Escape Velocity

by Jason M. Hough

  “We need to cover both possibilities,” Prumble said.

  Tania nodded toward him. “Exactly.”

  “We should go,” Vaughn said. “I mean if there’s ships above we should just go. We’ve done our part here. We pick up Tim on our way up and get the hell out of here.”

  “Did you hear what I just said? We don’t know which way they took him.”

  Vaughn only shrugged. “If we find him, we find him. Look, we’re not going to get many more chances. I say we leave. Get up there and find a ship.”

  He was looking at Sam, not Tania. Sam moved to Vaughn, as if to side with him. Tania resolved then to stay. She was going to the surface, no matter what they decided.

  But Sam surprised her, as she often had. She put a hand on Vaughn’s neck, just below the collar where the helmet attached, and drew him toward her until their visors touched. “Yes,” she said. “Get up there and find a ship. And then wait for me, you sorry son of a bitch. Leave without me and I’ll kill you myself.”

  “You’re going—”

  “I’m seeing this through,” she said. “But I also know if we don’t secure a vessel now they’ll block that avenue off really fucking soon.”

  Vaughn searched her eyes. “I kinda wish you’d make up your mind on this. Thought we were trying to find a way out. Now you want to stay. It’s confusing.”

  “This whole situation—”

  “Guys,” Prumble said. “We’ve got company.”

  Everyone turned. Only, the wrong way. Prumble was facing down, toward Carthage. Tania reoriented herself.

  The enemies had not come from the main spherical room of the station, but from points lower. Four of them that Tania could see. Not swarmers, but regular Scipios in pale blue garb and full-face helmets. She saw what had to be weapons in their hands. The four of them were clustered around the lower end of the tunnel. Watching. Waiting.

  “Feeling squeezed all of a sudden,” Prumble said through clenched teeth.

  “This station houses aliens who’ve undergone the transfer procedure,” she said, puzzling it out for everyone’s benefit. “Makes sense they’d have security, in addition to ships ready to take their allies back home.”

  “Why aren’t they attacking?” Vaughn asked.

  “Because,” Sam said, “they’ve got us trapped and they know it.”

  “We should spread out,” Tania said. “If they hit us with one of those time-compression things again…”

  “Don’t stand on any plinths and you’ll be fine,” Prumble said. “I don’t think they can conjure those just anywhere.”

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “True. I just wanted to use the word plinth.”

  Sam was still glancing back the way they’d come. “Back to the sphere,” she said. “It’s not blocked off yet. At least there we have options.”

  “Agreed,” Vaughn said.

  The pair began to move, as if their votes were the only ones that mattered. Tania bobbed against the wall, frozen with indecision. Any movement away from the world took them only farther from the goal.

  No, Tania reminded herself. We have different ideas of what the goal is.

  An odd crackle of static, barely heard above the pulse in her ears and her own breaths.

  “Tim?” she asked, activating her comm. She scanned the nearby signals. Vaughn, Sam, Prumble…and a fourth. Faint, but close. Its source was automatically triangulated by Eve’s sophisticated tech. Tania activated positional iconography and swiveled about. Above, and to her left. She moved as if on autopilot, floating past Sam and the others as they took up positions around the elevator sheath. None of the swarmers had followed them into the station. The hole they’d carved in the airlock door, however, had been sealed.

  “Um, Tania?” Sam asked. “Where are you going?”

  She motioned for them to follow her, not wanting to speak in case it caused her to miss Tim’s voice. If his helmet was off, or damaged, he may not be able to transmit properly, but he’d sent something. Who else could it be?

  Tania almost stopped then. Her breath caught in her chest. She’d been so focused on rescuing Tim, it hadn’t even occurred to her that the signal might have been from Skyler, or perhaps Vanessa. The idea made her dizzy, and were it not for the null gravity she thought she might have fallen.

  “Tania?” Sam called after her. “Seriously, we’ve left enough people behind already. I’m not letting you wander off. I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you out of here if I have to.”

  She picked the tunnel closest to the virtual marker hanging in front of her, projected on the inside of her visor. Another long, tubelike corridor that curved gracefully upward to bring it parallel to the elevator cord. More doors, just like the other tunnel.

  But here, there floated a glowing marker just inside one of them. Tania kicked off from the wall and flew toward it. “In here,” she said. Then, with the comm active, “Tim, can you hear me?”

  No response.

  The status display beside the door did not read TRANSFER PENDING or TRANSFER COMPLETE, but HOLD AND OBSERVE. She opened the door, surprised that the Scipios had not yet locked the whole place down, until she remembered their distinct lack of security. Complacency had that effect, she mused, and in a way she felt glad that Eve and her kind had failed for so many years to penetrate this far into the system.

  Again the small alcove of glass, and the small chamber with a single bed. Tim did not lie on it, but rather sat, helmet in his hands, held close to his face like a bowl. Helmet in hands, she thought. Exposed to the air. She couldn’t see his back to tell if his aura shard was still strapped there, but it didn’t appear so.

  Oh God.

  Tania turned to change the glass from observation to conversation mode, only to stop with her finger just millimeters from the display. Tim was speaking, and for a second she thought he could see her, that his words were meant for her. That he was talking to her through the comm. But no, her comm was silent. He was talking to his helmet.

  “…chose me, Skyler. She chose me! And I decided it was time to go.”

  Skyler?

  A garbled response, familiar, too quiet to understand.

  Tim squeezed the helmet so hard his knuckles turned white. “No, we don’t. We owe them nothing, less than nothing. The only reason I agreed to come was for her. That’s how we’re different, you and I. You put this ridiculous mission first, allowed her to tag along. Endangered her. I came to protect her. To find the chance to get her away from this wretched violence.”

  He’s talking about me. Tania shifted, uneasy. Inside her warred the emotional fallout of knowing Skyler lived, and that Tim was able to speak with him.

  Unless the virus had infected him. The way he held that helmet, it looked as if he were speaking to it, not to whomever might be listening through its comm. Tania moved from side to side, looking at his neck for the telltale signs of rash that appeared on those with the SUBS virus back home. She saw nothing, but of course SUBS had been an invention of Eve’s, meant to simulate how the Scipio technology worked. As of yet she had no data-point for what, if any, symptoms or effects the real thing conjured.

  “I’m telling you this…” He paused, swallowed. For a brief instant his eyes went to the glass. A mirror to him, Tania reminded herself. Tim studied his own reflection for a time. “I’m telling you this because we failed. The others…the others did not make it.” Tim stared into his own reflection as he spoke, his eyes like two stones. “I don’t know why Eve gave me the ability to communicate with you. I’m not sure why she’d trust me with that, but I did what I thought was best.

  “You should focus on the mission now, Skyler. Forget about us. Do what you need to do, but forget about us. It’s all over now.”

  His head slumped to his chin then, and he let the helmet go. It drifted, slowly, about the small chamber.

  Tania fought back tears. She fought the primal urge to rip this man limb from limb. She wanted to fire her beam w
eapon straight at his face, let it bore through the glass and then him, melting the mind of the person who could betray her like this. Betray all of them.

  She whirled and tapped the conversation mode button on the wall, ignoring the blank stares of Prumble, Sam, and Vaughn, who she hadn’t realized were clustered behind her. “I’ll handle this,” she said to them, and closed the door.

  Tania turned around. Tim still had his head lowered. The helmet bobbed gently off the glass in front of her, started to float off to one side.

  “Why?” she asked. Her voice sounded like someone else’s. Like a person capable of the worst imaginable things. Was she capable?

  Tim didn’t seem to hear her at first. He didn’t move at all. But then his face slowly came up and he met her eyes. Just for an instant. He could not hold her gaze. He may have been able to stare into his own reflection, but he couldn’t face what he saw in her eyes.

  “Why?” she asked again.

  “I don’t know.”

  “When did you know he was alive?”

  “Does it matter? The mission is a failure. I only wanted to get—”

  “When, goddammit.”

  Tim scowled. “Soon as I woke up.”

  Tania bit back the flood of pure rage welling inside her. He’d kept this from them, and advocated they leave. She rasped, “And Vanessa?”

  He said nothing.

  “Tim.”

  “I haven’t heard from her. I swear it. Tania, look, I only wanted—all I ever wanted—was to—”

  “Enough.”

  His mouth clapped shut.

  Who was this man? How had this side of him come to the fore? Had it always been there, lurking beneath that innocent youthful veneer? She felt sick. And so tired of this. “Where is he?” she asked finally, when she could make the words come.

  Tim took his time replying. Perhaps concocting a lie. Perhaps even now, exposed as he was, trying to salvage something. She wanted to leave him there, to his fate, or kill him herself, but not until he told her what she needed to know.

  “Last chance to redeem yourself, Tim,” she said, her voice flat. Controlled. “Tell me right now what you know, or never speak to me again.”

  He kept his jaw firmly shut. A silence of stubborn misery filled the space between them.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “Did you really think this was the right thing to do? That no one would find out?”

  “Forget it,” he said. The defeat in his voice so thick she could barely understand him. He straightened up a little. “I made a mistake.” He pushed off from the bed, then floated up to the glass and placed a hand on it. “I’m sor—”

  “No. Don’t you dare say that.”

  Tim bit back the rest of the word.

  “What did you tell them?” she asked. “About Earth. About us.”

  “The Scipios?” he asked. “Nothing. They haven’t asked. Put me in one of those time bubbles and the next thing I knew I was in here. He’s on the planet, by the way. Skyler. That’s where he crashed. Said he found the city where they do the mind transfers.”

  Right below us. Tania swallowed hard, fighting to still her trembling body. They were so close, and had almost gone the wrong way. “And Vanessa? Is she there, too?”

  “I swear I don’t know. I’ve had no contact with her.”

  “Tim,” she said very patiently. “Can you put me in touch with them? Can you transfer that ability to me?”

  He thought about it without looking at his helmet. That meant he already knew if it was possible. He was simply deciding if he should…“Tell me what you want to say, and I’ll relay it to—”

  “Not good enough,” she said, sensing his gambit. “Not nearly.”

  “If I give you that, you’ll have no more need of me,” he reasoned, voicing what she’d already sensed. “It’s the last thing I have. Without this I am useless, expend…” The word trailed off. He stared at her now, with none of the affection present before. He was sizing her up as an enemy.

  “That’s not true,” she tried lamely.

  Tim’s gaze went distant. He twisted, slowly, and grabbed the helmet. Pulled it on. Glowing icons began to shuffle around on the inside of his visor.

  “There,” he said. He popped the helmet back off, scowled at her.

  Tania saw a message pop up. A transfer of access.

  “Another gift for you,” he said in a ragged, defeated voice. “I’m always doing things for you. Story of my fucking life.”

  “Tim,” she tried. “I never asked.”

  “ ’Course you didn’t. Your mind was always elsewhere.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  He slammed a balled fist into the glass. “Don’t talk to me about fair.”

  “What do you want from me, then? An apology? As if I’m the one at fault after what you—”

  “Goodbye, Tania,” the young man said.

  There was a flash from the mortar tube on his back. The blur of the projectile, and then ferocious light blotted out the entire chamber. A whump of the blast, and then the awful splatter of Tim’s body. Not vaporized, but torn asunder. Tania recoiled. The possibility of her own death from this lunatic action, and the others behind her, had no time to even register because the barrier held, containing the explosion without so much as a crack.

  In the blink of an eye Tim became no more than a smear of red and gray on the inside of the glass.

  Tania remained twisted away, arm thrown across her eyes, unable to turn back and see.

  Two awful thoughts warred in her head. That Tim had done this at all, and also the possibility that he’d meant it to kill them all. That he’d still intended, in that final morbid action, to take her with him.

  Hands at her back. Prumble or Sam, pulling her. Voices in her ears. Prumble’s. “We’ve got to go. They’re coming. They’re…Oh shit, Tim.”

  “Fuck him, he’s gone.” Vaughn talking.

  “Get behind me!” Sam.

  She felt Prumble’s arm slide under her arm and around her chest, pulling her to him like deadweight. The movement of flight. The sounds of battle.

  Go down.

  Go down.

  Go DOWN.

  Skyler. “Go down,” Tania said.

  “What?” Prumble asked.

  Tania ignored him. She accessed the comm, direct link. Skyler’s name there, and Vanessa’s, where they hadn’t been before. Screw it, she thought, and selected everyone. “Skyler,” she said. “Skyler? Can you hear us?”

  A second passed. And then, incredibly, his voice. “Tania?”

  She burst into tears. “It’s really you.”

  “Tania, what…Where are you?”

  “We’re coming, Skyler. We’re coming.”

  Carthage

  “WE’RE COMING!”

  Tania’s voice spilled into his ears, sweet as anything he’d ever known. Skyler slumped against the wall and closed his eyes, fighting tears of his own. “Are you okay?” he asked. “The others? Tim wouldn’t let me—”

  “I know, I know. He kept it from us. That’s over now. We’re all alive. Is Vanessa with you?”

  Just like that, the despair wormed in again. “I haven’t seen her. I hoped she was with you, but Tim said she wasn’t.”

  “That much at least he told the truth about.” She paused, catching her breath. “He won’t be lying about anything else, though. He took his own life.”

  Skyler shut his eyes in grief. Not for Tim, not after what he’d done here, but for Tania and the awful position all this had put her in. “God. I’m so sorry, Tania.”

  Her voice quavered as she spoke. “I’d like to say it was a heroic deed, to hide his knowledge from the Scipios, but the truth is I caught him talking to you. He couldn’t look at me.”

  “The bastard had no right to.” He tamped down his anger. “It’s not important now. What is important is the rest of us making it out of this.”

  Some commotion came through the earpiece. Argument, tension.

 
; “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “We need to move,” Tania said. “Situation still a mess.”

  “Understood. Keep the channel open, I’ll talk as you move.”

  He sank to the floor then, watching the pile of dead virus grow and spill farther into the room. As Tania and the others sneaked and battled their way out of danger, he talked. Skyler spoke of his rough landing, and what he’d seen since. How Eve had landed him in a city near a space elevator, and the building here marked for transfer.

  “I think we’re directly above you,” she replied then, the first acknowledgment she’d made since he started talking. “We’ve seen similar markings up here.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard since…well, since I heard your voice.”

  “We’ll work our way down there,” Tania said. “Sam thinks—”

  “Bad idea,” he said, cutting her off. “Something’s happening down here. I think they’re preparing to evacuate. At the very least they’ll have the climber port guarded like a fortress.”

  “Evacuate? What makes you think that?”

  “Something happened to the virus. The little flakes in the air, it all just fell. It’s piling up on the ground everywhere. Two meters deep and counting.”

  “When did that start?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. A few hours ago?”

  “Hmm,” Tania said. “I think maybe we did that.” She quickly explained. A station with a control room not too dissimilar to the plague forge in Africa. How they’d let it sample them.

  “Why’d you do that?” he demanded. Then he softened his voice a little. “Tania, you may have just made it easier for them to attack us. What made you think it would help?”

  “A hunch,” she replied. “This whole place is just a big medical station, if you think about it, Skyler. Aliens are brought here to receive the mind-transfer process, right? And the Scipios must facilitate that, but also guard the tech with total ferocity. I think they use the virus not just to keep the local population mollified, but any unwanted entries to the system, too. When a customer is accepted for the treatment, they reconfigure the virus to let them in, and probably undo that the moment they leave.”