Desert Stars (34 page)

“
I’ll stay,” said Lars.
“Looks like some major legislation is slated to come to the General
Assembly in a few hours.”

“
Then thank goodness I’ll
be gone,” said Michelle. Lars shot her a dirty look, but she
ignored it.

“
In that case, Lars, I’ll
have you shadow Gavin on the crane,” Mark said. “‘Chelle, why don’t
you help him get suited up?”

“
Sure thing.”

She rose to her feet and motioned for
Jalil to follow. “Where are we going?” he asked, hurrying to keep
up with her.

“
EVA racks,” she said,
palming a keypad midway down the corridor. A hatch opened onto a
ladder, and she stepped inside and started climbing
down.

“
Ee-vee-ay? What’s
that?”

“
Extra-Vehicular Activity.
It means you’re going out into space.”

Jalil’s face paled as they reached the
dimly lit room at the bottom of the ladder. Half a dozen bright
orange full-body suits hung in niches along the opposite wall,
their thick skins and stiff outer casings making them look like
oversized eggs with legs and arms.

“
Well, don’t stand there
all day. Climb in.”

Jalil stepped forward, only to find
that the gravity in this part of the ship was significantly weaker.
Before he could stop himself, he bounded into the wall
face-first.

“
Ow!”

“
Easy does it. Use the
handholds on the ceiling.”

Blushing a little from embarrassment,
Jalil gently lowered his feet into the nearest suit. He half
expected it to be loose and baggy, but it actually felt quite
snug.

“
There,” said Michelle,
fastening some clips around his waist. “Raise your hands, and I’ll
pull down the top half.”

Jalil raised his hands and closed his
eyes, and Michelle slipped the top half down over his arms and
torso. She reached behind him and pulled up an elastic hood, which
fastened tightly over his hair.

“
Is it dangerous
outside?”

“
Yeah,” said Michelle,
fitting a pair of gloves to the arms of his suit and securing them
at the wrists. “But don’t worry. You’ll be in the cargo bay the
whole time, operating the crane. As long as you’ve got your
lifeline tied in, you’ll be fine.”

“
And if I
don’t?”

She shrugged. “Worst case scenario,
you’ll drift off and burn up in the atmosphere. But that won’t
happen. Here, hold still while I tighten your helmet.”

“
Wait—burn up? What do
you—”

“
Don’t worry about it.
You’ll be fine.”

* * * * *

The EVA work wasn’t too difficult.
Jalil spent most of the time tethered to the operating board of a
large crane, manipulating a joystick to guide the claw around the
hold. The machinery moved at the mind-numbingly slow rate of three
inches per second, hauling the massive crates from their berths in
the cargo bay to a point where the station’s equipment could pick
them up. The only thing that kept him from dozing off from boredom
was the ever-present green-blue vista of the world below him—a grim
reminder of the constant danger of working in space.

I fell once from a place
like this,
Jalil thought to himself as he
stared at the white-speckled planetscape.
I don’t want to fall again.

“
Beautiful, isn’t it?”
asked Lars via the shortwave. Unlike Jalil, he had no qualms about
drifting halfway out the bay in his EVA suit to get a better
view.

“
Yes,” said Jalil. “It’s
very different from Gaia Nova.”

“
I’ve always wondered why
the Patriarchs settled on Gaia Nova,” said Lars, turning himself
around with the maneuvering jets on his wrist. “When they left
Earth, why didn’t they find a more hospitable place to settle?
Compared to Kardunash IV, that world is just a desert.”

A beautiful desert,
Jalil wanted to say. Instead, he focused his
attention on his work and said nothing.

“
Ah, no matter,” said
Lars. “I guess it turned out all right in the end—that is, if
history has an end.”

“
And if it
doesn’t?”

Lars laughed. “Then I guess there’s
only people.”

“
How goes the work, boys?”
Mark asked over the comm channel.

“
Good,” said Jalil. “We’ve
only got three crates left.”

“
Great. Keep it up, and
you might catch the next ferry shuttle to the surface.”

“
I doubt that,” said Lars.
“The station registry is showing that it left almost twenty minutes
ago.”

“
Oh,” said Mark. Static
faded to silence.

A thought occurred to Jalil, and he
perked up. “What about Will Farland? Is he here yet?”

“
Hang on, let me check,”
said Lars. He was silent for a few moments. “No, he’s not showing
up in the registry.”

“
Did we miss
him?”

“
Probably not; he’d show
up if we did. Either way, he should be headed to the Colony; we’ll
meet him there if not before.”

Jalil nodded, which amounted to little
more than moving his head within his oversized helmet. The crane
reached the designated end point thirty meters outside the cargo
bay, and he brought it to a gradual stop.

“
What the—” said Lars.
“Did you see that?”

“
See what?”

“
Some kind of flash—there
it is again. It’s almost as if… but no, that can’t be.”

“
What can’t
be?”

Silence. Jalil frowned.

“
Oh my God,” Mark said
through the comm. “Boys, get back inside right now.”

* * * * *

“
What’s going on?” Lars
asked as they hurried onto the bridge.

“
I just got a message from
the port authority,” Mark said, his face pale. “A massive fleet
just jumped into orbit on the far side of the planet and attacked
the planetary defense network.”

“
What? Are you
kidding?”

“
No, son, I’m
not.”

“
But who—”

“
The Hameji,” said Mark,
looking up at him with grim eyes. “They’re here.”

An awful silence fell between them.
Outside the forward window, a small explosion flashed near the
horizon of the planet, like a distant bolt of lightning.

“
Better jettison the rest
of the cargo,” said Mark. “I’ll undock with the station and prepare
for jump.”

“
But wait,” said Lars, his
hands shaking. “What about ‘Chelle and Nash? They’re still down
there!”

“
What do you want me to
do?” Mark asked, spinning in his chair to face them both. His
forehead was creased, a frown of deep concern on his normally
smiling face. “If we don’t move, and fast, we’re going to orbit
right into the middle of that battle.”

“
We need to make contact
with them,” said Lars. He sat down at Nash’s chair and quickly
brought up the computer display.

“
I already tried, son. All
the lines are jammed—”

“
Then try a private line.
The
Bridgette’s
long range comm dish can be adjusted for shorter frequencies,
and we’re already in orbit. If we can just—”

“
Lars, New Stockholm is on
the other side of the planet. We’ll never reach them in time to
escape.”

“
Never say never,” said
Lars, his eyes focused on the screen. “By now, I’m sure they’ve
gotten the news, and are doing everything they can to take off from
the surface. If we can’t get a direct line of sight, we’ll just
have to bounce the signal off of another source—there.”

Mark sighed and shook his head. “Your
signal will be too weak for them to pick up, broadcasting that far.
I’m telling you, there’s already too much—”

“
Are you charging the jump
drive?”

“
Of course I
am.”

“
Good—then all we need is
to hold out until we make contact. We can do this, Dad!”

Mark hesitated, clearly torn. His eyes
had already reddened and begun to fill with moisture.

“
Can I help?” asked
Jalil.

“
Not yet,” said Lars, “but
once I adjust this—there. Put these on.”

He held out a pair of oversized
headphones. Jalil took them and stared at them for a
second.

“
Have a seat. I need you
to listen for a quick beeping noise. When you hear it, let me know
right away. Got it?”

“
Yes,” said Jalil. He sat
down and put the headphones up to his right ear, but all he heard
was static.

“
Listening for an audio
signal across a datalink band?” said Mark. “It’s not going to
work.”

“
It’ll work,” said Lars,
rising swiftly to his feet. “When ‘Chelle gets the connection error
message, she’ll pull up the band and recognize the signal by sight.
It’ll work.”

Lars sat back down at the navigator’s
chair, while his father sighed and turned back to his screen. Jalil
took a moment to fasten his seat restraints across his waist; he
had a feeling things were about to get rough.

“
The port authority won’t
give us clearance,” said Lars. “I’m assuming we override
that?”

“
Yes.”

“
And what about our
trajectory? I can put us in an orbit that’ll bring us over New
Stockholm in twenty minutes.”

Mark took a deep breath and brought
his hand to his forehead. Jalil watched as concern on the man’s
face turned to agitation, while the static continued to crackle in
his ear.

“
If we don’t at least try,
Dad…”

“
All right,” said Mark,
sitting up straight as he fastened his own restraints. “Let’s go
for it.”

Lars grinned and turned with renewed
vigor to his work. Mark gripped the piloting stick and began
punching buttons on his control panel.

“
Departing station,” he
said. “Stand by.”

A series of popping noises
sounded through the wall, followed by a low rumble that vibrated
through the floor. Outside the window, the station slowly moved
away, spinning as the
Bridgette
banked and turned.

“
Got a rough trajectory
plotted,” said Lars. “I’ll fine tune it in a second.”

“
Beginning engine burn,”
said Mark. “Hold on.”

An invisible hand pressed Jalil
against his seat as the rumbling in the walls turned to a muffled
roar. The whole ship began to shake, while outside, the blue-green
world grew steadily larger.

Lord of Earth,
Jalil thought to himself, holding onto his
armrest with a white-knuckled grip.
Please
don’t let us fall.

At that moment, a weak but distinct
beeping noise came through over the static.

“
Lars!” he yelled. “I’ve
got something.”

Lars nodded and punched a series of
commands on his computer. “Rerouting to my station and putting on
loudspeaker,” he said. “Just a second.”

The headphones went silent, while the
sound of static filled the bridge. Outside, the glowing arc of the
horizon turned deep red as they passed into the night.

“
Hello?” said Lars,
speaking into a microphone. “‘Chelle? Nash? Are you there? Do you
copy?”

Only static answered him. Through the
window, the city lights sprang up across the darkened planet like
lines on a grid.

“‘
Chelle? Nash? Do you
copy? Answer me!”

A bright pink flare outside sent the
static up a few notches, making Jalil jump. Mark quickly looked up,
his old eyes full of concern and anxiety.

“
What was that?” asked
Jalil.

“
Nuclear warheads,” said
Mark. “The battle—we’re headed right into it.”

Battle?
Jalil thought to himself.
I can’t see anything.

As if in answer, several
ships sped over them on a diagonal orbit. They moved too fast for
Jalil to see them clearly, but he could tell that they were much,
much larger than the
Bridgette
. Tracer rounds from their
cannons streaked across the blackness of space, thin yellow lines
that converged to form an eerie, slow-growing mesh overhead before
curling back toward the planet’s surface.

“
The blasts are
interfering with our signal,” said Mark. “We can’t—”

“—
ars? Lars, is that
you?”

Michelle’s voice was barely audible
over the roar of the static, but it was unmistakably
her.

“‘
Chelle? Yes! Yes, it’s
me—listen, we’re coming around your position on a low orbit,
bearing—”

“—
eaking up, I
ca—”

The static flared again as bright
white light filled the bridge. Jalil hurriedly covered his eyes as
flashbacks from his childhood came rushing back to him: the blaring
of alarms, the sound of screaming and feet pounding the floor, the
awful rushing noise as his mother sent him down the
chute—