by David Ryker
I felt my jaw flex, looked at the bag on her back, at her feet, that they weren’t under her. She couldn’t make it — she wouldn’t. If she stood, it’d put a round right over my head and into her, dead center mass, and blow her apart. Her eyes were wide, mouth open. She was frozen, and I wasn’t thinking.
I followed her gaze, judged the angle, and felt my fingers curl in the earth. The cold stung them, the frozen ground like broken glass on my palms, but it didn’t matter. My boots scraped in the snow and I leapt upward, between her and the barrel, mouthing the only word I could — run.
I took a step and a half, and then felt my chest explode in a shower of blood. She twisted on her heel and moved. The tree she’d run into was cut in half and it tumbled between us, blocking the path.
She took up ground, and I blinked, keeling sideways. With each flash of consciousness, she faded into the distance. My breath had stopped. My heart had stopped. There was nothing but cold, and then darkness.
I hit the snow, and it swallowed me up.
The helmet slid up off my face and I opened my eyes, my chest throbbing, heart hammering slowly against my ribs. I lay in the dark, listening to it. Thud. Thud. Thud. I wondered if it would stop, but it didn’t.
My mouth was dry and I felt a cool trickle of sweat run down my cheek. When I wiped it off, I realized it wasn’t sweat.
The needle slid out of my arm and I pulled them out of the sleeves, wiping the tear from my eye. Dying sucked.
I sat up and looked around the pod. The door was sealed shut and a button was glowing dimly next to it. I shuffled over to it, my legs aching, and jabbed it with my thumb. Light bled in around the edges and it opened up, gull-wing style to reveal the Upper Training Deck of the Regent Falmouth.
I sighed and stepped down, staggering on the steel steps.
“Maddox,” someone called.
I turned to face them. It was Meyers, the officer who had been directing recruits earlier, the same one that had sent me with Kepler… Alice… on the first day. I wondered suddenly if she’d gotten away, if she was alright, there in the snow, in the dark. I turned and stared back at the line of pods, all still closed and sealed. She wasn’t dead yet. I swallowed and tried to keep another tear back. My mind was reeling, my chest still throbbing.
Meyers approached, smirking, a pad in his hand. He pulled it up and tapped on the screen. “Fourteen seconds. I think you just set a new record for quickest death ever.” He tapped some more. “Says here you didn’t even make it to your mech. Kicked it in the staging area.” He dropped the pad to his side and shook his head. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Did I fail?” I asked quietly, still not kicking myself that I’d stopped.
He took a slow breath. “They’ll review the footage — we’ll talk to the others when they’re out, make our assessment based on your conduct. But, well…” He smirked again. I wanted to slap it off his face. “Fourteen seconds.”
I nodded and held my tongue.
I could hear him laughing as he walked away.
I didn’t know which pod belonged to Alice, and I didn’t know that it mattered anyway. She was in there, somewhere, in one of them, in the forest, or inside a mech, taking fire, giving it. I let my eyes rest on them for a while, just in case her door popped. I couldn’t tell if I wanted it to happen or not.
I decided I didn’t, but I still didn’t regret helping her.
13
There was only one reason that all the doors would open like that. Emergency evacuation. They all clamped shut to minimize damage and the spread of fire or to contain a hull breach. When they all opened at once, it meant that the ship was going down. But the question of exactly where it was going down to, and why the hell it was going down at all were still tabled.
I slung my bag to the ground and pulled a fresh shirt from it. I tore it into strips in the throbbing red haze and wrapped it tightly around Kepler’s head, staunching the bleeding with a clean sock pressed as wadding. She grunted and winced, but I ignored her. This wasn’t any sort of time to be gentle. The ship had twisted almost ninety degrees now and deep groans and rumbles were reverberating through the hull. Whatever was attacking us was laying waste, that was for sure. Hell, I didn’t even know we were near anything.
I pulled Kepler up by the arm and laced it over my shoulder. Her fingers squeezed at my collarbone and took a fistful of jumpsuit. She held on, her legs unwilling to go under her in any real way. Her eyes were like saucers and the blood was still pouring. She was concussed — maybe worse. I had to get some help, but there was no one around. I sucked in a hard breath and staggered forward, my back screaming as I strong-armed her along the uneven wall, crooked sideways to support her. Every doorway we reached was a thigh high hurdle to be cleared.
I told her to hold tight before sweeping her legs up and stepping over the first, ignoring the sharp edges of the frame as they cut into my thigh. She curled against me, her hair on my cheek, the smell of the sweat on her skin sickly sweet and stale in my nose, her breath tight against my neck. I could feel my heart in my hands, white against her back and legs. But I had to keep going.
My chest burned and by the third hurdle, I set her down, panting. “We’ve got to get higher — out of the corridors,” I squeezed out between breaths.
She looked at me through bleary eyes. “I… I don’t… I can’t…” She was getting worse.
“The Training Deck, it’s huge — we can make up a lot more time crossing that. We can drop down to the escape pods from there. It’ll take forever going on like this.” I didn’t believe the words as they came from my mouth, but Kepler was still reeling. I just hoped she’d come around a little by the time we got there.
The floor rocked with each passing explosion, still a distance away — the other side of the ship from us, but getting closer. The force pushed us level, and then back sideways, swaying like one of those old Earth ships on an ocean of water. I swallowed hard and made the call. I couldn’t carry her the entire way. At least on level ground she could stagger and I could catch my breath.
She sat on the side of the doorway, pressing her fingers slowly to her head, and I knew that she wouldn’t walk on her own.
“Sorry, Kepler,” I said quickly, kneeling. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured this happening.”
She looked at me quizzically as I reached for her neck. “What are you doing?” she asked slowly, but not making any attempt to push me away. I unzipped her jumpsuit down to the waist. Under it she was wearing a white tank top. Yellow stains had formed under the arms and around the neck. I almost forgot how long a day it’d been for her. The whole thing seemed so far away now — so unimportant.
I grabbed her hand and sleeve in two hands and pulled it over her fingers. I felt them hook around mine and squeeze, and I had to pull them free. I was doing my best to smile at her, though I don’t think she quite grasped what was going on. I pushed her arm out of the sleeve entirely, and then slipped the other one off so that her jumpsuit was around her waist. She was holding her arms out like a mannequin, stiff and unmoving.
I swallowed, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice. Jesus, how hard did she crack her head?
“Alice, can you hear me?”
She nodded slowly.
“Alright,” I said, looping one of the sleeves over her shoulder. “I’m going to need you to get on my back, alright?” I turned around and edged backwards until she parted her knees around my flanks. She instinctively put her hands on my shoulders and I guided them with a mixture of haste and care until they met in front of my chin. I watched as she touched each hand with the other like they were someone else’s. I meshed her fingers with mine until they held on their own and then pulled the sleeve over her shoulder and my own, pulling the other under my ribs. I tied them together as tightly as I could over her wrists and across my chest, and then took hold of her thighs, pulling her off the frame and onto my back. I tightened the knot again and hoped that combined, she’d stay on
my back long enough for us to make up some ground.
She pressed her head between my shoulders and I felt the coolness of her blood seeping through my shirt. I forced myself to ignore it and pressed on.
The ground levelled by the time we got to the main hallway that led up to the Training Deck. I staggered to the corner and paused for breath.
“I can walk,” Kepler whispered in my ear, making no effort to loosen her grip around my neck or lift her head from my back.
“It’s fine,” I wheezed, wondering whether or not to step out. I could feel the floor shifting, this way and that. We had to.
I hadn’t seen anyone since it had started. Everyone would have been in the mess, or the Training Deck. The escape pods were on the other side — they would have headed that way at the first sign of trouble, directed by the officers present. I was away from it all, and Alice had come to find me. We were alone, then, on this side of the ship — stranded and left to fend for ourselves while everyone else escaped. There was no sign of Jonas or any of the others who were falling all over themselves to soak up a bit of her light. And I think that said it all.
I swallowed and stepped into the corridor. It was wide and long, and opened out at the end in a staircase. It rose up to a mezzanine of sorts, splitting around the base into two further corridors. Above it, on a shelf, were emblazoned in huge gray letters ‘All People. One Federation,’ and below it the words ‘Upper Training Deck.’ I made for the stairs as quickly as I could, the letters painted blood red in the emergency lighting. I tried not to look at them as they tilted and swayed above me. I could feel Alice’s dead weight shifting as the floor swayed. The explosions rumbled and shuddered through the hull, throwing me sideways and threatening to topple me.
I reached the stairs and lifted my foot. It felt heavy, my muscles filled with acid, tired and strung out. My chest was burning, my eyes watering and bulged. I could feel my heart hammering in my ears and throat and I was wondering how long I could go on. The stairs stretched up above and then in front, and then above, and then in front as the ship tilted and rocked. A cold sense of dread was creeping up through my heels and pulling me down. Alice’s thighs were loosening from around my hips and her weight was becoming heavier, her grip looser. Her breathing was shallow in my ear and I could feel her blood dripping onto my shoulder. I dared not put her down to check, but I could tell she was drifting from consciousness. I needed to get her somewhere safe — somewhere I could get her help.
I gritted my teeth and grunted and took the steps as hard as I could. I got halfway when an explosion echoed, closer than before, and the whole ship shuddered and recoiled. A horrifying groan echoed through the halls and the sounds of tearing metal reverberated through me. The gravity shifted and dipped as the ship rotated and the stairs went from an incline to a decline. Whatever had hit us had hit us hard, and rolled us. We were flipping, and fast. My eyes widened and I made for the rail, throwing myself with everything I had.
A draft pulled on my clothes and buffeted in my ears as I lurched and as my fingers met cold steel, a strange and strangulated sound of desperation escaped my lips. The wind kicked up like someone had turned on a huge fan in the distance. But I knew it wasn’t that — it was the opposite. The wind was blowing, it was sucking. All the doors were open, the ship had rolled, and now the hull had been breached.
The metal sighed and wailed like whalesong and the ship continued to turn. The steps pulled themselves out of reach and I scrabbled at them with my feet, Alice dangling off my back as the floor became the wall. I was gripping the rail with everything I had, but if it inverted completely, I’d never be able to hold us up, and the ceiling was at least thirty feet above. If we fell, we’d be toast. I’d break something — and Alice? I didn’t want to think about it.
I stared at the floor as it tilted away, polished tiles slick and beckoning. In the distance I could see the double doors to the Upper Training Deck, open and dark, like the mouth of a Terraterrion space squid, agape and waiting.
“Sorry, Al,” I mumbled, spitting through my gritted teeth. I let go and aimed my heels at one of the steps. They caught hard, and sent us tumbling. The fabric ripped. Her hands came free, and then we impacted. All the wind was beaten out of me and my back cracked against the floor. The heat against my elbows told me I was sliding. I could feel the tiles under me, each join another beat against my shoulders as I tried to angle myself. Alice was ahead, jumpsuit trailing behind her like a train, ragged and split at one shoulder. She was spinning, half on her side, head bloodied, eyes closed.
The door came up fast and she sped through it, onto the deck and the space that lay beyond. “Alice!” I yelled, stretching out. It was no good; she was dead weight, slipping away. She’d come off my back in the fall and had pulled away. I couldn’t catch up.
I swore and looked desperately around, the doorway approaching quickly. I planted my hand on the floor and it squealed in the darkness, twisting me over. The friction screamed at me, hot and stinging on my skin. I got my knees against my chest and folded myself toward the frame, kicking off it as I passed.
The burst of speed sent me sprawling and rolling, but it was something. I tucked into a ball and sped down the deepening ramp. All of the SimPods had come off their mounts and tumbled into the far wall, lying now in a broken pile of aluminum and smoke.
Alice was ahead and spinning. I reached out, making up ground. What I proposed to do when I got to her, I didn’t know, but if she clattered into the pods at the speed she was going, I didn’t know what the hell would happen.
We were at forty-five degrees and holding, making up ground fast on the heap of shrapnel ahead. “Alice!” I yelled. She didn’t answer — didn’t move, didn’t react.
I stretched out my hand, reaching in the dark, her body shapeless in the gloom.
The ship rocked again and an explosion ripped through the hull, close enough to echo through the doors. The wind picked up more, sucking at us as all the air was dragged out of the corridors.
The angle changed and everything began to shift, tipping back the other way. We were getting pummeled. The angle flattened and we slowed. I went from tumbling to sliding to crawling to running in seconds, leaping down the incline before it moved again.
My heart was singing in my chest, my breath tight, my knees and hips raw. But it didn’t matter. Sweat poured off my face and fear clawed at me in the wind.
I jumped, two-footed and gangly, and crashed to the ground on top of her, enveloping her in my arms. She groaned and mewled.
We rolled to a halt and I heaved her up with everything that I had. “Alice!” I shook her, half dragging her, half pushing her to her feet. “I need you to walk! I need you to get the fuck up, right now!”
My hands were on her back and then under her arms as I shoved her forward, stiff-legged and weak.
“If you don’t, we’re going to die, and I’m not about to leave you here.”
She flopped and staggered and as the floor began to fall away from us again I drove my shoulder into her gut and lifted. I heard the breath shoot out of her in the windrush and made for the door, loping along with her elbows banging against my back.
We skirted the trashed pods and made for the door before anything upended again, following the windrush. We made it through and I laid her against the corner behind it, sinking to a knee, letting out a low, gutteral whimper. Ahead I could see the words ‘Emergency Exit’ emblazoned above a doorway. The doorway was shut, the doors closed. Beyond, I could see a fire raging, glowing through the portholes. They’d snapped shut automatically when the hull had breached but the blast had buckled them. They stood crooked in the frame and a slit of yellow was visible between them, air rushing out, fueling the flames burning in the semi-vacuum beyond. They raged and crackled.
I beat the floor with my fists, screaming.
“M— Maddox?”
I twisted round, the wind whipping across my skin and through my hair. “Alice!” I crawled towards her, sliding on
my knees. “Are you okay?”
She smiled weakly, her eyes barely open. Her hand hovered in the air, gingerly making a point, and then rose.
“What is it, Al? The fire?” My voice cracked, tears forming. Another explosion reverberated in the background and the wind picked up. The doors were parting. I swallowed back the fear but it wouldn’t budge. It stayed in my throat like a hot lump.
She shook her head. “N— No…” Her hand raised further and I followed it to a steel door to our right. Next to it was a plaque that read ‘Stairs’ with a down arrow, alongside the words ‘Lower Hangar East.’
I broke into a smile and a tear ran down my cheek. It got to the stubbly line of my growing beard and stopped, wavered, and then left my skin, sucked into the air in the vacuum.
The droplet disappeared between the doors and sizzled in the flames. By the time it did, we were already through the door and heading down.
14
I slammed the heel of my free hand into the pad and the door dragged itself open, spitting sparks.
The hangar beyond was in flames and the heat rolled over us like a wave. I shielded my face with arm and turned Alice away from it. She had her arm around my neck and I was hauling her along. The stairs had been hard, and most of the time I’d had to drag her over the steps, limp-legged.