In Death's Shadow

by S. F. Edwards

  The pain of Treb’s loss mounted with each cycle. It felt like he’d lost a part of himself and there was no way he could fill it. We were just friends, weren’t we? Why does this hurt so much? The memory of the pained looks in Treb’s eyes when he would go out on dates stared back at him, searing his soul. He had thought that their trip home would refresh him. Instead, it just made Datt miss it more. They don’t show it outside the house, but my fathers, they love each other. Isn’t that against what Kal-Var stands for? Is that what I feel for Treb?

  Even thoughts of sleeping with women didn’t comfort him anymore. Much as I try not to, I still compare them all to Treb. We’ve kept each other going for so long, but now that he’s gone, I…, I just don’t know. I’ve tried to stay strong for the team, he thought and looked up at them. Arion was over halfway across the expanse.

  I don’t care what Blazer says anymore. He convinced me to stay after Treb quit, when all I wanted to was run home, to him. But this isn’t the life I want, this last decle is proof enough of that. And what we did to those bores last cycle. What kind of barbarians are they turning us into?

  This isn’t who I was raised to be. I’m not going to quit though. I’ll finish the trials here, then I’ll march right into Admiral Sares’ office and turn in my 618-G. Then I’ll resign my commission and go home, see my fathers, see Treb, go where I’m really wanted.

  He looked up. Arion had almost made it across. This was it. Time to show I’m just as tough as the rest of them. One step close to Treb. I know Treb loves me, but will he love me more for sticking it out?

  “I’m across,” Arion reported a moment later.

  “On my way,” Datt replied and backed up to make his jump. He turned down the mag-locks in his boots, ran across the surface and jumped, firing his suit jets. He watched the others reel in the tether as fast as they could and smiled. They can drag me in if I miss this time. He fondled the tether for a moment and shook his head. Screw it, I’ll gather it up later, I just want to fly right now.

  “Datt watch out,” Gokhead hollered.

  Datt looked around. What’s Gokhead so excited about?

  “Rock incoming!” Gokhead reported.

  Datt couldn’t see a rock, and without any kind of sensors fired his jets. He spun about and came to face the incoming object. He didn’t even have time to register it before the slamball-sized meteoroid crashed into him. The life support control pack on his chest absorbed most of the impact, buckling against his chest, the shock gel inserts of his suit bursting to absorb the blow before the icy ball exploded. Even so, the air exploded from Datt’s lungs, the sound of snapping ribs echoing through his suit.

  The armored vest he wore kept the ice meteor from ripping through his body. Thanks to whoever made this thing. But damn, I shouldn’t have been so stupid. I should have been on the lookout for that thing.

  The impact had sent him off on a vector that was almost perpendicular to his last, a fast vector, the shock gel leaving an iridescent trail behind him. The line went taut as the rest of the team anchored him and he began to whip down across the asteroid. His trajectory shifted into a wide parabolic arc as the line wrapped against the asteroid. His vision blurred under the G-forces and the pain of the impact.

  Datt focused as best he could; he squeezed his legs to keep blood to his brain and watched the asteroid accelerate towards him. His course would bring him down on the other side of the asteroid from the team. The tether wrapping around the asteroid arrested his descent, but not enough. Have to slow myself. If I hit too fast my suit is sure to breach. He twisted about to bring his feet beneath him. As the surface rose to meet him, he fired his suit jets, full force. It wasn’t enough. He crashed to the surface, pain radiating up his body as the impact shattered both his legs.

  ***

  Blazer felt the line go slack, and bounded around the asteroid towards Datt. He almost launched off twice before he spotted the running lights of Drill Sergeant Korto’s shuttle hovering above Datt’s limp body. Blazer raced ahead. No way is that Pendrick taking another of my team, not now.

  The Sergeant twisted about and intercepted Blazer. “Stay Back, Cadet!”

  Blazer locked eyes with those alien eyestalks as best he could through the helmets. “He’s our man. We’ll take care of him.”

  “No you can’t. Check your readouts.”

  Blazer moved to get around the sergeant but he held up an arm again.

  “You go past me and you wash. So don’t even try it!” Korto warned him.

  Blazer looked out at Datt. Datt held out his arm, his thumb up as the medics swarmed over him.

  Marda landed beside Blazer, a solemn look on her face. “I have the readouts from his suit.”

  Blazer looked over at Marda as she held up her medical specialist macomm, a hologram hovering above it. The indicators weren’t good. Datt had multiple fractured ribs, a broken right arm, and both legs were shattered, along with internal injuries and bleeding. He landed too hard, he’s done.

  Blazer looked back at the sergeant. “You’re going to wash him for this aren’t you?”

  “He’s out of the SpecOps program. The rest is up to him.”

  Zithe came up to Blazer, the tether coiled in his arms. He handed it to Blazer. “You lost one. Don’t lose the rest.”

  Blazer stared back at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You made a promise to Datt, but his mistake made you break that promise.” Zithe motioned towards the others. “Don’t break it for anyone else.”

  Blazer looked back at the team. Most of them hadn’t been in the room when Blazer had made his declaration to Datt and his roommates. Those that were, filled in the others.

  Blazer had to resist the temptation to do more as the medical team took Datt away. He fought them the entire time to keep his hand up, to show them that it was okay to go on without him. After they’d loaded him onto the shuttle, he managed to get a signal off. “Go, do it for me and Treb.”

  Blazer felt his resolve weaken, and looked back at the others. He read the doubt in their faces. Don’t let them sit and dwell, get them moving. He looked about the floating rocks and ice to find their next objective. Past the next rock, he made out the shape of the academy and saw that the tendril has split into three distinct paths. One looked to head straight towards the midpoint of the academy and the deep ruts, the other two to either end. Hangar, deep ruts, or the radiator array? I still doubt we’ll be led close enough to the hangar to leap right in, too many navigational hazards. The running lights in the distance confirmed that at least some craft were flying in and out of the academy. And there’s no way they can increase the orbital period of these rocks without flinging them away from the academy to make a landing at the deep ruts feasible without severe injury or death. So that leaves the array.

  Blazer gave the order. “Put it aside. Datt’s gone. We can’t do anything about it now and we have to finish this. We’re taking the path to our left; that should lead us to the thermal array behind the reactor core. Let’s get ready for the next jump.”

  The team turned to him, disbelief on many faces. Let them hate you if you have to, just keep them moving, or they’ll all quit, he told himself. “We’ve come too far to just give up now. If Korto hadn’t intercepted I would have carried Datt myself, but there’s no going back now. So, for Datt and Treb, for everyone who didn’t make it this far, we reach the academy. We finish this.”

  No one said anything, instead making ready for the next jump.

  “We go,” Blazer continued and handed the tether back to Bichard.

  Blazer’s relief at reaching the end of the tendril was short-lived when they arrived several hects later. The array of thermal radiators and collapsible scaffolding hung before them and to his right, the scarred rocky body of the academy. Still the rock they stood upon hung over three kilometra from the array. Worse than that its orbit was taking it away from the academy, and their deadline was fast approaching.

  Blazer walked up to
Gokhead. “What do you think?”

  Gokhead shook his head. “We can make it. We’ll burn up most of our suit jets in the process when we land, but we can make it.”

  “What if we all just go front of this thing and fired our jets? Could we slow it down enough to drop its orbit?”

  Gokhead shook his head. “Not here. We don’t have the fuel and the academy doesn’t have enough pull, the way these rocks keep drifting away is evidence enough of that.”

  Blazer sighed. “What about for an individual?”

  Gokhead looked away for a moment, then scrunching up his nose in disgust, like he couldn’t find something, turned back.

  Blazer looked back at Bichard—the coiled tether in his arms. It would do them no good to link everyone together so he snapped open the links and began to hand them back. “Our best bet now, I figure, is to go it alone or in pairs.”

  Zithe turned to him. “What are you talking about? Blazer there’s impossible and then there’s out and out insane. Look at where we are.”

  Blazer looked back over his shoulder. “I know where we are Zithe, and I know exactly where we’re going.” Blazer pointed back at the thermal array. “I made promises to everybody, that we were going to make this, and we’re right there. I know we’ve already done the impossible this cycle, so what’s one more impossible thing?

  “Were we to come up on the main body of the academy we’d be much worse off. I don’t know about you, but my suit isn’t telling me where the gravity pads are, or where the airlocks might be. Our only hope along the main body would be aim for one of those. Otherwise, the speed of the academy would just fling us back into space, assuming it didn’t kill us. Our orders were to reach the academy and I for one am not going to quit as its filling up half my sky.

  “The academy rotates at a little over point six five revs a pulse. So that means the tangential velocity at the array is less than 8 metra per cent, low enough that our suits can match it prior to landing. It’ll be rough, and we might get hurt, but it’s our best bet. I’m not quitting now, and neither are any of you.”

  No one argued, but a few looked up at the structure or at the academy itself, flexing their legs.

  “Good, now buddy up. I can’t be certain that any of us know exactly where we’ll be jumping for. But, we can see where we want to go. Burn out your suit jets if you have to, exhaust your energy reserves, your tanks will have enough to get you inside one of the service duct airlocks once we land.”

  Gokhead held up a hand. “We should pair up with someone as close to our strength as we can. Otherwise we’ll risk going into a spin and off-course.”

  Blazer nodded and everyone found their partner. Blazer and Deniv took the lead jump, Arion and Bichard followed, then Marda and Gokhead, Chris and Rudjick.Zithe and Gavit brought up the rear. They all sailed across the expanse, firing their suit jets to correct their courses.

  Blazer felt his mouth go dry as he approached, but did nothing to wet it. He had to concentrate on the landing as he approached the rotating framework.

  He pointed out their landing spot to Deniv, the backside of the thermal radiator’s base structure, as it rotated towards them. They fired their jets to close in, then spinning about, they fired them again to match speed as best they could. An indicator in Blazer’s helmet lit up as his sensors calculated his impact speed. Frag it all I didn’t speed up enough. The emergency shock gel packs in his suit primed, ready to cushion the blow.

  Blazer and Deniv slammed into the side of the structure hard, the shock gel bursting into the special pouches across their bodies an instant before impact. Despite that, they hit with enough force to knock the wind out of them. Blazer lay there motionless, the minimal gravity at this radius barely able to hold him in place as the shock gel evacuated from a port in the back of his suit, evaporating into the vacuum.

  Blazer chuckled to himself for a moment and felt lucky that he had made it at all. Looking up between gasping breaths, he watched each group come in to land. He breathed a sigh of relief, and then his blood went cold. Rudjick rocketed in at twice Blazer’s impact speed, Chris nowhere in sight.

  “Chris, link in. Where are you?” Blazer ordered, and fought to get to his feet.

  “Our tether snapped,” Chris replied, pain evident in her voice. “Rudjick how are you?”

  “I’m coming in hot, almost there,” a bone-jarring smack echoed over the link. “I’m down,” he moaned.

  “Chris, what happened?” Blazer called.

  “My suit jets misfired and threw us into a spin, snapping the tether’s D-Ring. I lost most of my momentum when the it broke but I’m still coming in. My jets are near exhausted though. There’s no way I can match speed with the station.” Her voice broke with each syllable. “Shit, I think I’m going to miss.”

  Blazer linked back in, calling out to everyone. “Does anyone have a visual on Chris?”

  “I do,” Bichard called out. “I don’t think she’s going to miss, but she’s going to hit far down the radiator adjacent to mine, not sure if there’s any place for her to grab onto.”

  “Gavit, Zithe, can you guys catch her?”

  “Negative,” Gavit replied. “I’ve got eyes on her. But, even if I separated from Zithe, I’d burn up my jets just getting to her. Sorry Chris, but your lateral speed is good though for where you’re coming in. Just keep your legs under you and the landing won’t kill you.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Chris replied. “No, just everyone else, keep on going.”

  “Negative! We’re not losing you Chris,” Blazer called. Think man, there has to be something.

  “Bichard just cut loose from me,” Arion groaned.

  “Bichard don’t be stupid,” Chris called out. “What do you think you can do?”

  “I’m not being stupid. I’m being brave. I can’t let my Chris get washed.”

  Chris scoffed back at him. “My Bichard don’t. Don’t risk yourself for me.”

  “Nonsense, this is what I do.”

  “Bichard, what’s your plan?” Blazer called out.

  “I can see where she’s going, and can beat her there.”

  “I can see you Bichard,” Chris linked back. “I think so anyway.”

  “Don’t worry, I can see you just fine. Sorry, but I might be a little late though.”

  “Don’t be too late. I regrew all this hair over break, and I don’t want to find a new hairdresser,” Chris called back, in obvious pain.

  Blazer checked her readings. She had a cracked rib and a nasty welt up her side if he read it right. She’s got to be hurting, but she can push through it, she’s one tough critch.

  “Bichard tell me you still have a visual on her,” Blazer ordered, and tried to get his suit to relay their positions. Why couldn’t we do this in our ACHES? Right, no shock gel, Blazer wondered, Armored Combat Hostile Environment Suit, the Confederation’s combat suit of choice.

  “I do, but so does Korto.”

  Chris cursed at Bichard’s report. “I see him. That Pendrick bastard think’s he going to wash me. Frag that to Sheol and back. I’ve got a visual on you Bichard. I’m going to hit before you get to me.”

  “It’s okay. Just fire whatever suit jets you have left, try to match the rotation.”

  “I’ve got one good jet left, I don’t know if that’s enough.”

  “Bring it in line with your center of gravity as best you can and do it, whatever you have.”

  Blazer held his breath, and activated the emergency command override in his suit. Position markers lit up his view. Chris closed with the backside of the thermal radiator far too fast for his comfort and Bichard was not under her yet.

  “Almost there,” Chris called out. “Twenty five metra, twenty, fifteen, five.” She screamed out in pain as she slammed into the surface.

  Blazer checked her medical status. She’d come in too fast for the shock gel to completely absorb the impact. She dislocated her shoulder, fracturing the bone.

  Bichard was on her
a moment later, latching onto her as she bounced away and dragged her back to the surface. “I’ve got you!”

  “Not so hard,” she whimpered back.

  A quick chuckle escaped Blazer’s lips. “Chris, what’s your status?”

  “Ow, I think I broke something,” she called back as Bichard cradled her against the surface. “If I get washed out for this, I’m going to eat that Pendrick.”

  “I wouldn’t advise that,” Bichard replied. “You said insects give you indigestion.”

  “Oh god I feel hot out here,” Chris commented, holding onto Bichard as best she could as he crawled his way back up the rocky exterior.

  “Be glad that you didn’t land on the other side. Now let’s get you inside.”

  “Bichard now is not the time to try and make me feel better,” she said hugging him as Drill Sergeant Korto’s shuttle pulled up alongside, firing its thrusters to maintain position with them.

  “Get in the shuttle you two.”

  Chris flashed him an unofficerlike hand gesture. “I respectfully decline sir. We made it, no need for a pick up.”

  “I know that,” he replied, disgust in his voice. “You accomplished the goal and I am here to take you to your next assignment. Now get into the shuttle.”

  “Say again,” Blazer called, shuffling over towards them so that we wouldn’t launch himself back off into space.

  “You’ve accomplished the goal, now get into the shuttle,” Korto repeated.

  “Lead, did everyone copy that?” Chris asked.

  “Yes, we all got it Chris,” Blazer replied a moment later.

  “Good, then we’re coming aboard,” Chris replied, exhaustion in her voice.

  “We have medics aboard. They’ll fix you right up. They can give you something for the pain too.”

  “I’ll be fine, just reset the bone,” Chris snapped.

  Blazer breathed a sigh of relief and snapped his tether to a handhold, waiting for the shuttle. When it arrived, he and Deniv piled aboard. Chris and Bichard sat strapped into shock seats along the wall as medics fired medical nanobots into her suit’s injection port.