Inherit the Stars (29 page)

“Commander Vuul, how long will we have until the planet's orbit reveals
Aldaar
's position behind the ship to Inheritor fire?”

Static crackled over the connection as the shuttle's artificial gravity shuddered from the gas giant's propinquity. Seul waited for Vuul to answer, unused to any hesitation from him.

“Perhaps half an hour before the ship's orbit deteriorates into reentry. Inheritor shuttles are nearing the vessel now. Do not seek engagement with hostiles. Retrieve Vondir and coordinate a fighting retreat back to your transports.
Aldaar
will standby, but should things go wrong, light-jump back to Aldaakian Space with Vondir.”

The Troopers aboard glanced at Seul and gripped their rifles tighter, the resolve in their stares swelling her chest with pride. Aldaakians had long inured themselves to sacrifice. Now it could mean something again.

“Officer Kael, drop us at the earliest opportunity next to the ship's hull.”

Kael glanced back at her, a gleam in his eye. “Coming up now, Captain Jaah. Five, four, three . . .”

She didn't hear him count the last two numbers. Lips trembling, Seul closed her eyes and imagined a world with a yellow sun, shining over snow drifts and glaciers. Her daughter running in the cold wind with arms outstretched. Seul reclining in Kael's arms, dressed in swath robes . . .

The launch tube ejected Seul into the vacuum right alongside the human starship. Her polyboots magnetized and snapped to the hull. The action of her fellow Troopers making contact with the hull vibrated up her body. The shuttle hovered nearby, awaiting recovery.

“Squad A, form up behind me and keep your rifles ready. Remember to minimize breaths to conserve air. If any of you experience gravity sickness, alert the rest immediately.” Seul walked down the hull toward a hole shot through an airlock. With each step suctioning to the metal surface, her leg muscles pumped harder just to propel her along.

The hull stretched hundreds of feet in either direction, its smoothness broken by other airlocks, orbital thrusters, and sensory arrays. Far below, the planet dominated the view with its opaque turquoise atmosphere. The yellow-white ring of dust and ice twinkled. In the distance, the gray sticklike Vim derelict stretched at least eight miles in length.

Were they in that derelict, waiting for the right moment? Seul had to look away from the craft. The mission. Must remain focused on the mission.

Near the breach, supply crates drifted out into space, along with metal shards, melted globules, cooled slag, and one human body. No wounds or envirosuit, but the eyes stared at her with horror. Vacuum frost already coated the corpse's mouth.

Seul pushed aside smaller debris and gripped a protruding girder. Lifting her feet off the hull, she pushed herself from the girder into the breach, where her boots stuck to the ruined airlock's metal floor. Walking forward, she swept the area with her rifle.

“Jaah here. I'm in. Airlock is clear. Squad A, enter one at a time and form a ranging party, single file.” Seul examined corners for any survivors or lurking enemies.

“Captain Jaah . . . is Vuul. The signal from . . . derelict is interrupting our scanners even more. Beware of . . . and blackout. Give me regular updates on . . . progress . . . possible.” Vuul's transmission broke up.

“It is done, Commander Vuul.” Seul clomped toward two circular doors, while Troopers filtered in through the breach. She tried one door, but it had clamped shut. Through a small window on each door, humans gaped at her with shocked faces, then fled.

“I have a visual on live occupants, apparently unarmed,” Seul said. “Judging from their movements, the station still retains adequate gravity in certain areas.”

“Understood. Proceed and . . . Inheritor soldiers inside, but . . .” Vuul's reply broke up again.

Seul waited until all Troopers had entered, then activated the brain-pulse analyzer affixed to her right polyvambrace. As soon as she cut through the door, those on the other side would lose their air. They would die. Seul fidgeted with her rifle, then checked her readouts on the inside of her extended collar.

The analyzer revealed the presence of five Savants on board the doomed starship. One emitted a more powerful signal than the rest, from the ship's fourth deck. Any enemies would be headed in the same direction.

“Captain Jaah?” a Trooper asked.

She cleared her throat. “Squad A, the station's compartments are pressurized. If we continue, occupants may perish. Point One, start hailing short-wave radio frequencies to alert all nearby passengers we mean no
harm. Point Two, slice this door open. When you finish, weld it back.”

Several minutes later, Seul waited while Squads A and B entered the corridor. Point Two finished sealing the cut door back into place.

“Don't demagnetize your boots yet, and maintain ranging order. Do not fire unless provoked. Is that understood?” Seul met each Trooper's gaze. All assented.

“Good. Remember—we are here to retrieve Kivita Vondir. Alive.” Seul approached the next circular door and held her breath. It hissed open.

The room was empty, but a viewport displayed an open area in the underside of the ship for cargo bays and an exhaust trench. On the opposite side, the viewport to an observation deck was also open.

Seul's heart sank.

Several unmoving forms floated on the deck. Human, Ascali, even an Aldaakian woman. Beside her floated a small Aldaakian boy, dressed in Tannocci-style leather clothing. Seul hadn't seen any Aldaakian children since viewing her infant daughter in the Pediatric Ward.

Here, on this starship, an Aldaakian mother had been rearing her child. Away from Aldaakian society, free of strictures and routine. Now they'd both joined Niaaq Aldaar on his frozen journey.

“Keep moving.” Seul gripped her rifle tight.

After squirming through buckled girders and cracked insulation, Kivita entered the next corridor. Whoever had fired on
Luccan's Wish
, their weapon had sliced through the entire ship at a diagonal angle. She feared even more damage had been done, with many passengers dead. Navon, Jandeel, Cheseia, Basheev, Rhii, Maihh, and two dozen others followed her past charred bulkheads and melted flooring.

A deep fear lingered in her gut. Their attackers hadn't finished off
Luccan's Wish
—which meant more was to come.

“The impact must have sealed some of these compartments due to the heat.” Navon pointed at the corridor's ceiling. A blackened line ran above them, with cooled slag hanging in fat droplets.

“We'll need envirosuits,” Kivita said. “We're still half a deck away from the next lift, and who knows what shape it's in.”

“There is a maintenance shaft beyond this corridor,” Navon said. “It might be even more dangerous.”

“What if the next corridor has been compromised?”
Maihh clicked once. “When we open that door, we'll all be sucked in!”

Jandeel helped Rhii over a sharp bulkhead crease. “It's our only chance now. Try the intercom again, Kivita. Maybe the communication systems have come back online.”

As Kivita neared an intercom panel beside the doorway,
Luccan's Wish
tilted again. Everyone scooted toward the viewport, where the gas giant loomed closer than before. One man slammed into the viewport, and Kivita held her breath. All grew quiet, as if fearing their weight might shatter it.

“We're not going to make it!” Maihh wailed.

Kivita crawled back to the intercom panel and pressed several buttons. Nothing but static answered her.

All those faces filled with hope, all the Thedes who believed in her—all of them dead or doomed now. Her heart sank into her stomach. A constant throb grew inside her head.

Kivita mashed the buttons again. “Hey!” she called into the mic. “If anyone can hear me—”

“You are doing no good like this. There is nothing that can be done.” Navon placed a hand over the mic.

Kivita glared at him. “Some are still alive, and you damn well know it.”

“I believe so, too,” Navon said, his face calm. “That is why we must focus on those around us. The maintenance shaft, Kivita. Please.” He gestured at Basheev. “For their sakes.”

Jandeel, Rhii, and the others watched her with determination mixed with fear. Cheseia's jaw tightened and her muscles flexed.

“Yeah. Let's do this.” She crawled toward the door and straddled the viewport below her. The next corridor lay empty through the door's small square window, but she'd no clue what the conditions were like. With a hull breach, each room and corridor might contain their deaths.

She swallowed and pulled the lever. The circular door hissed aside.

No decompression, no escape of their thinning atmosphere. Relieved sighs, weak laughs, and prayers sounded behind her as Kivita walked into the next corridor.

The air wasn't as thin, but the temperature had dipped several degrees. As in previous corridors and rooms, an eerie silence greeted them. For a damaged ship,
Luccan's Wish
gave off no creaks or groans yet. Since sound didn't travel in a vacuum, the silence only worried Kivita more.

Some queen she'd turned out to be.

Her temples tingled. What about the ship's mainframe computer? Focusing her mind, she tried to stretch out her thoughts to the computer. Navon said something, but she gritted her teeth and concentrated harder.

Luccan's Wish
tilted again.

“No,” she grunted, directing all her mental will into the ship's computer systems. In her mind, locking mechanisms activated, three braking thrusters fired, and life support returned to a few cabins. After a few seconds,
Luccan's Wish
stabilized. Kivita closed her eyes and fought back sharp pangs in her cranium.

“Kivita?” Jandeel grasped her arm.

“Leave her be,” Navon said in a hushed tone. “You are connected with the ship. You are pouring its data into my thoughts. What if I—”

“Can't hold this for long. Which way?” she asked in a strained voice.

“There, on your left.” Navon followed her into the next corridor.

As Kivita drew aside the shaft's thin metal safety door, a pounding erupted from the door into the next chamber. Through the door's square window, a Naxan man screamed at them in silence while floating with terminal slowness.

“Stars darkening and setting, no.” Rhii pulled Basheev to her. The others all turned away and shuffled past. The Naxan continued to pound on the door, his lips turning blue.

“May the Solars have mercy on him,” Jandeel whispered.

Clutching her bandaged head, Cheseia sniffled.

Navon blocked the view with his body. “We cannot help him. Come, everyone. This shaft should take us down to Level Eight, where
Frevyx
is docked.”

Kivita gripped Cheseia's arm, while everyone crept into the shaft on their hands and knees. During her time aboard
Luccan's Wish
, Kivita had felt part of a family. When Navon moved from the door's window, she avoided looking through it.

“You certainly must abandon me here,” Cheseia said, sagging against the bulkhead.

The throb mounted in Kivita's brain. Holding the ship in place would fry her brain unless she caught a break soon, but there was something else touching her thoughts. Familiar, yet alien. “C'mon, let's go.”

Cheseia hung her head. “No, I—”

Kivita grabbed Cheseia's ripped tunic. “Listen to me. You can either weep about the pain you've brought these
people or you can help a few escape. You think this is easy for me? I brought enemies here as much as you.”

Nodding, Cheseia entered, and her sniffling ended.

Kivita ducked and wriggled into the shaft's cold metal housing, which measured three by three feet square. Noxious air made her gasp for breath. The others in front slowed down, their numbers depleting the shaft's available oxygen. Small lamps at ten-foot intervals gave spare illumination.

“Hurry the best you can.” Kivita nudged two people who'd stopped to catch their breath. “You see anything, Jandeel?”

“There are three branches here, but I say we go straight across.” His voice traveled through the shaft in a metallic echo.

Navon entered the shaft and closed the sliding door. The lamps flickered. Several people moaned.

In Kivita's mind, the ship's computer indicated multiple power failures. She concentrated. The power cells didn't fire; the energy couplings had burned through. Heart racing, she made the braking thrusters fire again. Nevertheless,
Luccan's Wish
dropped slightly toward the gas giant below.

Kivita bit her lip. “Yeah, Jandeel, sounds good. C'mon, everyone. We can't stay here.”

She coaxed the others as they crept along the shaft. The air chilled and thinned as the shaft resonated with their collective heaves. Dropping temperatures made Kivita's lungs hurt and chapped her lips and nostrils.

Maihh faltered to her knees and gasped.

“Here.” Kivita clasped Maihh's hand and they continued together. Maihh clicked three times and murmured her thanks.

For several freezing minutes, the group traveled the shaft. Kivita's palms numbed from touching the frigid metal, until she rolled her long sleeves over her hands. Basheev gasped and winced, flexing his fingers. Rhii ripped patches from her skinsuit and fashioned makeshift gloves for him.

“I see another shaft door ahead,” Jandeel called back, wheezing.

Tasting carbon in the air, Kivita breathed only through her nose. She glanced back at Navon, who plodded on with slow, measured breaths. Cheseia kept pace though her arms trembled.

A passage on their right creaked; then air hissed somewhere and stopped. Something scraped over metal above them.

Kivita reached out her thoughts to the ship's computer, but nothing useful returned. Though her head throbbed, she feared to release her hold on
Luccan's Wish
.

“Almost there,” Jandeel said.

A dull thud, followed by an explosion above, shook the shaft. Its metal walls vibrated from the force, creating an earsplitting racket. Everyone cried out in pain. Kivita slammed palms to ears and closed her eyes in agony. The reverberation made her teeth chatter, her heart flutter. Cheseia bumped into her; then Maihh coughed and stumbled into Navon.

The throb became an incessant drumbeat in Kivita's mind. It pumped in her veins, constricted with each heartbeat. She blinked as a repeating sequence entered her thoughts. It wasn't from the ship's computer mainframe. A chalky taste violated her mouth.

The sequence formed into an inquisitive sensation.
Words came to Kivita's lips, as if someone else spoke them.

“I'm here,” she whispered.

Warmer air blasted over them from the front. Light flashed into the shaft.

“Hurry it up!” Jandeel yelled. “The door's open!”

The shaft shifted a few inches to the right. People yelled and screamed. Maihh tried to turn back, but Kivita caught her and, with Navon's help, forced her forward. The hissing from the right passage grew louder.

“C'mon, go!” Kivita pushed those before her. The shaft shook again. Jerky light filled the shaft. Jandeel held the door open while Rhii, Basheev, and the rest climbed out, gasping. Maihh patted Kivita's shoulder and rushed out.

Kivita exited the shaft with Cheseia and Navon as a screeching noise echoed inside it. Jandeel slid the door shut and locked it. They all jumped back as it buckled from within, but held.

“Decompression,” Navon said. “Let us find a lift.”

Shivering, Kivita tried to learn from the computer the location of the closest lift. This time, though, more sensors had shorted out.
Luccan's Wish
was all but handicapped.

Focusing her will, Kivita barely managed to keep control over two braking thrusters and some life support.

“The computer is almost dead, so where now?” she asked, looking around.

They'd entered the other side of Level Four, across the thruster exhaust trench and cargo bay on the underside of
Luccan's Wish
. On their left, a small galley held five cringing Thedes. Tiles had fallen from the ceiling,
and one lamp flickered like a crazy firefly. Air and gravity remained normal, but the temperature was still dropping.

Kivita ran to the lockers and flung them open. “Everyone get into an envirosuit!” She grabbed one and slipped into it.

Her fellow Thedes also suited up. Even the five in the galley came and put one on. Navon faced them while he fastened wrist clamps around his gloves.

“Have you seen anyone else? What has happened?”

A Sutaran man with a broken arm answered. “We all ran to the airlocks for the ships. The whole ship shook, and the lights went on and off. We heard screams and hissing air from ahead, so we turned back. The corridors started collapsing, and . . . So many are out there now. . . .” He looked down.

“Out where?” Basheev asked as Rhii handed him a helmet.

“In space,” Kivita said. No use avoiding the issue. “Damn it. What about the lifts? Should be one the next corridor over.” She tried to contain the strange sequence running through her mind, but it almost blotted out everything around her.

“Broken,” the Sutaran man said. “It won't come back up from Level Ten.”

Jandeel found an intercom panel and pressed the button. “Can anybody hear me?”

Static crackled on the speaker, and then a small girl's voice came across it. “We can't get out! We can't get out! Please come get us out!” The connection clicked and went dead.

Cheseia glanced at Kivita, russet eyes wishing for her own death. Part of Kivita wanted to reach out to her; the
other wanted to strangle the Ascali traitor. Across light years and depthless revelations, she'd finally learned to control her feelings. Vengeance amounted to an empty pursuit, and Kivita had others than herself to worry about now.

A strained male voice broke over the intercom speakers. “We're on Level Six. I don't know what the hell happened. We still have air but no gravity. Where are you? Can you get to us?”

Navon touched Jandeel's shoulder. “Do not reveal our location, for we cannot help them. We still do not know who or where our enemy is.”

Kivita burned with helplessness, and the Thedes' reaction to the attack still angered her. Damn fools, thinking they were untouchable. If they didn't reach
Frevyx
or the other ships soon, they'd die within hours for lack of air.

“Whoever fired on us didn't want to destroy
Luccan's Wish
,” Kivita said. “Just disable it and cause confusion. We have to assume they've boarded, so I'm not sticking around. To hell with the lifts. I say we find a roll of flexi wire and rappel down the shaft to Level Eight.”

Rhii shook her head. “Stars darkening in the night, miss. We have wounded and children. How can we do that?”

“Carry them,” Kivita replied. “It's what I'm going to do. We can't just—”

Luccan's Wish
slanted a few degrees toward the planet. An alarm rang from a cryo chamber on their right. Behind them, the maintenance shaft door buckled in farther. Concentrating on the computer, Kivita tried to make the braking thrusters fire. One did, but the other lost power.

“Put your helmets on!” Navon shouted. Everyone obeyed him.

Kivita rifled through the lockers until she found two flexi rolls, perhaps fifty feet each. She handed one to Cheseia. “I'll go down the shaft first. We'll have to open the lift doors to Level Eight manually.”

Two explosions vibrated far above on their right.
Luccan's Wish
shook. The lamps flickered off, and some didn't come back on. Kivita felt her steps getting lighter as the ship's computer finally went offline. Her slight control of the last thruster and scant life support ended.