“These suits are crap, Jadis! Hey, you there? You copy this?” Betta could see the light from the engines still going at a steady blast. There was no slowing, no stopping, and soon her trajectory would have to be recalculated, which meant burning more fuel and more oxygen. “Jadis. Jadis!” Silence.
Betta waited, floating through the vacuum. She watched her oxygen meter go down two more points. Still, if the Endeavor could start slowing soon, she might hit the aft section and make her way to the airlock on the port side, or squeeze through the opening the Antogin left. That led to other thoughts. They needed to seal off that section and she was certain there was not a mechanism in place. They could move one of the walls from starboard, opening up the pool where Jadis liked to swim.
It struck then. In all the excitement, in everything, losing their child, the attack on the station, and the Antogin, Betta never had a moment to really process all she learned. Her father was alive. Had always been alive. What kind of deal did he make to keep her safe?
Static.
“Jadis? Jadis!” Betta called.
There was only shallow breathing on the other end.
“Dammit, Jadis! Jadis Ter! This is not how D’yanna would want you die!”
A snort. “Betta? Where are you?”
“Hey. I need you to slow the ship, lover,” Betta said softly. Was he wounded? Was he dying? Her stomach churned at the thought of losing him so soon. “Can you do that? A few commands to Endeavor.”
The lights of the thrusters were suddenly non-existent, but the ship still accelerated past her trajectory. There was no chance of her catching it now.
“I did… it!” Jadis gasped. “And… not your lover.”
“Are you hurt?” Betta asked.
“Just get on board,” he said.
“Endeavor’s moving too fast. I won’t make it.”
Suddenly, the back thrusters came online and the ship slowed its forward motion. Betta was still too far out and all of the calculations on the suit said she would be out of fuel if she attempted another run. In the end, Betta was comforted by the thought she wouldn’t die in a box and that was something.
Setting the new trajectory, Betta activated a longer and more powerful pulse than the first. Her fuel wound down to five percent and her oxygen level hovered at eight percent. Eventually, she saw where it would all go wrong. The back thrusters weren’t yielding and there would come a point where the ship would begin sliding back and out of range.
“Jadis? You with me?”
Shallow breathing again. “You onboard yet?”
“I need you to stop the back thrusters.”
“I… can’t… see anything, Betta. My eyes… they don’t work.” His words came in choked gasps.
Betta grit her teeth, watching the ship sliding back into her line of trajectory. “You remember how the controls work. Back thrusters are the middle icon. Better yet call an emergency shutdown.”
“Lose… fuel.”
“Lose me,” Betta replied softly.
The back thrusters halted immediately and Betta could see that she would just reach the bow. Her oxygen level was now at four percent. Fuel now at five. Stopping was going to be difficult.
Several minutes later, she was breathing shallowly and the nose of the Endeavor was nearly at arm’s reach. She was coming in way too fast. She used the last of her fuel to slow, but it didn’t stop her from striking the hull violently, nearly propelling her away from the ship. Betta used the momentum to turn her body and activate the magnetized boots. She was pulled to the hull and began walking back to the airlock on the port side.
The rest of the ship would be leaking oxygen and given what she suspected of Jadis’s state of being, he had not fixed the hole in the cargo bay. Her only hope was the airlock, which would be sealed off from the rest of the ship and able to pressurize. In fact, she had a feeling that would be where they would ride out the rest of the journey.
The walk was difficult. Her vision continually became blurred and the crack at the side of her helmet worried her to no end. Still, she walked, putting one magnetized boot in front of the other until she finally saw the blinking lights of the airlock. Punching in the Endeavor’s security code, Betta climbed down into the airlock, sealing the hatch behind herself. She could hear and feel the chamber pressurize as she moved.
When her feet touched the ground, she removed her helmet and gasped at the change. Never had air tasted so sweet. Bent forward, she grasped her knees and took breath after breath.
Betta tapped her comm on the helmet. “Jadis. I’m in the airlock. Where are you?”
There was no response. She waited. She paced for a few minutes. Finally, she looked at the cracked helmet and back to the airlock. She shoved the helmet back on her head. “Fine. I’ll come to you.” Betta depressurized the airlock before opening the door to the interior of the ship.
Chapter Eleven
Home
Jadis awoke sprawled over the railing of his main deck. Scorch marks covered the titanium floors and a force rifle lay at his feet. At the other end of the deck, near the captain’s chair were the charred remains of an Antogin. It had to be the scrappiest creature he had ever faced. Not that he’d faced many creatures, but this one could run across ceilings and fire blasts of incinerating heat at the same time.
The left side of his helmet was blackened with soot, and his space suit had more than a few cuts and tears that were taken care of by the insulating foam. Still, some of those burns had gone clean through Jadis. He clutched his side and groaned in pain. Moving away from the railing, he fell into the captain’s chair, kicking aside the corpse at his feet.
“Betta!” he called over comms, but the mechanism crackled and died. Her last words to him echoed in his head. ‘Lose me.’
The room spun when he rose. Shaking his head for maybe the fifth time, Jadis forced the room to adhere to his perception of physics. If she did make it, she’d be in an airlock. There were only three on the ship, and he was certain he had enough oxygen to visit them all.
A beeping signaled a warning that he was nearing the end of his oxygen usage. Jadis sighed. Could one thing go right this week? He was pausing at the hole in the cargo hold when he heard and felt the hit to the hull. He was pushing himself through the zero gee as quickly as possible to reach port side. He was also breathing heavily, and the wound in his side was very wet. A few paces away and he lost all control of his preset state of physics. The hallway turned inside out and he fell into it.
“I said ‘up!’” Betta’s voice snapped him back into the now.
Jadis turned his head to see her dragging him away from the airlock. “What are you doing?”
“Getting you to that med box. You’re hurt,” Betta said.
“We need oxygen more.” He pulled away. “Airlock.”
“There’s oxygen in the med box.”
“Only for one. You’ve gone through enough because of me. Airlock! Now!”
Betta laughed. “I don’t take commands, your majesty.”
“Please.” He was starting to feel the room moving again. Jadis brushed her hands aside and crawled the rest of the way into the airlock.
He could hear Betta shuffling about and then the room pressurized. The sound of the oxygen flowing was like hearing a waterfall in the middle of the desert. His helmet came off and they both sat breathing.