by Tammy Salyer
The ship may have followed us from orbit, or it may have picked us up from somewhere else on the planet. Either way, it came at us so suddenly that no one had a chance to get to the lockdown seats. We’d all been in the cargo bay, getting ready to deploy, when Venus’s reflexes thrust the ship into instant pandemonium. As far as I can tell, no one is injured, but we’ve been thrown around like loose cannonballs. Vitruzzi and Brady made for the cockpit as fast as they could while the rest of us try to get our bearings in the hold.
“Desto, what’s going on in the fire control room?” Brady asks, using the onboard com system.
“I’m in position, but I can’t get a lock with the way Venus is juggling sky. Can we get on a straight path for a minute?” His voice is calm, almost detached, a freakish counterpoint to the danger.
I look around and see Rob inching for the shuttle’s hatch. He has a good idea; we need to be prepared to detach at a moment’s notice. The shuttle can’t go anywhere while the ship is flying this erratically, but there’s a chance Venus can get enough of a lead to let us deploy.
“It’s locked on. If I stop for a second, it’ll have its chance. Can’t let that happen.” Venus responds. And then, as an afterthought: “Everyone okay down there?”
Karl lets her know we’re all in the green, and the ship goes down in a hard dive that makes my stomach shoot into my mouth and my feet leave the floor.
“Fuck!”
“Get in the shuttle, everyone!” Rob yells. He’s at the shuttle airlock but can’t activate the hatch without the keycode.
The ship’s crazy gyrations halt long enough for me to let go of the armory door and start making my way along the wall toward him, using everything I can get my hands on as a life preserver. David and Karl do the same.
“Desto,” I try to warn him, “we’re getting inside the shuttle. Can you—?” The target lock siren begins to blare, overriding my voice.
“Brace yourselves! Brace for impact!” Venus screams, and the ship veers sharply.
The missile doesn’t impact, but explodes close enough to our port side that I can feel the entire ship suddenly shift laterally through the sky, as if on rails. The alarm continues and the craft shudders violently. I fall flat against the floor and feel every vibration through my skin, rattling my bones, my organs, even my eyeballs. I pull my wrist VDU up against my mouth and try to call for a damage report, but my throat has locked tight against the hammering tremors. My heartbeat is an electric hum inside my chest, and I pray that it doesn’t get into lockstep rhythm with the ship and burst through my ribcage.
“Stupid-sons-a-scumbag-bastards, they didn’t even hail us! Just started firing. Come here, boys, I’ll give you a show you’ll never forget.” Venus doesn’t realize she’s broadcasting, but it helps us prepare for another bone-crushing maneuver. The hull’s vibrations abruptly fade away, and we start climbing at an impossibly acute right bank. If there is damage, it hasn’t hindered the Sphynx’s maneuvering capabilities.
The climb goes on and on and my fingers are losing their hold in the deck. The floor starts to slope away steeply over my shoulder. We’re moving too erratically for the grav stabilizer to keep up. If my grip fails, I’ll slide into the opposite wall, sixty meters away, at a speed that is guaranteed to splinter at least my legs and maybe everything. The angle grows sharper and my full weight hangs on the last joints of my fingers. I can’t let go to grab the tie-down anchors that line the walls. My fingers shriek in pain as I crimp them harder, and then the ship suddenly arcs forward and settles into a relatively flat plane. It happens so quickly that my body is momentarily suspended a few centimeters above the floor, the sudden change in direction doing what the climb couldn’t and popping my fingers free of the deck. There’s still enough angle that I begin to skid anyway, flipping over to try and get my feet in front of me. My hand is suddenly grabbed, and Karl pulls me up off the floor to the safety of the wall.
“You okay?” he yells into my ear, his voice echoing the chaos around us.
After a pause to catch my breath, I reply, “Yeah, I’m okay.” His arm circles my waist and he holds me tightly against him. I turn my head, and our faces are centimeters apart. His eyes drill into mine, and the feelings I thought he’d lost spill out as if his soul had cracked apart.
“I’m okay, you can let me go,” I whisper.
Instead, his grip tightens for a moment. “I’ll never let you go, Aly. Not again. I’m going to make sure you’re safe.” Then he releases his hold and staggers toward the shuttle’s airlock.
“Where are you going?” I ask, getting a death grip on the wall as Venus makes another sudden evasion.
Karl white knuckles a pipe running next to the airlock and opens the hatch. “I’m going to get rid of them. This is the only way.” He opens all channels on his VDU. “Desto, I’m taking the shuttle. Give me some cover. Venus, get us level for a few seconds. I’ll release and draw him off. Climb out of range and drop down behind him. Then blow that motherfucker to pieces. Do you copy?”
Without waiting for an answer, he pushes by Rob and jumps into the shuttle. The hatch closes before anyone can move to help him, or stop him.
Vitruzzi’s voice comes over the com: “Karl, don’t be crazy. We need the shuttle.”
“It won’t do anyone any good if we all go down. If I can divert him off our tail, you’ll be able to get some distance and surprise him. I’ll have a better chance of evading him in the shuttle, and we can rendezvous at the platform after you punch his ticket. Venus, try to keep her flat for release—in five…four…three…two…release.”
I let go of the wall as he breaks free and let the ship’s momentum carry me to the cargo deck porthole. Pressing my forehead against it, I catch sight of the shuttle as it drops back. Karl engages the forward thrusters and elevates directly into the path of the ship chasing us. It’s a Corps skiff, used for high-speed stealth reconnaissance. They aren’t often deployed for enemy engagement, so its weapons payload will be minimal. They move fast and cover a lot of ground, making them unlikely to be seen on radar. But this one’s seen us, and now we have to deal with the likelihood that reinforcements have been called. How long until they get here?
Venus glides the Sphynx up into another steep climb, letting Karl pass below us. I’m pushed against the rear hatch with what feels like the weight of an elephant on my back, but not before seeing the skiff take the bait. As far as it knows, we’re not armed, and if we’re hiding something, we’d likely have jettisoned it in our shuttle. I lose sight of them quickly as the Sphynx rises above the clouds, levels off, and decelerates.
“Venus, get back down there! Follow him!” I yell through my VDU. I should be trying to stay calm, but gut-wrenching helplessness turns my voice into a strained warble.
She doesn’t respond, but the ship begins to slide smoothly through the air in a controlled descent. “Desto, get ready. You’re on,” Venus says. The command feed coming through my VDU is scratchy with interference from the skiff’s backdraft.
“Missile released,” Desto says.
Flames engulf the VDU screen in a high intensity wash of red, yellow, and green, and Desto shouts in victory. Venus rocks the ship carefully, skimming around debris, then comes back to bear on the same trajectory the shuttle had taken. I hold my breath waiting for Karl to transmit his status. In a second, we catch his tail, but something is drastically wrong. The shuttle cants at a dangerous left angle, the thrusters spurting erratic jets of fire. I can’t tell if he was fragged by the skiff’s wreckage or took a hit. As we approach, the shuttle begins descending in a steep arc straight for the unforgiving surface of the ocean.
Scrambling for the hold’s transmitter, I say, “Karl, pull up, you’re coming in too hot. The shuttle can’t maintain that rate of descent. Do you read?” If he keeps diving like that, there won’t be time for the reverse thrusters to slow him down enough to avoid a catastrophic collision. I don’t let myself think about the possibility that he might have no control ove
r the thrusters anyway.
There’s no response and no change in the shuttle’s course. Venus starts to ease the Sphynx off for the same reason Karl should be slowing the shuttle. The Sphynx will need more time to decelerate, and in a few more seconds we’ll lose visual contact. I try again. “Karl, do you read? You need to pull back. Over.”
Still nothing. Panic sinks ice cold fangs into my heart. “Strahan! Goddammit, acknowledge. Slow your rate of descent. At least try!” The ship melts into a cloudbank and disappears with no sign of a course change. Frantic, I yell, “Venus, keep on his ass! Do not lose him!”
“Aly, we can’t—” Rob says as he comes up beside me.
I cut him off. “I know we have to pull back, but we can keep him in range. I want to know where he hits.”
The Sphynx floats through the clouds, Venus gradually cutting her speed until we’re only about a klick above deck. We come out of the cloudbank looking into a grayish-green expanse of water, small whitecaps dotting the horizon to the edge of my sight. A speck that can only be the shuttle is a short distance away, still hurtling toward the water like a dart. In no time, its silhouette blends into the spray below it.
“Strahan! Karl! Acknowledge!” I’m screaming into the transmitter.
We approach out of the north and are greeted by a thick cloud of curdled steam being greedily snatched up by a crosswind where the shuttle went down. My mouth dries up. Venus drops us into a slow glide. Everything around me seems to freeze solid, even the passage of time. Finally, she brings us in range, and I see what I most feared. The ship fell hard, slamming into the water and fracturing into debris on impact. Sheered metal and parts scatter over the surface, sinking fast. Jets of fire can be seen underwater, components still exploding inside the wreck.
Through a fog, I hear Vitruzzi over the VDU. “Pull us up closer and skim slowly over the surface in the immediate area. We need a better look.”
“Vitruzzi, if you plan on doing anything else today, it would be wise to get to the platform ASAP.” Rajcik says over the intercom. “That skiff made us. It’s only a matter of time before more Corps arrive. Besides, your shuttle looks like a total loss.”
I feel my body in motion before any conscious thought happens. We’re hovering about five meters over the wreck and the metal hull is still visible suspended beneath the surface. Swinging my carbine strap over my back, I reach out and grasp the hatch’s handle, torque it open hard, and hurl myself out. Instead of falling, I’m grabbed by my equipment belt, yanked backward, and shoved against the wall.
“Aly! Don’t be insane! You can’t do anything for him.” Rob, his eyes wide and alarmed, uses his weight to keep me pinned.
“Let go of me! We have to help!” I struggle with him, but he holds my arms rigidly against my body in a bear hug.
Burning, chemical-tasting air rushes into the cargo hold. “Someone get the door!” he yells, and the sharp reek is choked off as Mason pulls the hatch to.
I struggle against Rob, straining to get free, but the ship suddenly banks hard. Gravity shifts direction, pulling us to the floor while Mason grasps whatever’s nearest to avoid being thrown through the hold.
“Venus is taking us back to the platform. There’s nothing we can do for him.” Vitruzzi’s voice comes through the com system, defeated and dead sounding.
I yank an arm free and scream into my VDU, “No! What does his tracker say?”
There’s a pause, long enough to give me hope. Then: “There’s nothing.”
Disbelief pummels me in the stomach, making me nauseous and shaky.
Rob pulls himself into a sitting position and lets go of me. “You’ll get yourself killed too if you jump out there. You know he couldn’t have survived that impact.” He pauses, gauging the effect hearing the hard truth will have on me. When I don’t flinch, he continues, “I’m sorry, Aly. I’m really sorry.”
My eyes fall closed, as if darkness will hide the despair scrabbling through my soul.
THIRTY-THREE
A quick aerial sweep of the area confirms that we’re alone for now, and Venus sets us down on the platform. Three drones locked on us after the skiff was destroyed, but none followed for more than a couple kilometers, their programming irrevocably scrambled. It’s only a matter of a few hours, maybe less, before Corps ships arrive. Every second counts.
The ramp lowers and we move out in sweep positions, running in formation for the platform’s only building, which must serve as an access point to the underwater structure. La Mer and Venus wait for us to get inside. They’ll relaunch and stay airborne while we take care of business on the station, the plan unchanged except for the loss of the shuttle. I take right flank and run hunkered low, my mind blank and shut down to anything that’s not going to keep me alive. Desto and Mason take right and left rear and David takes point with Rob near his right shoulder. Vitruzzi and Brady spread out in front of Mason, and Thompson and Rajcik are in front of me.
Gritty wisps of sea spray blow over the edges of the platform, cold against my bare cheeks. We’re at least ten meters above the ocean’s surface and the platform is stable against heavy seas and storms. The platform spreads north to south about the same length as the main cavern of Agate Beach’s mine, and east to west about twice that distance. Venus landed within a short run from the access hut, and we’re able to get out of the open quickly.
David reaches the entryway first, where a small alcove protects the door from the wind. The stock of his rifle remains planted against his shoulder as he takes a quick look around the corner, scanning for guards. When he determines it’s all clear, he gives the signal to take a knee while he runs a keypad bypass to get us inside. I’m more than a little nervous about all of us being stuck on the same elevator to get below the surface, and I know I’m not the only one. But from what we can see, it’s the only way in or out. If the elevator is destroyed, the station would be cut off from the surface for who knows how long, possibly even at risk of being breached by the relentless ocean. Knowing T’Kai’s history of sacrificing whatever is necessary for his own benefit, the hope that anyone not wanting us here wouldn’t dare destroy the elevator seems empty.
It’s been too long. What’s the hold up? As soon as I start to get up to find out, David leans back and waves us up. It only takes seconds for the crew to reach the entrance and pile through to the room inside, leaving Mason to stay back and keep a visual on the platform. No guards are in the access room, and David and I exchange a worried look. Where is everyone?
The room is large and utilitarian. One wall is lined with communication consoles and monitors, all dark and powered down, and a thick steel sub-bay gate above the elevator shaft covers a wide section of the floor. The gate looks strong enough to resist anything from a small nuclear explosion to a minor volcanic eruption—probably designed to guard against an accident or explosion below the surface from traveling up the shaft and decimating the control room. David and Brady immediately get busy on the consoles figuring out how to operate the elevator.
Outwardly, I’m nervous and unsettled, but something worse than mission anxiety looms just behind it. Something frightening and deadly that’s creeping up on me like a tsunami on the distant ocean, a huge wave that’s traveling too fast to run from. Karl’s dead. I haven’t allowed the thought to creep into my consciousness, but it lies in wait within that wave. When it reaches me, I’ll be crushed and I’ll drown.
I glance toward Rob. He stands by the entryway keeping an eye on the outside with Mason until we can get the elevator running. For a split second, a barely containable urge to aim my carbine at his skull and blow it off surges through me. Jesus, what’s wrong with me? Nothing that’s happened is his fault. The only one I can blame is me.
“What’s the problem?” Thompson asks David, his tone tight and abrupt. Judging from the rising level of tension in the room, the lid could blow off any minute. Why isn’t there any security? Everyone’s eyes are lit up with hot intensity. Death and danger are nothing new to
us, and no one has any false illusions about the probable outcome of this mission. The deaths of both Karl and Bodie just bring everyone that much closer to bursting apart at the seams.
There’s a clicking sound followed by a deep vibrating hum beneath our feet that makes me jump.
“It’s on its way,” David informs us.
We take firing positions, bracing for a security crew to greet us. Hydraulic safety bars open around the gate perimeter, coming to rest vertically like teeth. Finally, the humming stops and yellow lights begin flashing on the corners of the railing surrounding the gate as it slides open. We’re looking down at the roof of the elevator, thick and solid. When it’s clear, the elevator rises all the way and comes to rest at floor level. There’s no sound inside the control room.
“Open it,” Brady directs.
David activates something on the console and the doors slide open. Exposing emptiness.
I glance at David again and we both shrug at the same time.
“What the fuck is going on?” Thompson asks no one in particular.
“Maybe they have it rigged to gas us when we get inside,” Desto offers, and I throw him a dark look.
“Rajcik, any ideas?” Vitruzzi asks.
He turns toward her, his face expressionless, and shakes his head slowly. Vitruzzi hesitates and exchanges a look with Brady. None of us are in a hurry to get inside. It’s nothing but a box with no way out once it starts to descend.
“Shit,” Brady mutters. “Okay, everyone inside except Mason and Thompson. You two keep watch. Monitor topside coms, and get down there if we call you.”
“I’m not staying up here,” Thompson says.
He glares at him. “Yes. You are.”
Thompson scowls and looks toward Rajcik, who gestures for him to sit tight. He hunches out toward the entrance and joins Mason.
“Let’s go,” Vitruzzi says and steps aboard.