by Tom Jordan
“We have to straighten out so we can land! I need help!” Jade’s calm had somehow returned, and she was shouting over the noisy rush of alarms and altitude warnings.
He thought for a moment, examining the diagram of the affected systems, and then a radical idea struck him. He raced to think of an alternative, a way they could land safely, but there was no other option.
They had one chance.
“Flip the ship,” he said.
“What?” The ship’s computer began issuing verbal warning messages.
“We still have downward landing thrusters,” Tommy said. “Flip the ship upside down and thrust up so they fire.” Ghost of Jupiter shook around him, as though the ship was about to vibrate apart.
“That’ll kill us! The cockpit is on the top of the ship!”
The ground was rushing up to meet them with shocking speed. “No time to explain! You have to trust me! Flip us over, pull up, and fire downward thrusters. The compensator will…never mind. Just do it!”
“Okay!” Jade cried over the mismatched chorus of blaring warning tones and spoken alerts.
“And sit up straight with your head against the back of the seat! Deploy your emergency helmet!” Tommy reached up and squeezed the tab embedded in the neck of his flight suit. The helmet unfolded and secured itself around his head with a series of clicking sounds.
Tommy hadn’t had time to check whether she was able to deploy her helmet. He held the seat as Jade flipped the ship upside down. With the horror of the surface racing toward him, and the rapid dive, he didn’t even notice the sensation of the flip.
They were coming in at too sharp of an angle. There was no way to avoid a devastating crash.
He fought his reflexes to throw his hands out to protect his body, and resigned himself to whatever was to come.
Chapter 23
The first thing Jade became aware of was pressure. It was all around her. It filled her throat and ears, and she struggled to move her limbs. She was held in place by something. She couldn’t even push her jaw shut.
Her awareness flitted between thoughts, trying to make sense of what was happening. She’d been flying the ship, and then the imminent crash, the ground racing toward their faces…
She hadn’t had time to deploy her flight suit’s emergency helmet. Her head felt like someone had hit it with a grav pallet. Was she upside down?
Panic rushed over her. She struggled and thrashed, but whatever was pressing on her only had a slight amount of give.
Tommy’s voice called her name. It was muffled and distant. Urgent.
Whatever was in her mouth softened. She choked and coughed, then spit until her mouth was clear. She was in a cocoon of something contoured to her body.
“I’m here,” she called back. “I can’t move!”
“It’s okay. It’s the shockfoam!”
“Shockfoam?”
“Hang on,” Tommy said. “The sprayers should kick in any time now.”
Jade couldn’t pay attention to his words. The feeling of confinement was causing her to break out in a cold sweat. Her entire body felt clammy and gross. Her mind screamed at her to move, but she couldn’t. She thrashed, straining against the solid foam holding her tight. She thought of Stormwulf’s pilot appearing and blowing them to pieces along with the ship, which wrenched her panic even tighter.
A sound rose—a soft, continuous whoosh.
“That’s them,” Tommy said. “The sprayers dissolve the foam. Just hang on.”
Jade shut her eyes and latched onto the sound as a lifeline. She attempted to fit her shaky, shallow breaths into a controlled rhythm, focusing on the sound of the sprayers.
After a minute, the pressure changed around her feet. She was able to rotate her ankles. She squeezed her toes inside her boots.
Cold water trickled its way up her body, eventually reaching her exposed neck and head. Droplets found their way into her nostrils, and she forced air out of her nose to try to expel them.
Jade opened her eyes. The shockfoam had started to drain, a bubbling white froth that melted under mist showering from some hidden sprayers in the cockpit.
She was still pulling in gasps of air when she looked over at Tommy, suspended upside down in his seat. Mist fogged the inside of his emergency helmet’s visor, concealing his face.
She reached a hand over, her fingers grasping out. A few gloved fingertips connected with Tommy’s. He leaned in closer and squeezed her hand. She couldn’t see his face.
Tommy was laughing. How was he laughing?
“I can’t believe it! We made it! We made it, Jade!” His voice was muffled by his helmet. “I’m so glad I had that shockfoam system put in!”
Jade could only continue to hyperventilate. She felt like a crushing weight was pressing in on her from all sides.
“Are you okay? Oh, crap, hang on. I’m coming. I’ll help you.” He reached up and unstrapped himself from the chair. He fell downward, landing headfirst on the cockpit’s ceiling with a thud.
Tommy righted himself and splashed through the shallow pool of foamy water covering the ceiling. He retracted his emergency helmet.
“Shh. It’s okay, shh.” Mist showered them both from multiple directions.
He reached up, placed a hand on Jade’s cheek, and looked into her eyes. Her hair hung down in limp, wet strands. Feeling Tommy’s touch helped bring her out of her panicked thoughts and back to the present.
“I’ve got to get you out,” Tommy said. “We can’t stay here. Hold on.” Water continued to mist over them both, and the cockpit interior glistened wetly in the harsh light of the system’s star.
“Okay.” She sniffed and collected herself a bit. “Okay, I know.”
“Here,” Tommy said. He put Jade’s arm around his shoulders and reached up to release her harness. It unfastened with a snick and Jade dropped into his arms. “I’ve got you.”
Tommy lowered to a knee, setting Jade down. She threw her arms around him and crushed him in a tight hug. He patted her back. “It’s okay,” he said.
Jade pulled back and gripped his upper arms. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She wiped stray tears from her face, then realized it made no difference since the sprayers had wet them both all over.
“Nothing to be sorry for. But we have to move. Are you ready?”
Jade sniffed again and nodded. They splashed their way out of the cockpit and clambered across the ceiling of the ship’s central corridor, which went up at an angle, telling Jade the ship was resting upside down with the bow lower than the aft. The position wasn’t a surprise, since she’d flipped it just as Tommy suggested she should.
“Hang on a sec,” Tommy said as they passed her cabin. The door was open a few centimeters, and looked warped from the impact. He tried the button to open it. There was no sign of power aboard Ghost. A metal deckplate, dislodged in the crash, hung over their heads. Jade flinched as sparks sizzled from a damaged conduit the plate should have been covering.
Tommy guided Jade back against the wall, then kicked at the hanging plate until it clanged to the floor. He dragged it over to her cabin door, then wedged it into the opening before bracing himself against the wall and pushing with a boot. He grunted, and the plate levered the cabin door halfway open. Tommy leaned in, retrieved Jade’s shore-leave bag, and hooked its strap over his shoulder.
Tommy checked the ramp controls, which lacked power just as the cabin door had. “Together,” he said, and Jade helped twist and pulled out the manual-release handles in unison. The mechanism pushed the ramp open a few centimeters, and then the two pilots shouldered it open just enough to drop out and onto the moon’s surface. The beige dirt under their boots was tightly packed and full of cracks, and they had to shield their eyes against the assault of sunlight.
They stood in a blackened gouge in the terrain with bits of Ghost of Jupiter’s hull peppered along its rutted center. The ship itself sat in a smoking pile, upside down with its sparking, ruined underside expo
sed like a fresh animal kill. Black and gray paint was scraped off the hull’s top side, revealing dull gray underneath.
Jade stared in shock at what had become of her ship—her friend, her companion. Her home. It had been the one point of certainty in her life, supposed to carry her to a better future, and now it was completely devastated. There was no way it could be salvaged.
What was she going to do?
Tommy stood surveying the sky, one hand shielding his eyes against the light.
“There,” he said as he pointed high. “Oh, shit, she’s coming back.” He grabbed Jade’s hand, yanking her away. “We have to go! Now!”
Tommy pulled Jade along, breaking her trance. The two scrambled away from the crash site as fast as they could. Jade craned her neck in a frantic effort to find Stormwulf. It raced toward them, coming in low and aiming directly at Ghost.
The enemy vessel pulled to a stop and hovered in the air near Ghost of Jupiter. Turbulent air washed from Stormwulf’s thrusters, blowing Jade’s hair into her face and whipping up stray dust.
Jade turned to glimpse behind as she ran. A missile burst from Stormwulf and streaked toward the remains of Ghost. Tommy clapped his hands on his ears to block the missile’s shriek.
Jade pumped her legs as fast as they’d go, fueled by fight-or-flight hormones coursing through her. She hoped desperately that she and Tommy were far enough from the blast that they would survive.
The rocket impacted Ghost of Jupiter and combusted in a fiery cloud. Broiling heat pushed Jade’s back as she and Tommy were thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion. Jade’s palms, through her flight suit’s gloves, stung from the jolt against the moon’s surface. Debris from the missile and the ship’s hull spun out over the flats, showering the ground with flaming chunks of metal.
Jade turned back over her shoulder to see the smoldering ruin of her ship. Wisps of smoke floated in the air.
“Come on!” Tommy yelled. “We have to get out of here!”
Jade did a push-up as Tommy yanked her off the ground. She scrambled forward, boots skidding as she ran with him to get as far from the scene as they could.
Stormwulf strafed around them in a semicircle, keeping its nose toward them and cutting them off. The roar of its thrusters filled the air, and the wind from the thruster emissions increased in force, becoming a gale as the ship passed within a few dozen meters. Stormwulf touched down on its landing skids, their joints flexing as the ship’s weight settled.
Tommy walked over and stood next to Jade. They shielded their eyes with their hands as their hair whipped in the thruster wash.
Stormwulf was even more frightening up close. Long-barreled guns hung beneath the wing-shaped hull extensions. Maneuvering fins projected at oblique angles. A rotating gun turret sat behind its two-pilot cockpit, and the rocket launcher sat dorsally above and behind that. There was no mistaking that it was built for combat.
Jade leaned in, wrapping her hands around Tommy’s upper arm. She pointed ahead. Tommy nodded his understanding. He saw it too. A ramp was lowering beneath Stormwulf.
Someone was coming out.
A figure walked down the ramp. The pilot’s shape and movement suggested a female. She seemed short, and wore some kind of body armor over her sleek flight suit. A full helmet concealed her face.
The pilot raised a compact frame in front of her chest. The device snapped open into an assault rifle, which she raised toward Jade and Tommy, aiming through a sight at the top. She bent her knees and took measured steps.
“Don’t even try to move,” she said. Her helmet amplified her voice and gave it a modulated, electronic tone. Despite that, Jade recognized it. There was no doubt that this was Bakhti, Stormwulf’s pilot. The same pilot they had chased to Balenos A. The same pilot who had just shot them down and destroyed Ghost of Jupiter, and was working with Marco. Jade dug her fingers into Tommy’s arm.
“Down on the ground! Right now!”
Jade, fixated on Bakhti, sank to her knees and pulled Tommy with her. Bakhti paced closer, never allowing the aim of her rifle to stray. Jade noticed that the gun was pointed at her, rather than Tommy.
Jade glanced sideways at a new noise—the thundering vibration of a different set of thrusters. Audacity set down a stone’s throw away, landing with such haste that it bounced off its landing skids before settling. The hasty landing sent a tremor through the ground. Tommy and Jade closed their eyes against the assault of particles kicked up by Audacity’s thrusters.
Bakhti kept the rifle on Jade but glanced at the landing ship. Jade considered tackling her, but there was no chance she could close the distance before getting shot. Besides, Jade lacked any experience with martial arts or grappling. Would she be able to subdue Bakhti, even if she could sprint to her in time?
Bakhti ripped off her helmet and threw it aside. Her black hair whipped in Audacity’s thruster wash like silken threads in a wind tunnel. Her mocha skin, almond eyes, and full lips suggested a thread of Earth Indian heritage, while reflecting the racial mix common to the colony born. She was younger than Jade had expected, but her firm jaw and irate glare countered her otherwise soft appearance.
“Can’t believe you survived that,” Bakhti called out. She flexed her fingers and lowered the rifle, adjusting her grip. “You should have let the container go.”
Jade had done everything she could to stop this woman, and to take back the crate, but it hadn’t been enough. Her panic and fear switched to full-boil anger. Her hands tightened into fists and her toes curled in her boots.
Bakhti raised the rifle and closed one eye, looking through the sight protruding from the top.
“No! No!” Tommy shouted. He thrust an arm across Jade’s torso and stepped in front of her. “There’s no way! Not gonna happen!”
Jade put her hands on his shoulders. “Tommy, no.”
She decided she had one regret, which was getting Tommy into this mess. She knew he’d volunteered and had agreed to everything they’d done together in pursuing the crate, yet she couldn’t help feeling that she could have saved him from this, and that now he had to suffer for her choices.
She could feel his tension through his flight suit. Despite the conviction in his voice, he was shaking. Concern and love for him overwhelmed her. He’d always been such a good friend. He’d even sacrifice his life for her?
He was trembling with fear, but it wasn’t stopping him. What had she done to deserve someone so good to her? She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if something happened to him.
Jade stepped in front of Tommy again, addressing the pilot. “You want me? Here I am.”
“Sorry about this,” Bakhti said, sighting down her rifle. “Your piloting was impressive, even in that cheap hauler of yours, but I can’t have loose ends.”
Jade shouted. “No!”
She was thrown to the side. Bakhti squeezed her trigger and there was a single, sharp crack of gunfire. Tommy collapsed with a cry and Jade looked over, nerves and horror mingling in her chest. Tommy lay on his back and his right thigh had a chunk missing between the bone and the outside of his leg. The wound was more pronounced at the rear, as though more damage had been done by the projectile going out than coming in.
“Tommy…Tommy…” Her voice broke, interrupted by panicked sobs.
He clenched his jaw and rolled his head back, eyes shut tight. One of his hands tightened on her shoulder. The other reached toward his thigh.
“Stop!” Marco yelled. “Bakhti, that’s enough!” Audacity’s thrusters quieted and it sounded like he was jogging across the flats toward the other pilots. Jade couldn’t spare the attention to look.
“Here,” Jade said between sobs. She shook with the agony of seeing Tommy suffer. She wanted to reassure him, but words wouldn’t come. She tried to compress the wound, but her hand slipped on the shredded flight suit and torn edges of flesh and muscle. The gash was far beyond any injury she’d dealt with.
Tommy gulped breath in shallow gasps. T
ears filtered out through his closed eyelids.
She sniffed and blinked away tears as she tried to press down on the ragged hole left by the bullet. Tommy’s fingers clawed into her shoulder as his blood pooled beneath them.
“So,” Bakhti said, calling out to Marco, “you just used me to get the buyer on the way, and then you call in your squad?”
Jade spared no attention. Tommy’s bleeding didn’t seem to be slowing and she saw no way to combat the flow.
“It’s not like that,” Marco said. He seemed to be without his ever-present composure. “But it doesn’t matter. When the buyer gets here and wants the crate, you’ll need to know where I left it. These two live. It’s a new condition of the deal.”
“You’re soft for her, huh?” Bakhti said. “You fucking her?”
Marco’s boots scuffed the ground. Jade continued the effort to close or compress Tommy’s wound and staunch the flow of blood. She sniffed and whispered reassuring words. “Spare them and you get the crate, but take one more shot and this is over. It’s your choice,” he said.
“I’m not liking this. Nobody move,” Bakhti said. Jade heard her boots crunch, and the hissing static as Bakhti spoke into a comm unit. “Maller. Hey. Looks like I’ll need you after all. Get down here.”
Tommy croaked a whisper that Jade couldn’t hear.
“What?” she said. She held him closer, putting a hand on his head and bringing her ear next to his mouth.
“Bag.” He tried to wet his mouth with his tongue. “Bag.”
She sniffed back a cry. “Bag? I don’t understand!”
She looked around and saw that Tommy still had her shore-leave bag strapped across his shoulder. Not knowing what else to do, Jade laid Tommy back and zipped it open. Mosso’s cheerful eyes peeked out from within, oblivious to the danger and suffering unfolding outside the bag. Jade pushed him aside and saw a first-aid kit among the contents. The kit was kept in her cabin but not her bag. Tommy, as always, had thought ahead.