Adrift (8 page)

“Doesn’t matter,” Tron growled. “They were going to steal from our family. From us.”

He was going to die, because these men tried to take things. Kivi didn’t want them taking anything from the Lucy either, but she wasn’t going to make them hurt her over it. She wished she could make sense of Tron’
s determination to get himself dead. Then she would know what to say to make him stop wanting it. She’d seen other people do stuff like that. She never tried before. She didn’t have a list for that.

She grabbed his hand. Tron tried to pull it back, but not very
hard. Kivi didn’t let him go, like she usually would. Instead she planted her feet. It didn’t stop him. She couldn’t hope to really slow him down. But, just like when she’d charged the bad guys, it was the only thing she could think of. He dragged her along for three steps. Then, to her utter amazement, he stopped.

S
he could tell the men were relieved. She could hear them say so. The mutters carried almost as good of the shouts had. Tron shifted until he was standing between her and them, blocking most of her view, but he didn’t start moving again. He didn’t let her go either. Kivi thought maybe it was like the hug, that he was saying he didn’t want bad things to happen to her any more than she wanted them for her.

Kivi could hear as they pulled open the hatch.
The first two went in. One of them was limping and leaning heavily on the other. Kivi figured that must be the one who got shot. Then there were only two invaders. She held her breath, worried that she would do something that would make them change their minds.

One of the two men turned. Kivi thought he was about to tell them it was all a trick and that now they would take the ship after all. But it wasn’t to them that the man was looking. It was the final invader. There was no way she could know, but Kivi thought it was the one she’
d run into. The first one, the one who’d turned, reached down to his hip and pulled out a gun.

“Sorry Whitman.” The man sounded sad. Like he was about to cry. But he was still holding
the gun. “You’re not coming.”

Time to Talk

Tron watched in confusion as the two invaders faced off. He couldn’t figure out why they’d turned on each other, but he was certain it was important. It was something major that had changed between them, and if he could sort out what it was then maybe he could figure out a way to use it as a weapon when the people who killed everyone came back.

He could’ve pointed out that their unspoken deal didn’t have any allowances for someone left behind. He thought about it, too. Tron didn’t want anyone on Lucy who wasn’t there when they left Earth. Which, now, meant just him and Kivi. Truthfully, though, he knew they needed help. Kivi knew how to make the engine work, and he thought he could figure out how to patch up the hole before it sucked all the air out, but they didn’t know how to work the consoles in navigation. It wasn’t like these were the controls to one of his games, or one of Kivi’s machines.

Maybe they could sort it out. She was some kind of a genius. But he kept thinking about how she said her brother got his hand broken during her first experiment with the rivet shooter. They were all alone out here. Earth was more than a decade behind them, and the planet they were heading to was still five years out. Both of those numbers were true only if they were traveling at
near light speeds. Otherwise, it would be a hundred years or more before they got anywhere. They couldn’t afford to experiment. But the only way they were going to make it for even a week was if they got the engine up and running again. Without it, they might as well pop the airlock and let every bit of breathable oxygen get sucked out into the black. At least that way would be fast.

He hated it, but Tron
knew his opinion wasn’t the best choice for survival. If there was any chance this man knew how to make the engine move, they needed him. Besides, Tron wanted to watch and see what drama was playing out at their hatch. So he kept his mouth closed.

The man in question didn’t argue or plead. Tron wasn’t sure what to think about that. Was the man
weak for the former, or strong for the latter? His natural inclination was to think the worst. He wasn’t sure which he’d think under normal circumstances, though. Knowing that he was biased against the man didn’t change his feelings, and it didn’t mean he was wrong. Their desperate need didn’t make him wrong either. These invaders had meant to rob the dead. There was no scenario in which any one of them was a good person.

The second man
, Whitman, sat down. It was the signal the one with the gun seemed to be waiting for, because he slowly started moving again. He backed up into the airlock, his gun never leaving his former teammate’s head. Only when the door was closed behind him did the second man climb back to his feet.

Tron had been good, and not said a word for some time. He’d stopped when Kivi needed him to, even though he wanted to punch holes through these men’s faces so badly that he didn’t even feel the pain of the beating he’d taken. He was done being good. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The man turned and descended on them so fast that Tron took a half step backward in surprise before he realized what he was doing.

Whitman’s face, which was now close enough to be seen in detail, was a mask of fury. “That,
you little shit, was my death sentence. You just had to rip off my breather, didn’t you? Now where are your nav controls? The artificial gravity will last exactly two seconds after they decouple, and I have no intention of floating around the ceiling with you brats.”

Tron opened his mouth to snap back. The man might look intimidating, but he was a head and a half taller. He was one of the strongest people on Lucy, back when that meant something, and he had been doing pretty well for himself in the scuffle, up until the point they all ganged up on him. If he attacked now, before the hurt from all those kicks he took sunk in and he started feeling them, he was pretty sure he could take the guy down.

Kivi let go of his hand and poked her head out from behind him. Tron had almost forgotten she was there. Her finger pointed past them, toward navigation. He bit down the urge to swear.

Whitman eyed her for a minute, like he was trying to decide if she could be trusted, then spun around and hurried off in the direction she’d pointed. A second later, Tron heard a sound he recognized instantly. The thick steel doors of
navigation slamming shut. He swore and charged down the corridor. He made it just three steps when the gravity disappeared, just like the old man had predicted. He felt the floor slipping out from beneath his feet, and he lost control of his forward momentum.

Tron had, despite everything, deeply enjoyed his time in zero g before. It was an amazing experience, and one he’d secretly hoped for the chance to do again. Maybe for longer. He knew that long-term wasn’t an option.
Zero g was hell on the body. Keeping muscles strong was probably next to impossible without any resistance. Still, it would be worth it if it meant he got to fly. If it weren’t for all the horror, it might’ve been the most amazing experience of his life.

This time was different. He wasn’t ready for it. Even with Whitman’s warning, he hadn’t prepared himself for the transition. Tron was already moving, so he had quite a bit of momentum, but he’d lost all control over his movements. He kept flying forward, but
at an odd angle. He flailed his legs, trying to reach the floor before he drifted too far away to correct his course. He caught it, but only with a toe. The result was a slow spin as he sped forward. Tron hit the doors to Navigation hard, and he hit them with his shoulder. The impact seemed to wake up all of his nerves, for all of the bruises he took during the scuffle burst to life with hot white pain. He couldn’t help but to cry out.

Kivi shot to his side. She was fast. Very fast. If he wasn’t so grateful that she and her skills were there with him, Tron would probably be so jealous that he could convince himself he hated her too.

“Should I get the bandages?”

Tron shook his head as he fumbled at the ceiling for a handhold that would let him stop the spinning that was starting to make him sick. “I’m fine.”

Kivi pointed at his face with the same traitorous finger that had sent Whitman to navigation. Tron reached up to touch his nose and lips in confusion. It didn’t take him long to figure out what she was gesturing to. He could feel what a pulpy mess his face was. It didn’t feel so bad though. Not until his fingers got near it. “Still fine,” he grumbled. “We’ve got bigger problems than my good looks.”

She opened her mouth, about to say something. Before she could get a single word out, there was a thunk that echoed throughout the ship. Lucy shuddered, then they heard a rattling whir they both knew. Tron looked at Kivi in surprise, her face filled with the same bright joy he felt. The engine was on. A second later, the blue strips clicked off. There was half a breath of darkness, then the lights were on.

Kivi pushed herself down fast, but not quite as fast as the gravity kicked in. She hit the floor with a heavy thud. Tron let his rapidly increasing weight stretch his arms out until his grip on the pipe in the ceiling was difficult to keep, then let himself drop. It wasn’t painless, thanks to his earlier beating, but he expected it was a good deal less than Kivi’s landing. It didn’t matter; he could’ve broken his damn leg and he would still be grinning from ear to ear. Whitman had their engine going and already air was pumping through those pipes to fill every nook and crevasse in Lucy. They were going to
live
.

With a start, Tron remembered
food storage. There couldn’t be much air going in there through the usual means; it wasn’t a part of the ship where people went for more than a minute or two at a time. Maybe none got piped there at all, and everyone just breathed whatever rushed in with them when the door opened. As he’d never been invited to help with meals, he didn’t have the slightest idea. But he knew that whatever was being piped in wasn’t an issue; the holes in the seal were another issue. He didn’t know what leaks in a ship would do to the people inside, but since most of his mother’s days were spent working on keeping the hull plating in perfect repair, Tron expected that it wasn’t good.

He still had the torch. He’d tucked it into his pocket after they took off the suits, figuring that it might come in handy in a fight. He’d forgotten it while he was rolling around on the floor, of course. He pulled it out and press the button on the bottom of the small metal canister, and the blue flame leapt to life. He breathed a low sigh of relief to find it undamaged, then grabbed Kivi’s arm and dragged her along with him as he hurried back to
food storage.

“
We need a way to talk to him.”

“
That’s what the intercoms are for,” she answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the universe. Tron supposed it was.

“We need a way that he’s not in control of. I don’t want to sit around hoping he’ll turn on the intercom if we have something urgent to say.”

“Yes.”

Tron blinked. “What do you mean ‘yes’?”

“I mean yes,” Kivi said. He almost thought she was making fun of him. He scowled at her. She smiled. “No one can turn off the intercoms. Not if the engine’s on.”

“You’re sure?”

Kivi nodded. “I looked at everything in them. There’s no way to deactivate them remotely. I guess he could break the one in the Navigation Room. I didn’t look to see if it’s accessible from inside there. But otherwise he has to hear whatever we say, if we press the call button.”

Tron nodded, once more amazed at the tiny creature rushing along at his side. Her size made it easy to confuse her with a little kid, but more and more she proved how foolish that perception was. There wasn’t anything about her mind that worked like normal fifteen year olds. He guessed there weren’t many adults who went around figuring out
how intercoms worked or building bigger mouse traps either. He was damn lucky it was her hiding in the engine room, and not any of the other kids on Lucy.

“Alright. Tell him about the leak while I work on patching this up,” Tron ordered. Kivi nodded and, the second they reached their destination, went hunting for the nearest com to convey the message.

Tron lit the torch again and bent to the task. It was slow going. If he could find where the leak was, he could just focus his efforts there. It would’ve been better, since there was only so much fuel in the torch and he was sure there would be more need of it before they made it anywhere. But he didn’t have any of his mother’s testing equipment, and he wouldn’t know how to use it if he did. He was pretty sure Kivi could sort the tools out, if they had time, but they didn’t have that either. So he set about melting the metal all around the door, making it one disgusting solid mass. It wasn’t perfect, not by a long stretch. He wasn’t sure it would hold for any length of time. But it would do for now. He hoped.

At first, Kivi examined his work and made suggestions. Tron appreciated it for a while, as she was clearly more practiced than him at such activities. If she’d been tall enough, he would’ve happily put her in charge of the task. But there were only so many recommendations to be given about melting metal, and after a while they fell into a comfortable silence. Most people felt the need to pepper him with questions or idle talk. After so long in his storage, Tron was out of practice with
small talk. Much as he wished he’d taken the time to appreciate the people doing it, he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t glad not to be dealing with the constant chatter. He didn’t want to talk. Sooner or later, their conversation would have to turn to what they’d lost, and Tron didn’t have words for that yet. He didn’t think he ever would.

He expected her to wander. Most people would. Tron couldn’t imagine it was interesting, watching him work. But she just sat down in the middle of the corridor and waited. He noticed how she
shifted until she was far enough away that she could watch as much as possible, without being close enough to touch the wall opposite them. Or see that door at all. He understood. His whole back tingled with awareness of what was lurking right behind him. Even if it was still a room full of food, he would never want to come back. He never wanted to walk down this corridor or see the door leading into the mess again. That was where the ruins of his whole world were, and the only way he was going to survive was to keep them locked away and out of sight.

It felt like hours passed, but it was probably only one. Maybe even a half. It was long enough to make his back ache and his head pound, though that could have at least as much to do with the fight as the work. As he passed the flame over the last section of the doorway for the third time, Tron leaned up, massaging the small of his back, and clicked off the torch.

“Alright,” he said softly. “Tell the man to make it go.”

Kivi slid back to her feet, but hesitated with a hand over the bright green number pad on the wall. It was one
sixty-five throughout Lucy, each tied to the intercom system. It was that system that let him talk to Jay and Hector, one of the two engineers that Tron might almost classify as a friend, back when he was confined to his storage. Each intercom had a two digit code, which one of the adults had dubbed a ‘phone number’ long before Tron’s history lessons got far enough to teach him what one of those actually were. Anywhere on Lucy could be called up instantly, or someone could just press the star key and address the whole ship at once. He could dimly remember how they all carried around cheat sheets, a list of each code, back when they first got on the ship. Most everyone had memorized the codes they needed a long time ago, though. Tron and many of the other kids had the whole list in their head, and he suspected Kivi was one of those too. When he’d been tossed to the darkest, most secluded corner of the ship, he’d started calling navigation and the engine room, along with a couple other random spots he chose on a whim, at all hours, seeking a way to punish the people who’d cast him out. He wanted to aggravate and upset people, and for the most part that’s what he’d done. But not Jay or Hector.