by M. D. Cooper
Nikili rushed inside. Tables and chairs floated above. Some of them had people on them. The people didn’t move. A few moss balls nibbled at their legs. Three people clung to a table, treading water, kicking at mossy beasts.
Nikili started swimming. The spacesuit weighted her down. She grunted. Her bot caught up and zoomed her to the survivors. In order to be heard, she had to return her comm. link to all channels. Hook hadn’t yet shut up. She broke the surface where a head’s-width pocket of air remained.
The three folks clinging to the table teared up at the sight of Nikili: a lieutenant, a young man, and Saverna.
Nikili hugged her daughter. “Oh, sweetie. Oh, it’s so good to see you.”
“Mom?” Saverna cried. Her arms squeezed Nikili so tight, Nikili’s shoulders went numb.
She didn’t care. It’d been too long since Saverna was this happy to see her.
“Get us out, Mom.”
Nikili spotted the injuries: head, leg, and abdomen. She noted the rapid, shallow breathing. E51 reported Saverna’s pulse as erratic. Frost coated Saverna’s hair and eyelashes. Her complexion was an unhealthy shade of blue.
“I’ve got to get you out of here, sweetie. E51, send me more bots.”
“Sending all available,” E51 said.
Saverna didn’t let go. “Get me out. Oh, please get me out.” She sniffed.
Three more bots arrived. Nikili pried Saverna off her neck and placed her hands on a bot.
Saverna snatched at Nikili’s sleeve. “We have to get the others out first. They’re hurt worse than me, and… and those things are eating them.”
Nikili ordered E51 to triage the injured. The results scrolled across her faceplate. “Somebody gave some very fine first aid and went to a lot of trouble to save as many people as possible.”
“Saverna,” said the young man with a swollen eye. He clutched onto a bot with only one arm. The other had a cut as nasty as any Nikili had ever seen. “She’s been amazing.”
A well of warmth coddled Nikili’s heat despite the glacial water. Saverna had hadn’t forsaken everything that was Nikili. “You honor me better than I deserve, sweetie.”
“Don’t leave me, Mom.”
“Never again. Pinky swear with a wet noodle.” She held out her sopping glove. She couldn’t separate the pinky.
Saverna clutched onto it. “I’m holding you to it.” She sent her bot to a woman regaining consciousness in a chair. “I’ll wait on the next bot.”
“There are no more,” E51 said.
“Climb onto my back, Sprite,” Lucy said. “Your mom is going to check on your patients, and we’re going to knock a hole in the ceiling of this boat.”
Saverna’s teeth quit chattering. “You want me to help?”
“We need every set of hands,” Nikili said. “Especially if we’re out of bots.”
“What can I do?” the lieutenant asked.
Nikili tossed him a tether. “Hang onto the end this.” She unholstered her striker and gave him that, too. “To keep the balls away.”
“Those balls suck.” He switched on the striker and shot at one aiming for his gut.
“They chew and swallow, not suck,” Nikili said. “Either way, we don’t want the balls around.”
“No. What do I do with the rope?”
“After I take care of a patient, I’ll fasten them to the line. You reel them in, keep them close. Got it? What’s your name?”
“Revco.” He nodded. “And shoot the mossy balls.”
“Yes.”
“What about me?” the young man with the injured arm said, licking his cracking lips. “I’m Qeb.”
Lucy gave him her striker. “Protect Saverna and me from the moss balls.”
He grabbed onto the weapon and commanded his bot to make a circle around Saverna and Lucy.
“I hear words,” Hook said over the comm. channel, “but they don’t come together as a plan to me.”
“Lucy and Saverna are creating a new exit. They don’t have spacesuits,” Nikili replied. “Sending you coordinates.”
“I’ll start cutting on this side.” He let go of a breath. “You’re going to be all right, Saverna.” His boot kicked four times on the hull. Four was his lucky number.
Nikili shook her head. He couldn’t let go of the superstitions. No supernatural force was going to save the people on the transport and the people around Saturn, only level-headed action.
Saverna knocked four times back. “I know, Pop.” She caught Nikili’s frown. “All hands. You said. That includes what we can’t quantify.” She struggled with using the plasma cutter correctly, but didn’t give up.
Nikili ordered her bot to take her to the man E51 had marked as most critical. From her med kit, she extracted a medpack. A gel stuck it to the man’s neck; purple from bad circulation and frigid water. A network of filaments snaked out and burrowed under the man’s skin, boosting his temperature, stabilizing his pulse, administering medications. Nikili added a bone mending module to the pack, secured the man to the tether, and signaled Revco to pull. She moved onto the next patient.
“We’re through,” Lucy yelled.
A ripple sloshed through the water, which was a half inch lower than when they arrived.
“The pumps are having an effect. One boon in our favor,” Nikili said.
“Was that something about luck?” Hook asked.
“If it takes luck to win, so be it.” Nikili wasn’t going to argue. Whether it was fate or science wasn’t worth a debate. Whatever force assisted in rescuing her daughter, Nikili welcomed.
“I can take over, Revco,” Lucy said to the lieutenant. She nodded at Nikili. “We need to get him and Saverna out of this freezing water.”
“Agreed.”
“Qeb, too,” Saverna said.
“Qeb, too,” Nikili said.
Lucy took the striker from Qeb and tossed it to Nikili, then she lifted him into Hook’s waiting arms. She did the same for Saverna and Revco. “The rest need more assistance.”
Hook lowered a hover gurney. Lucy secured an injured man. Hook towed him up. Chaquita hovered at the hole, shooting a photon pistol at the moss balls. It didn’t keep them away for long. More moss balls gathered around Lucy, Nikili, and the injured. They chewed at ears and fingers. Lucy and Chaquita scared them away.
The bot hauled Nikili to the next patient. There was one more after this one. A mass of green balls attacked her, ripping a hole in her suit. Filling with water, she became heavier. The bot struggled to keep her afloat. The water leaking into her suit stabbed with its unforgiving cold. The suit compensated by jabbing her with a dose of adrenaline. Icy water lapped at her chin.
Lucy rushed to her aid and shoved Nikili toward the makeshift exit. “Get out.”
“There are two more patients who need me.”
“It’s too dangerous.” Lucy summoned the bots that had aided Qeb and Revco to push the remaining injured to the hole.
“We shouldn’t move them. It’s too risky—”
“First off, they’ve already been moved.” Lucy removed a tool from her emergency kit. She attached it to Nikili’s suit. It formed a handle. “Second off, they’ve been moved more than once.” She latched onto the handle on Nikili’s suit and dragged Nikili toward the hole. “Third off, too much caution will see us dead.”
More green than blue surrounded them. The balls grew so thick, the bots could no longer move forward. Crimson clouds appeared around her and Lucy. The bots sputtered and sank.
Nikili couldn’t stay afloat. She flailed. Lucy had two hands on the handle she had attached to Nikili’s suit. Nikili dragged her under.
“Cut me loose!”
“Hell, no!” Lucy battled the water and the balls.
Two new bots appeared with strikers attached. They used those and their plasma torches to clear a path. Tethers splashed into the water.
“Grab hold,” Hook yelled.
“The patients,” Nikili said.
“You first. No arg
uments.”
“Listen to him, Mom.”
“Yeah, listen. But you won’t. So I’ll do it for you.” Lucy fastened one of the lines to the handle she had hooked onto Nikili’s suit. “She’s on,” she shouted to Hook.
The rope jerked Nikili through the water. Balls jumped onto her faceplate, smothering her. The world became green moss with teeth. Too many damned teeth.
She found it hard to breathe. She landed on her back with a thud, gasping. Bit by bit, the green disappeared. Saverna and her new friend, Qeb, picked off the balls and stomped on them one by one.
“You should be in blankets and in med pods,” Nikili said.
“You’re welcome, Mom.” Saverna’s mouth pulled to one side. “Get up and help us with Lucy and the last two patients.”
“Bossy.”
“She gets it from you,” Hook said.
Nikili shrugged away a smile. She removed her helmet, gloves, and boots. Water poured onto the floor. Her numbed fingers and limbs fumbled with peeling the spacesuit off. She crawled to the two patients extracted after her. She and Chaquita worked together to clear the injured of moss balls. Saverna and the boy assisted the other patient. Hook helped Lucy.
Nikili attached medpacks to both patients and swabbed at the thousands of wounds inflicted by the alien moss. A blanket draped around her shoulders. She glanced up. Hook attached a medpack to her neck.
“You always forget yourself.” He brushed wet strands of hair away from her face.
“It’s always been your job.”
She sent the last patient off with the bots to the infirmary. She boarded a hover platform and her gaze locked with Hook’s. His gray eyes were as clear and full of life as the day they met. Once more, she stood in the quad at Farpoint University, laughing. Hook danced and sang until she joined him. She checked for the locket. It still hung from her neck. She smiled.
Hook didn’t smile back. “The Spaceberg is hurtling toward Saturn.”
Her lips switched to frowning. “Follow it,” she said. “People will need us.” She drew the blanket tighter around her.
“We can’t catch up.”
“E51, how do we stop the Spaceberg?” She ordered the hover platform out of the bay.
Hook grabbed her hand. “ORS can handle it without you. Our family is safe. Let’s go home.”
She almost laughed. “Do you know me at all?” Pulling free, she sailed to the ground. Lucy met her, and they hurried to flight control.
Chapter 16
Dry clothes didn’t stop her from shivering, yet Saverna set down the bucket of moss balls she planned to examine and gave her extra blanket to Qeb. His complexion remained blue. She checked his medpack, making sure everything was hooked up correctly.
Her mother strode in with Lucy on her heels. Instead of checking the badly wounded first, Nikili came straight to Saverna and smothered her in a hug. Nikili’s arms felt as wonderful as sun streaming through a window. Saverna sank into the embrace. It’d been too long since she’d had her mother’s undivided attention.
“Saverna, thank the Sol you’re in one piece.”
“You saved us, Mom.”
“Not enough of you.” Nikili choked on half of her words. If a mission wasn’t a total victory, she always took it so hard. “But I’ve got you. Nothing matters more than you.”
Saverna peered into her mother’s face, which was so serious. “Why didn’t you come see me off?”
“I was on my way, but your transport undocked.” She rubbed at the back of her neck. “I was too slow. Sorry.” She squeezed Saverna tighter. “Is that a bucket of space balls at your feet?”
“Oh, balls, yes. I’m going to examine them.” She let go of her mother. “I’m going to find a way to make them work for us and save the moons of Saturn.”
“No slacker balls here.” Nikili’s chuckle came off as despair. “I want to save the moons of Saturn, too. It’s not a lost cause until—”
‘Until it is.”
“You’re amazing and as determined as I am, but things look grim for Saturn.”
“It doesn’t deter me. A chance is a chance.”
“Your tenacity will help you get into a first-rate university in the Inner Sol.”
“You’re not angry?” Saverna winced. She knew her mother wanted her to go to an Outling school.
“I’ll support whatever dreams you chase. I can transfer to any ORS in the system, including an Innling world.”
Astounded didn’t cover what Saverna felt. “You’d follow me?”
“I’ve missed too much, and I want to be close to you again.”
After wishing for some of Nikili’s attention for the past two years, Saverna didn’t know how to react: elation or anger? “I don’t need looking after.”
“I won’t crowd you. I’ll just be there if you want me.” Shrugging, she checked Qeb’s vitals. “Let me know what you make of those moss balls.”
“They ate everything and anything.” Saverna lugged the bucket over to a microscope in an adjoining alcove.
Nikili helped Qeb lie down. “Did they come from the ice?” She moved to Revco, checking his pulse. “The CIT Lucy and I rescued earlier, the captain was terrified of something. Could it have been the moss?”
“Well, yeah. The balls are nasty.” Saverna peered through the eyepiece and fussed with the focusing controls. “No one wants to get eaten.” She signaled Vulture to run a complete bio scan. “They’re filled with the same antifreeze that’s in ship nanites.”
Nikili left the patients to Lucy and joined Saverna at the microscope. “It was missing from Castillo’s hauler, too.” Her nose twitched.
“Tell me about your mission, Mom.”
Her cheeks were as blue as Qeb’s, but Nikili recounted rescuing Captain Castillo in grave detail and with animated hand gestures. It’d been two years since Saverna had seen her mother so lively. It stirred an ache for raucous evenings of games. Her parents competed fiercely to win. So did Saverna. The laughter of bygone days rang in her ears, and the taste of overcooked popcorn with too much butter haunted her tongue. She adjusted her mother’s medpack and steered her to a stool.
“The crates weren’t frozen?” Saverna asked.
“There were flowers in them made from organic plastic.” Nikili sprang onto her feet. “Each had a moss ball snuggled up with it.”
“Snuggled?”
“Yeah, they weren’t doing anything.”
“Dormant?” Saverna summoned Vulture. “Is there a spare bot? Retrieve a crate from Captain Castillo’s hauler.”
Glancing at her medpack, Nikili made one adjustment. Her ORS uniform had dried. Her damp hair hung limply down her back. “An Innling university will be fortunate to get you, and if you want it, go to Rhea. Just don’t forget the Outlings. They could use a brilliant mind like yours.”
Saverna stood a little taller. “I don’t think it’s about Innling and Outling. We’re one people. We need to work together.”
“On that note, Lucy and I are off to work with ORS and the AIs. If there’s a chance beside balls for Saturn, I’m going to find it.”
“May the stars align, Mom.”
She rolled her eyes, but said nothing.
Saverna returned to the microscope. There wasn’t much to the moss creatures. They were mostly mouths. The fuel they gained from eating went into reproduction. They reproduced much like lower organisms, splitting into another ball. The antifreeze kept them alive and they absorbed the xylomannan through the leaves of their mossy skin. They had no eyes, no ears, but each filament of moss was sensitive to motion and vibration.
The bot arrived with a crate from the hauler. Saverna pried open the lid and removed one flower and one moss ball. She had the bot secure the rest of the crate. She didn’t need the things waking up on her.
Chapter 17
Lucy put an arm around Nikili. “You’re exhausted. You could use some rest,” she said.
Nikili tickled Lucy’s cheek. “You look no better, but this isn
’t done, and it’s the opposite of Christmas.”
“We’re two people against an evil as big as Jupiter. It’s way ahead of us, we can’t catch up, there’s little we can do.”
“I’m not ready to give up.” Nikili couldn’t stop a shiver from wracking down her spine. “Maybe we have to give up one moon. Let’s not write them all off. Which will Spaceberg hit first?”
“It’s on a direct collision with Titan.”
Nikili ducked into flight control, Lucy on her heels. They joined Hook and Chaquita around the command chair, examining the reports on the gel glass monitor.
“Is Titan being evacuated?” Nikili asked.
“Yes. Casualties should be low. It’s mostly occupied by fuel extraction workers. No full-time residents.” Hook traced the projected trajectory. “After the collision with Titan, Spaceberg will veer into Rhea and Enceladus.”
“Both heavily populated.” Nikili read through the data for the fifth time. “Spaceberg has an atmosphere?”
Lucy studied the lines to which Nikili pointed. “Huckamucka. Oxygen.”
“Oxygen and natural gas don’t mix.”
“Explosive.” The red tattoo of a water molecule stood out more than usual on Chaquita’s forehead, yet she wasn’t the monster Nikili wanted her to be.
“It can’t be allowed to happen. E51,” Nikili commanded, “connect us with ORS dispatch.”
“Connected.”
“Dispatch, what is the plan for dealing with Spaceberg?”
“Saving Saturn is a waste of resources.”
Nikili couldn’t accept such a dismal conclusion. “There has to be something. How’s the evacuation of Titan coming?”
“The extraction stations are being emptied, but there aren’t enough transports for everyone.”
“Send more ships to Saturn.”
“There’s only so much time where any extra help will make a difference.” The dispatcher’s tone grew harsher. “There’s no applying for extensions.”
“The same is true for every ORS mission. This is no different.”
“It’s hugely different.”
“You’ll never find a solution with a poor attitude.” Nikili slapped the back of the command chair. “You see this tragedy as different. It’s no different.”