They were dead if they stayed. They were dead if they left.
Thumping started on the other side of the breach door, near the manual lock. Then came the distinctive whine of a cutter. Their pursuers were pulling off panels, trying to reach the override.
Roystan fused the override lock on the airlock she’d installed. Josune smiled grimly. No one was going to bypass that. It gave them a second level of protection the company men wouldn’t expect. They didn’t know it was there.
Could they use it?
“How far out before we can nullspace?” she asked Roystan.
“A thousand kilometers.”
They’d never do it. Not with two ships sitting fifty-one kilometers out. They had to get past those ships before their enemy realized The Road had moved. As soon as Roystan fired his rockets they’d know he was ready to move, and as soon as he moved away from the docking station they’d attack.
Fifty-one kilometers wasn’t far.
What if the initial boost of speed didn’t come from The Road?
What if Roystan didn’t fire his rockets until after he passed the company ships?
What if he didn’t move away from the docking station until after he’d passed them either?
The spur was weak, easy to break. Put some decent rockets between it and the station, and it would blast out a hundred kilometers before anyone realized what had happened. The Road could then fire its own rockets and split away, leaving the spur as protection between them and the company ships.
It would give them time. Not much, but it might be enough, and Roystan was an experienced pilot.
The airlock—her airlock—would give her time to blow the spur and get back onto the ship before The Road split.
Josune reached for her tools, then remembered she didn’t have them.
“Lend me your handheld.” When you didn’t have a comms-link of your own, having someone who carried around a portable device was useful.
He handed it over.
“Carlos.” Carlos was hovering at The Road’s entrance. “Bring me a toolkit. The one at the airlock there.” Otherwise Carlos would run and get her own. He knew how particular she was about her tools. “And hurry.”
“You think you can hit nullspace in under a minute?” she asked Roystan.
“Yes.” No hesitation. “But they’ll fry us long before that.”
Josune smiled. She loved his confidence. And his realism. “Can you detach from the Hub in that same minute?”
He looked back to The Road. “There’s an emergency detach. It takes twenty seconds. I could have Jacques or Carlos ready.”
“Good.” She looked at the spur and did a quick calculation. “How many rockets have we got?”
“Twenty.” Roystan knew his cargo better than Jacques did.
Josune called Jacques. “Jacques, bring me ten rockets.” She’d have preferred to use them all, to get more speed, but the company would be through the breach door long before she could set up all twenty.
She snatched the kit from Carlos and pulled out the Insta-Hold, the glue designed for emergency repairs. It set instantly and held everything.
She used Insta-Hold around the breach door.
“Like that’s really going to stop them,” Carlos said. “They’ve got a cutter.”
“Sometimes an extra minute is all you need.” She thought she’d get five.
“Carlos, take Snow and help Jacques with the rockets. We need them yesterday.” She turned to Roystan and Nika. The modder had been silent throughout.
“I’m going to blow the spur off the station,” Josune said. “They’ll be watching your jets to see when you take off. The explosion will propel the spur away from the station. It will make The Road hard to control.” She grimaced. “That can’t be helped. Those ships out there will lose a minute while they try to work out what’s happened. As soon as the spur is between you and the ships, you fire the jets and Jacques and I will push the emergency release. It won’t give us much time, but it should be enough.”
Roystan looked at Snow and Carlos, running out with the rockets. She saw the struggle on his face as he looked at her, and thought he was going to argue, but didn’t. Instead, he clapped her on the shoulder.
“I like the way you think, Josune.” His face was gray and shiny with a sweat that didn’t go with the words. He nodded to Nika. “Let’s get ready for the bumpiest ride of our life. I hope you haven’t lost any of those calibrator skills. That gauge is going to swing.”
Josune was glad he didn’t argue. Roystan was the best pilot they had. If anyone could get them through this, he could. Each to the best of their abilities.
Roystan didn’t go far. He came back with a space suit. “Suit up, Josune.”
Josune opened her mouth to argue.
“No time to be stupid. Anything could go wrong. Let’s cover all bases.”
The suit would make things that much clumsier, but she put it on.
“Don’t forget to show Jacques how to detach.” The worst thing would be to do all this and then find they couldn’t detach the spur before nullspacing. They couldn’t nullspace with the spur attached to The Road. The flexible corridor would whip all over the place, turning their ship into a tumbling, out-of-control nightmare. The stresses from the whiplash would pull the ship apart.
“Will do,” she said, but she hardly heard him. There were so many other things to do.
“Snow, can you work the cannon?”
“Sure. Turn it on now?” Snow asked. “The heat signature.”
“Good thought. Wait until we start moving.” If the company ships had any weapons detection system at all—and it would—they’d recognize the cannon as soon as it came on. They’d react to that.
A minute wasn’t enough to warm a cannon properly, but it would make them pause. Maybe long enough to nullspace without needing to fire the thing.
She didn’t watch them go. Rockets next.
Roystan’s voice came through on the communicator. “Nika and I are on the bridge. Ready when you are.”
“I’ll let you know the moment I’m inside.”
She set the rockets with speed. This was practical engineering. Velocities, force, mass, trajectories. She’d used rockets before. Never to tear two pieces of metal apart, but the physics was sound.
The insistent whine of the cutter added a high-pitched urgency to her work. She kept an ear out for it, for when it stopped it meant they had broken through into the controls. Then she’d only have the precious minutes afforded by the Insta-Hold to trigger the rockets.
The breach door was a buffer between the spur and the station. If the spur broke away, the door would close. Josune’s airlock would seal the air in the passageway up to the ship. If the door was forced open before the spur broke away, she’d kill everyone in that part of the station.
Which would have been fine if it had just been company men, but it wasn’t.
The cutter stopped. Seven rockets set and she was out of time.
It would have to be enough.
Josune ducked inside her airlock and closed it. “Triggering the rockets in . . .” She watched the lights on the door. “Three. Two. One.”
The force from the blast knocked her off her feet. She bounced against the airlock she’d just closed.
She struggled to her feet against the pressure of the acceleration, and ran for The Road. It was like trying to run uphill against a strong gale.
The whine of the plasma cannon warming up was comforting in her ears. Snow was fast, or cocky, or both. She smiled grimly.
The company wouldn’t be expecting plasma. It would make them pause.
“Hurry up,” Jacques called.
She made it, although she wasn’t sure she would.
“You took your time.”
“You try running against an accel
eration like that. In a suit.” She could hardly get the words out. But she was glad to be inside. “Ready to disconnect from the spur,” she told Roystan, through the link, as Jacques closed the airlock.
Did he even understand what she’d said?
“Jets ready.”
“Do your thing, Jacques.”
Jacques pulled the emergency bar down.
Nothing happened.
* * *
• • •
Jacques stared at the handle.
“Jets ready,” Roystan said again.
If Roystan didn’t fire his jets in the next minute they’d lose their window to escape.
“The disengage is sticking,” Josune said. “Fire anyway, Roystan. I’ll clear it while you’re accelerating.” She couldn’t clear it from here, but Roystan didn’t have to know that. She’d have to go outside the airlock to do it. “It’ll be rocky for a minute.”
The spur was bucking under the combined forces of the rockets, each component reacting to its own forces and stresses. If she didn’t get out there and clear it, the oscillations would tear the ship apart before they could nullspace.
“But how—”
The distinctive crackle of a plasma burn hit the side of the ship. Lights went out. Emergency lighting came on.
“Fire those damn jets.”
Josune pulled the handle up. “I’ll have to go out to reset it,” she told Jacques. “As soon as I give the word, you pull that handle. Understand?”
He nodded.
She recycled the airlock and was glad of the battery backup, for they had no power to this part of the ship.
The oscillations were making her giddy. She swallowed the reflux and kept her mouth shut so she wouldn’t lose the contents of her stomach.
Through the speaker helmet she heard Roystan, talking to his ship. “Come on, girl, you can do this.”
At least, she thought he was talking to the ship.
The twisting spur knocked her off her feet. She rolled partway down the passageway before she righted herself, and finally thought to turn on the magnets in her boots to stop flying any farther.
Too much precious time lost.
“What’s keeping you?” Jacques demanded.
She inched back to the airlock, one hard-won meter at a time.
“Josune.”
She almost didn’t recognize it as Jacques’s voice.
“It’s rocky out here.”
She heard the distinctive splat of fire from a plasma cannon hitting the ship. She imagined she could smell the nose-searing plasma burn, even though she knew she couldn’t.
“Josune!”
“Got it.” The latch had hooked. She hammered it up, clumsy in the suit, but she had enough grip on the wrench to apply the pressure required. A pity she didn’t have her own suit. The tools were built in on that.
The latch sprang free.
Tearing part of the outer metal of the airlock away with it.
Josune reached for the emergency foam in the suit to plug the hole. It was instinct, because the last thing she needed to do was add in any way to what was keeping the spur attached to the ship. “Jacques. Pull the release. Now.”
If she opened the airlock she’d kill Jacques, who wasn’t wearing a suit, and Snow and Carlos, for they were in the same section of the ship. No one had time to suit up.
She might as well already have been in the deep of space. She was so cold. But she’d calmed now, an icy calm that matched the imaginary ice creeping into her fingers and toes.
She opened a channel to Roystan, trying not to think about what she was about to do. “Start the nullspace sequence. Jacques will disconnect in a moment.”
“I have never been so glad to.” Roystan sounded as if his teeth were gritted.
Josune smiled. “You’re the best pilot I know.” She cut him off when she heard the nullspace alarm. “Jacques. Come on. Push that release down. Now. Otherwise everyone will die.”
Snow and Carlos whooped in her other ear.
“Got him,” Carlos crowed.
Roystan was a good pilot. He’d keep the others alive.
Silence from inside.
“Jacques,” Josune said. “The airlock’s damaged. I can’t get back in. Everyone will die if you don’t pull that lever down.”
More silence.
Josune silently counted down with the nullspace alert. Twelve. Eleven. Ten.
In the short time she had left of her own life, what could she do to help the others stay alive?
“Jacques. Put on a suit. Don’t open the airlock until everyone is in suits. Tell Carlos the outer airlock door is gone. He’ll know what to do. Just press that damn lever down.”
18
NIKA RIK TERRI
A splat vibrated through Nika’s body. An electrical pulse, but it sounded like someone slinging mud against the side of the ship. Was that even possible in space?
Ship metal screamed and an acrid odor filled the bridge.
Light blossomed on the screen in front of them.
Snow, breathless. “We hit one. I can’t tell the damage.”
“Start the nullspace sequence. Jacques will disconnect in a moment,” Josune said over the link.
“Thank God,” Roystan muttered, and reached for the nullspacer controls. “I have never been so glad to enter nullspace. Ready, Nika?”
“Wait.” It was Jacques, so panicked Nika didn’t recognize his voice for a moment. “Josune lied. She’s still outside.”
Roystan’s hands hovered over the nullspacer.
“Roystan,” Josune said through the link. “If you don’t jump, you’ll kill everyone on the ship. I’m in the spur. I’m safe.”
The countdown behind them continued. “Eight. Seven.”
Another splat against the side of the ship. The other side this time. More metal screamed. The pulse went through their bodies again. What sort of damage did a pulse like that do to human cells?
“That was close to me.” Josune sounded calm. “They’re strafing, and they’ll hit the spur next. That will kill me. Don’t hang around and get everyone else killed as well.”
“Three. Two.”
“You’re cutting it close.”
“Jacques. Do not. I repeat, do not push that lever.” Roystan shoved the controls down.
Nika kept the calibrator right on the line.
Nullspace rippled, with the usual mind-numbing colors that your brain couldn’t get around. But this time they tumbled end over end, until even the calibrator became a crazy kaleidoscope of colors. Nika focused on the line. Narrowed her gaze until there was nothing but the line. Until finally she couldn’t even do that.
19
JOSUNE ARRIOLA
Josune was flung around the spur. End over end over end.
Roystan had nullspaced. Thank God for that, but Jacques hadn’t disengaged the spur. Roystan had no control over the ship. Nika wouldn’t be able to calibrate. Who knew where they’d come out? Who knew what they’d hit when they did come out?
She hit the wall of the Hub again. The twelfth time. Not that she was counting, but her suit was.
“Tear in the left sleeve,” the suit told her.
In the psychedelia of nullspace she didn’t even understand what it had said, but her subconscious did. She increased the magnet strength in her boots and latched on to the nearest metallic surface. She’d repaired the suit before she realized she’d done it.
They exited nullspace. From her position of relative safety against the wall, she could see that the spur was hanging on only by the lock Jacques hadn’t released. He should have. It would shear off soon, and the resulting loss of force would send The Road far, far out of reach. A body in space was tiny. Impossible to find.
No time to think.
She fired her jets.
And prayed to any gods who might be listening as she moved with speed toward The Road.
The spur broke away.
The ship accelerated.
Josune increased her jets to full power.
She wouldn’t catch it.
20
NIKA RIK TERRI
They came out of nullspace.
A grinding sound could be heard over the whole ship. Then the ship ride smoothed.
“No.” A cry from Roystan. His fingers flew over the boards. There was a flash of orange, followed by a reverse thrust so hard it pushed Nika back into her seat. Another orange flash.
She kept the calibrator steady, not even sure if he wanted that or not.
Reverse. Forward. Reverse. Forward. Each one pushing her back into the chair. Then releasing the pressure so she was almost floating. Less and less each time, until she could feel the pattern of the thrusts.
Roystan was piloting by feel—and maybe instinct—for there was no way he could have calculated what he did. Or waited for the ship to calculate it for him.
Eventually the ship stopped. As stationary as a ship this size ever could be in space when it wasn’t tethered to a larger object.
Roystan stood up. Grabbed a bag out of a locker on the side of the console. Threw up into it.
Nika put a hand to her own mouth, stifling the gag reflex and her body’s memory of the gyrations it had just been through.
He handed her another bag, one-handed.
She took it, but the urge had subsided.
Roystan wiped his face. “Sorry.” His eyes were bruised black holes in a skeletal face. He zipped his own bag.
She tried not to look at it.
Roystan opened the communications channel. “How is everyone?”
Stars Uncharted Page 22