“Do you think that’s the Red Robert?” Petrick asked, daring to poke his head up above the crates to get a better look.
“I don’t think so,” Balta answered, warily doing the same.
They needn’t have been so cautious; the four men never looked back as they poured themselves into the airlock and shut the large door behind them. With the metallic thud of the door latching, our group’s most immediate obstacle was gone. They stepped out from behind their cover and looked at Balta as if to say, What now? Balta answered them by taking her commlink and switching it back on.
She didn’t have time to do anything with it, however, because a microsecond later . . .
Everything exploded.
39
THE EXPLOSION WAS SO LOUD, so bright, and so violent that Petrick couldn’t tell where it had come from, or even where exactly he was.
His ears were ringing with a high-pitched whine that felt like it was pressing right into his eardrums, and he could feel something sticky and warm splat up against his cheek. The ceiling was all he could see; it was slowly spinning, and it was dark and full of smoke. It took him a moment to realize that he was floating.
The artificial gravity had been knocked out. Sparks crackled around him from fallen lighting and other power conduits, which must have been the source of most of the smoke that was starting to sting his eyes and lungs. He heard a cough next to him and saw two fuzzy figures. They looked like Barry and Suzy. An alarm started to ring in the distance, low and warped.
Petrick hit up against the ceiling.
He grabbed hold of a loose panel to steady himself. Anchored there, he twisted himself around and saw Clarke bump up next to him. He grabbed the dog’s little collar and succeeded in hauling him in. Clarke licked his face as Petrick rubbed him all over his fur, looking for wounds. Clarke was okay, but his tongue was coming back with red blood as he licked his master. Petrick felt his face, terrified for a moment he’d been gashed open by shrapnel, but he felt no wounds. Just blood.
Not his blood.
Barry and Suzy bumped up against the ceiling a moment later, and Petrick caught a good look at them. Suzy was unconscious with an alarming gash across her forehead, and Barry was holding his leg in horror, wide-eyed and in shock.
Stuck in his left thigh was a piece of shrapnel about an inch wide and a good six or seven inches in length. Barry looked at Petrick, and he started whimpering. Petrick was struck suddenly by just how young his ten-year-old companion looked at that moment. Like a child, which is what he was . . . what the three of them were.
Where are Haber and Balta?
Peering around the smoky, dark room flashing with sparks of light, it took Petrick a moment or two, but he finally saw Haber helping a disheveled Balta off the floor down below.
“Barry and Suzy are hurt!” he called, hoping they could hear him.
“Can you make it down to us?” Haber called up, instantly locating Petrick from the sound of his call.
Petrick frowned at the question, realizing the android and the captain were standing where they were, not floating.
“You have gravity down there?”
“Reduced,” Haber affirmed, “but yes.”
“We’re floating up here,” Petrick responded to him.
“Kick off from the ceiling, Master Petrick,” Haber instructed, positioning himself beneath the children. “One at a time. I will catch you.”
“Barry’s leg is bleeding, and Suzy is unconscious,” he called back. “I’ll have to grab them and bring them down with me!”
The gravity field must still have been operational but reduced enough for them to move beyond its effects when they were thrown several feet up in the air during the explosion. Balta and Haber’s bulk had kept them from getting high enough off the floor and away from the plating. Petrick saw that Haber was just about directly below them, and Suzy and Barry were actually floating toward him. They shouldn’t be all that hard to wrangle.
“Aim for me and don’t push off too hard,” the android instructed him. “We will catch you.”
Balta moved into position next to the android, and Petrick adjusted his grip to face Barry full-on.
“Barry,” he called, “listen to me.” Barry nodded his head, and Petrick could see that he was trying valiantly to keep it together. “I’m going to grab you, okay, but I need you to get Suzy.”
Barry nodded again, and he started trying to twist himself around. It wasn’t doing any good, however, as weightless as they were. Petrick called out to him again.
“No, grab one of the ceiling plates,” he instructed. “Above you. That one right there is sticking out.”
Barry looked up and saw the edge that Petrick was gesturing to, and he took hold of it. With that purchase, he was able a moment later to extend his arm and push himself right into Suzy, whom he wrapped with his other free arm. Petrick took a deep breath and gently pushed off a split second later, and traversed the three feet or so that separated them. Relief flooded through him as he realized the sensation was very much like swimming underwater, something he knew how to do. He wrapped his arm around Barry, and the threesome was reunited.
Petrick gestured to Barry that he should let go of the ceiling and take hold of his shirt instead, and Barry dutifully did so. Petrick grabbed on to the ceiling panel and rotated himself upside down so that he and Clarke’s heads were pointed directly toward Haber and Balta. The floor was now “below” him. It would be just like diving for turtles in the West Field pond back home.
Petrick pushed off gently and floated down. Barry’s grip on his shirt held, and he felt him and Suzy being carried by his momentum. His stomach did a somersault as the gravity field took hold of him, and suddenly he was falling instead of floating. It scared him for a brief moment, but he quickly realized that it was clearly a small fraction of normal gravity. He was falling, but very slowly, just as Haber had predicted. He and Balta caught the three of them a moment later, and they all collapsed down to the floor with his help.
“Are you injured, Master Petrick?” Haber asked, rubbing him up and down the same way that Petrick had searched Clarke for injuries.
“Clarke and I are fine,” Petrick answered him. “I think the blood is from Barry’s leg.”
Haber immediately turned his attention to the other two children. Barry had reduced his sobs to sniffles, but he was still holding his leg. Suzy was a heap on the floor, and Balta, who had caught her, looked beside herself with worry.
“She’s not waking up,” she said as she patted Suzy’s cheeks, one side, then the other, and back again. The pirate captain started to shake and take short, shallow breaths. “She’s not waking up,” she repeated.
“Allow me, Captain,” Haber said, stepping in. He was calm, authoritative.
The android balled one of his hands into a tight fist, felt around her chest with the other until he located her sternum, and then took the index-finger knuckle of his fist and rubbed it hard. Suzy gasped in pain, and her eyes opened. Haber stopped rubbing. She blinked at the worried faces around her, and then a delayed reaction clouded her face.
“Ow,” she coughed, bringing a hand up to her chest where Haber had rubbed. “What did you do that for?”
Haber nodded. She was okay. Balta heaved a sigh of relief and then turned her attention to the gash on her forehead, which was still oozing. Her stubby fingers poked at the skin there, which again made Suzy yelp in pain.
“Owww!” She slapped Balta’s hand away. “What are you doing?”
“What about this, android?” Balta asked.
“The wound is superficial but bleeding,” Haber said after giving it his own brief examination. He looked up at Balta to get the woman’s attention. “A strip of your shirt tied around her head for pressure should be sufficient to control it.”
Balta didn’t hesitate, and Haber then moved over to Barry and the shard in his leg. Barry started whimpering again with the attention as the android gingerly examined the situation.
> “Is it in there deep?” he said. “Am I going to die?”
Petrick’s stomach turned, and he realized he’d been holding his breath so long he was starting to get dizzy. Haber didn’t say anything as he carefully pressed at all angles on the shard, exploring. In his mind’s eye, Petrick saw the piece of metal buried all the way through his friend’s leg, so much so that it was poking out the other side, dripping with blood. It was a shock to both boys when the android suddenly grabbed hold of the metal shard and yanked it from the leg.
Barry was about to scream in pain when both he and Petrick realized that the bloodied part of the metal shard, the part that had been stuck in his leg, was entirely blunt and about half an inch deep. A flesh wound. The boys smiled at each other.
“Hmm,” Haber said, still looking at the wound. The boys looked down and saw a small pool of blood beginning to form inside. “It’s bleeding a bit more than I expected,” he said. “Another strip of fabric tied around it should be sufficient. Tightly.”
Petrick was the one to spring into action this time, and he had the bottom of his shirt torn off and wrapped around Barry’s leg in five seconds flat. He cinched it as tightly as he could, and Barry grunted with pain but nodded that he was okay. Balta finished bandaging Suzy as Haber motioned for Barry to get up.
“Let’s see if you can stand,” he said.
Barry grimaced as the android lifted him by both arms and then gingerly set him on his feet. Barry put weight on the leg and yelped. Haber went to take his weight again, but Barry motioned him off.
He looked up at all of them, shaky and pale, but he was smiling a rueful smile. “It hurts,” he said, “but it’s okay. I’m okay.”
Petrick then shot a look over at Suzy, and she nodded at him. She was okay too.
Tears stung Petrick’s eyes at seeing his friends in pain, but he sucked it up. Children to warriors in the span of minutes. He couldn’t believe how brave they were being. How strong. How adult. His pride kept the tears from getting large enough to fall.
A jarring shake of the floors and walls from another nearby explosion rattled his reflections back to their immediate situation. Balta, behind them, was wiping furiously at the window, which was now warped and covered in black soot. Her wiping was to no avail, however. They couldn’t see outside.
“What happened?” Petrick asked, needing to shout over the various noises that were still filling the corridor.
“Explosion,” Balta said, pointing out the obvious. “I think it came from right outside the airlock. That docked ship, maybe.”
Not getting anywhere with the window, she hustled over to the airlock door, which was still intact, and peered through its much smaller window. She let out a slow whistle. The group followed and saw pretty quickly that her fears were accurate. Where there had once been a functioning, if old, airlock, there was now a jagged, gaping hole. The ship beyond was a ship no more. All that was left were fragments spinning outward from the blast. The entire interior of the airlock chamber, and much of the station’s outer hull extending several feet on either side were gone, ripped away in the explosion.
Beyond all that, they could see the dusty cloud of the far side of the Wall. Hanging menacingly in front of that was the cause of the poor vessel’s explosion: the Authority capital ship. Behind them, through the din of the still-sparking power conduits and the hiss of an atmosphere leak nearby, they could hear the sounds of shouting and weapons fire. The interior fighting was now coming to them as well. Petrick heard Balta look back toward the noises, then forward at the ripped-apart airlock before them, and mutter a curse under her breath.
“Now what?” Suzy asked, repeating the refrain that seemed to have been coming up over and over ever since the Authority arrived.
Balta didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled the commlink out from her pocket and switched it on. When it didn’t light up on command, she muttered another curse and smacked it a couple times against her other palm. After a moment of finagling, the small device lit up, and relief washed over the pirate captain’s face. She keyed in a couple commands and then waited. The rest of the group waited, too, knowing instinctively what it would mean should Balta not receive a response. The Red Robert could have been captured, or worse, destroyed, leaving them with no means of escape and no option but surrender.
The commlink blinked back at them a moment later, and Balta whooped.
“I knew it!” she said, almost dancing. Petrick had never seen the round woman so animated. “I knew Colossus would get past that thing! We might get out of this yet.”
“Well, where is he?” Barry asked, getting up on his toes to peer out with the rest of them, wincing in pain. “The big bad ship is right out there!”
“Hiding,” Balta answered, not taking her eyes off the commlink as another message came blinking through. “Back in the debris field on this side of the Wall. He can’t come to us.”
“Not with the capital ship parked outside,” Petrick said, nodding.
“So . . . we have to move the capital ship?” Suzy asked. “There’s no way we can do that.”
“No . . . ,” said Balta, looking around the room behind them. Apparently, she spotted what she was looking for, because she started walking toward the back wall of the room, which was lined with benches and lockers of some kind. “No, we’ll have to get to the Red Robert ourselves.”
She reached out and opened one of the lockers, grinned at what she found inside, and hauled it out. It was a suit, dull gray in color and thick, and was designed to cover someone from head to toes, complete with integrated gloves and booties for the feet. Balta reached into the locker again and came out with a helmet in her hands. She looked back at the group behind her in triumph.
“Pressure suits,” she said to them. “We’ll float right under their noses.”
40
THE MASTER PURVEYOR was waiting for him on the command deck of the capital ship. This was bad. Slink knew it had to be without even consulting a forecast; he never left his chamber. Ever.
“Master Purveyor,” he said, “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
The Master Purveyor had been talking to a sweating officer; he glanced back at Slink and his new Companion, then returned his attention to the officer. With a nod and a military salute, the officer turned on his heel and walked over to a waiting group of other likewise white-faced officers.
The Master Purveyor then turned slowly to face Slink. “I wasn’t expecting to have to come up here,” he said equally slowly. He locked eyes with his subordinate. “But it seems as though there was some miscommunication in regard to handling these fleeing ships.” The Purveyor pointed to a holo-projection of the battlefield just to the side of the central walkway. “Eleven ships have been destroyed.”
Slink gulped. “It was the Tusian battleship that fired on us, sir.”
“I’m aware of that, Slink.” The Purveyor stepped closer to Slink, who wanted so very much to step back, but he held his ground like he was supposed to. “Both General Plodda and your little Companion here foresaw that complication, didn’t they?” The Purveyor stabbed a finger past his subordinate at the covered figure. Slink nodded. “And we had a plan to disable them, didn’t we?”
“The Tusians are disabled.”
“And yet we fired on and destroyed eleven ships.”
“Yes, Master.”
“How did that happen?”
“I . . . well, I assumed we didn’t want anyone getting away.”
“I don’t care about anyone, Slink.” The Master Purveyor was almost nose to nose with him now. “Where were you?”
“On the station, master. Looking for the boy.”
“I thought General Plodda was handling the station.”
Slink seized an opportunity to place blame elsewhere. “Yes, but I thought I’d offer my assistance. I contacted the mole to intercept and bring the boy directly to me, but the general engaged in a frontal assault that allowed them to escape.”
“Very inter
esting.” The Purveyor nodded slowly.
“It’s true,” Slink asserted. “My forecasts showed they would be found in the side corridors of the station, and so I acted accordingly.”
The Purveyor took this information in with another slow, deliberate nod.
What came next happened so quickly, Slink had not the time to move, cry out, or even blink. The Master Purveyor brought up a long arm and in one fluid motion crashed his fist down onto the helmet of Slink’s new Companion with a sickening crunch.
The helmet splintered with the astonishing force. The Companion crumpled to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and it didn’t move again. From the searing pain that stabbed at him from his neural connection, and the horrible, horrible darkness of existing purely in the present moment, Slink knew it was dead.
The Master Purveyor was frozen, his fist hovering where it had smashed in the Companion’s small head. His face was twisted, terrifying.
He straightened.
“I fear that your project is getting out of hand,” the Master Purveyor said to him. “Leading you astray.” Slink didn’t dare answer. His heart was pounding. “General Plodda was going to use the frontal assault in the marketplace to drive the boy where she wanted him,” he said. “She never trusted the mole to handle anything. Her forecasts showed that he’d be inept.”
Slink was frozen. He couldn’t move. He just kept staring at the Companion crumpled haphazardly on the floor, bent into broken shapes. The second he’d lost in such a short time and so violent a fashion.
“Perhaps your project has been a waste of resources,” the Master Purveyor said. Resources. Slink knew he meant starstuff. Slink could see the Companion’s face through the shattered helmet that had kept it blind and without distractions. “Perhaps this has been an exercise in envy.” Slink knew he meant Plodda and her natural-born abilities. Slink also knew he was right.
Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1) Page 26