Over the Moon (Star-Crossed Book 1) (14 page)

Carmen stopped in the doorway of the box. Took the shuttle? “Is Pat OK?” she asked.

“You bitch. Don’t know what he sees in you,” Amy said. “Weak little prissy little thing like you? Pfffa. Pat’s fine.”

Amy took a few steps forward, and Carmen backed away from her – into the box. She was surrounded on all sides except one by the box – and Amy was standing between her and the only way out. Amy switched the gun to a one handed grip, still keeping it trained on Carmen, and reached down to pick up a matching panel from the floor. As Amy lifted the panel up, Carmen saw how it tabs on the thing would drive right into sockets in the walls of the cage she was in. Insert tab a into slot b, part of her mind gibbered at her. The panel would lock into place as soon as Amy shoved hard on it. There was no door. Someone would have to cut her out.

Carmen saw more movement behind Amy. Jacob had slipped out of his hiding spot. Was he coming to help her? She had to hope he was. Maybe she could buy him some time?

“Amy, there’s no holes. You can’t – I’ll suffocate!” Carmen said. The fear in her voice wasn’t feigned.

Amy ignored her words and kept pushing the wall up higher. “It’s not airtight. It’ll be kinda dark, and you might get a bit thirsty, but you’ll last a while. The shuttle will be here in two days. You’re insurance.”

There was only the smallest gap between the wall and the rest of the box. If Carmen was going to do anything at all, it had to be now. If she was insurance, she was betting that Amy wasn’t actually planning on shooting her. The gun had to be at least partly a bluff.

She was breathing so fast that she was almost hyperventilating. A few more inches, and Amy would lock her in. Was she the sort of person who sat, helpless? Or could she do something?

Carmen took a deep breath and rushed forward at the panel, hitting it near one of the sides. Amy was lifting from the middle, so the whole panel twisted in place, and then she was out! She tumbled out of the confined space and lost her balance, not used to moving so fast and hard in the low gravity. Carmen fell hands-first to the floor. She scrambled to get back to her feet as quickly as she could.

“I told you to stay put!” Amy shouted, swinging the pistol at Carmen’s head. Carmen ducked, barely avoiding the weapon.

Carmen hit the ground and pushed off hard with both hands. The force of the push was enough to launch her into the air. Amy’s backswing with the pistol missed her as she dodged backward.

“Stupid bitch. I don’t need you alive that badly,” Amy said. She leveled the pistol at Carmen. Carmen dove sideways, trying to get one of the work benches between the her and the gun.

There was a loud metallic thunk.

Carmen stood up and peeked over the edge of the bench. Jacob was standing there, a heavy wrench in his hands. Amy was laying on the floor. She wasn’t quite out – she was still moaning softly. Either Jacob hadn’t hit her that hard, or she really was just that tough. Time to make sure she didn’t cause any more trouble for the immediate future.

“What’s going on, Carmen?” Jacob asked.

“No time. Help me get her in the box,” Carmen replied. She dashed forward to grab one of Amy’s arms. She didn’t really need Jacob’s help – she’d forgotten again how light everything was here. But he grabbed the other arm anyway. Together they pulled Amy into the crate, and then quickly locked the final panel into place. The tabs clicked into their slots with a finality that made Carmen shiver. That had almost been her.

“Now, can you tell me what’s going on?” Jacob asked.

“I wish I knew,” Carmen said. “It sounds like some of Amy’s family hijacked the shuttle.”

“That shouldn’t even be possible.”

“Tell me about it. But that’s what she told me,” Carmen said. “I need to call Earth.”

“Come on. I’ll help you set up a satellite link,” Jacob said.

The call didn’t take long. Jacob had managed to stay standing through the first couple of minutes, but had plopped himself down heavily into a chair part way through. Carmen didn’t blame him. If she hadn’t been sitting from the beginning of the call, she would have lost her feet too. As it was, she couldn’t believe what she was being told.

“So this colonel has taken over the shuttle, and they’re on their way here?” she asked.

“That’s right.” The voice on the radio was a Doctor Melissa Sanders, directing the efforts in Florida to piece together how this had happened. “Dr. Rosa is aboard. Your father’s safety is of great importance, of course – but we don’t know if anyone aboard is infected. Keeping the moon virus free is the most crucial thing.”

“Why is keeping the moon virus free more important than saving the man working on the cure?” Carmen demanded. Although she had an inkling, she wanted to hear it from this woman.

“If you’re half as bright as your records say you are, then you already know the answer to that,” Sanders said.

“The extra domes,” Carmen said.

“Yes. And we have another hundred more domes, ready to launch. And a list of names of people to live in them. It’s not as long a list as we’d like, but it’s shorter than a lot of people who aren’t on it want.”

Carmen leaned back in her seat, exhaling hard. This was all going too fast. “You’re really that sure that the virus can’t be cured?”

There was a long pause on the other end, and Carmen thought for a moment that she’d lost the transmission somehow. When Sanders finally replied, she sounded utterly defeated. “We had all our hopes riding on the one immune human we’d found. With him dead… I think the odds of seeing a vaccine anytime soon are too slim to count on.”

“But I think I know how that teenager’s immunity worked,” Carmen blurted.

Dead silence again. Then, “Miss Rosa. Are you sure you have this on frequency hop? Is this secure?”

Carmen looked over at Jacob, who nodded vigorously. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said.

“You say you know how the immunity worked. How?”

“I read over the data you sent to my father,” Carmen said. She decided it was time to spill everything she had discovered. If anything happened to the base out here, then at least someone back on Earth could pick up the baton. “It’s pretty obvious if you look at the slides. The boy’s cells were stopping the virus from escaping infected cells, giving the immune system time to destroy the compromised cells.”

“Shit. If you’re right… How does this help the vaccine?” Sanders asked.

“I thought you were a doctor? Carmen asked, suddenly a little suspicious.

“Of engineering, damn it. How does it help?”

“Oh,” Carmen said. She grinned a little. Time to explain in layman’s terms. “It won’t help with a vaccine. It might help with a cure. I’ll send the data we have so far down to you.”

“But you might be close?” Sanders pressed.

“We might have a workable cure in a few days. It might take a few weeks.” Carmen shook her head to clear it. “Hard to say. I need to get back to the lab and direct people.”

“All right, Dr. Rosa,” Sanders said. Carmen noted the change from ‘miss’ to ‘doctor’. Apparently she’d gone up a rank in importance? “Do what you can. I’ll get your data to the doctors down here. In the meantime, you need to prevent the shuttle from infecting your base. If this cure fails, the moon might be the last chance humanity has.”

“How are we supposed to stop them, if they decide to land here?” Carmen asked.

“We’re working on that. We’ve got some ideas down here. We’ll let you know as soon as we have something more solid.”

“OK. We’ll be standing by,” Carmen said.

What else could they do? She thought of Patrick, stuck up on that shuttle with a bunch of people who were going to be getting increasingly desperate. And if any of them were infected, they’d become dangerous – unstable. She shivered, hoping none of them had been crazy enough to bring the virus onto the shuttle.

P
ATRICK COULD feel
the tension ratcheting up to intolerable levels. Something was going to burst soon. He had a bad feeling in his gut that someone was going to die. He gave a subtle twist of his body, changing his drift slightly so that he was gliding close to Rosa. Damn it, but he’d worked hard enough to keep the old man alive for Carmen. He couldn’t let him catch a bullet now.

“Ed. I am so very disappointed in you,” Pierce said.

“I did everything you asked!” Ed replied. He crossed his arms over his chest, the picture of righteous indignation spoiled badly by how green his face looked. The man was space-sick.

Pierce wasn’t. He’d probably been smart and given himself a shot before they took off. Patrick doubted that Ed and his people had been given access to any anti-nausea medications.

“Well, you took the shuttle, yes,” Pierce said. “But you killed the kid. The one we needed to make a cure? Yeah, he’s dead.”

It was impossible to miss the menace building in Pierce’s voice. Ed hadn’t missed it, either. His fingers went creeping toward the pistol holstered at his side. But if Patrick had seen that motion, what was the chance that a trained soldier like Pierce hadn’t seen it?

“That wouldn’t be so bad, Ed. Because there’s no virus on the moon,” Pierce said, his voice silky-smooth and deadly as a cobra’s hiss. “But then you brought it up here with us!”

He didn’t give any warning. Pierce simply drew his pistol and fired, timing the shot with the last word of his sentence. Ed saw the draw in progress and tried to bring out his own weapon, but it caught in his holster, and Pierce’s shot sent him tumbling. Big round balls of blood spilled from Ed’s chest and back. He tumbled feet over head, spinning around a full circle. Still bleeding, he managed at last to draw his own weapon.

Pierce saw the threat and fired twice more, blowing two more holes in the man. Ed managed to return fire with only a single shot that zipped by a foot from Pierce’s head.

Pat tried to cover Rosa as soon as the gunfire erupted, shoving the old man out of the way against a bulkhead. “Pierce!” he shouted. “Are you insane? Shooting the wrong thing in this shuttle and you kill all of us!”

Pierce chuckled. “No worries,” he said, waving his pistol in the air. “Frangible rounds. The bullets will break apart if they hit something. I’m not going to punch any holes in your precious hull.”

“You’re not,” Patrick said, pointing a finger at Pierce. Then he jabbed it at Ed’s body instead. “But what about him?”

Pierce blinked and looked over his shoulder, glancing to see where the Ed’s round had impacted. Patrick almost went for the man then, but Pierce still had two guards standing by. There wasn’t much point in trying to fight them three against one, not when they had all the weapons.

“Shit,” Pierce said.

Pat didn’t like the sound of that. And Pierce wasn’t coming back aft toward them, either. “Stay here,” he said to Rosa. Then he pushed off, heading toward the cockpit. One of Pierce’s guards looked like he might try to stop him, but he was already in motion, gliding down the center of the corridor, and these land-huggers were clinging to bars on the walls. Patrick remembered how daring Carmen had been, even in those first hours in space. She hadn’t needed to cling to the walls – she’d instinctively tried to learn to fly. It took a special sort of person to do that. In his experience, most people clung to something solid, just like these soldiers.

Maybe he’d known Carmen was something special right from the beginning, then.

He reached out and used a rail to stop his forward momentum, coming to a halt a bit behind Pierce. He didn’t want to startle the man – he’d already proven willing to use that pistol. Patrick didn’t want to give him an excuse.

He didn’t need to get closer, anyway. From where he was, he could see into the cockpit over Pierce’s shoulder. And what he could see looked pretty bad.

Pierce was checking the pulse of his pilot, who was slumped forward against the console. Pat could already tell that there wasn’t going to be a pulse. Huge balls of blood floated near the dead pilot, and more oozed out of a wound in his chest. Ed’s round had done damage after all. Pat scanned the cockpit window for cracks or a hole, but it seemed intact. The exit wound from the front of the pilot’s chest was said that the bullet had to have gone somewhere, though. Into the console? He couldn’t see to be sure.

“How bad is the console?” Patrick asked, in as calm and non-threatening a voice as he could muster.

Pierce still startled, his hand venturing close to the pistol he’d re-holstered at his side. Patrick held up both hands, palms facing Pierce. “Whoa. Just here to help,” he said.

“The console?” Pierce asked. “How the hell am I supposed to know? Get me a medic!” he roared over his shoulder to the men down the hall.

“I think it’s too late for a medic,” Patrick said. He could smell singed electronics. A short? If it was still sparking, it could start a fire. He needed to get in there and take a look.

Pierce yanked the dead man free from the seat, sending globs of blood floating around the compartment. “Gah. Hate this no gravity shit,” he said.

“The air scrubbers will clean most of it up,” Pat said. He helped ease the body backwards down the hall, out of the compartment – out of his way. Once it was clear, he slipped forward to check the panel. It had a hole in it, and he thought he could see the tiniest wisp of smoke drifting from the hole. Possibly still a short, then. He yanked out an emergency kit and opened it, digging inside for the screwdriver set.

“You’re a pilot, right?” Pierce asked. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Taking off this panel before the short in the console ignites the whole thing and we end up with a raging fire in the cockpit. All right with you?” Patrick asked, trying hard to scrub the irony from his tone. He didn’t think he’d done a very good job, but it seemed like Pierce didn’t mind, or was too distracted to notice.

“Fine. But when you’re done with that, you’ll take over flight duties,” Pierce said.

“And why would I help you?” Pat asked, breathing hard while he lifted away chunks of the console. It was weightless, sure, but it still had mass. Moving it around was a pain. Pulling the panel out without bashing it into any of the other delicate bits in the cockpit was proving challenging.

“Because if you won’t help me, I don’t really need you alive,” Pierce said.

Pat found the bullet, lodged in a tangle of wires. The thing must have shorted out half of the controls. This wasn’t going to be an easy repair. He could still fly the shuttle from the other panel, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

“If the doctor is right, we’re all dead anyway,” Pat said.

“I find myself too attached to my skin to give it up quite that quickly,” Pierce replied.

Pat looked up at the man. He was clearly scared, and out of his depth. He’d taken some insane chances, seizing the shuttle. Pierce must really believe in his gut that this virus spelled the end of everything, or at least the end of civilization as it had been. He was a fanatic. Nothing Pat said was going to deter him from his course. And hell, even if he refused to fly the shuttle, Pierce might get lucky, land safety, and infect everyone at the moon base. Kill all of them. Kill Carmen.

Patrick gritted his teeth. He couldn’t let that happen. And there was only one thing he could think of which might prevent it.

“Yeah, I’m attached to mine, too. I’ll fly for you,” Patrick said. He reached out his hand to Pierce. Pierce took his hand and shook it – gently, so they didn’t go spinning.

“Welcome to the team then – pilot,” Pierce said.

* * *

C
armen paced back and forth
. Everyone in the lab was staying away from her, giving her some space. She couldn’t blame them, and felt a pang of guilt at the thought. She’d nearly chewed the head of one of the lab assistants. Metaphorically, thank goodness, but it still wasn’t going to help her win any popularity contests. Why did everything have to take so damned long, though?

She had to wait to get results of their tests. She had to wait to hear from Earth about what was happening on the shuttle. Worst, she knew which of those two waits was worrying her more, and she felt guilty for putting Patrick above the rest of humanity. Which didn’t stop her from worrying more about what was happening to him than she did about the cure they were working on.

So when Jacob’s voice came over the PA: “Carmen Rosa, please report to the control room,” she could sense but not quite hear the sigh of relief around the room. She didn’t want to leave – but she had to find out what news Jacob had gotten. She looked up and saw Dr. Farmer nodding at her. Vigorously.

“But...”

She didn’t a chance to finish before he cut her off. “Young lady, I’ve been doing this work since you were in diapers. You showed us where to look, but you’re responsible for the whole base now. Go do your job, let us handle this one.”

That was still a lot to take in. In charge of the project to find a cure, that she could wrap her head around. But when Sanders put her in charge of the whole base – that was overwhelming, somehow. If things continued to go south on Earth, the moon would be humanity’s last refuge. And she was now its custodian. Carmen breathed in deeply – she was going to hyperventilate if she kept thinking down that path.

“OK. But give me a call as soon as we have anything,” Carmen said.

“Of course,” Farmer replied. His tone implied that was obvious, and was just the smallest bit patronizing.

Carmen narrowed her eyes. “I mean it. Any results, I want to see them right away.”

Farmer smiled. “So like your father, you are. Yes, I’ll call you myself. Now get!”

She got.

Jacob was practically hopping from one foot to the other by the time Carmen made it to the control room. He was sitting at one of the consoles, wearing a headset. Listening to what? He pulled the headset from his ears as she walked in.

“You’ve got to hear this,” he said. He turned up a dial, and the radio started playing over the system’s speakers.

“…Wynn, flying the lunar shuttle on approach to moon base. We have at least three people on board sick with the virus. We’ve sustained damage to the cockpit, including to incoming radio, but can still control the ship well enough to land. Declaring an emergency, we will need medical attention on arrival, and probable quarantine. Arrival at the base in 46 hours. Repeating message. This is Patrick Wynn…”

Carmen’s first reaction was to look for a microphone, to reach out somehow and talk to Patrick. He was alive! Thank god. Even once she realized that this was just a recording, cycling over and over, she still felt a huge weight come off her shoulders. He was alive. Now, how to reach him? They’d taken damage. Patrick couldn’t receive a message from her even if she sent it. How had the ship been damaged? And the virus was on the ship! She wanted to burst into tears, torn between relief he was alive and fear that he soon would not be. It was too damned much.

Then her next reaction was anger. The shuttle had been taken. The terrorists who’d taken it had been stupid enough to kill one of their best chances at working out the cure quickly, and then they’d brought the virus on board, too? How stupid could they be? And now Pat was helping these people land here and infect everyone else at the base?

“I’ll kill him myself,” she growled. How dare he risk the lives of everyone here? Carmen felt a deep pang. She’d thought he was made of better stuff than that.

Jacob shook his head at her. “You won’t have to. Look here,” he said.

He was pointing at a screen display showing a bunch of math and the shuttle’s approach vector to the moon. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “What does it say?” she asked.

Jacob looked startled, but then grinned. “I forget not everyone is geeky about the same things I am,” he said, amused. Then his smile vanished and he got serious again. “Pat’s lying.”

His words sent chills down Carmen’s arms.

“What do you mean, he’s lying?” she asked, not really wanting to know the answer – because whatever it was, Jacob’s tone promised that it was far worse than what she already knew.

“You’re angry at him because he said he’s coming here with infected people, right?” he asked.

Carmen nodded, amused that the tables had turned. When they’d first met, she was angry with Pat because he hadn’t brought an infected stowaway to the moon. Now she was angry because he was. Funny how fast things – and people – could change.

“Well, you can stop being mad then. He’s not coming here. Look at the course,” Jacob said, pressing a few buttons. The expected vector of the shuttle tracked out ahead of it on the screen, projecting its path. It would reach the moon, all right. It would come almost close enough to kiss. But then the shuttle veered off away from Earth and the moon entirely – headed for deep space.

“What does that mean? What’s he doing?” Carmen asked.

“He’s coming close enough to the moon that he’ll fool anyone watching over his shoulder, unless they’re a pilot themselves. They’re all going to think he’s taking them right here – up until he uses the moon’s gravity to sling the shuttle away from us. With a lot more velocity, too.”