Calculated Risk

by K. S. Ferguson

  "Dammit! Where did he go?"

  "Watch your back—he’s a slippery bastard!"

  Rafe heard boots pounding on the deck plates as the two crewmen ran forward. They stopped perhaps twenty feet from him, too far away to rush them. From a prone position, he could see their booted feet, their stances screaming their readiness to kill.

  With desperate caution, Rafe drew his ball from his pocket and flipped it farther down the row of tables. It twanged off a table leg. Cookie's assistant hurried ahead, but Cookie held his position, his legs twisting as he swept his weapon over the length of the tables, watching his assistant's back.

  Rafe cursed his luck under his breath. Couldn't Leon have gotten some doughnut-eating rent-a-cops instead of these guys? They knew he wasn’t armed, that his best chance lay in ambushing them both together hand-to-hand, and so they were keeping their distance from one another. Break cover to drop one, and the other gets the drop on you. He crawled on his knees, keeping his shoes off the noisy metal deck, sliding out from under the table to crouch on the far side.

  The only way he could take them both would be to knock Cookie out with a single blow and reach cover before the other guy blew his head off. He flexed his hands and tightened his leg muscles.

  With a fizz and crackle, a stunner fired from between two vats farther down the recycling line. Cookie’s assistant fell to the deck with a clatter. Energy surged through Rafe so suddenly he thought he'd burst, flooding him with new hope. A grin split his face. She didn't abandon me.

  Cookie swung toward the blast, and Rafe took his chance, leaping onto the table. His shoes skated across the slimy tabletop and tangled in the plants. Instead of the planned graceful sliding arc onto Cookie’s back, he fell well short. He rolled as he hit the deck, and his ears rang as Cookie’s shotgun sent a torrent of buckshot inches over his head.

  Rafe came in low and kicked out the man's knees. Cookie went down hard; the shotgun skittered away under the plant table, and his breath rushed out with a whooshing sound. Rafe leaped on top of the bigger man and swung a fist for his jaw. Cookie blocked his swing and jammed an elbow into Rafe's healing ribs. Paralyzing pain streaked up his side. Cookie flipped him sideways onto the deck and rolled on top, cocking his hand back to deliver a smashing blow.

  "Freeze or I'll shoot!" Greg shouted.

  Rafe and Cookie both stopped. Greg stood nearby, the assistant’s shotgun awkwardly in hand, pointing somewhere vaguely in the direction of the two men’s heads. The kid’s eyes were dazed, and the black circle of the shotgun barrel weaved.

  "Put it down!" Rafe and Cookie howled together.

  "Don’t worry, Uncle Rafe, I’ll save you!" Greg slurred.

  Out of the darkness, Kama rocketed into Greg, knocking the gun barrel into the air. The gun roared and buckshot pinged against the ceiling before falling like rain. The recoil propelled Greg backward, the gun flying from his hands and falling into the hydroponic vat with a dull splat.

  Cookie watched, open mouthed, fist still raised high over Rafe’s head. Rafe reacted first, smashing the heel of his hand into Cookie's nose, and connecting again with an elbow to the jaw that sent the crewman sprawling.

  Rafe scrambled up and flung himself onto the plant table, sliding across the ooze and plants on his belly, going for Cookie’s discarded shotgun on the other side. He landed in a roll that put him back on his feet. Cookie vaulted the table and tackled him waist high, taking them both down, but the man couldn't maintain his grip on Rafe's slimy clothes. He scuttled to his feet and lunged for the shotgun, but the crewman grabbed his ankle and dumped him back to the deck inches short of the weapon.

  The pain in his ribs exploded, taking his breath away. Cookie was on him in a flash, cranking his arm up behind his back. Rafe felt him fumbling for handcuffs. From the corner of his eye, a blur of Kama leapt from the table, her boot aimed at Cookie's head. He heard a thunk, and the crewman's weight fell away.

  Rafe rolled over, coughed, and clutched his ribs. "What took you so long?"

  "Shiva, McTavish!" she said as she crouched next to him, stunner in hand. "Is there anyone who doesn't want you dead?"

  He rolled to his knees and checked Cookie's pulse before pulling a plastic tie from the man's pocket and securing his hands behind his back. He retrieved the remaining shotgun and scooted back over the table, drenched from head to toe in hydroponic fluid and trailing mangled bits of vegetation. Together, he and Kama hoisted a dazed Greg from the floor.

  "I’m sorry, Uncle Rafe," the boy mumbled, rubbing at his bruised head.

  "You did okay." Rafe clapped the boy on the shoulder.

  Kama grabbed the feet of Cookie's stunned assistant and hauled him into the darkness behind the recycling line. They regrouped near the vat holding Levine's body.

  "What the hell's going on?" she demanded. "Why are Leon's goons after you?"

  Before Rafe could answer, Greg jumped in. "There's been a huge explosion. Uncle Rafe, you must have heard about it on the runabout radio. It happened a few minutes after you left the ship. Our runabout got hit with some of the debris when we came to the station."

  "Explosion?" Rafe replied in a whisper. "What are you talking about?"

  "The explosives bunker went up. There was all this radio chatter that Levine was hiding out there, and everyone wanted the reward. Miners went out there in their ships, in suits, and then—kaboom."

  Rafe listened, horrified. A booby-trap, it had to be. A diversion to turn all prying eyes away from the station. The killer must be coming soon.

  "McTavish," Kama breathed. She trailed her fingers through the hydroponic fluid smearing his shirt, and then examined her own stained coveralls. "I know who it is. Hydroponic fluid washes out, but hydraulic fluid doesn't. It's—"

  "What's that?" Rafe held up a hand. Just on the edge of hearing, a low hum sounded. “It’s not coming from the corridor or the crawlspace.”

  He squinted into the gloom, then pointed to a small, round portal set into the end wall, half hidden by tangled plant growth. “There’s an airlock back there. It’s the pressurization pumps.” His body tensed.

  “Greg—get into the shadows and stay there. Kama, stay with him.”

  “Wait a min—” she protested.

  “No time for arguments,” Rafe insisted. He hefted the shotgun. “Whoever comes through that airlock isn’t going to be playing games. That stunner of yours won’t do spit against someone in a full spacesuit.”

  Breathing lightly and ignoring the tears starting in his eyes from the biting pain in his chest, he crept forward and pressed himself against one of the hydroponic tanks. He peered between the bay's encroaching clutter, managing to get a view of the airlock door. The hum of the pressurization pumps ended with an abrupt click.

  The crank on the hatch turned, and the door swung open. A figure stepped out, stripping off a spacesuit helmet and gloves and dumping them in the airlock. Yuri Roshal, face alive with nervous tics, peered into the gloom. The shipping manager pulled a weapon from his belt and looked around the bay, twitching and jumping at every click and gurgle from the machinery, keyed to breaking point.

  Roshal took two nervous steps into the hydroponics bay, and then froze, head swiveling. Rafe held his breath, deliberately not ducking back so his movement wouldn't attract Roshal's attention. He checked the safety catch on Cookie's shotgun with his thumb. He couldn't make out what weapon the lanky tug pilot held, but he doubted it was anything so civilized as a stunner.

  A flash of movement caught his eye. With a cat's stealth, Kama moved past him. In the universal code of soldiers everywhere, Rafe flicked her an angry hand signal. Hold in place. He didn't want Roshal spooked. Best to catch him in the act of extracting the body, when he'd have to put away his weapon to drag Levine's inert mass out of the cloying fluid. Kama ignored him, and slunk out of his sight, moving in the direction of the airlock. Roshal moved forward, closer to the vat.

  Behind him, Rafe heard a moan and a crash, then Cookie's assistant stagger
ed into the aisle. Roshal leapt like a startled rabbit, handgun coming up. The assistant stood in plain view, unaware of the shipping manager. Something flashed, a crack sounded, and then a red rosette blossomed in the assistant's groin. He toppled backwards.

  Rafe advanced toward Roshal, threading between the recycling equipment. Another shot rang out and a pipe near his shoulder spewed an acrid liquid in response. There, outlined in the safety lights around the main hydroponic vat, stood Roshal, handgun now pointed at Kama, who stood five feet away, a length of pipe raised to strike. Rafe ducked behind another vat.

  "Weapon down and out in the open, missy!" Roshal shouted. "Right now, or you die!"

  Rafe choked down his fear and tried to get a bead on Roshal. Kama blocked most of her captor's body, and the shotgun was not a sniper's tool. She pitched the pipe to one side and raised her hands.

  Roshal grinned. "Thanks. That makes it easier." He cocked the pistol.

  Rafe fired. The shotgun roared and kicked back into his shoulder, and the pellets ripped out the glass side of the vat in a vast snowstorm of splinters. Blood-red fluid gushed out in a tidal wave, sending Roshal flying off his feet. Kama went down too, as thousands of gallons of fluid battered into them. A man-sized, bulbous something slid out with it, splattering on the floor—Levine's half-dissolved corpse.

  Rafe barreled out into the open, all his abused muscles working to get him a bead on the fallen murderer before he could regain his feet. Too late. Roshal had lost his pistol, but he grabbed Kama's coverall's collar and held a knife at her throat.

  Rafe skidded to a halt.

  Roshal's face twitched like a madman's. "Nice try, McTavish," he laughed, backing toward the open airlock door and dragging Kama with him. Her eyes glowed with fury. He dug the knife-tip in deep enough to draw blood, then seized a spare spacesuit and flung it into the open airlock. "Want to rush me now? Not good odds."

  Rafe kept his shotgun raised as the murderer backed away. "Turn her loose, and I'll let you go."

  Roshal pulled Kama into the airlock chamber. "Nah," he said, and swung the hatch closed.

  Rafe ran forward as the locking wheel spun. He pounded on the unyielding window, watching helplessly as Roshal slammed her head into the wall, then flung her to the floor and hammered his boot into her belly. She curled in a ball while the shipping manager seized his helmet and gauntlets. He thumbed a control, and the whirr of the extraction pumps started.

  Rage, frustration, and cold fear swelled in Rafe. He punched the intercom control. "Where do you think you're going to run to, Roshal? Two security cruisers and an EA patrol boat will be here in hours. Do you really think you'll beat them to the jump gate in your little tug?"

  Roshal grinned. "They'll be kinda busy cleaning up after that little mess I made of the explosives bunker. I'll give myself about six to one against. Not great. Better odds than she's got, though." He shoved the spare suit toward Kama. "Put it on."

  She shook her head, and Roshal laughed. "Suit yourself. Hold your breath if you want to."

  He pulled on his helmet. Rafe wrenched at the locking wheel, but the door wouldn't open until the cycle completed. Kama scrambled desperately into the suit, pounding at her ears as the air pressure dropped.

  "Roshal!" Rafe roared. "Damn you, open this hatch!"

  Roshal only bent down and shoved the helmet over Kama's head, then kicked her over onto her stomach and used a tool belt to tie her spacesuited hands behind her.

  "Don't think so," he said, tossing the knife aside with one clumsy gauntlet. "Why don't you go tell your nice friends in their shiny cruisers that I'm carrying something valuable? Wouldn't want me to break anything, would we?" He thumped the airlock release control, seized Kama by the belt, and pulled himself out of the station and out of sight.

  "Damn it!" Rafe swore, punching the control to start cycling the airlock again. Pumps whirred once more as the chamber began to refill with air.

  Greg stood beside him, eyes wide. "What are you going to do?"

  "Get in a suit and get out there after them." He snatched the remaining suit from the rack and shoved his legs in.

  "I'll come too."

  Rafe shook his head. "Get help for the injured man, and get Benson to send a runabout after us."

  "But—"

  "No arguments, soldier. Follow orders."

  The lock finally pressurized, and the inner door hammered against the wall as he jerked it open. Rafe lunged inside and hit the controls to cycle the lock, still fastening seals on his suit. Then he waited impatiently for the light by the hatch to change from red to green and the hatch to crack open.

  His breathing echoed in his ears, the only sound in the universe. But for the stars outside the hatch, everything else was black and empty, a billion miles of loneliness on every side. Ahead, Kama and Roshal were tiny shapes in the unfillable dark, the angular shape of Roshal's tug a barely-visible silhouette beyond them.

  He oriented himself toward the dwindling figures and jumped off. His hands and fingers felt cold; not, he prayed, from a leaking cuff seal. He reached to the control panel on his chest, flipped on the master switch for his thrusters, and put his thumb down on the thruster control inside his glove. He accelerated away into the nothingness, using half his fuel in a mad burn. But out in the endless cold, he sensed no movement. He could as well have been floating motionless.

  Details of the figures ahead became clear; Kama's arms bound behind her, her motionless legs, the barest hint of a line or tether binding the two of them together. Roshal was still, his posture relaxed. Of course, he would have spent thousands of hours in suits, would know them intimately. Both he and Kama faced the tug; no sign they knew they were pursued. Rafe touched his thrusters again.

  Roshal was closer now, maybe two hundred meters ahead. With the mass of two people and only one set of thrusters, he'd accelerated much more slowly than Rafe. But he'd had a long start, and the tug was too close.

  Rafe's suit beeped at him, warning him of his marginal fuel state. He had barely enough propellant to slow to a halt, let alone enough to return to the station. He would either guess right and make it to the tug, or he'd drift forever.

  He watched Kama lift her knees toward her chest. In a contorted move, she extended one leg along the tether that passed from her waist to Roshal's. Her leg moved in a circle, wrapping the line around it and bringing her closer to the murderer one twist at a time. When she'd closed the distance between them, she jerked the wrapped leg toward her chest and extended the other. Her maneuver slammed her foot against Roshal's oxygen recycling tanks. Admiration mixed with terror gnawed hungrily at Rafe's guts.

  Roshal fired his maneuvering jets to turn toward her, but the shortness of the tether prevented him from reaching her. Like a crazy yoyo, she rebounded to the end of the tether and snapped back again, aiming her next blow for the back of Roshal's helmet.

  They spun now, in a soundless slow motion dance growing ever closer to the tug. Roshal fumbled at the tether attached to his belt. In a moment, he'd loosed the catch, and Kama spun away alone. Vapor puffed from Roshal's thrusters, and his approach to the tug slowed. But Kama, no longer harnessed to him and unable to switch on her own thruster control, continued ahead at an alarming pace.

  Rafe gulped air, breaths gasping in his ears. This was madness. She was too close to the tug, and he was low on fuel. His fingers caressed the thruster control. The thrusters flared, silently, and Roshal's silhouette grew larger much faster.

  They were no more than a thousand meters from the tug now. Roshal's thrusters flared again, and he turned to meet Rafe's charge, a laser cutting torch extended in his hand. As the suit beeped Fuel Critical warnings in his ears, Rafe groped at the tool belt for a weapon, anything. Nothing. With meters to go before they joined, he touched his thrusters and altered course. He shot past the shipping manager, just out of range.

  Ahead, Kama plunged on toward the tug. Rafe began braking with what little fuel he had left, slowing his speed to match hers. His fu
el gave out as his fingers grasped at her suit. He couldn't find a purchase, and he slipped past, panic freezing his brain.

  The loose end of the tether whipped against his shoulder as he slid by her. He clung to it, pulled himself closer. They tumbled on toward the tug while he found the thruster control switch on her chest, flipped it on, and threaded his arms around her back. They didn't have time for him to release her hands. He glimpsed her fearful eyes through the visor. If she braked too hard, he'd lose his grip and crash into the tug by himself. If she didn't brake hard, they'd both be smashed on the tug.

  Kama fired the thrusters, correcting their spin. Then she fired a series of short bursts, each one threatening to rip her from his arms. He couldn't see the tug before them, but he saw Roshal, gliding in behind them, still wielding the laser cutter. Rafe's blood pounded in his ears.

  Kama made a final prolonged burn, and at the last moment, reoriented them so her body cushioned their impact against the station. They hit hard. Her eyes squeezed shut from the pain. He grabbed onto a handhold by the tug's open airlock and prevented them from ricocheting back into space. Her suit went slack, and he felt rather than heard the hiss of air leaking. Her mouth opened, gasping. Her eyes looked into his, and he saw her confidence in him. Then she looked beyond him, and terror sparked.

  Rafe jerked them sideways, yanked loose the tool belt binding her hands, and shoved her into the open airlock. He hit the control to cycle it and turned to face Roshal who, laser cutter at the ready, glided silent and deadly toward him.

  Roshal raised the cutter to bring it down in a slashing movement, and Rafe pushed off, catching the man in the midriff with his shoulder, his hand reaching for control of the cutter. They tumbled backward through blackness. Roshal reached across Rafe's back, trying to shut off his air supply. He wrapped his legs around the miner and reached over to twist loose the cuff seal on the hand that held the laser cutter. Escaping air carried frozen condensation sparkling across the vacuum.