“Sure.” Miko hefted the cutting torch. “Whatever turns you on.” They set off down the big curving tunnel.
Tiffany jacked up her sensors, half meaning to focus them on Miko—to find out exactly what her companion was thinking. But she never got the chance. All of a sudden her middle ear microamps were hearing footfalls, big ones. And not human.
She seized Miko’s shoulder, hissing, “Douse your suit lamps. Something’s coming.” They crouched together in darkness, listening. Tiffany’s augmented hearing had the advantage, she recognized the oncoming 1-4-5-8-2-3-6-7 eight-legged gait. Tightening her grip, she whispered, “Bugs.”
“Shit! Are they friendlies?”
“Wanna wait and ask?”
They turned and ran through the dark. Miko’s question was answered by the bark of assault rifles, and the sound of ricochets at their heels. Bugs could see in the dark, and there was no hope of outrunning them. Or reasoning with them.
Tiffany found the hatch they had come out of by dead reckoning. Throwing it open, she dropped through, dragging Miko with her. Then she slammed it and dogged it, shouting to Miko, “Weld this shut.”
Miko went to work immediately, fusing the lock mechanism into a useless lump. That would hold them, though not for long.
Tiffany tugged on Miko. “Let’s go!”
“Where to?” Miko whispered, thoroughly frightened. Tiffany’s sensors could hear her pulse pounding in darkness.
“The nearest access port is to spinward.” They sprinted off down the tunnel, suit lamps on low. Tiffany could hear hammering on the hatch. Then some enterprising Bug stuck a gun barrel through the hole they had made, firing blindly. A typical Bug solution.
Bugs—aka “Sculptorian Symbiots”—were semi-intelligent xenos who had spread through much of the nearer spiral arm using a unique from of hive reproduction. Bug hives attached themselves to starfaring cultures (like humans) by producing an endless supply of bio-engineered servants, eager to perform any task, no matter how boring or dangerous, fighting battles and cleaning toxic dumps for bare upkeep. They were way cheaper than human labor, cheaper even than machines.
Normally, you had little to fear from them. A hive’s natural hostility was toward other Bug hives—a paranoid survival mechanism that propelled the species outward. But humans sometimes set them up as guards. Watchdogs with heavy weapons. If you didn’t know the proper signal or password, you had a far better chance trying to talk sense to a Doberman. Or a SuperCat.
A big blast behind her told Tiffany that the hatch had been blown. Reaching the nearest port lock, she skidded to a stop. “Seal up,” she shouted. The Bugs would be on them in seconds.
They sat shaking in the darkness as the lock slowly cycled. When there was pressure inside, Tiffany flung the inner door open. She told Miko, “Get in there and cut the safeties.”
Miko obeyed. Tiffany fumbled in darkness, using the repair kit and EVA pack to jam the inner door open. Miko signaled that the safeties had been cut.
Bugs poured down the tunnel, firing as they came. Tiffany dropped into the lock. As she did, a shell slammed into her, hitting her life-support pack, throwing her against the side of the lock. Instantly, her suit went dead, lamps, micro-thrusters, recycler, all out. Only her boots and comlink still worked.
Wedging herself into the narrow lock, she grabbed hold of Miko, yelling, “Hold on!” Then she told the lock to open.
Habitat pressure doors all opened into pressure, to keep them from being blown out in an emergency. But an outer lock door opened outward, so the lock could be purged under pressure. Safeties were supposed to keep it from opening if the inner door was not closed. But Miko had cut the safeties, and Tiffany had jammed the inner door open.
A hurricane of air swept through the lock, trying to tear them free and throw them out into the void. But Tiffany held tight, and Miko instinctively braced her boots against the lock sides, telling them to stick.
The rush subsided, leaving them in the absolute silence of vacuum. Tiffany’s head rang, and she fought to breathe, but all she had left was the air in her dead suit, fast going stale. A hot, stuffy, terrible sensation, like being trapped in a plastic sack on a blistering hot day.
Dark stifling numbness closed in on her. She tried to tell Miko what was happening, but she had hardly enough breath left to talk. Her head swam. She felt herself being borne upward, then blacked out.
Tiffany never expected to wake up. But she did, brought back by a cool rush of air, and a voice behind her ear, telling her to, “Breathe, girl. Breathe!”
She breathed, though she could not tell where the air was coming from. Miko sat holding her and coaxing her. Head slowly clearing, she sat up. Only then did she realize that she was tethered to Miko by an air hose. Miko had run the auxiliary line from her suit into Tiffany’s. They were both breathing the same air. Turned into a pair of Siamese twins.
Miko helped her to her feet. Dead Bugs filled the tunnel. Bugs were tough customers, doting on intense heat and pressure, hard to kill even with hand-cannons. But they were air-breathers, just like humans. Decompression did them in handily, spilling Bug guts out their gill slits. “We have to get going before more come,” Miko reminded her.
Right. Got to get going. That seemed to have become her only purpose in life. Soaked, stunned, dizzy, and sick. Tiffany felt like she had been flushed through a sanitary unit. She put an arm around Miko and they set off, still tethered to each other by the air hose.
Every so often, Miko would stoop to scavenge weapons from dead decompressed Bugs. Tucking an assault pistol into her suit belt, she added extra ammo, then slung a bandolier of grenades over her shoulder. Finally, she selected a big recoilless cannon to lean on. Shaken and gasping, Tiffany did well just to keep walking. Besides, she was a diplomat, not allowed to touch lethal weapons.
Once they were back under pressure, she directed Miko to a hatch leading up, one too small for Bugs to use. No longer tethered, they hoisted themselves up into a sloping tunnel. Greenish gold light filtered down from above.
They set out warily up the tunnel, suits unsealed, helmets thrown back. Miko lugged her plundered arsenal. Tiffany carried the kit and packs. The tunnel widened. Cool damp earth replaced fused rock. Huge roots ran underfoot and overhead, threatening to trip and clip them. Sunlight filtered through a big raw earth hole ahead. Beyond the hole, Tiffany saw colossal green plants, and bright white sky.
Floreal
At the top of the tunnel, Tiffany stood and stared at the world within. Stalks of elephant grass towered over her head. Stems of huge flowering plants rose even higher, filling the sky with broad leaves and brilliant blossoms. Day moths the size of condors flitted through white light filtering down from above. Somewhere up there, behind a hologram sky, a fusion tube supplied light and heat to the habitat. Bird calls echoed through the greenery.
Stripping off her battered and useless v-suit, she took deep breaths of flower-scented air. Her fashionable black silk gi was a filthy mess, plastered with sweat. But the changes of clothes she had brought with her were now the property of polite smirking Commander Hesse. Spaced by slavers, hunted by Bugs, hit by a cannon shell, then nearly suffocated, she dearly needed a bath, a nap, and a new outfit. And maybe a meal to go with it.
The first thing she did was to duck discreetly behind a big leaf—the most misnamed part of a v-suit being the “relief tube.” Water was all around her. Shadowy air felt hot and humid. Dew dripped down from giant leaves into big clear ponds on the garden floor.