“How’s the cutting coming along, Kohl?” Grace watched the counter on her visor. Twenty minutes to go.
“Not good,” he said, voice stressed. Strained.
Time for motivation. “The good news,” she said, “is that if you fuck this up, you won’t have to lift anything heavy ever again.”
A pause. “I’ll get it done,” he said.
• • •
“Helm,” said Grace. “El, are you ready?”
“I’ve never done this before,” she said. “I’m not sure—”
“If you don’t, we’re all going to die,” said Grace.
Static, then, “She’ll fly true,” said El.
• • •
“Captain,” said Grace.
“It’s … just call me Nate,” he said. His eyes were on hers, his face open. His heart open. She was getting fear/fear, but not for him. For them. She hated herself, again, more, harder, if there was such a thing, but she pushed it all down.
“Nate,” she said. “Do you know what do to?”
“I get the easy job,” he said.
“You get the job where you might have to die,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “The easy job. I’ll be ready.”
“All the air, Nate,” she said. “Hope said it was important. Something about mass, and energy, and how we’d all probably die anyway.”
“You don’t get more air than this.” His hand tapped the master console of the cargo bay doors. “It’ll be all the air we have.”
• • •
“Time,” said Grace.
“One more second,” said Kohl’s voice.
“It’s time,” she said.
“I don’t have the reactor in,” he said. “You do what you need to do, but if we don’t have it, what’s the point?”
“Whatever,” said Grace. More motivation. “In three.”
“Helm, standing by,” crackled El. With the Tyche’s reactor glowing like a cinder on the other side of Ravana, they were getting interference.
“Cargo, standing by,” said Nate.
“Engineering,” said Hope. “Oh. Hey. I don’t have anything to do.”
“In two,” said Grace.
“I’m not ready,” said Kohl.
“He’s ready,” said Hope. “It’s in. He’s here. We’re here.”
“In one,” said Grace. Then, “Go.”
• • •
The plan was simple. So simple, everything should have gone wrong. Grace just didn’t have the kind of luck it took to survive something like this. She wouldn’t survive it, none of them would.
Step one. Carve the reactor out of Ravana. Nothing pretty, just cutting torches, plasma spitting against the hull. Kohl, in hard vacuum, a bright star against the hard black as he sliced the heart from a dying ship.
Step two. Breach the Tyche. Seal Engineering, then suck all the air out there. Cut another hole. Pull out the burning reactor, internal safeties trying to save everyone from being turned back to their component elements. Give it a nudge, put it on Ravana’s dark side. Keep pushing, some spare maneuvering packs from the Ravana’s stores epoxied to it. Nothing done clean or right, no time for perfection. A just-good-enough job to push the dying reactor away.
Step three. Get Ravana’s reactor back to Tyche. Get it inside, get it tied down. Through the breached skin of their ship. No time for anything else.
Step four. Helm, adjust the attitude of Tyche. Point the cargo bay at Ravana. A line made of three points; the dying reactor, then Ravana’s insulating bulk, and finally Tyche.
Step five. Vent all their atmosphere. A big shove, to buy them some distance at the cost of all their air. Enough? Hard to say.
Step six. Helm again. Use whatever reaction mass they had left to keep pushing. As fast as they could. All power out. Sticks are dead. An impossible task, to fly a dead ship.
Step seven. The important step. All hands. Pray.
And if they didn’t pray hard enough — maybe they didn’t believe, or maybe all the gods were dead — they’d die.
Tyche’s failed reactor creates a small sun in space. The hulk of the Ravana, turned to component atoms. The remains of the crew, carbon and ash. A bright, expanding fireball. Alarms, sounding through the comm channel. El’s voice, hard and panicked, “We’re not far enough away we’re not far enough away,” and then the Tyche is picked up by a giant’s hands, the hands of a god — not dead after all — and hurled out into the hard black, the creaking of the hull accompanied by something shrill and terrible. They can all feel it wherever their suits touch the metal of their home as the Tyche’s back breaks against the force of her own heart exploding.
• • •
Grace woke to darkness so absolute it felt like it had weight. Something to offset how light she felt. Floating.
They’re adrift.
She feels terror, but it’s her own. Grace isn't borrowing this from anyone. She’d heard there was nothing worse than being in a dead hulk, adrift in space. Trapped, silent. Unable to scream for help.
It’s so very, very black.
She almost giggles, hysteria wanting to break through, as a light comes bobbing towards her. It seems so tiny, that light, against the black that smothers her. She picks out a form, sees it’s a suit. Someone’s come for her. To save her from the dark.
Nate leans over her, presses his faceplate to hers. “Grace,” he says. “I found you.”
She hugs him. She shouldn’t get too close, not to this crew. But she needs it.
He holds her, right until she can’t bear it and pushes him away. “Yeah,” she said. “Right where you left me.”
“C’mon,” he stands. Holds out his hand. She takes it, feeling the jangle of nerves and worthless adrenaline making her unsteady. “Let’s go find the rest of them.”
• • •
It’s suits for everyone, for another couple of days at least. Hope wanted to get working on putting in the Tyche’s new reactor, but Nate had talked her down. Said she needed sleep. He told her she’d saved them all, and that he’d get Kohl to move Ravana’s reactor in place, ready for her.
Grace had seen the hole in engineering where he’d had to tear out Tyche’s dying core. Nothing but stars wheeled past her vision, and she’d stood there for a long time, watching the hard black turn about them. She felt like she should have felt something like cold fear, but she felt warm, warmer than she had in for as long as she could remember.
She crushed the feeling, because it felt like home, and turned her back on Engineering, went to find Hope.
Hope was in her cabin, bouncing between the walls. Grace watched the young Engineer push herself off, wheel through the space, catch herself on the other wall. Grace’s suit lights picked out Hope’s face behind her rig’s visor, something childish and pure in her smile.
“The second thing,” said Grace, after what felt the right amount of time to be standing in a doorway like a creepy psycho, not saying anything. Normally she had more class, but it had been one of those days.
“The what?” said Hope.
“You said there were two things,” said Grace. “One easy for me, one easy for you.”
“I said one hard for me, one hard for you,” said Hope. “You’ve done your hard part.”
“Yeah,” said Grace. It had felt hard, but somehow she figured this next bit would be harder still. For both of them, no matter what Hope said.
“I … I’m not good at this stuff,” said Hope. “So I’m just going to say it. No one’s done what you’ve done. Not for me. Not before. Not even…” she trailed off, lost in a memory. Hope looked like she wanted to say much more, and also didn’t, and Grace let her work her way through that. “Not for me,” she finished.