Zero-G (31 page)

My suit has gone completely stiff, like I'm encased in ice. All I can hear is my breathing, thick and rapid, causing condensation to form on the inside of the helmet. There's no other sound.

I'm upside down, looking at the tug as we fly away from it. It's so small – a little metal bubble, nothing more, vanishing into the distance.

“—ley, get—” Carver says, his voice crackling in and out.

“What?” I shout. My eyes are locked on the tug.

“We need to— away. The thrusters—”

I collide with Carver.

I didn't even see him. He just slams right into me. We're knocked away from each other, tumbling out of control. My breathing has never been so loud. I can hear the details of every inhale and exhale, and each one tastes sour in my mouth.

There's another fizz of static, and then Carver's voice comes again. “—losing you. We—”

“Carver, can you hear me?”

“—sters!”

“Carver! Where are you?” I can barely get the words out. Outside my helmet, the world is a spinning nightmare. I see him, just for a second, and then he's gone, spinning out of view.

I breathe deep, sucking in the damp-smelling oxygen, refusing to let myself throw up. I have to get control of my movement. Carver mentioned thrusters …

Slowly, I force my arm to lift, bringing it into view. The control panel is the size of a man's hand, nestled into the suit on the back of my wrist. No readout, but at least a dozen big buttons – ones you can hit with the thick-fingered gloves. They have writing on them – but it's like reading another language.
Trans. Mix. Gauge.
But one of the buttons is labelled
Thrust
. With fingers that feel huge and fat, I jab at it.

It's like getting kicked all over my body, all at once. Shoulders, shins, the centre of my chest, the small of my back – all of them feel a sudden, silent pressure. An image appears on the inside of my helmet: a small diagram of a space suit, with the six points highlighted by small circles.

I can't see the
Shinso
, or even Outer Earth. I don't even know which direction I'm facing. The blackness stretches around me – I've shrunk to a tiny speck, dwarfed by it, swallowed by it.

A piece of debris shoots past me, propelled by the dock breach. I barely get a fix on it before it's impossibly distant, tumbling away from me at light speed. It's as if I'm hanging over a bottomless pit, with nothing between me and an endless fall.

My stomach is a rolling ball of nausea, vertigo twisting it back and forth. I shut my eyes, focus on my breathing, wait for the thruster to stabilise the spinning stars.

“Riley?” Carver says, his transmission suddenly crystal-clear.

“I'm OK,” I say, only just managing to get the words out. My mouth feels foul. The rapid breathing has crusted on my tongue.

“I can't see you. I'm heading over to the
Shinso
. Can you make your way to me?”

I look at the display on my helmet. It's just above my right eye, and as I look closely I can see the small circles indicating the thrusters are different sizes – some big, some small.

“How?” I say.

“Move your hands to your stomach. You'll find a little stick there.”

I move my hands down, fumbling with my clumsy, unfeeling fingers. The inside of the gloves is soft and padded, but the outside might as well be moulded metal, and my skin burns from the effort. Somehow I do it, and my hands close around something thick and solid; my helmet's position won't let me see what it is, but it must have popped out when I activated the thrusters. And all at once I understand what Carver means.

Incredibly, Carver laughs. “I see you!” he says. He starts to say something else, but then his voice vanishes in a painful burst of static.

The crew of the
Shinso Maru
don't stand a chance.

Okwembu's hack stopped the ship spinning, removed its artificial gravity. They're nauseous, disoriented, not prepared for the sudden rush of bodies out of the airlock. If they'd been smarter, they would have set a trap, but they simply weren't expecting this many people.

Prakesh is one of the last out of the tug, in front of only Mikhail and Okwembu. The noise in the narrow corridor leading from the airlock is atrocious. The
Shinso
's crew are trying to hold out, blocking the passage, fighting off the Earthers with fists and feet. But every movement sends them flying in the opposite direction, and they're not used to controlling themselves in the low gravity. Neither are the Earthers, but at least they have a few more minutes' practice.

Prakesh comes to a halt, one hand on the roof, the other on the wall, staring in horror at the assault. One of the Earthers fires a stinger, once, twice, her body slamming back into the floor. Blood spreads out across the corridor.

If he tries to wade into the melee, he'll just get himself killed. He hates being a spectator, hates feeling so helpless – especially when people are dying in front of him. Another stinger shot rings out – it's in the hands of one of the crew, but the bullet goes wide, and it's ripped from his grasp.

There's a hand on Prakesh's shoulder. It's Syria, and he's gripping hard enough to dimple the flesh under Prakesh's shirt. His face is pale.

“Wait!” The voice comes from the other end of the corridor. “We surrender. Please.”

Slowly, the movement in the corridor begins to subside. As it does, Prakesh starts counting, without really wanting to, working out how many people still live. There are six bodies, Earther and crew, dead from gunshot or stab wounds. One crew member has a broken neck, his head tilted at an impossible angle.

Four crew dead. Two Earthers. The remaining two crew members are cowering, floating in an almost foetal position, their palms out. A man and a woman, gaunt from years spent in space.

Okwembu pushes past Prakesh and Syria, her face expressionless. She doesn't seem bothered by the lack of gravity, her arms akimbo, fingers just brushing the walls. “Put the bodies somewhere out of the way,” she says, propelling herself down the corridor. She stops when she reaches the two frightened crew members.

“I'm sorry that had to happen,” she says. She's speaking quietly, sincerely, so much so that one of the crew members actually nods. “You need to take us to the bridge now.”

The other crew member isn't swayed so easily. “Why are you doing this?” he says. “You're a councillor. You're supposed to be on the station.”

“I
was
a councillor.” A note of impatience has crept into Okwembu's voice. “Not any more. The bridge. Now.”

“Carver!”

There's nothing. The panic starts to creep in again, tightening my chest and forcing the air out of my lungs. I'm not cold inside the suit – this is nothing like Outer Earth's core – but a chill creeps in nonetheless.

I tell myself to focus, to concentrate on getting the suit under control. I push the stick up, towards my stomach. Nothing happens

For an awful moment, I think my thrusters aren't working. Then my fingers feel buttons on the stick – one on the front, one on the back, perfectly cupped by my thumb and forefinger.

I hit the one on the back. My chest thruster puffs out a cloud of gas, and I feel myself moving backwards. Experimental pushes to the left and right make the circles on the corresponding legs and shoulders grow bigger as the others diminish.
Stick for direction. Buttons for thrust.

Scanning the blackness for the ship, I push the stick down again, spinning in a slow vertical loop.

My hands are completely numb inside the space suit gloves, and they're
hot
, as if all my blood has drained into them. But after fumbling for a few moments, I spot the
Shinso
, shining in the void as it reflects back the light from the sun. My breath catches – the distance is impossible to judge, but the gap between me and the ship feels like it stretches for miles.

I jam the thruster controls on the stick. My thumb is aching now, throbbing with pain, but I feel the kick at the base of my spine.

My eyes are drawn to a green bar, positioned alongside the thruster display in my helmet. It's filled to about two-thirds, and, as I look at it, it ticks down another measure.

As if my fuel is being used up. Or my oxygen.

Will I have enough to make it to the
Shinso
? No way to tell. It doesn't even feel like I'm getting any closer. I breathe as slowly as I can, taking small sips of air, trying with every ounce of will I have to control the frustration. If I was on Outer Earth, I could run this distance in minutes, just sprint across the gap.

I grit my teeth, keeping my thumb pressed down on the controls, ignoring the pain.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the ship creeps closer. Details start to resolve, shadows becoming clear on the surface.

There's a crackle over the radio. “—ley, come in! Do you hear me?”

“I'm here.”

My words come out in a rough whisper. I clear my throat, and try again.

“Gods, I thought you were … Listen, don't come in too fast. You won't be able to stop in time.”

I'm almost on top of the ship now, its hull swelling beneath me.

I see him. He's got his back to the ship, as if he's lying prone below me. Incredibly, he manages to wave: a single movement, long and languorous.

“We don't have much time left,” he says. “I don't know how much juice you've got in your thrusters, but I've burned half of mine.”

We glide above the surface of the ship. I can only see the edge of it, peeking over the bottom of my helmet.

“Shit,” Carver says.

“What?”

“How are we going to get inside?”

“We go in the airlock,” I say, confused.

“And how do we get them to open it for us?”

I open my mouth to reply – then stop. How could we be so stupid? The sensation in my mouth has got worse. When I lick my lips, my tongue is utterly dry.

“How are you doing for fuel?” I ask, stealing a glance at mine. One-third left, assuming it
is
fuel, and not my air supply.

“Almost out,” he says, his voice steady. “Can you see their tug?”

“Where?”

“Down there, near the front of the ship.”

I tweak the stick, just a little, and spot the tug even before he's finishing speaking. It's docked with the ship, clinging onto it like a bug. Its front end points outward; the ramp at the back must be connected to an airlock.

Relief floods through me – Prakesh made it. He's alive.

I push down harder on the button on my stick. We move towards the
Shinso
in slow motion, and I want to curse with frustration.

I don't. It would just waste air.

“It's stopped rotating,” Carver says, puzzled.

“Let's go for the tug,” I hear myself say. “Maybe we can get inside it.”

We keep moving, pointing ourselves towards the front of the craft. We're almost there, the tug looming large in front of us, when the white cone in Carver's thruster sputters and dies.

“No juice. I've got no juice,” he says. I can hear him trying to keep the panic out of his voice. He's a little ahead of me, to the left.

“Hang on,” I say, angling myself towards him. I have to slow myself down. If I overshoot and have to come back for him, I'll run out of fuel myself.

Almost there.

Almost …

I slam into Carver, taking him around the waist, pulling him along with me. My meter has started to blink red, a flashing beacon at the edge of my vision.

I can only just see past Carver's torso. His hand floats in front of my face, and just beyond it I can see the surface of the tug.

“Steady,” says Carver.

“You need to guide me. I can't—”

“Riley, reverse! Reverse thruster!”

We're skidding above the tug's surface – too far above it. If I don't stop now, we're going to overshoot. I lift my finger – slowly, so slowly – and force it down on the second stick button. I feel a juddering in my chest, and Carver's body, pressed close to it, is pushed upwards. He grabs my hand, stretched out above me, and I can hear his breathing in my helmet. It sounds like water rushing through a pipe.

We come to a halt.

When I look down, I see that my foot has caught on a cable that stretches along the outside of the tug's body. If it hadn't been there …

Slowly, my muscles aching with the effort, I pull Carver down, onto the surface of the tug. Soon we're both kneeling on it, hooked onto the cable. There's almost no fuel left in my tank.

“Shit,” Carver says again. This time, it comes out in a long, slow exhalation.

“Too close.”

“Yeah.”

“Can we disconnect the tug? Go in through that airlock?”

“No good. It'd take too long. Let's see if we can go round to the other side.”

I was hoping he wouldn't say that. I steel myself, getting ready to pull Carver close to me and inch along the tug's body.

There's a sudden pressure in the small of my back. “I've got one of your thrusters,” Carver says. “I'll hold, you pull.”

“Letting me do the heavy lifting, huh?”

“Yeah, well, you can handle it.”

There's another handhold a little further along: another cable, lifted slightly off the surface. I reach for it, using tiny taps of my shoulder thrusters to keep me steady. When I manage to get a grip on the cable, the sweat on my face is so thick that it's started to float off, coating my helmet. I can barely see out of the smeared surface.

“Keep going,” Carver says.

But when I look up, I see there are no more cables. Nothing to hold onto. The back of the tug sweeps away from me, and I know that if I try to climb down it with Carver in tow I'll drift away. Beyond the tug's body, there's nothing but space.

“It's no good,” I say. “We're out of holds.”

“We can't be out. Keep looking.”

“Carver, I'm telling you, we need to find another—”

I stop. As I speak, my free hand – the left one, the one not gripping the cable – drifts into view, and with it the wrist control. There's one button I hadn't noticed before. The writing on it reads: PLSM.

“These are construction suits, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I've got an idea. Is there something you can grab onto?”

“Hold on.”

The pressure in the back of my suit takes an age to fall away. I force myself to stay still.

“OK, I'm holding onto the tug's body.”

My right hand sweeps towards my wrist control, and thumbs the PLSM button. Another display pops up in my helmet: another bar crossing horizontally across the bottom. Words flash beneath it:
Plasma cutter arming
.

At almost the same instant, there's a flash of blue on the back of my left wrist. A nozzle has appeared; it flicked up from the suit with a tiny rumble of motors that I can feel in my chest. The light sparks, vanishes, then appears again: a thin streak of blue-white flame, reaching out beyond my hand. There's no sound at all.

Plasma cutter ready.

Carver whoops with joy. “Easy,” I say, wincing at the burst of noise

“Sorry,” he says, at a more manageable volume. “Good thinking.”

I bring the flame down towards the surface of the tug. My wrist has locked in position – a safety measure, presumably, to stop me from bending it and cutting through my own suit. When the flame makes contact with the metal, there's a silent spray of sparks, drifting upwards and winking out instantly.

“I just tried my own cutter,” Carver says. “Not getting anything. Keep going.”

The metal has started to glow – first red, then white. I've been holding my breath, and let it out in a thin whistle.

“You holding on to something?' says Carver. “There's going to be a pressure blowback when we cut through, so we'd better—”

A section of the metal suddenly pops outwards like it's been hit by stinger fire. I'm still caught on the cable, but for a moment the whoosh of pressure knocks me off balance. The flame lifts off the metal, traces an arc through the vacuum—

—And cuts across Carver's chest.

Neither of us speak. I can see his eyes, wide with confusion, then horror. I've stopped breathing again. There's a burn mark on his suit, slicing across the middle of the letters SCC.

I hear him breathe over the radio. “I'm OK,” he says. It's more question than statement. “Just … I'm OK. There wasn't much contact.”

Slowly, I bring the flame back around. I start cutting again, trying not to look at the readouts in my helmet, stopping every so often to adjust my hold on the cable. My hands are impossibly numb. I cut in a rough rectangle, big enough for us to slip through in our bulky suits. The initial rush of air has stopped; the inner airlock door must have sealed. The inside of the tug is starting to become visible, awash with red light.

My gauge is only a quarter full now. I'm about to start cutting the final side of the rectangle, already thinking about how I'll push the cut panel away from us, when Carver says, “Riley, there's something wrong.”

I force myself to keep the torch in contact with the metal. “What is it?”

“I'm getting a warning. On my suit display,” he says. The words come out in chunks, like he can't put them all together. Or like he's finding it difficult to breathe. “Some kind of … oh gods, Riley, it's a pressure warning.”

The plasma cutter. The burn mark on his chest.

“Don't worry,” I say, not daring to look at him, moving the cutter as fast as I can. “We'll be inside soon, OK? Just hold on for me.”

“Lot of warnings popping up here, Riley.”

“I know, I know.”

Eight inches to go. Seven. I try not to think of what we were taught about the physics of space. And what happens to the human body in a vacuum.

“My tongue. I can feel it on my tongue.”

Five inches. “Carver, we're nearly there.” Four.

Suddenly he's screaming in my ears. “It hurts, Riley, make it stop,
make it stop
!”