Solar Heat

by Susan Kearney

  DERREK LOCKED onto Tomar’s ship, and Sauren fired a blaster burst. At the same time, his own warning alarm sounded.

  “Tomar’s ship has a lock on us,” Sauren said.

  “Release the chaff,” Derrek ordered as he jammed the aft thrusters into overdrive and ignored his whining engines.

  “Tomar took a direct hit,” Cavin reported.

  Derrek watched it disintegrating in a ball of fire that flashed across the black sky. Finally the First was off their tail. And would never bother a free Zoran again.

  “There’s no time to celebrate,” Derrek warned. “Before Tomar died, he sent five cannon blasts directly at us.”

  “Take elusive measures.”

  Cavin banked hard to port, and they slipped past the first two blasts.

  Derrek ordered, “Open a hole in hyperspace in front of shots three and four.”

  “That worked, boss man. But we still have one on our tail.”

  The computer warned, “Alert. Alert. Brace for impact.” Already webbed in, Derrek glanced at the monitor. Despite their best efforts, a full load of cannon blast was flying straight at Beta Five. Unless the chaff fooled the heat-seeking blaster’s sensors, they were roasted meat.

  “Come on. Turn.” Benet cut out all nonemergency systems, poured more juice into the engines. If they could buy another few micronbits . . . they might—

  An explosion rocked the ship, snapping back Derrek’s head so hard he blacked out for a few micronbits. When he opened his eyes, smoke was pouring from several stations, and a fire roared out of engineering. Ignoring a cut over his eye that bled down his cheek, Derrek unwebbed and put out the fire. Sauren and Adain slapped emergency patches on the hull breach before going to Benet and Cavin and helping them back to their feet.

  Pressure and air were holding. Life support was failing but remained sufficient to keep the crew warm and would supply enough recycled air for a few days.

  Adain reported. “Communications are still up.”

  Benet hugged his station. “Boss man. The engine’s blowing circuits, but we can repair them with spare parts.”

  “How long will it take?” Derrek asked.

  Benet checked his monitor and paled. “Sorry, boss man. Repairing the engines before Azsla runs out of air . . . isn’t possible.”

  Derrek refused to accept the answer. “She took a double pack of air.”

  “It’ll take a full day to repair those circuits. Maybe we can cut it in half if we blow every safety precaution and bust our butts. But that . . .”

  Wouldn’t be enough. Azsla would still run out of air before they returned. She had to set the bomb off within the next thirty minutes or miss the window to blow Katadama.

  Sweet Vigo, he couldn’t lose her. His heart felt like it was cracking, a gushing wound of pain.

  “Derrek? You still there?” Azsla’s voice came through the com, bright and cheerful.

  “Yeah.” He hated to give her the bad news. But had no choice. “Tomar’s dead—but his last shot fried Beta Five’s engine circuits.”

  “How long to make the repairs?”

  “We’ll do our best.”

  He had to. Even as he spoke, he hurried to the cargo bay to drum up the spare circuits and oversee the repairs.

  “I can’t wait. I’ll miss the window.” Her voice was calm, collected as if she was accepting . . . what he’d just told her and was working out the full ramifications. Her next words confirmed his growing suspicions. “I’m setting the timer and hoping for the best.”

  His knees buckled, and he slumped in an entryway. Quark. He was going to lose her . . . and the best part of him would die with her. “If you set the blast to go off, I won’t be able to reach you in time.”

  “Ramans did this. But even if my people had had nothing to do with creating this disaster, I can’t let all your people die when I can save them. And it’s not just the Zorans, the aliens on this asteroid will die, too, if I don’t do something right now. Besides, waiting for you won’t do me any good. I’ll run out of air before you arrive.” She paused, and he heard scraping as if she were crawling or digging as she spoke. “This asteroid has really dense rock. Maybe I can hide from the blast. Maybe you’ll finish those repairs sooner than you think.”

  He doubted she could hide from a tactonic weapon. The radiation, the blast kick, and the damage would be fierce. Flesh and blood didn’t stand a chance against a weapon like that. Derrek’s heart squeezed down so hard he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Azsla was going to die in the blast she created. And he couldn’t help her.

  She was going to sacrifice herself for the good of his people. And to think he’d once doubted her.

  Tears trailed down his cheeks. His hands bunched into fists at his helplessness. Somehow her courage in the face of death made his loss even more terrible.

  Despite Pepko, regardless of the fact that she was a First, she was his life mate. The Ramans and their mind wipe had cost him his family, and now the Ramans were going to take away his future. If only they had another ship to send out this far into the solar system, but Beta Five was the only Zoran vessel with hyperspace technology modifications. No one else could fly here fast enough to be of any use. No one else would come to save her.

  And he could do nothing. Nothing.

  She and his babies were going to die in a tactonic blast. He would lose them all. Tears choked down his throat, and a sob of frustration welled in his chest.

  “Derrek. I’m sorry,” she spoke softly as if knowing that living without her was going to be harder for him than dying by her side. “I have to do this.”

  “I know.” He’d heard the determination in her voice. And hated her courage. Why couldn’t she do the cowardly thing, conserve her air, and wait until he got back? Maybe he’d make it in time.

  Why couldn’t she try to save herself and their children? For a moment, he thought about trying to talk her out of it, but then shame washed over him. In her place he would have made the same choice. And she had the right to choose the manner of her death. Giving her life to save others was the better way out. But he’d never thought that her leaving him would feel as if acid whips flayed him from the inside out. He could barely speak. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Remember the good times, okay—hey,” she paused, “maybe I’m not going to die after all.” She suddenly sounded cheerful, excited.

  Had she changed her mind? He didn’t think so and believed she was referring to something else. “What are you saying?”

  “Remember the vision Pepko told us was from our future?”

  As if he could ever forget. Her naked on the furs. Her breath steaming from her full lips. Her arms held out to him, beckoning . . . “The vision of us making love in the ice cave?” he asked, shoving to his feet.

  “Yes. Since we’ve never found that cave, it’s part of our future. That means I have to live long enough to be there with you.”

  Derrek knew she was trying to cheer him. He could poke more holes in her theory than he had in his ship. Pepko may have lied. Or they could have many alternate futures. Or it could be a dream. But for her sake, he agreed. “After you set that timer, you get away fast and find a good place to hide. I’ll be there . . . soon.”

  “All right. Promise me something,” she asked, slightly out of breath from her exertions.

  “Anything.” He expected her to ask him to see to her will, or to remember her on a certain day every year if she didn’t make it.

  “Keep your kids with you for a while. Get to know them. Poli’s had them long enough. It’s your turn now.”

  With a lump in his throat, he promised and hurried to the cargo bay, thinking she was a goner. If the blast didn’t shred her to atoms, the lack of air would kill her. Yet she was thinking of him and his children.

  The optimist
in him hoped for the impossible. Because even the slimmest margin of hope was better than the gaping black abyss of the alternative: losing her forever.

  Sweet Vigo. He was going to work like a maniac—if only to stave off the black thoughts roaring through his head.

  27

  AZSLA FINISHED DRILLING, but kept the equipment, hoping to use it later to dig herself a hidey hole. She placed the bomb into the snug hole she’d drilled, pleased with the tight fit. Then she collected her gear—and with a deep breath of resolve, set the timer on her wrist at the same moment she depressed the one on the bomb.

  With the bomb set to go off, she backed out fast, scraping elbows, knees, and banging her forehead against the inside of her helmet. Although she’d told Derrek she could ride out the blast, she suspected her chances of survival were infinitesimal. However, doing anything, even retreating at a crawl, was better than giving up and sitting around waiting for the blast to take her out.

  Navigating the narrow tunnel took longer than she’d have thought, but she still had several minutes until detonation. Finally, she reached a large chamber and could turn around. When she faced the stars at the end of the tunnel, she started to plan her next move.

  Trouble was, once she could stand again, she couldn’t travel fast enough to escape the blast, never mind the aftershocks that were certain to follow. Her only hope was to find the biggest pile of fendiziom available and hide behind it.

  Or under it, her baby suggested.

  Mom, there’s an ancient tunnel and air, the other twin added. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.

  “A tunnel? Air?” How could her unborn children know about an ancient tunnel?

  We learned the primeval secret from the alien young.

  Hurry, Mom.

  She stood outside the cave, glad to be upright. “I can’t hurry until you tell me which direction to go.”

  She has a point. Although her twins had yet to be born and didn’t yet have names, she was beginning to recognize their mental voices. One was more earnest, the other more sarcastic.

  “Where’s the tunnel?” she asked.

  Look to your right.

  She realized her babies couldn’t see from inside the womb but needed her eyes to take in the view for them, needed her brain to register what she saw. Then they took those images from her mind, processed them, and compared them with the alien’s images. Micronbits ticked away, and she took the opportunity to breathe deeply and take a short rest.

  Thirty degrees to your right.

  Thirty-two. Aim for that triple peak.

  Azsla didn’t hesitate. She bunched her thighs and leaped into space. With no gravity, she had to aim for a point in the asteroid’s terrain that would eventually stop her flight. If she chose a place too far away, her mass would be too great for her muscles to stop her. If she stopped too soon, she’d waste time. So she soared, then bounced down, grabbed a handhold to recover, then aimed once more and relaunched. The method was clumsy, the risk was enormous—but so was failing to get to safety in time. She couldn’t survive the blast in the open.

  Go Mom.

  Go faster.

  Azsla ignored her aching muscles, her exhausted limbs. She clung to the drill, launched, grabbed and landed, aimed and relaunched. She didn’t concern herself with air usage. She launched and landed and repeated, her muscles burning.

  She missed her handhold and tumbled, somersaulted and skidded. If her suit tore, she was done. Ditto for her air hose. Or if she broke a bone.

  Her frantic, frenzied scramble bordered on desperate, and she feared the twins would suffer.

  We’re fine.

  We like spinning.

  A little to the right.

  She leaped and checked her timer. “Eighty micronbits.”

  Almost there.

  See that iron deposit. Looks like rust.

  “I see it.” Her eyes picked out the reddish stain amid the gray rock.

  That would be the bull’s-eye. The door should be to the right of that huge boulder.

  “I’m on it.” She clenched the drill, landed and skidded to a halt, throwing up dust that spun in her lamplight’s beam.

  Azsla clawed at the door with her gloved fingers, and then a screwdriver, but couldn’t find any leverage. Without hesitating, she readied the drill. As much as she wanted to set the speed to high, if she broke the bit, she had no time for a repair job.

  Her timer flashed sixty micronbits.

  Mom, move the bit to the right and up twenty degrees.

  Azsla redirected her efforts, leaning into the drill as hard as she dared. And tried not to think about how her child knew what was inside the metal door. A door no one had used for ten thousand years. Which meant they couldn’t grab it out of her memory. Or anyone else’s either, except maybe Pepko’s.

  Fifty micronbits.

  She felt the metal giving beneath the drill, rammed the bit through, jammed it at an angle to catch the teeth in the door, and yanked backwards. The door opened so easily she flew onto her butt. Shoving to her feet, she bounded through the door, slamming it behind her.

  Forty micronbits.

  Run to the right. There’s a vertical shaft. Take it down.

  Azsla lumbered down the narrow hall, unable to maintain an easy gait. She kept hitting her helmet and finally turned her body parallel to the floor, belly down, and used her feet on the walls to propel forward. When she reached the shaft, she took hold of the ceiling, aimed her feet down. And shoved.

  Thirty micronbits.

  “How far down does this go?”

  To the core.

  Twenty micronbits.

  As she fell, Azsla caught the overtone of worry in her babes’ thoughts. “What is it?”

  Ten.

  We need the young to allow us entrance.

  They are being stubborn.

  Azsla understood that opening the door to save her would risk all the young inside. “We can’t jeopardize their lives. There are many of them. Few of us. Although I love you both dearly . . . we cannot place our own—”

  Five.

  Pepko’s mature thoughts broke in. The double airlock will open for Azsla and her kin. Your destiny is tied to ours.

  Her babes’ relief and joy and jubilation flooded through her.

  No sooner had the emotions shot through her, than she heard the clang of metal opening below her feet. She slipped past the door, and it snapped closed, entombing her alive. A second door opened and closed after she passed through. Shortly thereafter, she landed lightly, a cushion of air softening her landing.

  Remove your helmet. The air is safe for you to breathe here, Pepko told her.

  Azsla did as he suggested, conserving the oxygen she had left in her tanks and looking around. She was inside the cave with the shimmering red crystals. The young were all radiating one color now, bright scarlet. An air stream set her down gently, her feet touching the cave’s bottom.

  Four micronbits.

  “Thank you. Pepko, would you please tell Derrek that I’m alive?”

  Two.

  That would be unnecessary interference.

  One.

  The blast would have knocked her off her feet, but more air shot out to stabilize her. Azsla found herself holding her breath as the cave seemed to flex under her, around her, over her. The crystals brightened to a fiery red, making her wonder if this was the end, that the womb was about to cave. A few rocks rumbled. The entire asteroid shook.

  The very air inside vibrated.

  The crystals wailed in terror.

  Azsla’s hands curled protectively around her womb. She’d done everything she could. Would her efforts be enough? Had the blast changed Katadama’s orbit enough to prevent it from crashing into Zor? Would the asteroid hold together and protect th
e young? Would she and her babes survive?

  The shaking increased. Part of the ceiling caved, and the crystals in that area screamed, and then went silent. She couldn’t go to them. The asteroid shook so much that all she could do was scrunch against a wall, pull her knees to her chest, and place her head down to protect her own babes.

  28

  HEART HEAVIER THAN lead, Derrek repaired Beta Five’s engines, replacing the damaged circuits deep in the ship’s belly. Meanwhile reports came in from Sauren on the bridge. “The tactonic explosion on Katadama altered the asteroid’s course. Zor and everyone on that planet will survive.”

  “How bad was the explosion?” Derrek asked, hoping that there might still be a piece big enough for Azsla to have hidden on. However, she’d long since run out of air. Right now, he wanted to recover her body and take her home to Alpha One to honor in a death ceremony.

  “One third of the asteroid disintegrated. The bigger pieces will eventually leave our solar system, while the majority will likely join our asteroid belt. But none except the tiniest pieces will fall to Zor. You saved the world, Derrek.”

  Not him. Her. “Azsla did it. Have you heard anything . . . ?”

  “I’m sorry.” Sauren’s tone was one of solemn sadness. Derrek knew his friend believed Azsla was gone. “Even if she went into a sleep-trance and managed her air—if she was still there during the blast, she couldn’t have survived. We should go home.”

  “We will—after I search for her body. I have to look.” Grieving, worn out, physically and emotionally, Derrek shook his head, knowing that if there was any hope Sauren would have given it to him. Still in shock, he hadn’t yet felt the full measure of his grief—but it was coming. And it would hit hard. “I promised her that I would go back for my children. But I can’t leave without . . . looking for her.”

  “I understand.”

  “She planned to use the drill to dig. Maybe—” He couldn’t even say the words—words that sounded hopeless.

  “The top layers of Katadama are gone. The entire asteroid is radioactive. Be careful. Tish and Tad need you.”