by Jake Elwood
The stone walls gave way to some sort of silver panelling, the echo of her running feet suddenly muffled as she ran onto carpet. The corridor widened, became a vast room with storefronts lining every wall. People were turning, voices rising. Whether they were reacting to her, or the alarm was spreading that a murder had been done, she couldn't tell. She certainly wasn't sticking around to find out.
A staircase filled the middle of the big room, and she galloped up the steps. The floor above held more shops. She kept on climbing, then stumbled to a halt between floors. A couple of men were coming down the steps toward her, burly guys in dark blue with padded vests and colored stripes on their sleeves and pant legs. They wore gun belts, and one man was speaking into a radio as they hurried toward her.
Liz wheeled, leaped down the steps, and threw herself into the crowd of shoppers on the next floor down. Gotta find another staircase. Gotta get past them. Reach the ship. It wouldn’t take much foresight to post a cop at the elevator bank leading to the Bella module where ships docked. I'll worry about that when I get there. I just need them to be disorganized for a few more minutes.
She pushed through the crowd, and people ahead of her parted. There was a woman moving toward Liz, a lean, capable figure in a Solar Force uniform.
Oh, crap. Liz darted sideways, burrowing into the crowd, trying to lose herself in the throng and knowing it was useless. She was moving too fast to blend in.
Panting, she plunged into a corridor, running flat out. The crackle of a radio behind her told her that her pursuers were close behind. She rounded a corner, kept running. Tiny alleys opened on either side, and she darted into one of them. A fat man was waddling toward her with a huge plastic water bottle on one shoulder.
He'll make excellent cover. She slowed, flashed a smile at him, and pressed her back against the side of the corridor as he pushed past. She walked, moving briskly but not running, slouching to make herself hard to see. The big man would be filling the tiny corridor behind her. He might just be enough ….
She took out her phone, fumbling at it with trembling fingers as she hurried down the little alley. She called Rhett, the only member of the crew who was certain to answer instantly, even if he had both hands full and was in the middle of a conversation.
"Hello."
She was never so glad to hear a placid mechanical voice. She wasted no time on pleasantries. He would know it was her. "Marcus is dead," she blurted. "They're chasing me. I'll try to get to—" Her voice trailed off as she reached the far end of the little alley. She wanted to pause where she was, but the fat man would be out of the way at any second. She left the mouth of the alley and stepped into the broad corridor beyond.
A cop nearly crashed into her, a burly guy in the uniform of station security with a stomach straining the hard plastic of his body armor. He had a radio in one hand, a stun baton in the other, and he dropped both as she punched him hard across the jaw. Something clattered across the floor tiles as she darted around the cop. She was a dozen steps away before she realized she'd dropped her phone.
Liz was across the broad corridor and into another little alley before she knew where she was heading. Her subconscious was guiding her, though. She had no memory of seeing a sign for an emergency hatch, but when her feet stopped moving she was standing before a panel painted vivid red, surrounded by black and yellow stripes.
Voices shouted behind her. With only moments to act she let her hands move on their own, not hesitating, not thinking. A dozen red blisters decorated the bulkhead on either side of the hatch, each thirty centimeters or so across. She popped one blister loose and carried it with her as she palmed the hatch open, triggering a strident alarm.
She stepped through, ducking to enter the cramped space of the little lock, and mashed her elbow against the "close" button. The hatch slid shut, reducing the alarm to a distant, intermittent buzz. The blister popped apart in her hands, revealing a "vac sac", just about the most dismal way there was to survive a brief trip through hard vacuum.
The lock was tiny, too low for her to stand upright, narrow enough that one elbow touched the inner hatch and one elbow touched the outer hatch. She unfolded the vac sac, a gray bag of heavy polymer with a purse-style opening in the top. She pried it open and stepped inside, shifting her feet to free the fabric as she tugged the bag higher and higher. It was nowhere near big enough to hold a person standing upright. She doubled over until her face was almost touching her knees, got her head inside the bag, and discovered she couldn't reach the opening to seal it.
Wondering how anyone could use such a ridiculous thing if the station was actually breaking apart, she flopped herself down on her butt, drew her knees up, and fumbled over her head, pulling the magnetic sides of the opening together by touch. The universe went dark as the bag closed. A tiny green point of light appeared above her, showing that the vac sac was sealed. It was the only light she could see.
There was a touch pad on the side wall of the lock, and Liz fumbled for it, pressing her fingers against the thick polymer. At any moment the cops were going to open the lock from the station side and find her still there, a ridiculous huddled shape swathed in plastic, tapping desperately at the wall.
"What idiot designed this?" she muttered, and stretched her hand up as far as it would reach, wondering if she would have to open the vac sac to work the lock controls. Her fingers detected a lump, and she froze. It could be the button that opened the outer hatch. On the other hand, she was blind, doubled over, and disoriented. It could very well be the button that opened the inner hatch. She imagined pressing the button and tumbling back into the station, landing at the feet of the waiting cops. Would they help her open the vac sac, or would they be laughing too hard?
Liz cursed and mashed her hand against the lump. The pressure against her right elbow vanished, she toppled sideways, and her stomach gave the familiar lurch that told her she was in free-fall.
It took some time for the beating of her heart to slow. She was in terrible danger, and the primitive core of her brain knew it. Her heart beat fast, sweat slicked her skin, her breath came in short, fast pants, and all of it was completely useless in her current circumstances. In fact, her panic responses were making things worse. There was very little air in the vac sac, and she was converting it to carbon dioxide at a prodigious rate.
Telling yourself that you need to relax or you'll die was remarkably ineffective, Liz discovered. It was impossible to tell if she was panting harder and harder because the air was becoming unbreathable or because she was terrified that the air was becoming unbreathable. Her chest trembled with the frantic drumming of her heart, and there was nothing, not one thing, that she could do.
Her mind flashed back to the church, to the calm tranquility of that space, the sense of eternity gathered around like a protective shroud. Should I pray? It can't hurt, right? But pray to whom? How did you choose Jesus over Buddha or Mohammed or Zeus or Krishna? Screw it. I won't die a hypocrite. If any of you are actually out there, hey, here's a good chance to score yourself a convert. Save me now and I'm yours. But I won't beg.
There was something vaguely comforting in the act of making a decision, even a decision as trivial as choosing not to pray. With that out of the way, though, her terror came crowding back in. Reality had shrunk down to a glowing point of green light, a spreading chill as sweat cooled on her arms and across her back, the smell of plastic and fear and her own breath, the feel of soft fabric against her cheek and wrists as she pressed her face against her knees.
Her breathing started to speed up again, and Liz scrabbled through her memories, looking for a moment of warmth and safety that she could retreat into and relive. The remembered scent of Marcus's body filled her nostrils, she felt his warm, strong arm around her shoulders, and her fingers brushed her knee as she recalled tracing the outline of his ribs. He was speaking to her, the words indistinguishable, just a warm murmur that told her he cared about her, he was glad she was mashed into the tiny bunk with h
im.
It was a frustrating reality of zero gravity that tears didn't flow. They just gathered against the surface of the eyeball, held in place by surface tension. Liz watched as the green light above her stretched and distended, then snapped back to its original size as she blinked and set fat drops of water drifting away.
Remembering Marcus was worse than being afraid, so she turned her thoughts back to her predicament. There was no chance of the Stark Raven finding her. They would all be standing around on the bridge with their phones in their hands, wondering what was going on. Either that or they were scattered through the station looking for her.
"I should have surrendered," she whispered in the darkness. I didn't have time to think it through. She let go of her shins and touched her hand to the polymer bag that enveloped her. It was sharply cold to the touch, but suffocation would take her before the cold did. This was really stupid. What was I thinking? I can't escape in a vac sac.
No, her only hope now was for station security to collect her and bring her back in. She was in a fair bit of trouble, but there was always a chance they would eventually let her go. Without the Custer getting ahold of her. Without the fundies assassinating her. Without Chan and Joss and Rhett getting dragged into it.
Without it all ending in disaster.
I should finish it. The thought repelled her, but the part of her mind that was ravaged by grief and fear and remorse was intrigued. I should open the sac. End it now, before they can bring me back. So the others won't have a reason to stay.
Her fingers pressed harder at the bag. What's out there? What's beyond this life? What's on the other side? She was pretty sure it was nothing at all. A bit of religious faith would have been comforting right about then. It might have even given her the courage to open the bag.
I don't think I can do this. Sorry, Captain. If I was sure you wouldn't just hang around anyway, I might. Her fingers drifted to the opening of the bag. Should I do it? Is it the right thing?
Then something hard struck her hip, her body tumbled, and suddenly she had weight. Her final decision was taken away from her. Station security had her. "Damn it," she muttered, pretending that she didn't feel a vast sense of relief.
The top of the bag cracked open, she had to press her eyes shut against the light, and fresh air, sweet beyond description, flooded into the bag. A familiar voice said, "I've got her. Get us out of here."
A deep hum told her that the Raven's main thrusters were engaging. She cracked an eye open and looked up at Chan. He stood over her in a vac suit, his face plate up, and he grinned and said, "Welcome home, Liz."
Author Notes
Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your comments. Go to http://jakeelwoodwriter.com to leave me a note or to learn about other stories, or sign up for my newsletter to hear about new releases. I can be reached by email at [email protected].
Voyage Four, Vendetta on Venus, is coming soon.
I'm also the author of Star Raider, a serial now collected into one volume, available from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00W0E1KOO. Cassandra Marx is a thief, and a good one. This time she got greedy, though. She swiped a priceless artifact from Carmody, the most powerful man on Hesperus. He's been beating his daughter, Lark, so Cassie took the kid too.
Now Carmody is tearing the galaxy apart hunting Cassie down. The artifact isn't just a priceless relic of a lost civilization. It's the key to a galaxy-wide conspiracy. Cassie needs to figure out the significance of the ancient egg, but with bounty hunters and mercenaries hounding her from one end of the galaxy to the other, she and Lark have another puzzle to solve -- how to stay alive.