MoonRush (22 page)

Weigner peered over his shoulder at the floating holographic diamond. “So the search for the mother lode is postponed?”

The general chuckled. He seemed perfectly at his ease for the first time that the scientist could recall. “Not at all. This event could work
in
our favor. Keep others from finding it before we do.”

Weigner had never experienced what it felt like to be in the dark before. He found
that
he did not like the sensation. At all. “But without refueling at the space station…”

The general just smiled. “Get packed, Doctor.”

Apparently
,
it paid to have friends in high places. Weigner did the only thing he could in this situation.

He went to pack.

CHAPTER 8

S
omewhere between t
he wreckage of the
Space Station
and the M
oon

March 29, 2049

01
32 hours,
SST

Rob sat staring out
of
the ship’s port window at the shrinking remains of the space station, watching for escaping ships and pods. Well, truth be told, he was looking for one specific ship
—
not that he had any idea
about
what it would look like. His attention was drawn to a speck in the window. Was that it, or was it just a smudge on the glass? Rob wished he knew what the chances were that the girl had actually made it.

He could ask Buton. Buton would probably be able to come up with a statistic without even working on it for too long. But Rob remained silent. Truth
be told
, he didn’t really want to know the girl’s chances, at least not in numbers. The hope that bubbled up in his chest was a far better indicator, as far as he was concerned.

T
he girl was the closest thing to a girlfriend
that
Rob had experienced. A smile in an arcade and a mad rush from an exploding space station was the nearest to a relationship he had come.
That was sad.

That sucked.

Rob really didn’t want to think about
another part of this whole thing
.
Unfortunately, his brain had other ideas. Maybe it was being up here in space, where life and death
were
sometimes measured by several millimeters of glass separating him from the void.

Danger. It had always been a part of Rob’s life, from the time he was three and his dad had tossed him into shark-infested waters to teach him how to swim. And swim he had, although his experiences with sharks had not always been quite so easy. He rubbed at his prosthetic legs, his mind amongst the remains of the station.

Death was not an abstract
for
Rob. His mom, his dad…both dead. He had faced his own death so many times
that
it just didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Well, it least it hadn’t, until he had met a sweet, beautiful girl with a pink stripe in her hair and a shy smile.

Buton came up behind him and pointed out a distant
,
moving dot. “Rob, I do not know if you had observed…” Buton’s voice drifted off as he increased the image
’s
magnification. It was a ship. A ship with a fuchsia stripe painted down its side. Rob felt a grin stretch across his face as hope blossomed even further in his chest.

As Rob turned away from the window, he saw their pilot, Simon, resting on a cot in the hold. The only movement there was the ever-so-slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Even that up-and-down
motion
was not as much or as steady as it should be. But where a moment ago that might have bummed him out, he let the warmth inside him grow to include the tiny pilot. If the girl from the arcade could escape an exploding station, anything was possible.

Leaning closer, Rob could see that Simon’s skin had a nasty pallor, and it looked
as though
his vitals had slipped into the yellow zone. Cleo really needed to take a look at him.

Rob moved to the front of the ship, the afterimage of a shuttle with a pink
stripe flying along beside him.

* * *

A strident beeping from the control panel caused Cleo’s head to jerk upright from where it had drifted toward her chest for about the hundredth time. She had now taken the caffeine pill equivalent of about five cups of coffee, which would normally keep her up for
at least thirty-six hours
. Okay, she might be a little tired. She glanced up at the vid
-
screen and was startled to see the moon looming right in front of them. How long had she been asleep? She peered at the ship’s clock, the numbers stirring guilt inside her.

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and glanced over at the still
-
bleating panel. Jarod was muttering swear words to himself and punching buttons, seemingly at random. He threw up his hands in disgust as three more alerts sounded.

Cleo resisted the urge to smack him on the back of the head
again,
and instead leaned over to see what he had done. The problem was immediately apparent.

“Jarod, it’s just telling you to switch oxygen tanks. I’m not sure why you decided to cut off the flow to the cabin instead. Here.” She reached out
to fix the problem.

“Don’t do that! You’ll just make it worse!” This was about the seventh time this kind of conversation had played out. Jarod was a brilliant pilot, but he
had
no
clue
about
maintenance. She pushed the sequence of buttons that solved the problems
,
and the beeping ceased.

After a sullen pause, Jarod muttered, “Well, I didn’t know you were going to do
that
.”

“I believe
that
the words you were looking for were ‘Thank you, Cleo.’
”

Jarod’s mouth opened for what Cleo could only imagine was a caustic response when Rob poked his head into the cockpit.

“Hey, Cleo. Simon’s not looking so good. I think you’d better get back there and take a look.”

“Yeah. I’m headed there now.” She paused,
and
then gave Rob a stage whisper while pointing at Jarod. “Make sure he doesn’t crash.”

Jarod’s head whipped around
.
“Hey!”

Rob’s serious demeanor broke
,
and he grinned at her. “I’m not making any promises here.” He plopped down beside his uncle.

Cleo poked him on the shoulder and mouthed at him, “I’m serious,” while pointing at Jarod’s control panel. Rob nodded
.
He took up the tablet that contained the ship’s manual
and turned
it
on
,
flipping through the digital pages.

Once more
,
Cleo realized just how smart and capable this kid was. In that, he was just like his dad, and
that
was in a good way. A very good way.
P
rickling in the back of her eyes meant tears were on their way. She took a deep breath and turned toward the hold.

As she moved into the hold, she stumbled and fell to her knees right in front of Simon’s pallet. She found herself face
-
to
-
face with the diminutive pilot. His skin had a sallow pallor to it that made him look like he was halfway to being a corpse already, and his breathing was shallow and irregular.

Cleo quickly took his pulse and blood pressure
—
only to confirm what she already knew. Simon was not doing well. She looked through her
M
edkit for the thousandth time, hoping that maybe she had missed some little vial of medication that
would
help. For the thousandth time
,
she came up empty. She threw the bag down on the end of the cot in disgust.

Pulling a chair
alongside
the cot, Cleo sat down and studied the little man. She surprised herself by realiz
ing
that Simon was a rather attractive man. She had never really looked at him before.

Wow. Cleo found that she didn’t like herself very much right at this moment.

Jarod’s comment about Rogues never judging a book by its cover came back to her, along with a wave of guilt. It wasn’t just that Cleo had doubted Simon. She felt
as though
that would have been forgivable,
and
even understandable. She didn’t know the guy. But from the moment she had seen Simon strolling across the Launchpad, whistling through his teeth, she had dismissed him almost completely. Okay, that wasn’t true. She had dismissed him
completely
—100
percent. He had been nothing more than an annoying little person
who,
Cleo was convinced
,
had no idea what he was doing.

And the reality had turned out to be so very different.

If it hadn’t been for Simon having the ship ready, they would all be dead right now. His dedication, quick thinking
,
and superb handling of the ship
meant
the difference between
their being alive now—versus a
frozen vacuum of a grave.

The fact that he himself had not fared so well did not escape Cleo. And his situation didn’t seem likely to improve.

Almost as if she had conjured the problem with her thought
s
, the ship’s monito
r
hooked up to Simon started beeping. Glancing at the readout, Cleo noted that his blood pressure had drop
ped dangerously
. She hovered over Simon, checking his vitals. She thumbed the intercom to life, calling out to Jarod.

“How much longer?”

The response came crackling back. “We’re on approach, but security’s giving me a hassle about clearance
.
…” The strain was evident in his voice.

Cleo didn’t want to add to his burden, but she had to get Simon moonside. Now. “I don’t know how much longer he can hang on, Jarod.”