by Holly Ice
‘I guess so.’ Though he’d caused far more.
‘Siti and Quinn too?’
So, he hadn’t caught Siti. ‘Your guards shocked them.’
‘I see. I wish you had thought about your other friends when you changed the code and hid.’ He pulled up Rima’s arm, showcasing her ruined fingers.
Rima was close enough I could see the dark stains on her coveralls were dried blood. She used Ludis’s grip to support herself, eyes half-closed in pain.
‘How can you justify that?’
‘We needed the codes. She should have given in.’
‘Why would she? The crew hasn’t voted yet. You have no right to the override.’
He shrugged. ‘Best to be prepared, especially with you sneaking around our systems. You have even less right than me!’
‘Why is Rima here? You won’t get anything more from her.’
He pushed Rima toward his guards. They tied her and pushed her into a wall. ‘No, perhaps not, but I wanted her to watch this.’
‘Watch what?’
Ludis clicked his fingers. Eight people clattered down the stairs. All eight were quitters from the first day of training – candidates without nanites in their system. They came straight for the airlock, stomped over the downed door, and trooped past me, only to pull up at the locked lander. They glared at me. That must be why Rima was here. To intimidate me.
‘You’re really sending your team now, before the vote?’
‘No, I’m sending them before you do any more damage.’
‘It’s not me that destroyed the airlock.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You didn’t leave. What else could they do?’
‘This is exactly what you hate the committee for – forcing a decision before the crew have a say. You’ve let this video twist you into someone the old you would hate.’
‘I disagree. My mother showed me action was needed, before we ruined the planet we need to start again. I’m doing this to protect all of us. The crew will agree with me.’
There wasn’t a hint of apprehension in his voice. He’d sold himself on this ideal, told himself the people would follow him until that alone was enough to fill him with blind confidence and bring him to this.
It wouldn’t do any good, but I challenged him anyway. ‘What if they don’t?’
He scowled. ‘They will. I have supporters in most sectors, and they’re already voting.’
‘Now?’
He nodded.
‘And you’ll send an untrained team to the surface?’
‘They were candidates, as good as any of you.’
‘Untried candidates! Second-rate candidates. We’ve had over a month in intense training. Most of us weren’t good enough.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Second-rate? Do you include yourself in that? Or have you forgotten you were cut?’
‘My position doesn’t matter. I’ll protect the lander and make sure the right people step foot on Ristar.’
‘How noble. I thought this application was a quest to prove a kin kid can do as well as any tank kid.’
‘Maybe once. Not anymore. I don’t need them to respect me. I know I’d do well on the ground.’
‘You sound like someone else.’
‘We all change.’
‘Some more than others, especially after nanites.’ He waved his hand at the unqualified team. ‘Hold her.’ They yanked me back and held me suspended between the tallest candidates, their fingers digging into my shoulders. My legs dragged on the ground, but I kept my glare fully focused on Ludis. He gestured to one of his guards. ‘Still have what we need?’
The guard patted his backpack. No doubt it contained chemicals and a sprayer to remove all trace of nanites from the lander. Gaining that chemical was likely what had made them so bold in the first place. Once they knew it worked, it eliminated their fear. ‘Good to go once the kin kid is out of the hold.’
Ludis smiled. ‘Good.’ His smile slipped as he turned back to me. ‘Please, tell me the code.’
‘I need you to think about what you’re doing.’
‘I’m protecting us, and that includes you.’ Ludis flicked his fingers toward the new exploration team. ‘Whatever it takes.’
A small grey-haired woman walked around the group and grabbed hold of my left hand. Dannika. She fumbled for my index finger and snapped it back on itself. White-hot pain shot through me. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I was afraid Ludis would enjoy it. I gritted my teeth and glared over Dannika’s shoulder.
‘Torture.’ I spat the word. ‘Because I have nanites, or because you want the code?’
‘I need the code.’ He nodded, and Dannika snapped another finger.
I cursed. ‘Why does your vision have to be so black and white? With a little compromise, you could have found agreement.’
‘I can’t accept some nanites and not others. It’s a sliding slope.’
I laughed. Out of my coarse throat, it came out as more of a cackle. ‘If you accept some? Who gave you the right to dictate?’
‘I’m not.’
‘You said I, not we.’ The crew would never agree to a dictator. Even his supporters would waver at this behaviour, which was no doubt why only a dozen or so dead-eyed supporters were here. The rest bought into his quest for crew input, not torture.
‘Are you going to give me the code?’ Ludis asked.
‘No. You have no right to it unless you win this vote. Your team are not getting on the lander any earlier.’
Ludis closed his eyes. I expected anger, but his shoulders hung defeated as he turned away, to the stairs. ‘Break her.’
Dannika grabbed my hand and quickly broke finger after finger, so quick I couldn’t hold back my screams. My throat was ripped raw with the pain and my anger, and when all fingers and thumbs were crooked, I met Dannika’s eyes. They were lit with a cruel spark, her lips quirked up.
She clearly had a thing for pain.
‘A strong one.’ She glanced behind her, and chuckled. I tried to see what she’d focused on. She headed straight for the plasma cutter. I wouldn’t survive that. Twenty thousand Celsius or more. She could rip me in two. Ludis’s back was still turned, refusing to watch what he’d started. The coward.
‘Hold her arm steady,’ Dannika said, donning the protective gear.
A male candidate pulled my right arm taut. I tried to move against him but the lock was solid.
My torturer fiddled with dials and fired up the plasma cutter. Its hiss was so much louder up close. I eyed the heat waves coming off the tool. Siti would have no idea I was about to have my arm burnt to black dust and Quinn was still down. How long did I have before the patrol would wake, or Quinn? Too long.
My eyes burned with the cutter’s light. Warm waves hit my cheeks from a metre away, and then she advanced, the cutter held out toward my forearm. Was she going to cut through me? I should give her the code. I had to, or she’d take my arm. The small hairs on my arm burned, curling down to the skin, which smarted like it’d been boiled.
‘Wait!’ I yelled.
She paused, the arc five inches from my skin.
It was an effort to look away from the cutter, but I glanced at Ludis. He hadn’t turned around. ‘What, Errai? I have a launch to organise. Give us the code or we will continue.’
‘I…’ I had to delay him, use any emotional strings he had left to distract him. Any delay helped us. Even if it meant I had to survive a plasma cutter, I’d do it.
The emergency announcement lights flickered, plunging us into a sea of black and blue, and I screamed. Dannika had jerked the cutter. My skin bubbled and burned. I smelt cooked meat. Me. I was cooking. I yanked as hard as I could to get my arm free, to no avail. I couldn’t move. I could only watch my skin blister and brown like steak.
A numbness settled into my mind but didn’t block the agony searing through my nerves. It was enough to take in what’d been done to me. A blackened burn line bit into my arm and away, as if the machine had taken a bite
. I watched as its edges dewed with pus. My arm was a burnt, gaping wound but the nanites drew it together, even as they cut off the cooked flesh to splat on the deck. That almost felt worse. Wooziness filled me and my eyelids drooped. Could nanites put me under? I bit my tongue until I regained alertness. I couldn’t black out. Not now.
Ludis was yelling about the announcement. Something about authorisation.
I squinted at a screen, but the announcement was text only. I didn’t have enough concentration to read the whole thing. Not over the tugging and cutting of nanites fixing my ruined arm. I caught only the odd word. Voters… nanite group… force… tortured prisoners… break the lander. The screen switched to a video clip, the camera flaring white with the bright light of the plasma torch. I don’t know how she’d known where and when to look, but Siti had shown my torture to the ship, which meant she had access to nav. Were the patrol awake, too? Had I miscalculated? Even half an hour different…
The woman holding the plasma cutter cursed, but her eyes weren’t on the screens. Everyone had been focused on the announcement. They’d missed a very welcome arrival.
Patrolmen crowded the stairs and the elevator doors opened to reveal Siti, Yara, Ashoka, Aina, and the rest of the captured candidates. Ludis was massively outnumbered. He opened his mouth, no doubt to use me as a hostage, but Yara didn’t give him the chance. She barrelled into him, tackling him to the deck. He scrambled to free himself, but it would be a losing battle without help.
My torturer cursed again and switched off the cutter to fling herself into the fray. Thankfully it was too bulky and heavy to use as a mobile weapon. The remaining ‘candidates’ went with her. Without their support, I fell to my knees, my right arm limp against my side and my fingers burning with the nanites’ work, but I wasn’t going to sit this one out. I stumbled to the lander and awkwardly input the override with my left hand. I used my palm more than my fingers, but it worked on the second try.
Boxes clattered to the ground, disturbed from their pyramid. Not a guard, please. I squinted into the box pile. Quinn was waking, his hands making wide sweeps to find the deck. I let him grab my wrist to find his feet and pressed a baton into his hand. I’d need the stunner for myself.
‘What happened to your hand, and what’s that smell?’ he asked, crinkling his nose.
‘My arm.’ I scanned the cargo hold for medical supplies and found them in a corner. Painkillers. I’d need them soon, when the shock wore off. ‘Bingo, liquid painkiller.’ I downed a pouch and flung the wrapper atop the pile.
‘What happened? Who broke your fingers?’
They were beginning to hurt less, which didn’t bode well for the shape they were healing in, but that wasn’t important now. I pointed out the airlock. Quinn’s eyes widened at the brawl and he followed me into the main ship, baton raised. I gripped my stunner as tight as I could with my crooked fingers and scanned the crowd, judging where I could be most effective. Ludis was fighting Kuba but losing. Yara had been knocked out with what looked like a baton to the head and Siti had been left to battle Nomi alone. I waded in, past other fights, and tried to shove the stunner into Nomi’s side.
She swung, backhanding me. My cheek smarted and my head whipped sideways. I dropped to the deck. Dizziness and lights dominated my vision but I got back up.
Siti was defending against a series of heavy punches, ducking and dodging where she could, but more than a few got through, slamming into her sides with the full power of this tank of a woman.
I kicked Nomi’s knee, but she barely felt it. She punched the air from Siti and grabbed my injured arm, digging fingers into the injury. Darkness flooded in, and pain. I screamed and staggered back, out of her reach. My stunner fell from my grip and I was pushed side to side, caught in the bustle of various fights. Anytime now, I’d be knocked out. But hands took my shoulders and guided me through a gap in the fighting. I put my good arm up and felt my way to a wall. I slid down it to gain my breath, and slowly, vision came back to me.
My helper had already disappeared and Quinn had faced off with Nomi in an attempt to cover me. His baton’s feint and hit were easily dodged. She whacked him in the ribs with her own baton, then the head, and he went down hard. My heart clenched for him. In recovery from a stunner blow, he’d stood little chance.
Nomi’s colleagues were thin on the ground now, only five still fighting. That didn’t deter her. She swept Siti and slammed a baton into her head, knocking her out too. She then advanced on me, teeth bared. She shoved people out her way as if they weighed nothing, and the fire in her eyes meant murder.
My breath hiked, but I pushed against the wall until I found my feet and looked around for a weapon. A guard near me was out, his stunner near his outstretched hand. I stooped and picked it up. It wouldn’t do much good if I couldn’t get close, but it gave me a chance. I stepped away from the wall. Deeper breaths helped calm my muscles, but not my heart. That was racing towards a heart attack.
Nomi aimed a disabling kick at my knee. I dodged it, but then she was on me. She pummelled punches into my side so fast I could only dodge or block a fraction of them. She punched and kicked with no clear order or routine. I heaved in a painful breath and backed up, as fast as I could. I had to get away, get help. She followed.
A kick caught me in the sternum and I flew back, struggling to stay on my feet. Someone caught me but quickly reengaged with their own fight. I wasn’t trained to defeat a security veteran. I took shallow breaths, ignoring the stabbing pain in my side. I’d be broken into pieces and left unconscious in minutes now. My ribs were already cracked, and it was a struggle to breathe.
Sabine’s pithy advice thundered through my mind. I needed to be unpredictable, just like Nomi. I needed to stun her and get out before I suffered any further damage. I had to play clever.
I swung my stunner, overreaching and allowing her to place two painful blows to my ribs, but twisted away before she could get me into a hold. I threw a few kicks toward her knees, which she dodged easily, then mixed up punches and kicks as I’d done in my gym sessions. I moved in clear patterns and waited.
The moment her lips quirked in victory, I stepped out of her fight-stopping punch and pressed the stunner against her neck. At first she stilled, not moving but not falling either. Seconds later, she tilted to one side and hit the deck with a loud thump.
I breathed heavily. Some patrolmen were on the ground but most were Ludis’s guards. Training had won out.
Rima hurried to my side, her walk staggered but her complexion healthier. She must have found her own painkillers because she was smiling. ‘Thank you. You kept the lander in one piece, and safe on board.’
I spun around, taking in the blood and broken bones of the fight. Carnage. ‘I think the patrol did that.’
Rima scoffed and pulled me into a hug. ‘Nonsense. Siti told me how you planned this. You saved the lander, and the ship.’
I pulled back, tearing up. ‘Careful.’ My ribs were more broken than intact, but that wasn’t why my throat tightened. I’d found Ludis among the twenty or so bodies littering the deck. He was unconscious like the rest, curled into a foetal position. Guilt hit me hard, but I did my best to shove it away. He wasn’t mine to worry over anymore. ‘What happens to them now?’
‘Patrol will lock them up and get this ship back to normal. We’ll have the lander away as soon as everyone’s healed.’ She pursed her lips. ‘And once the door’s repaired.’
‘What about the vote?’
Rima grinned. ‘They lost. Twenty-eight percent for, seventy-two against.’
‘Then why the rush? Can’t we wait to send the team, finish training?’
Rima’s smile faltered. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
Rima hesitated, and I knew. Ludis had followed up on his threat. ‘He destroyed all the nanites, didn’t he?’
‘Worse. We have some nanites stored, but they smashed and spaced the nanite generators.’
I could only stare at her. Without
them, we’d have to ration nanites, and we’d need a lot to repair the airlock. Then there were air-cleaning nanites and those that kept the embryos safe from radiation. How could they choose what to prioritise?
‘You’re sure?’
‘Meri secured the living decks and confirmed just before we arrived here.’
I took a deep breath. ‘How many do we have?’
‘Not enough, and we don’t have the parts and materials to build another generator. We need to get the lander on Ristar as soon as possible.’ She glanced at the guards dragging fighters toward the elevator from where they’d collapsed around us. ‘Please don’t spread this around. I’m not sure people could take that news right now.’
She wasn’t wrong. With so many injured or destined for lockers, the ship wasn’t ready to hear we might lose frozen embryos. We had no way to predict how many potential lives would be lost before arrival, and we could do nothing to counteract their loss except repurpose nanites after the various repairs. Even then, I doubted it would be enough to protect them all. Nanites didn’t last long against radiation. It was one of the ship’s biggest nanite loss areas.
A heaviness settled on my shoulders. ‘I won’t say anything.’
Two patrolmen dragged Ludis toward the elevator, where he was dumped beside two of his guards.
Aina stepped in front of my view. ‘You did the right thing.’ She nodded to Ludis’s limp form. ‘He’ll recover.’ She gestured to her bruised and puffy face. ‘As will I.’
Somehow, despite the bodies scattered around us and the new threat, her words helped me make peace with my decisions. I’d put her in danger and I’d caused the hurt of so many in this room, but we’d get through it and come out the other side. We had to.
Rima inspected my arm and our bent fingers. ‘Let’s get you and the others to health. They have a busy night ahead of them.’
I looked back to the lander as the clean-up started and my eyes fell on the cutter. I swallowed. ‘You’ll need the new code.’ Rima bent to my height and I whispered it into her ear. With those eight digits, the tension of the last few days drifted away, or perhaps the painkillers fully kicked in. Either way, it was done. The mutiny was over, and what happened next was out of my hands.