“Listen to me,” she said, “I’m trying to help you, asshole.”
“Sure you are.”
“Shut up and listen. We’re being attacked. Might be the nightmares. Might be the Jellies. Doesn’t matter. Either way, if they blow us up, it’s game over. That’s it. We lose. You get it?”
“Bullshit,” said the Marine, spitting in her face. “Admiral Klein just set out with the Seventh to kick those sumbitches back to the Stone Age. He’ll see they get what’s coming to them.”
“You don’t understand, Marine. The Jelly that came here with me on the Wallfish—the one you’ve got locked up—it came here with a peace offer. Peace. If it dies, how do you think the rest of the Jellies will take it? How do you think the Premier will take it?” Now Kira saw indecision similar to her own appear on the man’s face. “That Jelly gets blown up, it isn’t going to matter what the Seventh does. You understand? How long do you think this station is going to last?”
As if to punctuate her question, everything twisted around them as Orsted wobbled even more than before.
Kira swallowed a surge of bile, feeling green. “We have to get that Jelly out of here.”
The Marine squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Then he shook his head—making a face as if he were in pain—and said, “Goddammit. Biocontainment. That’s where they took the Jelly. Biocontainment.”
“Where i—”
“This deck. Up-spin. By the hydroponics bay.”
“And what about the Wallfish crew?”
“Holding cells. Same section. Can’t miss it.”
Kira shoved him back and stood. “Okay. You made the right decision.”
He spat again, this time on the floor. “You betray us, I’ll come kill you myself.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” said Kira, already moving away. It would take him at least half an hour to extricate himself from the power armor, so she figured he wasn’t a threat. The other Marine, though, was starting to move. She hurried over, grabbed the top of his helmet, pulled open the casing on his back, and ripped out his armor’s cooling system. The armor immediately shut down to avoid melting.
There. Just let them try to follow her now!
Kira left them and started to run up-spin, against the direction of the yellow arrows. Hide me, she told the Soft Blade. A soft, silk-like rustle passed across her skin, and when she glanced down, Kira could see through herself, as if her body had turned to glass.
Thermals would still pick her up, but she didn’t think it likely the station’s interior cameras were full-spectrum. Either way, it would at least be harder for the UMC to spot her like this. How long until troops arrived to investigate the implosion of her cell? Not long, she thought. Not long at all, even if Orsted Station was under attack.
Through the concourse exit was a long hallway. Empty. Everyone was either in hiding, helping emergency services, or fighting the attackers. Whatever the reasons, Kira was grateful. She really didn’t want to fight a bunch of Marines. They were on the same side after all. Or they were supposed to be.
Down the hallway she ran, avoiding the occasional moving walkway. She was faster on foot. The whole time, she looked for lettering on the walls that might indicate the location of the hydroponics bay. Most people just used their overlays to navigate, but legally, every ship and station had to have clearly marked signage in the case of emergencies.
This sure as hell qualifies as an emergency, Kira thought. Legal requirements or not, the lettering she did see was small, faint, and hard to read, which kept forcing her to slow in order to decipher it.
At one intersection between the hall and another passageway, she jogged around a fountain where the stream of water traced two-thirds of an infinity symbol as it rose and fell. It was a small thing, but the sight fascinated Kira in an obscure way. The Coriolis effect never failed to mess with her sense of how gravity (or the appearance of gravity) should work. She supposed she wouldn’t find anything strange about it if she had grown up in a hab-ring, especially a smaller one like Orsted’s.
She must have run almost half a klick, and she was starting to wonder whether the Marine had lied to her and she should turn back, when she spotted two lines of faint green lettering on a nearby corner.
The upper line said: Hydroponics Bay 7G
The bottom line said: Detention 16G
On the other side of the hallway was another set of lettering: Biocontainment & Decontamination 21G. Down that way, Kira saw what appeared to be a security checkpoint: a closed door flanked with armored portals and a pair of viewscreens. Two Marines in full exos stood watch outside the door. Even with the station under attack, they hadn’t left their post. Kira wouldn’t be surprised if there were more of them on the other side of the door.
She did the math. She might be able to get close enough to disable the armor of the two Marines, but anyone past that would be a challenge. And as soon as she broke Itari out, the rest of the UMC would know where she was.
Shit. If she attacked, there was no predicting what would happen next. Events would spin out of control in a shockingly short time, and then … and then a lot of people might end up dead.
A faint tremor passed through the deck. Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it now. Any longer and the station itself might spin out of control.
She growled and turned away from biocontainment. Fuck it. She needed help. If she could free the crew of the Wallfish, she knew they would have her back. Maybe, together, they could figure out a solution. Maybe.
Kira’s pulse was loud in her ears as she hurried down the side corridor that led toward the holding cells. If there was as much security around detention as biocontainment, she wasn’t sure what she would do. The temptation to let loose with the Soft Blade was strong, but Kira had more than learned her lesson. No matter what, she couldn’t make another mistake like the one that had resulted in the creation of the nightmares. The galaxy wouldn’t survive it.
The lettering on the walls led her through several lengths of identical hallway.
As she rounded one more corner, she spotted two people—one man, one woman—kneeling next to a pressure door halfway down the corridor, wrist deep in a hatch they’d pried open in the wall, the actinic flicker of electricity lighting their faces. The pair was shirtless, pantless, wearing only drab grey shorts. Their skin was chalk white, and everywhere but their faces was covered with gleaming blue tattoos. The lines formed circuit-like patterns that reminded Kira of the shapes she’d seen in the cradle on Adrasteia.
Because of their lack of clothes, it took her a moment to recognize the two people as the Entropists, Veera and Jorrus.
She was still invisible and too far away to hear, and yet somehow the Entropists detected her. Never looking her direction, Jorrus said, “Ah, Prisoner Navárez—”
“—you were able to join us. We—”
“—hoped as much.”
Then the Entropists wrenched something within the wall, and the pressure door snapped open to reveal a stark holding cell.
Falconi stepped out. “Well, about time,” he said.
3.
Kira allowed her invisibility to subside, and Falconi spotted her. “There you are,” he said. “I was afraid we were going to have to go hunting for you.”
“Nope,” she said. She trotted over. The Entropists had moved on to the next door.