reflecting the glare. She signals and he rights himself. He grabs onto a crate then pushes toward her through the air, following as she navigates the ladder ways, emerging in the maintenance corridor between the remaining evac shuttles.
Voss is there. He’s heading for her, and might still be of great help, if that didn’t happen to be the exact opposite of her plans.
She draws her firearm and squares it on his chest. “I’m taking her.”
Voss keeps his expression calm. Petra’s too far away to rush, and the dynamics of zero gravity combat, gun included—in a ship that’s quickly disintegrating—puts nothing in his favor. And she’s lost… eyes bright with anger, trauma he can’t touch… something that goes way back. A reaction to the girl, to a helpless person, to the ship coming apart… he doesn’t know.
In short, this woman might shoot him.
“Don’t do this,” he says, knowing it’s not enough. “You don’t understand.”
“Does the gun loader work?”
“Yes.”
“Then get your other two men and get into the other shuttle. Not my shuttle. The other one. This
young Assaulter and the girl… they stay with me.”
“We can’t separate.”
“Oh?” The gun in her hand doesn’t tremble, its black muzzle staring him down, far colder than the woman holding it. “Then we’re all going to die just sitting here. Striker crew knows this is the ship, and they’ll blast us to the last shred of scrap. For what? For a girl? A girl you kidnapped? You’re drugging her, aren’t you? What else have you done to her?”
“We saved her life,” Voss answers forcefully.
“Like you saved mine?” she snaps back. “Get into the other shuttle.”
“Incoming!” The pilot’s voice cuts off his reply. “Brace!”
There is no choice now. They can live through this in two shuttles, or they can die in a standoff as the ship bursts apart. Voss’s team, the girl, and Petra herself are all in the balance… fight now, or save their lives under whatever terms.
Voss backs away from her. “Gojo! Wyatt! Into the second shuttle now! Logan, stay with the Captain.”
“Yes, sir,” the kid answers, accepting both the order and its implied meaning. Wait to act.
Gojo and Wyatt push from one hatch to another behind him, and he follows, pausing to watch Petra move into the armed shuttle. She ushers Logan, with Niri, through the hatch and lowers her sidearm.
Then she looks at him, a look that could have a thousand meanings, though what he sees is the harsh weight of a decision made, that moment just before important things are lost.
She disappears, and the airlock closes.
Cursing, he ducks into the remaining shuttle.
Gojo is already strapped in.
Wyatt’s sitting in one of the pilot’s chairs. “Something you said?”
The Sparrow lurches to the side, another hit tearing into its hull.
“Go.” Voss slides into the next seat.
Wyatt flips up the switch guard and hits the button. The airlock seals shut. Rockets fire. They blast forward, streaking out from the shadow of the Sparrow with debris scraping over the flight shield.