“Here goes nothing.” She yanked the bypass, tossing the components into the void behind her. Pulled the installed roster, tossed that aside as well, then slapped the replacement roster home. Lights blinked, reds turning to green, and she smiled. “And there’s a tidy completion bonus.”
The Bridge thrummed under her feet, the systems doing automated checks. Nothing else happened — it’d be too coincidental for words for this Bridge to have a rostered jump the moment they enlivened it again. The computer would try to talk to the planet, automated systems trying to handshake with other automated systems. Shame there was nothing but dead air. The computer wouldn’t care, going through its paces just like its designers had intended.
“Grace,” said El. “Grace, I think you need to get back here.”
“I was coming anyway—”
“No, like, now,” said El. “The Gladiator’s fired ordnance our way.”
“What?”
“Hold on. I’ll swing by. Catch you.” Grace saw the dropship’s engine’s flare, the ship spin in space, headed her way. “There’s not a lot of time. Don’t ask questions, just jump, okay. I got you.”
Grace’s mind tried to work the options. There must have been some kind of automated protocol. Something the command crew of the Gladiator set up. Or had they missed someone onboard? Someone hiding out? Someone who’d snuck into fire control? Grace crouched, kicked off the surface of the ring, casting herself free. Trust, trust. She made them trust her, not the other way around.
She turned through space, saw the space inside the ring below her flicker, the starscape beyond changing to a different starscape. The Bridge was open. A flash of movement caught her eye, a port on the surface of the Bridge yawning wide. A small probe shot out, dived through the Bridge, and was … still visible to her, but somewhere else. The last communications from this system, queued for delivery. Now sent.
Nothing unusual about that, but it didn’t stop Grace feeling a touch of dread. They didn’t want to go home … what could they have wanted to say to the people they never wanted to see again?
She stopped thinking about that as the dropship slewed into her view. Grace glimpsed El through the cockpit, the Helm working the ship like a dervish. The dropship looked like it would hit her before it spun in space, the back hold open, a yawning mouth. Grace wanted to scream, because this wasn’t how trust worked, and then a flare of thrusters cut the dropship’s speed and she was inside, helmet clanging against the interior wall of the hold, the doors already closing against the hard black. Safe bright lights were around her as she panted, gasping for breath, clawing at the wall, trying to convince herself she was alive.
“Hold on,” came El’s voice, and the dropship pushed hard. Grace tumbled in the bay, sliding across the floor. Her trailing hand caught a strap. Safe. You’re safe.
“You’re fucking crazy!” yelled Grace.
“Yell at me later,” said El’s voice, tense, hard. Grace caught fear and then excitement and then fear/fear/fear.
Grace hung onto the strap, the dropship’s drives working hard. They’d be pulling 3Gs at least. It’d be close all this thing had to give, but it was enough to make her sixty kilo frame feel like a hundred and eighty. She wound the strap around her wrist, crying out with the pain of it. She stabbed her boot against a wall for more purchase, anything, just a toehold to stop her from yanking her arm out of its socket. Grace couldn’t see her hand through the suit’s glove, but knew the straps would dig into her skin, leaving red welts, cutting off blood flow.
The chatter of comms. Nate’s voice. “El? El, the ship … the Gladiator’s fired on the Bridge. Get out!”
“On it,” said El. “Cap, what did you fire?”
“Working on it,” he said.
Kohl’s voice: “Straight up nuke, looks like. Not a crustbuster.”
“More than one,” said Nate. “Five torpedoes in the wind. Haul ass.”
“Targeting me?” said El.
“Maybe,” said Kohl. “We’re just watching the show here. There’s no … hell. I reckon not, but it’s not going to matter if you don’t get clear.”
“Did you get Grace?” said Nate. “Is Grace okay?”
Grace felt something in her shoulder give, and she bit down on the pain. He hadn’t asked did you get the job done or what happened out there. He’d asked about her. Like she was one of his crew.
She wasn’t. She wasn’t. They would hate her if they knew what she was. Focus on the pain. It’s all you’ve got. It’s all you’ve ever had.
“Grace is here,” said El. “Now let me fly.” Then, on the local comm channel she said, “Grace?”
Grace reached her free arm up to the strap, grabbed it to let some of the load off her tortured hand. She hissed through her teeth. “Not. In. A … Couch.”
“I know. You heard what’s coming?”
“Heard.” Grace flailed her other leg around, caught the edge of a floor mount. Braced herself. She was panting, the effort of not falling at 3 gravities into the back of the dropship taking its toll. “Torpedoes.”
“That’s right,” said El. “We’ve got five. Just passing … now. They’ll hit the Bridge in seconds. Moving a lot faster than we are.”
No time for too many words. Hard to talk, anyway. Grace coughed at the pressure against her — no acceleration couch, Goddamn it — and said. “Thanks. For. Not leaving me. To die.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” said El. Then she said, “Impact.”
A second passed, then another, before the wave of the explosion hit the dropship, the little craft shaking and rattling around them. The explosion wave grew in force, the dropship bucking and shaking like a bottle in stormy seas. What are the odds of being near two nuclear events in the same week? This has got to be some kind of record. The shaking of the dropship grew, and there was a groaning from the substructure around them. El was still pouring on thrust, encouraging the little ship to fly, fly, fly before the maw of the hurricane of fire and radiation behind them.
The bucking dropped to shaking, the shaking to a rattle, then the ship was still. Thrust cut, and Grace almost cried with relief. She gasped inside her helmet, then unwound the strap from her arm. The pain as circulation returned made her grit her teeth. It felt like her arm had been mauled by wild dogs, and she would need to get that checked out.
“You okay?” El’s voice was softer now. Tired.
No. “Yes,” said Grace. “I’m okay.” She was alive, and these people had kept her that way.
Maybe she was okay for the first time in a long while.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nate shifted from foot to foot, the anxiety building in him. He’d sent El and Grace off on a simple task. They were supposed to have the easy job. Grace was new crew, and El — well, she was always a bit gun-shy. When the bridge of the Gladiator had lit up like Christmas morning, target locks showing across the central holo, targeting where he’d sent his crew — where he had sent his crew — he’d almost had a heart attack. Even Kohl had trouble with it, mashing consoles and trying to get the ship to respond.