by Jake Elwood
"So that's the situation," Chan concluded. "They have Geoff. He's probably being tortured right now. When they finish asking him questions, they'll kill him. We want to try to save him, but we need your help."
Lisa shook her head. "Me? What can I do?"
"We're stuck in Montgolfier for another four hours," he said. "We need to get up to Etienne Station immediately. Before they can fly too far. Before they can work on Geoff too long. So we need a shuttle. And only citizens of Montgolfier are allowed to rent shuttles. We looked into it. There are no exceptions."
She stared at him in silence, and it stretched out until he thought about shaking her, or slapping her. Then she blinked and said, "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"
The shuttle had seats for four, and twenty cubic meters or so of cargo space. They strapped themselves in, Liz took the controls, and they lifted off for the orbiting station. Not that there was anything for Liz to do as a pilot. Chan sat in the co-pilot's seat, watching her drum her fingers and fret as the shuttle's automatic systems lifted them out of the clouds, into space, and half way around the planet.
It was only as they were rushing aboard the Raven that Chan thought to say, "Lisa? Are you sure you want to come along? You'll be safer here on the station."
She didn’t dignify his question with a response, just pushed past him and followed Joss to the bridge.
"I'm scanning," Liz said as the Raven separated from the station. "I'm not seeing anything."
"I'm interrogating the station AI," Joss reported from her own console. "Okay, we're in luck. A ship called the Gull docked with the station thirty minutes ago. They took on fuel and departed." She looked up, excitement on her face. "They only left fifteen minutes ago!"
"Heading?" Liz barked.
"Hold on." Joss frowned. "The station doesn't really keep track. Let me see. It looks like they were going pretty much sunward."
Liz made a disgusted sound, but she swung the nose of the Raven toward the sun and accelerated. Chan turned his chair sideways to avoid the worst of the glare and brought up a forward scan. He was conscious of Joss doing the same thing on her side of the bridge, probably more efficiently than he was. Rhett was at a station as well, unusual for him, and Lisa paced back and forth at the back of the bridge. Chan ignored them all, focussing on the radar scan forward of the ship.
"I've got a transponder signal," Joss announced. "I guess they're not expecting pursuit."
Either that or we've got the wrong ship, Chan thought. "Liz," he said. "They won't know your voice. Bring us in close and call them on the radio. Tell them you're looking for your aunt and uncle, or something. Ask if they have any passengers."
It was another couple of minutes before the Gull appeared as a blip on Chan's radar scan. The Raven overtook the other ship swiftly, and the transponder suddenly went silent. That wasn't necessarily suspicious. Honest travellers would be wary of pirates.
"Is that them?"
Chan looked up. Lisa was pointing out through the front window, and he followed the direction of her finger. The Gull was ahead, a silver ship with bright yellow trim, racing away from the Raven and losing ground steadily. The size of the ship was hard to determine with nothing around it to give it scale. Chan looked back at the radar scan and decided the fleeing ship was about the same size as the Raven.
"This is the Stark Raven," said Liz. "Sorry to alarm you. I'm looking for my aunt Tillie and uncle Herb. Did you take on any passengers back at Etienne Station?"
"No we didn't," said a man's voice. "Bugger off."
Liz cut the connection and turned in her chair.
"That's them," Joss said, and shivered. "I recognize the voice."
"Are you certain?" Chan said. "We're about to commit an act of space piracy, after all."
She shrugged. "I'm pretty sure. And if we don't do anything, Geoff dies. I'm certain of that."
Chan sighed, feeling the weight of command settle on him. The suitcase of iridium was feather-light by comparison. "Do it," he said to Liz. "Be as gentle as you can. We don't want to kill Geoff, after all. But stop that ship."
She tapped at a console, and light flared on the hull of the other ship. The Gull went immediately into evasive action, and Liz followed, making the Raven twist and dive. "Laser shielding," she said. "That's all right. I've been wanting to try out the rail guns."
Chan watched the Gull as it jinked and dodged. The force fields that protected the passengers on the Raven kept him from feeling any motion, even as his eyes told him he was diving, swooping, and jerking from side to side. His stomach sent him uneasy twinges, and he had to fight the urge to grip the armrest on his seat.
The Raven hummed when the rail guns fired, and explosions blossomed across the hull of the Gull. Aimed shots were impossible, Chan realized. Liz was lucky to hit the ship at all. Smoke billowed from the port side, and Liz fired again, a controlled burst this time that tore apart the port thruster. The Gull was no longer dodging.
"Got 'em," Liz said. "They're dead in space."
Joss, Liz, and Chan formed the boarding party. They floated across in vac suits and clustered in front of the ship's front window. Chan cupped his hands around his face and peered inside.
A body floated on the other side of the glass.
A jagged fist-sized hole in the top of the ship told him the bridge had lost pressure. There was a tiny airlock near the hole. With vacuum on both sides they were able to open the inner and outer hatches. Chan tried to go through first, but Liz pushed him impatiently out of the way and entered the ship.
Chan followed, a laser pistol in his hand. The caution was unnecessary. The bridge contained two corpses, one still strapped into the pilot's chair, the other floating free. The floating man had his legs shoved into a vac suit. He'd been trying to suit up when the hull was breached.
There was a hatch at the back of the bridge, and it still had power. The control panel flashed red when Chan touched it, and he smiled. "There's pressure on the other side."
They found an emergency patch kit mounted to a bulkhead and sealed a pair of holes, one in the ceiling, one in the floor. The ship's computer kept them mostly locked out, but it gave them access to basic emergency functions. Chan told the computer to refill the bridge with air, and watched dust lift from the deck and bulkheads and swirl around.
"That's one atmosphere," Joss reported. She was looking over the dead pilot's shoulder, scanning his console. "There's still a leak somewhere, but it's a slow one."
"Good enough," said Liz, and moved to the hatch at the back. Chan hovered in the air beside her, and Joss drifted over to one side where she'd have a clear field of fire. All three of them had weapons drawn. Liz glanced around, then tapped the hatch control.
The hatch slid open. Emergency lighting showed a long compartment on the other side, bunks lining one wall, a simple galley at the far end. Then a foot appeared just below the ceiling, and Chan's finger tightened, nearly firing the laser pistol in his hand.
Liz pulled herself through the hatch in one smooth motion, and Chan flailed, caught in mid-air. Joss kicked off of the bulkhead beside her, flew to the hatch, looked up at the owner of the foot, then holstered her gun. She held the door frame and reached out to pull Chan over.
Geoff had one hand wrapped around a handle mounted on the ceiling. His other hand pressed a thick wad of blankets against the ceiling plates. The blanket fluttered with the pressure of escaping air. He gave Chan a tight grin and returned his attention to the blanket.
"Hang on, buddy," Chan said, although Geoff wouldn't be able to hear him through his helmet. "I'll be right back with a patch."
Geoff was pulling on a vac suit when Chan heard Rhett's voice over the suit radio. The robot sounded strangely tinny and distant, and Chan finally figured out that Rhett was speaking into a microphone. The robot's internal transmitters were apparently not working. Rhett was going to need a significant overhaul.
"Lisa is coming across. Also, there is a police cutter approaching."
Lisa came in through the ceiling airlock, and when she recognized Geoff, she kicked off from the ceiling and slammed into him. At first Chan thought it was an attack, but he heard her voice over the suit radio saying, "Oh my god, are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay?" Her arms were wrapped around him so tightly that he could only wheeze helplessly in response.
"I'm sorry we're rescuing you only to see you arrested," Chan said.
Lisa let go of Geoff, giving Chan a stricken look.
Geoff shrugged. "It's a big improvement over my situation half an hour ago. I won't complain." He finished suiting up, then went to a locker at the back of the room. He took out a gun belt, drew a laser pistol, fiddled with it for a few moments, then holstered the gun and handed the belt to Lisa.
She looked at the gun belt dubiously.
"In case it's not actually a police cutter," he said. "I want you to be safe."
The smile on her face seemed to light up the inside of her helmet. She nodded and buckled on the gun.
"All right," said Chan, "let's go." He kicked off from the deck plates, floated to the airlock, and pulled himself inside. When the lock finished cycling he grabbed a handle on the hull and floated there, waiting.
The police ship was a distant point of light, growing as it approached. The lock slid open beside Chan and Geoff came out. He looked at the approaching ship and said, "Well, there's one good thing about getting arrested."
"What's that?"
"I won't ever have to see that crazy imbecile again. Unless she visits me in prison." Geoff shook his head. "She'd be nuts enough to do it, too." He twirled a finger beside his ear. "She's cuckoo."
"Uh, Geoff, I think she can hear you."
Lisa came through the lock. Chan couldn't see her face through the glare on her helmet, but her voice told him everything he needed to know. "You bastard." She was so choked with emotion he could barely understand her. "You rotten, lying cockroach! I helped them save you, you …"
Geoff waved a dismissive hand at her. "Get over it, why don't you? I got what I needed from you." He leaned closer to her, as if it would help her hear. "Get it through your thick head, Linda. You're no further use to me. I'm done with you."
She didn't speak. The sound that came through the helmet radio was pure pain. Her hands came up, clenched in fists, and Geoff gave a derisive snort.
Then her right hand dropped to the pistol on her belt. She drew and fired in one quick motion, and Geoff cried out, letting go of the handle and tumbling away from the hull. His hands clutched his stomach, and Chan saw white vapor streaming from between his fingers. He spun through the void, and some quirk of physics made his body curve so that he vanished behind the bulk of the Gull.
Liz climbed out of the lock, looked around, and said, "Where's Geoff? What did I miss?"
Chapter 8
They told their story to a skeptical captain on the bridge of the police cutter Aardvark. They left out the part where Lisa shot Geoff, instead saying his suit had sprung a leak just after he left the Gull.
If the officer believed them he hid it well. The legal situation, though, was a tricky one. Technically they were beyond the jurisdiction of the Montgolfier police. As the dead bodies were quickly identified as known violent criminals, the captain had no choice but to take their story at face value.
Geoff's body was not among the corpses collected by the police. He had drifted away from the Gull, lost somewhere in the vastness of space. The suit should have had a transponder, but neither the Aardvark nor the Stark Raven could pick up a signal.
At last the cutter captain gave them a stern lecture about taking the law into their own hands and sent them on their way. Liz backed the Raven up and Chan watched through the front windows as crew from the Aardvark attached a tow line and remote-controlled navigation thrusters to the Gull. Then the nose of the Raven swung around and they left the whole sad mess behind.
Ten minutes later Venus was a hazy crescent filling half the sky and Etienne Station was a glowing point of light dead ahead. Chan was reflecting sadly on Geoff's tragic end when he heard a yelp of pain through the hatch at the back of the bridge. He rose and hurried aft, Joss at his heels.
They found Lisa in the ship's tiny galley, doubled over with a hand pressed to the side of her head. He put an arm around her shoulders. "Lisa. What is it? What happened?"
"Oh, my," said Joss, reaching past him to pick up a laser pistol from beside the little stove.
Lisa lowered her hand slowly. An angry red scorch mark decorated the side of her head. Chan could smell burning hair, but she didn't seem to be injured. She turned a tear-streaked face to Chan and said, "I'm as bad at death as I am at life."
He said, "You tried to kill yourself?"
She nodded miserably.
"But why?"
"Because I killed him." She burst into tears and pressed her face into Chan's chest. He held her awkwardly, wishing Joss would step in. He was badly out of his depth.
Joss, though, was examining the pistol. She filled the sink with water, took careful aim, and squeezed the trigger before Chan could shout in protest.
Light flashed, and a small puff of steam rose from the surface of the water.
Chan said, "What the hell?"
"The gun's been tampered with," Joss said. "That's why Lisa is still alive." She set the gun back down on the stove.
Lisa sniffled, then stepped out of Chan's arms. She splashed water from the sink into her face, then dried herself with a towel and said, "The water's not even warm."
"No," said Joss. "The gun's not too dangerous unless you trip over it."
"But …" Lisa stared at them, her face a mix of confusion and deeper, more complex emotions. "But I killed him."
Joss shook her head. "I don't think so."
Lisa stared at Joss, then at the gun, then at Joss again.
"He faked his death," Joss said. "He knew the police were coming. There were outstanding warrants. It was the only way to avoid arrest."
Lisa seemed to grow before Chan's eyes as a weight of grief and remorse fell from her. He saw the beginning of a beautiful smile, but then her face froze and turned cold. "He lied to me."
"Well," said Joss, "it is what he does."
There was something dark and terrible in Lisa's eyes now. "He used me." Disbelief battled with fury in her voice. "He got me to shoot him. He knew what it would do to me, and he did it anyway."
Joss said, "That's one way to look at it."
There was a dangerous tone in Lisa's voice as she said, "What do you mean, 'one way to look at it'? It's what happened!"
Joss shrugged. "True. But it's also true that he saved you from having to lie to the police. He saved you from having the police realize you were lying. He saved you from spending the next twenty years thinking about how he's in a prison cell, and it's all your fault because you're a lousy liar."
Lisa stared at her, looking a bit stunned.
"Are you a good liar, Lisa?"
"I … I don't know. I've never really tried. Not since I was little."
"I think it's safe to say you're not a good liar, then. Geoff lied to you. It kept him out of prison. And it kept you free of remorse." She glanced at the pistol. "Well, after you let go of the remorse you felt for shooting him."
"Do you …" Lisa cleared her throat, then took a deep breath. "Do you think so?"
Joss shrugged again. "Like I said. It's one way of looking at things." She reached out and put a hand on the other woman's shoulder. "There's always more than one way to look at things. So far, you've been choosing whatever interpretation hurts the most. Maybe you need to make better choices."
Lisa didn't speak, but her eyes flashed with anger.
"Or maybe not," Joss said. She sounded a little annoyed herself. "Maybe shooting yourself is the answer after all. I don't really care." She moved around Lisa, palmed the door to her own cabin, and disappeared inside.
Lisa said, "What's the matter with her?"
"We're doc
king," Liz announced over the speakers in the corridor. "All ashore that's going ashore. Step lively, if you please. I don't want to be moored to Etienne a moment longer than necessary. Those cops could still change their minds."
Lisa turned to Chan. "Do you think he's still out there? Alive?"
Chan nodded. "I'm not certain. But yes, I think so."
"But he has no ship!"
He stiffened. "You're right." What, exactly, were you planning, Geoff? Did you think they'd leave the Gull floating there, and you'd be able to sneak back aboard? Or did you just not think this through?
"Will you do me a favor, Captain Chan?"
"All right," he said cautiously.
"Promise me you won't go out there and get him. I want to imagine him dying ever so slowly, all alone in the dark." She shook her head, and he saw the glint of tears on her lashes. "That's what he did to me. Left me all alone with darkness all around me. It was as cold as outer space, and I felt like I was suffocating." She wiped her eyes and looked up at Chan. "That's what I want to happen to him."
She didn't wait for an answer, just turned and opened the ventral airlock in the corridor behind her. The ventral lock was a pain to use, but it was the only lock on the ship without a clamp. She curled herself up in the little barrel-shaped space and Chan closed the inner hatch. When the light beside the hatch showed green he knew she was gone.
He walked back to the bridge and lowered himself into his usual seat. "She may have helped us," he said to Liz, "but let's not let that dingbat back on the ship ever again."
Liz gave him a quizzical look, then checked her console. "Looks like she's clear of the ship," she said. "Etienne Station, this is Stark Raven requesting permission to depart."
"Granted," said a mechanical voice. The steel walls of a docking bay swung past the front windows as Liz brought the ship around. A moment later they were through the force field at the end of the bay and back out in vacuum. Liz took them rapidly away from the station, then lifted her hands from the controls and swivelled her seat around. "Where to now, Captain? We need a place to dock where we can cut these damned clamps off, but I think we'd better pick some place far away from here."