Keystones: Tau Prime (13 page)

The ship didn’t turn or alter its orientation but moved directly toward him, perpendicular to its previous course. From Deklan’s point of view what had been the belly of the ship was now a long prow. As the distance between the two craft closed, sensors showed him that the ship moved with more sub-light speed than he’d hoped for. Appendages curled and pointed toward him, blue eruptions gathered at their tips.

On
Serenity
’s screen the arms had looked thin, here, but now they appeared enormous. Each arm was several times wider than
Whirlwind
, and as on the main hull the mesh surface was lit by blue light from within. The blue light moved in a chaotic and unpredictable manner that illuminated some areas while leaving others shrouded in darkness. Deklan saw exotic patterns covering the arm wherever the light went.

The arms extended past Deklan as the alien craft came closer. He couldn’t help but think of them as prison bars in space. As they surged past him, an opening widened in a section of the hull below
Whirlwind
and grew to a circle large enough to swallow the shuttle ten times over.

Deklan saw the opening and licked his lips even as his heart palpitated. If this went wrong, there was no way to know what they’d do with a live specimen that could regenerate. His imagination conjured up visions of his being locked in a room and dissected on a daily basis for years. He couldn’t let that happen. He had to get the next maneuver right.

It was time for gamble number two.

He cued the probes. They burst out from
Whirlwind
like a fireworks display, dozens scattering in every direction. Return fire from the enemy ship was immediate but far from accurate. Deklan lost signals from three of his probes but not from the most critical one. He watched the countdown from a simulation as that probe reached its target.

A second later he saw the fallout from an explosion with his own eyes. He had just detonated a fusion bomb made from scraps left over from
Tempest
’s salvaged engines. All they’d had to do was to disable the safety governors.

Red light erupted, and chunks of the hull flew off as the bloom of destruction spread farther and farther across the ship below him. The segments that tumbled through space lost their blue glow and became dark, almost invisible against the blackness of space. Deklan watched shockwaves continue to radiate out from the epicenter of the blast. Three of the arms closest to the impact area tore free.

As the last of the eruptions died away, it was time for gamble number three.

Deklan left the cockpit and grabbed the last probe in
Whirlwind
’s main cabin. He ran his hands over the tethers that trailed from it. Deklan thought of Cheshire and his escape from Boa Vista. He had used tethers in space before, with results that could have been called successful, but this time he hoped for a less dramatic experience.

Snap by snap he connected the tethers to his EVA suit. Four lines, each less than ten centimeters long, had to hold if Deklan were to survive. He then sent a command to all of the remaining probes.

Opening a hatch, he heard this hiss of escaping air. A red warning lit up on the bottom left of his faceplate. Deklan didn’t need to know what the warning said; he heard the problem. Air was leaking out, and he could feel it, near his left foot. The small probe was his only hope of survival. Upon activation the probe released seven squid-like tendrils, each uniformly long and multi-jointed, tapering to a narrow tip. None of them touched him.

As the probe engaged its Doppler Bubble Drive, the tethers went taut, and Deklan was pulled out of
Whirlwind
, carried along within the probe’s local field of spatial distortion. He was helpless, and there was no turning back. He had to hope that the rest of the probes would swarm nearby and act as a shield when he tried to get back to
Serenity
.

The stuntman in Deklan derived no little pleasure from knowing that he was now traveling faster than any human ever had in space wearing only an EVA suit, even though he was streaking toward a wormhole. Just then a new icon flashed on his faceplate. It was a stopgap measure that was supposed to give the wearer minutes more, maybe fifteen, but if Deklan didn’t reach
Serenity
within the hour it wouldn’t help at all.

Moving at the speed of a probe rather than a ship, Deklan had no time to appreciate his entrance into the wormhole. It was almost as sudden as teleporting. One second he was moving in a black starscape; the next he was careening through a purple tunnel with fluctuating walls. He was distracted by the cold that still beset his left ankle.

He desperately hoped that Jonny had prepared for gamble number four.

The probe slowed and dropped out of sight faster than light, giving Deklan time to see the next obstacle. He gasped because he hadn’t believed that Jonny could do it.

The wormhole was filled with menacing dark shards that glinted in the purple light and obscured the passageway. Some were larger than
Whirlwind
had been. The only constant was their opacity.

Deklan and his cohorts hadn’t been sure whether the alien ship could fit into a wormhole or whether it could travel faster than light in one. Most of all, they hadn’t been sure of what would happen if the ice crystals hit the wormhole’s walls. They had hoped that the same uncertainty would give the aliens pause too.

The probe dragged Deklan through a narrow passageway between crystals. He could have reached out and touched one if he hadn’t been worried that the contact would cut his suit open. The probe must have had a sensor that guided it through the maze. Minutes passed as they penetrated deeper and deeper into the dark blizzard.

All that illuminated their progress through the stygian darkness were the lights from the probe and the lights on Deklan’s helmet. Pain from his ankle seared him as he and the probe made their slow way through the dark field. Then, suddenly, they broke through the purple maze.

The remaining probes that survived after acting as a shield for Deklan’s escape had made their way through the dark maze and sat behind it, ready to engage their drives and send shockwaves of ice back the way they had come.

Ahead of Deklan the passage was blocked by a forbidding behemoth. The size of the wormhole, it was many times larger than
Serenity
. Its surface was jagged and cracked from uneven freezing, and turrets of ice jutted from the lower layers. Deklan’s breath caught in his throat. How was he supposed to get past that brute?

The probe knew. Without hesitation it dove straight at the obstacle, specifically a narrow gap between the wormhole and the ice. Through this gap they passed with less than a meter to spare on either side. Deklan could have reached out and dipped his fingers into the glowing matter.

Close up it wasn’t a simple purple but hues and variations that defied his ability to label them. The colors danced and cycled in a chaotic manner that would have been entrancing had it not looked so dangerous.

As they passed around the far curve of the giant, a new field of wheat-colored icebergs came into view. These were not the sharp-edged monoliths of before but still imposing structures in their own right. Again the probe didn’t hesitate as it wove a passage through the icebergs, picking up speed and dodging through the spaces between them. There was no darkness here, and Deklan didn’t get the sense of traveling through an abyss. Purple light splashed around him as the probe took him through the region.

Passing the last boulder, he heaved a sigh of relief. There she was,
Serenity
. Two figures stood in the shuttle bay warding off new icebergs. Deklan didn’t have more than a second to take in the sight before the probe engaged its Doppler Bubble Drive and streaked toward the ship. It slowed just before contact, but Deklan’s relief quickly vanished: they’d forgotten to program the probe to return to the shuttle bay.

He slammed against the entry to the probe’s return tube, hitting it with his right shoulder. His scream echoed in his helmet. The tethers that secured him to the probe snapped, and Deklan rebounded off
Serenity
to spin in the wormhole.

“
Serenity
!
Serenity
!” he called frantically. The wormhole tumbled around him, and he scrambled to reach his EVA thruster controls with his left hand. Blasts of air slowed his spin and brought him upright.

“Report,” said Calm over the com system, his voice a soothing presence.

Speaking to someone else reduced Deklan’s feeling of isolation. “The probe smashed me against the return tube,” he replied. “I’m returning to the ship now.” He could hear fear in his voice, but it wasn’t as intense as before.

Two figures watched him from the shuttle bay, their postures indicating a readiness to assist him.

Deklan aimed at the open doors and fired his thrusters at maximum power. He closed the distance to less than ten meters. He was almost there before his thrusters went wild.

Flipped upside down, Deklan careened toward the pulsing wormhole wall. He pressed buttons to no effect. The controls were dead. “
Serenity
!” he yelled again.

No answer came over his com system, and his faceplate went dark. He could see out, but there was no incoming information.

The side of the wormhole was coming up fast, and he couldn’t do anything but wave his arms and legs. His breath came in short, sharp gasps: he was going to die again. Cold sweat drenched his face and head.

Suddenly something slammed into his back, and he was on board
Serenity
again. His still firing thrusters shot him to the ceiling, where his first point of contact was his dislocated shoulder. His EVA suit pressed him into the ceiling at full power. He could only scream.

Deklan tried to push back, but the force from his suit was too much. Then, abruptly, it failed. He pushed off with his one good hand and turned so that he could see the bay. The doors were closing, and two figures were standing as far from each other as possible. He ignored them both and shoved off with his good leg to the lock that led to the rest of the ship. He needed medical attention. He knew what the teleporting meant, but for now it could wait.

Deklan made his way to
Serenity
’s damaged gravity wheel and into the medical bay. If he didn’t get his suit off soon, he was going to run out of air. He pressed down on the releases for his helmet and heard the atmosphere change. He lifted the helmet with one hand, scraping it against his ear in the process. At least now he wasn’t going to suffocate.

Having just thrown a bomb into the belly of an alien ship, reflected Deklan, he could deal with his shoulder. “Calm, can you send someone to help me? I’ve got a dislocated shoulder, and my EVA suit is dead. I can’t take it off on my own.” He winced while thinking about what was to come next.

Jamie burst through the medical bay’s doorway, holding her helmet in one hand and looking terrible. Her face was in flux. It melted to nothing and reformed, her eyes, nose, and mouth disappearing and reappearing. She showed no pain, but when her features were present they showed terror.

“Hello, Slate,” said Deklan, “or should I call you Annie?”

Jamie’s voice lacked its characteristic confidence. “Who’s Annie?” she replied.

Deklan tilted his head to look at her. She had stabilized. Her skin was like fresh snow, and she had just one eye showing over her nose. “You really don’t know?” asked Deklan. He wasn’t sure whether or not to believe her.

“No. Who’s Annie?” Her solitary eye burned with intensity.

Deklan had been sure that she was Slate, but she looked clueless and confused. At any other time he would have paused to work things out. Grabbing her by the chin and looking her in the eye, he instead said with firmness, “Jamie, we don’t have time for games. I need you to focus. I need you to get me out of this suit.”

She nodded her head and breathed in four times before exhaling. “Okay.” She looked around the room. “It’s harder in zero gravity. We’ll need to strap you in, and then I can pull.”

Deklan didn’t like the sound of that, but he lay down on the table where they’d drained his blood after the visit to Exo.

Jamie fastened straps over Deklan’s waist, planted her feet, and reached for his arm. “Deklan, I’m going to do this on three, okay?”

Deklan nodded, not wanting to say yes.

Her voice quavered. “One, two.” She pulled.

All of the pain from every second since he’d dislocated his shoulder revisited Deklan, condensed into one moment.

“Mr. Tobin, I heard screaming. What’s happening?” Calm sounded harried and tense over the com system. Deklan hadn’t heard him sound like that before.

“It’s fine. Jamie’s. . . .” Deklan’s voice trailed off. Jamie’s eye and nose merged into her blank face before all of her features came back and her skin regained some of its healthy glow. “Jamie’s here helping me.”

There was a distinct pause before Calm replied, “Copy that. Call if you need assistance.”

Deklan rolled his shoulder. It was painful but manageable. Now for his other injury. He closed his eyes and pretended that he was far away. “Jamie, can you look at my leg too?”

“Your leg?” Her voice was back to normal.

Deklan stared at the ceiling and divorced himself from his words. “My suit has a leak near my left foot.” He took another breath. “I can’t move my foot anymore.”

Jamie didn’t say anything but set to work at the console. Multi-jointed robotic arms sprang out from the table, hovered over Deklan’s leg, and rapidly cut his suit with green lasers. The procedure was carried out with such precision that Deklan, even though the smell of his burning suit filled the chamber, felt no heat. The cutting completed, Deklan was surprised to see a trio of secondary arms emerge from behind each laser and snatch up the scraps of material from his leg.

The arms’ retraction into the table left him with a clear view of his foot. It looked dead. Jamie tapped at the frozen flesh. “I don’t understand,” she said. “You healed from the bullets so quickly.”

Her words took Deklan to another time and place. Bullet after bullet had been pumped into his chest while Slate tossed a man through the air. “So you are Slate,” he remarked, his voice quiet and low, almost a whisper.