Pew! Pew! - Sex, Guns, Spaceships... Oh My!

by M. D. Cooper

  “No.” Nikili took a step back, putting distance between herself, the edoc, and Chaquita. “I’ll never claim to be a parent to emulate, but I love Saverna. She wanted me here. I came to make a new start, to quit disappointing my daughter.” Nikili jabbed at Chaquita’s shoulder. “How could you do this?”

  “I’ve been softening your blows to Saverna for quite a while. It’s been her, me, and Hook for ten months. Ten wonderful months. We laugh together. We love together. It’s everything you refuse to give them.”

  Nikili’s fingertips brushed over the locket under her uniform. The corners of her eyes stung and she sniffed. “It’s been hard.” She choked on the words, hardly recognizing her voice. She put more distance between herself and Chaquita.

  Chaquita closed the widening space. “Because you insist it be difficult. It’s not. It’s easy. It’s easy between Hook, Saverna, and I.’

  Blinking rapidly, Nikili’s held her breath for a full minute. How could a woman a foot shorter knock her so hard? She shook her head and drew in her lips, pressing them together. “We should work together for their happiness, not wage war with their feelings. That isn’t right.”

  The frown bulging her cheeks softened, and Chaquita deflated. “Okay. I’ll quit being rotten. I mean nothing other than to protect them.”

  “Do you, or are you protecting what you think is yours?”

  “They’re certainly not yours anymore.”

  The collar on Nikili’s jacket tingled. It projected the hologram of an ORS dispatch agent.

  “Code one,” dispatch droned. “This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. Code one.”

  Sprinting toward the hangar containing her Huey, Nikili touched the back of her collar. “ORS 51 responding. Connect me to Lucy Ashida.”

  The image of dispatch shrank, bringing up a blank area. Within a nanosecond, Lucy blinked upon it, her exotic face frowning. “Where are you, Nikili?”

  “I’m on my way. What’s going on?”

  “Large mass headed toward Vanth. Ships are in the path of destruction.” Lucy gulped down three breaths. “I’m almost to the Huey. What’s your ETA?”

  Nikili didn’t slow at the corners. She didn’t apologize for pushing citizens if necessary. Most of the time she didn’t have to, the siren blaring from her collar was enough to get people to duck out of the way. “E51, track me and give Lucy the answer.”

  “Two minutes, nine seconds,” the Huey’s AI said.

  “How many ships in danger?” Nikili asked

  “Dispatch has been vague.” A bead of sweat trickled down Lucy’s temple.

  Heat built on Nikili’s neck, trickling down her back. Her lungs burned and her legs cramped. Her body wanted to quit. She wouldn’t let it, leaping onto E51. “Seal the hatch. Get airborne.” She huffed on the ramp in a heap. It began to rise. A moment later, a body thudded beside hers.

  Chaquita panted, her gaze gleaming from the alarm lights flashing throughout the city. “I’m going with you.”

  “What?”

  “My family is on ships out there.”

  Nikili’s family. If she’d had enough energy, she’d have punched Chaquita in the face. Now wasn’t the time for a pissing contest. “We’ll settle this later. Behave or E51 will space you.”

  Out of sheer force of will, Nikili pushed herself to mostly upright. She stumbled to the ladder, up it, and fell into her seat beside Lucy. The seatbelt unspooled and hugged her body. She tapped the green area on the strap to secure the buckle. A bot rolled to her feet and offered a tube of water. Taking the vial, she slurped it down. “More.” The bot scurried away and another took its place. Nikili guzzled that tube, too. “Keep them coming, E51.” She touched the gel glass panel. “Report.” Her chair bumped from someone crashing into it. She twisted around and glared at Chaquita. “Take a bunk below,” she said, “and stay out of our way.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this. I’m staying.”

  Growling, Nikili pointed to a corner reserved for bots awaiting commands. “There. Don’t speak and don’t move.”

  The docking bay thrust forward, the walls peeling away before a flight path was cleared. Other pods did the same, the entire harbor alive with ships readying for launch. Hueys took off one after another, the sky covered with ships racing toward danger, rushing to help those in need.

  Adrenaline coursed in Nikili’s veins. She’d never seen so many ORS streaking into the skies at one time.

  “It looks like an invasion, a battle,” she whispered. Her gaze raked the heavens, searching for the reason for so much concern. A flicker of light caught her attention then faded away. She stared at the spot. The flicker flared once again and grew larger; as large as a planet.

  “Asteroid,” Lucy huffed in a voice so hushed it sounded like a breeze.

  “It’s huge.” Nikili gulped. “How big is it, E51?”

  “It isn’t the problem, ORS Echols.”

  For a split second, everything stopped; her heartbeat, her thoughts, her lungs. “How is it not the problem?”

  “The big object will bypass Orcas and Vanth. It’s what’s traveling with it that’s posing the danger.”

  “Speak plainly.” Each word Nikili spoke came out clipped. “What are we facing?”

  “There are moon-sized chunks hurled ahead of a much larger object. The moon-sized pieces are the ones that will take out our ships and possibly Vanth.”

  “Show me and show the much larger object.”

  The gel glass panel lit up with charts highlighting the environs of Orcas and the incoming space debris. Chunks the size of Vanth were on a trajectory to come mighty close to Orcas; close enough to endanger spacecraft and, in one case, to clip Vanth.

  Running her hand over her cheeks, Nikili attempted to rub away the ice prickling her veins. “We have to stop it. There are two cities on Vanth.”

  “Code thirteen seventy-six,” dispatch blared over the comm. system. “ORS 51, take command.”

  “That’ll be you, my love,” Lucy said.

  “Fine. E51, show command thirteen seventy-six.”

  Every Huey in orbit was to line up and project their quantum nets to push the incoming debris away. It’d still not be enough and there’d be no spare rescue ships to assist the CITs.

  Nikili’s mouth went dry and she swiped her palms on the legs of her uniform. “How many Hueys do we have in the ether?” she asked dispatch.

  “One thousand, three hundred forty-nine. Another two hundred about to launch.”

  “Aren’t there four thousand ORS units?”

  “The rest are on their way.”

  “Okay.” She glanced at the charts E51 had made of the incoming debris. “Is the debris solid rocks? Clumps of rocks? What is its composition?”

  “Ice,” E51 answered.

  “Pure ice? Like on the hauler?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “A solar flare would be nice.” If the ice could be melted, Vanth and every ship could be saved.

  “It’ll take months to melt ice cubes as big as those,” Lucy said. “If we could turn it into snow cones, it’d for certain melt before it hits Vanth.”

  “Impact with Vanth is in fifty-three minutes,” said E51.

  “The shaved ice idea has merit, and not just for the biggest margarita party ever.” Nikili swiped at her brow and directed E51 forward. She ordered every rescue ship in orbit into a bowl formation, the line five ships deep.

  “We can do this.” She exhaled.

  The CITs blaring in red flashes burned the corner of her eye. One was marked SO8. “Hook.” Her finger hovered over his distress code. She pressed it until the heat of her finger hailed him. “How bad?” she asked.

  “Kili?” He sounded out of breath. “I’ve got this. You worry about Vanth and Orcus.”

  “Hook!” Chaquita squealed, darting out from her corner, gripping onto Nikili’s chair. “Baby, hold on. We’re coming.” She reached for an icon on the gel glass screen.

  Nikili elbowed
her in the ribs and pointed at the corner.

  “You can’t let him die.” Chaquita’s lower lip quivered. She reached for the icon again, the one that would send the E51 chasing after Hook.

  Nikili wanted Chaquita to press it. Hell, she wanted to press it herself. The idea of no Hook in her life, no one to argue with, no one to pine after, no one to share life with—despite the sharing being mostly in Nikili’s mind—jarred her worse than the separation and pending divorce.

  Yet the tragedy was bigger than she and Hook. Every Nikili and Hook on Vanth and Orcus was threatened to be forever parted. Every one of them would lose their Severnas, and unless they had kin on another world, no one would remember or mourn them. It’d be the dude with a blow torch on steroids.

  Nikili clutched Chaquita’s fingers and squeezed until the woman winced. “I won’t warn you again.”

  Lucy unstrapped her striker and touched the charged rod to Chaquita’s back until she slumped to the floor. “You warned her too many times, and E51 isn’t the third wheel in this relationship now. I want you all to myself.” She blew Nikili a kiss.

  “You’re the best.” Nikili grinned.

  “What’s going on?” Hook panted.

  “I’m going to save Vanth and Orcus.” She couldn’t stop a tremble in her voice. Her throat grew so dry. “I’ll send a rescue ship for you.”

  “There are close to two thousand ships in distress. You can’t single me out.”

  Every possible scenario clicked through Nikili’s thoughts. One by one, she discarded them or put them in the possible pile. “I’ll figure it out. Hold on.”

  “I believe in you.”

  There was no quiver in his voice. He did believe she could save the worlds, him, and the other ships.

  “E51, show the position of every CIT.” One thousand eight hundred and ninety-two triangles lit up on the star chart. “How many photo plasmic torpedoes are available, counting all Hueys in formation?”

  “Nineteen thousand five hundred twenty-three.”

  “How many tons of ice in the incoming debris?”

  “One thousand trillion metric tons.”

  “The weight of Earth.” Lucy’s face paled.

  Nikili held up a hand to silence her. “We need every Huey deploying a quantum net to hold that much debris back.” Her hopes for Hook and the other CITs waned. “What about Vanth and Orcus’s deflector shields?”

  Every planet in the Outling System had defenses in case of comets and asteroids. The likelihood of collision increased dramatically in the outer solar system. There were no Neptunes or Saturns or Jupiters to take the hits. The defenses wouldn’t do much against an object weighing as much as Earth. Nothing so big had been detected in the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud.

  “This comes from outside the solar system?” Nikili asked.

  “Trajectory confirms,” E51 answered.

  “From where?” Lucy followed the line E51 lit up with a finger.

  “Not now. After we save our worlds.” Nikili couldn’t help but glance at the line; it led toward places whispered about. “Black that out,” she ordered E51. Distractions were deadly.

  “What are you planning?” Lucy asked. Chaquita stirred on the floor. Lucy zapped her again.

  “A Hail Mary margarita.”

  Chapter 8

  Saverna’s gut pinched. She stared out of the vast translucent panels of the observation deck at the disappearing Orcus. Of course, her mother hadn’t come to say goodbye. She sighed, leaning her head against the translucent hull. The harbor shrank to the size of a pinhead and lit up in red. The transport increased speed.

  “What’s going on?” she asked the lieutenant on deck. His silver name tag said Lt. Revco.

  “This is a direct flight to Rhea. We just entered the flight path.”

  “I understand why we accelerated, but why did Orcus light up in red?”

  Revco peered over Saverna’s shoulder. “Perhaps a harbor drill.”

  “Since we left before the drill, there was no need for them to notify us,” said a young man behind them, perched on the edge of a table as if he had no interest in seeing anything. Maybe he’d come for the buffet. His complexion had an amber hue, bright and golden; his eyes were as dark as black holes.

  Saverna brushed her lithe fingers over her frizz. She should have pulled it back, made some sort of effort before boarding the transport. “That makes sense.” It would also explain why both her parents hadn’t come to say goodbye.

  “Have you been to Rhea before?” he asked, crossing the few yards between them.

  “No. I was invited.” She chewed on her lower lip. “By the Colleges of Saturna. They invited me.”

  “Yeah?” His brows lifted. He truly had a beautiful face. His thick, black hair was sleek and straight, everything Saverna wished for her own tresses.

  She smoothed her unruly frizz once again. “Ha-have you been there before?” She dared to meet his gaze. He stood two inches taller than her five foot eight inches.

  “Once. It was long ago, and I remember nothing but the grandness of Saturn in the sky.” His smile had a casual playfulness about it. He held out a hand. “Qeb Moller.”

  His hand had a strength and warmth similar to her father’s. Saverna gripped his fingers longer than polite. “Saverna Raeder. Hi.” Her cheeks heated and she let go of him. “Sorry. I’m out of sorts.”

  “Me too. It’s my first trip on my own.”

  “Yeah?” A smile pushed at the corners of Saverna’s mouth. “Why are you going to Rhea?”

  “To meet my father.”

  “Oh, wow.” Saverna crossed her ankles. In the view panel’s reflection, she appeared especially awkward beside him. She tugged down her skirt, thankful she had the foresight to put on tights. Lower gravity did embarrassing things to hemlines. “It’s great he wants to know you.”

  “He has no choice. My mother died.” His chin twitched and his dark eyes became brighter as moisture pooled at the ducts. “He’s my only living relative.”

  A story shared by many in the Outling System. Many of Saverna’s schoolmates had suffered similarly, some not having the luxury of a living relative anywhere in the Sol. She couldn’t tell him about the problems with her two parents, and soon-to-be third parent. “Mining or transport accident?”

  “Transport.”

  “Was ORS involved?” Did her parents have a hand in this boy’s fate? Saverna wouldn’t be able to stand it if they did.

  “The distress call never made it. The accident was too quick.”

  Her next breath came easier. “I’m sorry. Rhea is supposed to be a great place.”

  “My dad is a hauler between the docks and Titan.”

  Hauling fuel was dangerous work. Qeb was fortunate his father still lived. How much longer? “The schools there are huckamucka fantastic.”

  “I’m done with required education. Didn’t score high enough to catch the notice of a community college on Vanth.” He shrugged. “I can fix ships. I can fix any ship.”

  “It’s a good trade. Always work.” Saverna tried a broader smile. It didn’t feel right.

  “You caught the notice of Innling schools? Congratulations. What’s your interest?”

  “Biotechnology. Love tinkering with nanites, gel glass, and grafting bio traits onto alloys and other materials.”

  “Why?”

  She twirled a lock of her wild hair around a finger. “To see what happens. Not everything works together. Not everything can be paired up. Finding what can fuel the marriage is fascinating. Nanites are a highly intelligent material, but if we could create cities that don’t need energy to stay warm or to create electricity or to communicate with the rest of the Sol, we can achieve so much more.”

  “For what purpose? To mine more asteroids? To risk more lives?”

  “The opposite.”

  “If people don’t work, what do we do?”

  “Explore, learn, love, create.” She shrugged again and crossed her ankles the other way.
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  “A dreamer, huh?” Qeb whistled. “There aren’t many like you around.”

  Alarms went off on the ship. Red beacons lit up on the deck and in the doorways.

  Saverna ran to the comm. panel to check the code.

  “What is it?” Qeb huffed behind her. “What’s wrong?”

  Her cheeks felt numb and the words stuck on her tongue. “Im-impact imminent.”

  Chapter 9

  More triangles blinked on the monitor. More ships were in peril. The calculations to save as many as possible took time that couldn’t be spared. Nikili rubbed at the back of her neck, her gaze and fingers dancing over the charts and data.

  “Hueys one through one hundred, you’re receiving coordinates. Move pronto.” She did the same for the rest of the Hueys, pairing them up with spacecraft in trouble. “Give them shooting coordinates, E51. Ready photo plasmic torpedoes.” She took a deep breath. “Did you tell the other AIs, E51?”

  “Every Huey has been informed.”

  “On my mark.” Her finger paused over the fire code. “This is a billiard table I have to clear in one shot.”

  Lucy stared straight ahead. “I’ve no doubts.”

  “There are two CITs—” E51 started.

  “We’ll get to them.” Powering on her striker, Lucy zapped Chaquita once more. “Let’s take the first shot. “

  “Absolutely.” Nikili’s finger moved forward. Another triangle lit up, a larger one, one farther away from Orcus than the others. “A passenger transport?”

  “We chase after the transports when Orcus and Vanth are safe. That’s protocol. What’s your gut say?”

  “Take care of the ice first.” Nikili signaled every ORS vessel. “Hueys, on my mark.” Once more, she checked on the mess of ice, planets, and ships for last minute adjustments. “Three, two, one, fire.”

  Hueys launched torpedoes at the moon-sized chunk of ice. Pieces flew off at the nearest CITs, sending them spiraling toward the Huey assigned to them. The Hueys deployed nets, catching their CITs.