Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology

by Amy J. Murphy

  She opened a message to David. She typed, I am in the craft.

  After a short delay came the reply. Good luck.

  She remembered facing David in the hall of the apartment building where she had lived for the past few months.

  "You will have your revenge," he said, while wiping the tears from her cheeks. "They will not have died for nothing."

  She remembered how she'd gone up to her apartment, and how, alone by herself with the memories of a life so brutally shattered with the cabin on the flyer that carried both her parents, she had cried and made a pledge that she would avenge their deaths.

  David would be at Ganymede, waiting for her news.

  "Ah, we got one," the pilot said.

  An asteroid.

  It was not yet visible with the naked eye on the forward view screen, but the spectrometer showed a table of a body with a high content of water.

  Emily grabbed the coordinates and let her computer do the work.

  If she did the job that she was being paid for, two relatively small explosions would set the asteroid on an orbit that would slowly veer to Io.

  If.

  The asteroid had come into view on the much-enlarged forward view screen projection. They would loop around, scan it, record its weight distribution and calibrate where to send the rockets.

  JS56364 was a small lump of ice, about half the size of Iovis-X station. Its shape was fairly round for an asteroid, and its rotation speed was slow, which made it suitable for redirecting.

  The surface was pitted and carried long scrapes where, in times past, other objects had bumped into it and rolled off down the side.

  Emlee steered the ship around it so that they could study and photograph the surface.

  Even though the asteroid was made of ice, the outside was coated with near-black regolith, the detritus it had picked up over millions of years in space.

  That would all come to an end.

  At Io, the sling captured these asteroids and put them into orbit, where, over a period of months, harvesting bots would break them down and send the ice to the surface in sealed pods, where they could be collected by the inhabitants.

  It was her task to fly the ship, and the task of the tech crew person to calculate the positions for the rockets, send them down at high speed so that they embedded in the surface, and ignite the explosive in the chamber.

  Emily had her computer out and the screen showed curved lines and other geometric shapes.

  "Are you ready?" Emlee asked. "We're coming up to the target."

  While they flew around the asteroid, Emily's palms were moist with sweat.

  This was the time that she had to make a decision.

  David was constantly sending her messages, checking up on her. He didn't have access to the shuttle's internals and wanted her to report on what she was doing.

  I think that's too risky, she told him. I'll just do my thing. I don't want to risk the project if they pick up my messages.

  It was true, he said, so he stopped checking on her so often.

  After all, if you wanted to hide your conversations, deep space was a terrible place to do it. With many telescopes listening—and spying—on other settlements, someone was bound to come across and record your conversation.

  She grew irritated that he didn't seem to trust her.

  Her thoughts went back to the last time she had seen him before going to Iovis-X.

  "Remember you're a Hasegawa," he had said. "We, the Hasegawas and the Laws, built these colonies. These filthy rebels are trying to take them away from us. We are not just going to give in and let them take what we built with our hands and hard work."

  David was so angry, so passionate about his heritage.

  She loved him when he was angry like this. She wanted to fight with him and do more than just talk about how new arrivals to the system were leeching off the work that the early pioneers had done. Her family had not put their lives on the line for several generations for these people to come and take advantage of it.

  She had found it disturbing that her mother hadn't liked David. She said that he was only kind because her father was the dean of Ganymede University.

  Emily thought it was a nasty thing to say and wondered why her mother said it. Did she know more about David Law than Emily did?

  Plenty of doubts, always, and no way to go back and ask.

  If there was anything specific to be worried about, she would have warned me.

  The lines of the possible orbits displayed on the screen blurred before her eyes.

  She had trained for this.

  Emlee became aware that Emily was just staring at her screen.

  "What are you doing? I don't have the time to go around again and be back in time for the next shift. They need this ship for another job."

  "Yes, sorry."

  She sounded nervous.

  Emlee turned around. "Is everything all right?"

  Emily pulled up her knees—to hide something on the screen? "Yes, yes, I'm setting the targets now. We should be underway soon."

  Data scrolled over the main screen. Emlee's controls showed the rockets being filled with explosive and the doors being shut.

  A moment later one of the rockets detached from the ship and then another.

  Explosions in space were really quite boring. The old vids would show fireballs in space, but that didn't happen. You needed oxygen for fire.

  So all that she could see was a puff of debris flying from the side of the asteroid as the rocket hit the surface and burrowed into the ice and then a bigger puff as the charge exploded. And then the next one.

  "Right, time to go home."

  Emlee opened the channel to the Control Centre. "Heading back in now."

  "Copying," said the familiar voice of Piro in her ear.

  Emlee set their course to return to the station, and she was checking jobs that had been logged for tomorrow when an alarm went off.

  Proximity warning.

  What the hell?

  The front view screen flashed, indicating the trouble in red.

  Whoa! Where was that asteroid going? It was meant to veer off in a tighter orbit around Jupiter.

  But instead, it was coming in their direction. The alarm blared ever more insistently. She gunned the engine and steered the craft aside. The asteroid passed by, filling the entire view screen.

  What the hell was happening?

  "What did you do?" she asked Emily. "What orbit did you put it on?"

  But Emily did not reply. She held a gun pointed at Emlee's head. "Keep your hands off the controls."

  "What the hell are you doing? What did you just do to that asteroid?"

  Emily laughed, not in a nice way. "It is my revenge for these people who killed my parents."

  "Revenge, like, how?"

  "You are really stupid, aren't you? You're sitting on one of the most powerful weapons in the system."

  Emlee finally understood. "What? You're going to crash the asteroid into—where?"

  "Goldline. Held and destroyed by rebels."

  For a while, Emlee didn't know what to say. She opened and closed her mouth several times. Then she said, "No, I'm not stupid. The reason that I wouldn't have thought to use an asteroid as a weapon is that I've been created to be a good person, who contributes to society, and doesn't destroy it."

  Emily laughed. "You are really so full of your own self-righteousness, aren't you?"

  "No. I'm just not interested in your politics. I do a good job, and I don't like it when people get killed."

  "But you never even think about the reasons why you have to do this job and who benefits from it? Anyway, you're talking rubbish. Constructs get sent to war all the time, and they kill people just as often as natural born people do. Just much more efficiently. You don't have any family. You don't care enough about anyone to fight for them. You just carry out orders. It's time to carry out mine."

  No way. "You're right. I don't have any family in the same way you h
ave family. I don't have any family to defend to the detriment of everyone else. I don't have any family to give favours. Your name probably isn't Hasegawa. You're just a terrorist."

  Emily just looked at her. Her eyes were dark and angry. "You're lying. You don't know anything."

  "It doesn't sound like the kind of knowledge I'd want anyway." She looked sideways at the controls while keeping her hands up.

  There was still a small reserve of explosive left in the reservoir, and one rocket. Maybe if she could send it straight into the asteroid's surface, she could blow up a good part of it, so that it changed course.

  But the asteroid was veering off in a different direction, and fast travelling out of reach.

  She said, "Well, we still need to go back to the station, right?"

  Emily shook her head. "We're not going back to the station."

  Emlee's heart thudded against her ribs. Maybe Emily had come here to do this terrible thing and kill herself, but Emlee had no intention of either dying or letting this woman get away with this crime. She had no intention either of being taken as some kind of weird trophy to one of the settlements with natural-born people to be locked up or paraded as a bad example or being blamed for the impending disaster.

  She asked, "How long do we have?"

  "Get out of the chair," Emily said.

  "And then you're going to fly?" The blood roared in her ears. She did some quick mental calculations. In her guess, they had about four hours.

  "I told you to get out of the chair, so get out of the chair."

  Emlee unstrapped her harness. But while she pushed herself up, she kept her earpiece on, and she placed her hand on the communication button.

  The voice of the control centre sounded in her ear. Piro. Familiar, safe. By the stars, if she survived this, she was going on this date with him.

  She kept talking. "Then what are you going to do? When that asteroid slams into Goldline, you can't flee anywhere, because everyone will be able to see what you've done. Maybe not immediately, but they will find out. You can't hide in space."

  The voice in her ear said, "Is that you, Mission 264?"

  Emily said, "You're right. That's why we're going to take the dive."

  Taking the dive, a term used by the pilots in the system to either voluntarily or by accident get sucked into Jupiter's gravity well, to be crushed by the enormous forces, vaporised and cooked.

  "Take the dive, seriously? Are you mad?"

  Piro said, "Mission 264? Emlee?"

  "I have no intention of dying yet," she said.

  Emily gestured with the gun. It was a slightly outdated military style weapon, which had probably come out of an illegal trade. Emlee had heard these kinds of weapons could be bought at the bars in the transit stations that orbited the system, where the large interplanetary passenger ships docked.

  Emily gestured to one of the passenger chairs. She had pulled back the safety harness.

  Oh no, Emlee wasn't going to get in there and she wasn't going to watch while the woman killed them both while strapped in.

  She floated across the cabin, grabbed onto the handrest of the chair as if she was going to sit, and then used the handhold to push herself into Emily's side.

  The force of the impact sent both of them flying through the cabin. Emily pointed the gun, but Emlee kicked her arm. The weapon flew out of her attacker's hand, while she hung onto Emily and floated in the other direction.

  Emlee's shin connected painfully with the edge of the flying console.

  Emily managed to grab Emlee around the waist and pinned down one arm. While trying to worm herself free of Emily's grip, Emlee pulled her feet up so at least she didn't push any of the wrong kind of controls by mistake. Her head hit the ceiling.

  Emily pushed off with her hand, in the direction of the gun that had floated to the other side of the cabin, out of reach for now.

  Piro in her ear said, "What was that? I heard a noise. I'm not receiving you."

  Emlee called out, "Help! She is attacking me."

  She tried to twist so that she could get a grip on Emily's arms. They floated across the cabin and bumped into the front view screen.

  Emily pulled out Emlee's earpiece and smashed it against the wall.

  Piro's voice now boomed through the cabin. "Come in Mission 264. Mission 264, do you copy?"

  Emily stomped on the communication panel. Piro's voice reduced to a distorted crackle.

  Because of the force of Emily's leg hitting the controls, they now flew into the backrest of the pilot's chair.

  Emlee grabbed the backrest with her free hand and then clamped the backrest between her legs. Emily, now having the disadvantage of having nothing to push off or hold on, was powerless against her grip, especially when Emlee turned her around so that she faced the cabin. She kicked and growled, but her feet found no purchase.

  So they hung for a while, both panting. Then Emlee used a trick she had trained for. She pushed off the chair as hard as she could. They sailed through the cabin. Because she held Emily's hands behind her back, Emily slammed face first into the opposite wall. Emlee grabbed the jacket that was stowed in the compartment next to the door and tied it around Emily's wrists. The blow had half knocked her out.

  Good. She wouldn't do any more damage for a while. She tied the jacket onto the railing next to the door and to make sure, tied up Emily's feet as well.

  Then she went back to the controls.

  Various lights flashed on the panel. They were veering off-course and Piro was still trying to get into contact.

  She tried the earpiece, but it was broken. The loudspeaker was broken, too. Damn it, how was she going to stop that asteroid? She had hoped a military ship would be able to take care of it.

  There was still one rocket in the ship, but first, she needed to be close enough.

  She made a hard turn.

  Behind her, Emily groaned in her bonds. "What are you doing?"

  "Undoing your damage."

  Emlee was able to find the asteroid by tracking the course of the ship back to where the rockets had been fired, and the calculated trajectory that she found on Emily's console.

  With its dark surface, it was barely visible, barrelling through space on its destructive mission.

  Emlee had no idea how much explosive to load onto the rocket, so she loaded as much as possible.

  Aim at the middle of the asteroid, and send the rocket off. She could feel it leaving the chamber in the bottom of the craft, but couldn't see it until it hit the asteroid. First a small puff where it embedded itself in the side. And then—whoa!

  Ice and rock sprayed outwards from the surface and a huge chunk of material came loose, and another one and whoa! They were coming in the direction of the ship.

  Emlee tried to turn the ship, but while it was much more agile than the mining craft, it was still heavy and could not turn fast enough.

  That chunk of rock was coming closer. They were going to hit it, they were going to—

  Emlee grabbed the helmet, jammed it over her head, turned on the tank, and braced herself.

  A glancing blow sent her flying sideways. She wore her harness and the helmet, but the impact was enough to knock her out.

  When she woke, the ship was tumbling, spinning, and half the control lights were off. The cabin had not lost pressure.

  She took the helmet back off.

  She groaned and pushed her earpiece back. Lights on the control panel flashed orange and red at her. She checked for damage.

  The cabin was losing some pressure, but the air tanks would replenish that—except that one of the tanks didn't show metrics on the panel.

  The main engine had shut down and would take some time to start up, but the landing jets were of the rapid response type and she managed to stop the ship tumbling.

  Phew.

  Then she became aware of a tinny voice in the helmet that was floating in mid-air dangling by the cord.

  "Iovis-X control to Mission 264, come in pl
ease." That was Piro.

  "Copy," Emlee said. "I may need to redo this job tomorrow. I had to blow up this asteroid and it exploded in my face. I've got a prisoner, I'm losing air pressure and the engine has shut down. I think I can restart it, but it will take a while. I would prefer not to do that because we're losing pressure. If I could find the hole, I could put my prisoner's butt in it."

  "What's happened?"

  "It's a long story, but if you send someone to pick us up, I'll go out to dinner with you."

  Emlee managed to restart the engine, but it didn't run well and dropped out again before it could reach full capacity. The cabin pressure was also slowly dropping.

  Just as well that a rescue ship arrived not too much later to take them back to the station. Emily was still tied up to the handrail next to the door, and it gave Emlee great satisfaction to see her taken off the ship by a couple of beefy construct soldiers.

  Piro had come into the docking corridor to meet her.

  The hall was returned to its former busy but not chaotic state. Emlee heard that the refugees had been taken aboard a ship to receive temporary accommodation in Iovis-II, which was being refitted and was virtually empty.

  "They can't harm anyone else if a fight breaks out," Piro said.

  Over a drink, later that night, he confessed how long he'd been working up the courage to ask her on a date, and how much he looked up to her.

  "Me? But I'm only a dumb pilot."

  "You are the best pilot on the station. You put your life on the line to keep people safe. Today shows that more than ever."

  Emily was sent back to Ganymede for a trial, which also covered the behaviour of David Law, the mastermind behind the scheme.

  It became obvious that he was the big crook who had used Emily to do his dirty jobs.

  Emlee did feel sorry for her—sort of. How blindly trusting did you have to be to think that sending an asteroid into an occupied habitat was a good idea?

  Having diverted the asteroid qualified as a heroic deed, and a few weeks later, Emlee received a bravery medal from the station director. She hung it next to her bed in the dorm, where her sisters poked fun at it and were perhaps a little bit jealous.