Chasing the Stars (2 page)

Forty-one minutes of air left.

‘HELP! HELP ME!’

Nate, don’t panic. You’ll just use up your oxygen faster.

The agony in my leg made it difficult but I tried to compartmentalize the pain, fold it up and put it to one side, so that I could come up with a way out of this.

My DE torch
.

I dug into the side pocket of my suit over my thigh.

Please
let it still be in there.

It was, thank God! I changed the setting from light to heat. The faint, high-pitched whistle told me it had activated properly. It gave out a concentrated beam that we used in the mine for precision cutting when necessary. Where would be the best place to cut into the boulders and rocks pinning my leg? If I got this wrong, the whole tunnel would come tumbling down on top of the rest of me. It dawned on me that cutting into the rocks that held me captive wouldn’t work. Displacing any of them would just bring down more. The only way I was going to get out of here was to slice through my leg, just above where it was pinned, through skin and my shin, and muscle, blood and bone. The torch would cauterize as it cut but the pain would be excruciating.

Son-of-a-bitch!

I was going to have to cut off my own foot.

I couldn’t do it.

How could I?

But it was that or die for sure.

I switched off the DE torch, shaking my head. I simply couldn’t do it.

I tried kicking against the rocks with my right foot again, heaving to pull my left leg free. All I got from that was a renewed blast of searing pain. In my panic, I was breathing too fast. I was going to use up all my remaining oxygen in double-quick time at this rate.

Thirty-seven minutes of oxygen left.

Face facts. Whatever happened, rescued by others or rescue myself, I was going to lose my foot. Damn! And I was so attached to it too.

Come on, Nathan.

Do it.

Get on with it.

You’re not getting any younger.

My head was beginning to swim. Black spots were darting before my eyes.

I was going into shock. About to pass out. Wow, the good times just kept on coming. If I fainted now, these black spots would be the last things I ever saw.

Gritting my teeth, I switched on the DE torch again, adjusting the setting back to a focused beam of heat rather than light. Before I could change my mind, I directed it at my leg . . .

I woke up screaming.

‘What the hell, Nathan?’ said Mike, switching on his lamp.

I wiped my forehead, which was pouring with sweat. Pain, remembered but no less real for it, lanced through me. Damn it! I sighed as I sat up.

‘The same dream?’ Mike asked.

‘Yeah,’ I admitted.

‘Why won’t you let Doctor Liana give you something for that? Practically every other night you go through this. And when you go through it, so do the rest of us.’

‘Some of us are trying to sleep over here!’ An irate Pearl shouted from across the barracks. That was all I needed. She was a misery at the best of times. Deprived of sleep she’d be yet another nightmare to contend with.

‘Sorry,’ I called out.

‘Nathan, shut the hell up!’ Corbyn shouted from further along the room.

I was feeling the love.

A ripple effect was happening throughout the barracks as more and more people began to stir. Time to escape before my arse got kicked. I threw back my bed cover and bent my left leg to rub halfway between my ankle and my knee. My real lower leg was back in the mine, probably still buried under a ton of rock. This bionic replacement, covered in synthetic skin, looked and behaved the same as my real leg and was certainly better than nothing; I could still feel the indented scar right around my calf and shin where the prosthesis had been attached to my body.

Knowing that sleep and I would be strangers for a while, I sighed and got out of bed. Slipping on my boots, I made my way out of the dorm. Mike waited until I was at the door before switching off his lamp. He was a good mate that way. After a brief smile in his direction, I made my way out into the compound, taking a deep breath of the still night air. The air here smelled and tasted different to what I was used to. More . . . citrusy. Maybe something to do with the plants and trees that grew around here. God, I sounded like Mike now. Mike would much rather hang out with the trees on this planet than any of us people.

I glanced up at the sky, full of stars I didn’t recognize. That didn’t make them any less awesome. Good word that. Awesome. And definitely under-used. I liked old, nearly obsolete words. That was one of the things I’d missed on the mining colony – access to words, new and old, especially the written kind. God knows this place was better than life back on the mining colony but there was still something empty inside me, a void that ached to be filled. This life, this place, it wasn’t enough.

But for a while at least, it would have to do.

I looked around, trying to decide where to go. A light shone from the meeting house at the centre of the compound. Frowning, I made my way towards it. Wasn’t it a bit late to be holding a meeting?

As I got closer, my steps grew quieter. Whatever was going on, it was obviously not meant for common knowledge. I crept over to an open window, ducking down beneath it to stay out of sight. I heard Darren’s voice, but then that wouldn’t’ve been hard. The guy, who was Mum’s second-in-command, had never been shy about speaking his mind.

‘Cathy, this is madness. We need to activate the distress beacon,’ Darren insisted. ‘It’s our only chance.’

‘We’ve been here for over three Sol months. This is our home now. Are you really in that much of a hurry to be at the mercy of the Authority again?’ Mum argued.

‘No, but better the devil you know at this point. Quite frankly, I’d rather take my chances with the Authority than with the Mazon.’

My heart leaped. The Mazon? What was Darren talking about? Were we in danger from the Mazon? They were an enemy very few had seen but everyone knew about. I didn’t know that much about them, but the stories of what they did to their victims had travelled fast, far and wide. Their hatred for all us humans was well-known.

‘If the Authority get their hands on us, we won’t be sent back to the mines, we’ll be publicly executed,’ Mum snapped. ‘You do know that, right?’

‘Catherine, I know it’s a hard choice between the lesser of two evils but we can’t stay here,’ said another voice. Sam this time, if I wasn’t mistaken. ‘The Mazon have made that perfectly clear.’

A moment’s silence.

I risked raising my head to peer through the open window. Mum, Darren, Sam, Hedda, Akemi, Doctor Liana and Beck sat at the round assembly table where most, if not all, of the decisions on behalf of us settlers were made. Almost directly opposite me, Mum began to turn her head my way. I ducked out of sight again, my heart thumping.

‘I know it won’t be easy but there has to be a way to reason with the Mazon,’ Mum insisted. ‘I’ll keep sending out the transmissions. We’ve got to convince them that we’re not the enemy. Quite frankly, they’re our last hope.’

‘Then we’re in deep shit,’ said Darren. ‘Cathy, activate the beacon.’

‘No. Not yet.’ Mum dug her heels in. ‘Not until we have exhausted every other option.’

Oh my God! We were in Mazon territory? Mum and the others had kept that quiet. And Mum was going to try and reason with them? Seriously? Well, good luck with that.

‘The Mazon have only given us until the first sunrise to clear out,’ said Sam.

‘Cathy, we should activate the emergency distress beacon,’ Darren urged.

‘Not yet.’

‘At least put it to a vote.’

‘Darren, I didn’t ask to be leader. You voted me into the role. You all did. So let me lead,’ said Mum. ‘I’m not going to activate the distress beacon until we have no other option.’

‘By then it may be too late,’ Darren said, exasperated.

‘I refuse to believe that a race with the obvious intelligence of the Mazon can’t be reasoned with,’ said Mum.

‘And if you’re wrong?’ asked Hedda quietly.

‘We have to try,’ said Mum. ‘I’m willing to take that chance.’

I raised my head again, just in time to catch the shared looks exchanged around the table.

Darren shook his head. ‘Just as long as you remember you’re taking a chance with all our lives, not just your own.’

‘Aidan, is there any chance that you might make your next move before the last syllable of recorded time?’

‘I’m thinking,’ Aidan frowned, never raising his gaze from the chess board.

I sighed. ‘You’ve been thinking for over twenty minutes.’

Aidan’s hand hovered over his bishop, who was pursing his lips with impatience, then moved slowly to hover over his rook which had a darkening cloud over it, then back to his tetchy bishop.

Arghhh! This was the eighth time he’d contemplated the exact same move.

‘Stop rolling your eyes,’ my brother said, without looking up at me.

‘Move then!’

‘My bishop . . .’ Aidan began ponderously, ‘takes your knight.’

Aidan snatched my knight as it reared up and put his bishop in its place, then raised his head to triumphantly grin at me. I immediately moved my queen to E5. She glanced around the chess board imperiously, then smiled with slow satisfaction.

Aidan stared at the board, then raised his head to blink at me like a stunned owl.

I winked. ‘How d’you like me now?’ Ha!

His frown deepened. ‘There’s a distress signal coming through.’

I glanced down at the screen that made up the right-side arm of my chair.

‘Screen up,’ I ordered.

Instantly a map of our immediate vicinity was displayed directly before me. Rotating my wrists slightly to adjust the command bracelets I wore, I scrolled across the map. There was nothing out of the ordinary. No blips, no beeps, no burbs. Nothing. I dragged my hand down vertically to remove the screen, then turned to frown at my brother. ‘I can’t see anything on the monitor.’

Aidan had a faux inquiring look on his face. ‘No? I must’ve been mistaken.’

Yeah, right! Eyes narrowed, I glanced down at the chess board. My queen now wore a thunderous expression. She wasn’t the only one who was annoyed. ‘Aidan, stop cheating!’

‘I did not.’

‘I swear if you don’t stop cheating, I’m not going to play chess with you any more.’

‘How did I cheat?’ Aidan asked with indignation.

‘My queen was on E5 and in three moves you would’ve been in check and begging for mercy – and we both know it. So why is my queen now on E6?’

The hologram of the chess set disappeared. Proof positive that Aidan had been cheating and was now going to sulk because he’d been caught.

‘I’ll take that as your resignation,’ I said. ‘That’s three hundred and twenty-eight games to me and one hundred and ninety-one games to you, with thirty-four stalemates.’

I jumped up and did an impromptu victory dance. ‘Go, Vee! Go, Vee! I win again. Yeah, me! Go, Vee!’

‘Very mature! And I can’t believe you’re keeping the exact score,’ sniffed Aidan.

‘Getting the better of you is always an unforgettable experience,’ I grinned, sitting back down. Plus, to be honest, it was getting harder and harder to win against him. In a few more months or even less, I’d be lucky to win any at all.

‘You need to get a life,’ my brother said. ‘And chess is a stupid game anyway.’

‘Go wash your mouth out! Chess is a game of strategy, tactics and deeper thinking. It is a game of the soul.’ I placed a hand dramatically over my heart. ‘As well as the mind. And how come it’s only a stupid game when you’re losing?’

Aidan didn’t deign to answer.

‘Should I break out the cards? We can play Pairs if that’s more your speed,’ I teased.

‘You don’t hear me going on and on about it when I win,’ said Aidan.

I snorted with derision. Actually snorted. ‘You are joking, right?’

If my brother won at anything, he went on about it for hours, sometimes days, sharing every thought which had accompanied each decisive or winning move.

‘Want another game of chess then?’

‘No. You only win because you’re better at cheating than I am.’ Aidan swung round in his seat to face his navigation panel, effectively turning his back on me. He was such a sore loser. I mean, really? Getting bent out of shape over a game? But that was Aidan all over. He hated to lose.

I sighed. Now what should I do?

This was how I spent my days, playing games with my brother, where the outcome tended to be a given, or looking after the plants in the hydroponics bay or learning about as many different alien cultures and their languages as I could.

But that was it.

It should’ve been a lot, but it wasn’t.

It should’ve been enough, but it came nowhere close.

It served to pass the time.

And God only knew I had more than enough of that, if nothing else. I swivelled right round in my chair, gazing out of the transparent dome which made up most of the roof of the bridge. A few distant stars and a lot of nothingness. It matched all the activities I pursued to occupy my mind and my time. Lots of nothingness to fill the empty hours. This was my life now. Each day I tried to find something – but it tended to be the same old something – to fill the moments, the minutes, the months. Life wasn’t meant to be so predictable. The bridge I currently occupied was small, it could only hold eight comfortably, but I knew every piece of machinery, every byte of software, every panel – real and virtual. Apart from my sleeping quarters, this was the place in the universe I knew the best.