The Oceans between Stars

by Kevin Emerson

  “You shouldn’t do this,” Phoebe finally said. “You should just get out of here.”

  Why?” Liam nearly shouted. “So we can watch our people slaughter each other and not be able to do anything about it? So one of us can watch the other die? All of this feels pointless if we’re not together.”

  “But how are you even going to get to me? We’re in a firefight.”

  “Those drone fighters should recognize me as a friendly ship,” said Liam. “I think I can get close to you. If you can just get in a space suit and get outside somehow—”

  “We don’t have space suits that work for us. Just these weird things that the Styrlax use.”

  “Are there escape pods?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “What?”

  “You said in your vision I seem cold,” said Phoebe. “Do you remember what JEFF said about space? About surviving in the vacuum?”

  “You mean that you can’t?”

  “No, you can, for about sixty seconds. And he was talking about humans. Might be a little longer for me.”

  “Or shorter, but—are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “You’ve seen it, Liam. It works.”

  The pit inside Liam grew deeper. “But we haven’t experienced it yet. We don’t know for sure.”

  “Then why are you flying toward me?”

  Liam nodded to himself. She was right.

  “The watch is blinking,” said Phoebe.

  “I’m sure it is.”

  Liam burned the main thruster. It shoved him back against the seat. Out the cockpit, he saw a series of bright flashes dead ahead. The giant red star was somewhere beneath him.

  “So . . . ,” said Phoebe. “I’m going to jump into the vacuum of space, and you’ll catch me before I turn into an ice cube.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Another long pause. “How soon will you be here?”

  Liam checked his acceleration, then the battery. Sixty-eight percent. It was draining faster than it used to. “Three minutes.”

  “We’re getting shot at from all sides. What if I just get blown apart by enemy fire?”

  “I don’t think you will,” said Liam.

  “I guess I just have to trust you.”

  “That’s what we do, right?” Liam watched the dot closing on his navigation screen. Out the windshield, the flashes of the firefight grew closer. And every time he blinked, he saw that vision, the boiling star through the cockpit window—

  But no! He’d changed the future how many times? He could do it again. This vision was still probability, just one outcome. And it was one that included saving Phoebe.

  An explosion caught his eye up ahead. He flew by a damaged drone fighter, spitting sparks. The drones were oval-shaped discs, with thrusters on all sides, each rotating around a spherical center like a giant metal marble.

  He could see the Styrlax ship now, dead ahead, explosions flashing off its sleek exterior. It zigged and zagged through the swarm of drone fighters, a couple of them smashing against its hull. In a wicked burst of light, it fired a wide beam that incinerated two fighters, then continued burrowing through the dark. Liam lost sight of it, until moments later there was an explosion from one of the cores of the Saga.

  Liam noticed that the Rhea had moved into parallel formation with the Saga to tow the Scorpius. Their engines were bright, as if they’d slowly begun to accelerate. The Styrlax ship was on a course that would bring it to the port side of the starliner formation.

  “JEFF,” Liam tried, but JEFF was no longer on his link screen. They were out of range, or maybe it was the interference from the firefight. How soon would they launch those warheads?

  “Phoebe, I’m one minute out.”

  He heard Phoebe breathing hard. “Everyone’s distracted. I’m—I’m in the airlock. Liam, I’m so scared.”

  Fifty seconds. “You’re going to be all right. Just hold on to that link with both hands. Remember to close your eyes, and breathe out before you jump.”

  “It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”

  “I think so.”

  “But you’re going to catch me.”

  “I’m going to fly right up and pull you in and you’re going to make it.” Liam felt determination coursing through him. They could do this.

  Lights flashed all around him now, fighters swerving this way and that in flurries of quick rocket bursts. The skim drone drew closer to the alien ship, but it kept changing course, and Liam had to manually adjust his approach with the lateral thrusters. He was trailing only a couple hundred meters behind it.

  “I’m here,” said Liam.

  “Okay, I’m going to do it,” said Phoebe through rapid breaths. “Going to hit the button and jump. Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck. And you’re holding the link tight?”

  “In a death grip.”

  “Okay, go for it.”

  “You got me?”

  “I got you.”

  “Here I go—” Liam heard her exhale, and then a metallic sound of rushing air.

  He thought he saw a flash of light on the side of the Styrlax ship, the airlock door opening. It swerved again, and the dot of Phoebe’s link separated from it. Liam tapped the thrusters, counting the seconds.

  Three, four, five . . .

  He slowed slightly and lined up his intercept. A fighter shot by above him, was just past when it exploded in a silent flash. A chunk of it raked the skim drone’s side and a warning light flashed.

  Liam realigned, slowed further.

  Eight, nine, ten . . .

  He slapped on his helmet and locked it in place with shaking fingers.

  Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen . . .

  He opened the cockpit. With a great whoosh, the skim drone coughed out all of its air and silence engulfed him. Flashes of the firefight everywhere. Another drone fighter exploded nearby.

  Liam double-checked his course and speed. They had to be lined up just right.

  And there she was! Straight ahead, a tiny object just silhouetted in his lights. Her body an infinitesimal thing against the backdrop of the stars.

  Nineteen, twenty . . .

  “I’m coming,” he said to himself. She was probably already unconscious, but he was close. Fifty meters.

  Liam grabbed a safety line from its compartment and hooked it to his belt. He unbuckled his seatbelt and attached the hook on the end of the line to the tow handle beside the cockpit.

  He started to float up. Phoebe was right in front of him now, her arms straight out in front her, hands clasped, and it was like they were both flying, seemingly in slow motion and yet at over a thousand meters per second. Her eyes were closed and her skin looked frosted in his helmet lights, her body stiff, literally freezing in the vacuum of space right at this very second. Had to hurry. He tensed, opened his arms.

  Twenty-six, twenty-seven . . .

  She was just above the drone, and he kicked gently against the hull to move closer—

  Suddenly he was yanked hard and there was a bright flash and everything spun, the stars tumbling over and over.

  A flash of shrapnel—the skim drone had been struck by a piece of fighter wreckage. Liam twisted, somersaulting away. No! He grabbed for the tether, the strap slipping through his gloves. Finally he gripped it and pulled himself hand over hand back toward the ship. This righted him with the skim drone but everything else was tumbling, the suns and explosions blurring by again and again. He gritted his teeth and focused only on the drone until he reached the cockpit.

  The controls were dark.

  Liam pulled himself inside and grabbed the booster pack from the floor.

  Thirty-four, thirty-five—or maybe forty. He’d lost count.

  The pack was clipped to the seat belt and he fumbled with that, too, before finally freeing it. He slid the straps over his shoulders and unclipped his safety line. He kicked off the side of the drone, and as he floated away from it, he wrestled to the get the thrust control f
ree of its holder on the shoulder strap, and then hit the autostabilize. A series of small bursts fired on the back of the pack, stopping him from spinning. The skim drone was now above him. The firefight beneath his feet. Keep it together! he told himself.

  How long had it been now? Fifty-five?

  He rotated, peering into the dark—

  There she was, so far now. . . . He straightened toward her and fired the main thruster on the pack, sailing toward her. Fired again, and again, trying to match her speed.

  There was an explosion above, a silent flash, and chunks of pulverized fighter spreading in a fountain, but it had been heading away from him and the shrapnel continued in that direction.

  Almost to Phoebe. A full minute now? More? She was upside down relative to him. Liam fired again, coming at her on a sharp angle. All of a sudden too fast—

  He slammed sideways into her back and wrapped his arms around her stiff, unmoving body. He nearly tumbled right over her but held on. It’s too late, too late—

  He fired the lateral thruster, turning until he spotted the skim drone, then the main thruster at full, wrenching them to a stop and sending them hurtling back toward the craft.

  Had to be well over a minute by now. They neared the drone and he fired the reverse thrusters in pulses, slowing, slowing, but not slow enough—a quick burst of the lateral thruster and he was able to crash into the front of the drone with the booster pack rather than Phoebe’s body. He felt it crunch through his suit. They bounced, tumbling over the cockpit and colliding with the open canopy, which caught them. For a moment he worried it would snap off and that would be the end, but the canopy held, and Liam grabbed the side of the ship with his free hand and pulled them down. He pushed Phoebe’s frigid body into the seat, her legs wedging in the footwell, and then yanked down the canopy. The controls still dark, the cockpit as cold and airless as space.

  He jammed his finger on the power button. Nothing. Held it down. . . .

  The craft hummed to life and began its restarting procedure, the welcome logo appearing on the main console screen. Systems flashed on in turn, and the blowers roared. A few seconds later, the air pressure and oxygen indicators blinked green. Liam tore off his helmet.

  “Phoebe!” He turned her cold body toward him. He unzipped his suit, pushed it down to free his arms, and started rubbing Phoebe’s shoulders. They felt so cold. “Come on, Phoebe. Come on.” She wasn’t breathing. Her lavender, dotted skin and black thermal wear crusted in frost, crystals beaded on the tips of her gray eyelashes.

  Outside, lights strafed by and another drone fighter disintegrated a few hundred meters away. Liam wondered if the skim drone appeared on the Telphon scopes. He wondered if they knew that Phoebe was with him, or even that she was gone yet.

  Liam made a two-handed fist, trying to remember the CPR lessons he’d gotten at the research station. Once every couple years he’d been forced to sit through them, assuming it was something he’d never need to know. Had it been thirty compressions? That sounded right. Then breathing, then more compressions. It was an ancient technique, but one that had proven its worth throughout the centuries.

  He pressed his fist against Phoebe’s chest, about to start—something vibrated there. Her artificial second heart. It was still working, or trying to. Would he damage it if he pressed? He started pumping anyway, his fists against her cold, cold sternum, watching her still face.

  “Come on, Phoebe.”

  Thirty compressions. He held her nose, prickly to the touch, wiped away ice from between her lips, and leaned in and breathed three times. More compressions. He still felt the whirring of that pump, but nothing else.

  It was taking too long.

  He breathed into her mouth again. It had to have been nearly two minutes by now, if not more, and it wasn’t working! More compressions. Five, ten—

  She gasped and convulsed and drew in a weak, cold breath.

  “Phoebe! It’s okay, you’re in the skim drone. I’ve got you.”

  Her lips moved slightly, like she was trying to say something, but her wheezing breaths made her wince, like they caused great pain. Shivers racked her body. Her eyes stayed closed.

  Liam kept rubbing her shoulder with one hand but also reached for the drone’s link and brought up available connections. None. He twisted around, trying to find the starliners. There they were, above and behind him. He fired the thrusters, rotating toward them. They were moving away, their engines glowing bright. Bursts of light flashed around them, and to and from a cluster of lights maybe halfway between the starliners and Liam. The swarming patterns of drone fighters, the white-hot blast of the Styrlax weapon.

  He brought up navigation, found the Scorpius with the scanner, and selected it. He set the computer to calculate an intercept velocity. As long as they hadn’t accelerated too much yet . . . A green line flashed between Liam’s location and the starliner. It would take a 55 percent burn to catch them. He checked the battery level. He had 57 percent.

  He glanced down at Centauri A. See ya. And he burned the thruster.

  “Phoebe?”

  The voice had come from inside the skim drone cockpit. A woman, speaking quietly.

  She sniffled. “Phoebe, please respond.”

  Liam gently pried the link from Phoebe’s wet, frigid fingers, but it was coated with melting ice, its screen dark. The voice was coming from elsewhere. Liam reached under Phoebe’s legs and found her old link, the one that she’d left for him. It was blinking with the white signal.

  “Phoebe . . .” Liam gazed at the link. It sounded like her mother. He thought about turning it off.

  “This is Liam,” he said instead.

  “Liam,” said Ariana. “Where is Phoebe?”

  “She’s with me.”

  “Is she—”

  “I think she’ll be all right.”

  “We were fighting. She disappeared and she . . . jumped. What did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything. You’re all trying to destroy each other, but we’re all in danger, and none of you would listen.”

  “What are you two planning?” Ariana asked. Liam could hear her choosing her words carefully.

  “We’re going to find another way.”

  “She belongs with us,” said Ariana.

  “That’s not what she thinks.”

  Ariana didn’t respond, but Liam sensed that she was still there.

  He watched the Styrlax ship and its spiraling firefight, drawing closer to the starliners. Any second now, they would fire. Phoebe must not have told them about the human plan. . . . Liam’s mouth went dry, his stomach flipping. If he just turned off the link—

  “It’s a trap,” he said, and immediately wanted to take it back.

  “What is?”

  “They’re drawing you into range; then they’re going to trap you with warheads, to disable your ship.”

  Just then, light burst from the starliners. Dozens of streaks of white, creating a spiraling ballet of glowing embers. The missiles were all in a tight cluster, heading straight for the alien ship.

  “We can outmaneuver that with ease.”

  “That’s what they want you to think,” said Liam. “Until it’s too late. You have to get out of there now.”

  Another pause: “Why would you help us?”

  “Because I’m Phoebe’s friend.”

  No reply again. Liam watched the dancing lights, the cluster speeding toward the Styrlax ship. Their weapon flashing, firing countermeasures at the warheads. All at once, the missiles broke formation and fanned out in wide arcs. It looked like a net, unfurling around the Telphons, creating a sphere—

  There was a brilliant orange flash, like a disk of light, and just like that, the alien ship was gone. Not a second later, the warheads detonated, a sphere of stars all born at once, massive blinding flashes, making a giant corona of light that radiated out from the blast zone in all directions.

  What had he done?

  Liam watched in awe as the exp
losions merged, seeming to boil for a moment before dying out. All the lights of the fighter drones were gone, the blast having either destroyed them or knocked out their power, while that glowing corona expanded in all directions—

  Including right toward him.

  Oh no. Liam checked the navigation. Their burn wasn’t complete yet. They were still accelerating to catch the starliners, gaining on them steadily, but with more to go. The battery was down to 15 percent and the wave of blast energy was hurtling toward them.

  “Come on,” said Liam, trying to will the drone to move faster. His speed was up to 89 percent of what he needed to catch the starliners . . . now 91. The battery down to 11 percent.

  But that blast wave was closing.

  The drone’s link flashed.

  “Liam, do you copy?”

  “JEFF!” Liam shouted. He must have just crossed back into range. Burn at 94 percent. “I’m coming! I’m almost there, just hold on—”

  A sizzling hiss grew around him, the ship vibrating, and Liam felt a static rush through his body. A bright flash—

  The skim drone went dark.

  “No, come on, no!” Liam jammed the power button and held it down. Nothing. The thruster was dead. All controls dead. The ship’s link, their links, even their suits—knocked out by the electromagnetic pulse from the warheads’ blast.

  Liam slammed the controls with both fists and fell back against the seat, stunned. He stared uselessly at the starliners, so close . . . but he knew the math. Though the skim drone was currently hurtling toward them faster than they were departing, they were accelerating too. He hadn’t reached a fast enough speed to catch them, and they couldn’t turn back, not when that amount of mass was already in motion, and not with Red Line so soon.

  Mina and his parents and JEFF and Shawn. . . . They were going to make it, but Liam had no idea where they were going, no way to catch them, and no way to survive out here.

  He and Phoebe were marooned.

  He shivered. It was already cooler, and without power, the tiny cabin of the skim drone could only keep out the icy cold of space for so long. Red Line couldn’t be more than twenty minutes away. And how long after that before the supernova? Maybe an hour. But they would be frozen or out of oxygen long before the energy storm turned them to atoms.