Over the Moon (Star-Crossed Book 1) (16 page)

He held her gaze for a moment, as if sizing her up. “I wish I could go along,” he said.

“So do I. But I need you down here to handle the remote access on the shuttle. I won’t be able to control the airlock.”

“Someone else? Anyone else?”

“They’d all try to talk me out of it,” she said. “And Patrick doesn’t have time for me to convince them.”

He nodded, the gesture an admission of defeat as much as of her being right. Carmen smiled, feeling a warmth toward the young man who’d helped her out so much. She stepped over to him and wrapped him in a hug.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Get going,” he grumbled. But he was smiling.

She headed down the hall away from the control room. In Pat’s research lab, the little prison was still standing. She tip-toed past it without turning on the lights, trying not to disturb Amy, but the woman must have heard something. Amy started banging on the inside of the wall.

“Let me out, damn it! Let me out!”

Carmen ignored her and kept walking. Amy could get out when they had someone up here to take her into custody more properly. The last thing she wanted was that woman wandering free on the base making more trouble. She walked on through the lab, the light from the hall casting long shadows. She reached the Hopper bay at last, placing her hand on the panel. It lit up, casting a dim glow into the alcove.

“Going someplace?” a man’s voice drawled.

Carmen jumped, whirling around. She pulled the only weapon she had from her pocket – an auto-injector loaded with medicine.

“Gonna stab me to death with your needle?” Fred asked, looking down at the thing.

“Not unless I have to,” she replied. “Why are you here?”

“You’re go’in up to help Pat, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” Fred said. He made it a simple statement of fact.

Carmen thought about it a moment. Having someone else along would improve her odds of success. But Fred and Amy had been close friends. She jerked her thumb back over her shoulder at Amy’s prison.

“How do I know you’re not working with her?” Carmen asked.

“Because if I was, I’d have let her out,” Fred said, his voice still bland and matter-of-fact. And it was a fair answer. Carmen had one other question, though.

“The shuttle is full of the virus, Fred. I can give you a dose of my cure, but it’s not been tested on humans yet. It might not work.”

“You think it works, though. You’re sure enough to be willin to risk your life to save him?” Fred asked.

Carmen nodded.

“Then I’m in.”

She made her decision. If he was willing to put his life on the line to help Pat, who was she to say no? She put away the injector and pulled out a smaller one. Grasping it firmly, she took a step toward Fred. He shied away, holding his hands up.

“Wait, what’s that?” he asked.

“I need to give you a dose of the cure as a prophylactic. To stop the virus before it really starts to get going,” she said. She bared her sleeve, showing a mark on her arm. “See? Already gave myself a dose, too.” She stepped in close and grabbed his wrist in a tight grip. He sighed and winced theatrically as she shoved the needle into his arm.

“The things I do,” he said. “We ready now?”

“Yes.” Carmen placed her hand on the panel, which lit up again and opened the hatch. On the other side of the hatch was Hopper One – fueled and ready to go. She stepped inside and took the pilot’s seat. Fred followed her and sat down in the other chair. Carmen put on one of the headsets resting on the console and brought the computer to life.

“Base, this is Hopper One, radio check,” she said.

“Hopper One, read you clearly,” Jacob replied.

“Base, I’ve got a passenger. Fred’s coming along. Is that going to mess with your math?”

There was a pause. “No, we’re good,” Jacob replied. “You two sure you want to do this?”

Carmen’s hands shook a little, and she wished more than anything that people would stop asking her if she was sure. Of course she wasn’t sure! She didn’t know if the cure would work. She didn’t know if the Hopper could actually link with the shuttle as it approached the moon. She didn’t know if she could get aboard, and didn’t know if they could save Pat and her father even if she did manage to board the shuttle.

None of that mattered. It was time to go.

“We’re ready, base,” she said. “Uncoupling now.” She pulled a lever and the electro-magnets holding the Hopper against the base shut off. The drifted the short distance to the ground.

“We’re on the ground, base. Handing over control to you,” Carmen said.

Fred looked over at her, alarmed. “Say what?”

“Pat’s got the shuttle coming in at top speed. We have to take the Hopper higher and faster than anyone’s ever taken one before. Jacob explained it to me by saying it’s like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet. You feel up to doing that yourself?” she asked.

“Oh, shit,” Fred said. He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes.

“Hopper One, you are lifting off in five..four..three..two…”

Carmen missed hearing Jacob say the word ‘one’. When she should have heard it, she was distracted by what felt like a huge hand slapping her down into her seat. The pressure stayed there, becoming a weight pressing down hard. Carmen had to fight for every breath. All around her, the Hopper was shaking hard, making rattling and groaning noises as the thrusters poured on more speed than the thing had ever been designed to handle. Pat had said these little bubbles were tough. Today, she was putting that to the test.

Red pooled at the periphery of her vision, and black spots danced in front of her eyes. There was a roaring sound in her ears. Carmen was grateful that she didn’t have to steer the ship. She could barely move a finger, and it was getting so hard to take even the smallest, gasping breath. Then suddenly she couldn’t breathe at all. Her efforts to suck in air were useless – nothing in her body wanted to work. Her lungs screamed for air, and she strained to take in even the smallest bit. Carmen wanted to yell, to scream, to tell Jacob to slow them down, that they were dying! But her lungs were empty. She had nothing left to shout with. The black spots moving in front of her eyes grew larger, until they swallowed up everything.

P
ATRICK WOKE UP
to another buzzing alert. He reached out an exhausted arm to silence the thing – and then woke the rest of the way once he saw what the computer was alerting him about. A proximity alarm? Out here? He shook his head to try clearing it. The drug Rosa had given him was still helping some, but he still felt awful. He slipped another of the pills out of his pocket and swallowed it.

Next to him, the soldier who was supposed to be guarding him looked a lot worse. He was red, flushed, his eyes closed. His breath was ragged – not gasps, but not a healthy sound, either. Pat sighed. Not much he could do for the kid but let him sleep through it. He shut off the audible alert and pulled up the screen for nearby space. Something small had matched course and speed with them. Even as he watched, it was sliding up alongside the cargo airlock.

Pat flicked on an external camera. It was a Hopper! Someone from the base? What they hell were they doing up here? Some sort of rescue? Crazy people. Pierce would kill them.

He had a sudden horrible thought that one of the Hopper’s passengers was Carmen. He didn’t know why he thought that – although it was certainly her style. She was the sort of woman who’d go launch an impossible rescue mission if given even half a chance. How the hell had they even gotten a Hopper up here, anyway? They weren’t spaceships – they were meant to flit around on the moon.

He couldn’t let Carmen do it. He yanked the ship sideways, trying to pull away from the Hopper. It followed, and even as it came closer Pat was horrified to see the cargo airlock doors opening. They were opening the doors remotely!

Quickly Pat punched up the error code’s he’d been getting before – little flashes of light on his dashboard, in a repeating pattern. He cursed quietly. The fever really had messed with his brain – he should have seen this right away. Long and short flashes – they’d been sending him a coded message. He didn’t remember Morse code, but he ran the flashes through he computer and got an answer quickly enough.

Cure.

Hope hit him like a hammer. If Carmen had a cure, maybe they could get out of this yet. Maybe they could all survive this mess after all. He stopped jerking the controls around, and the Hopper dashed into the bay, braking gently before activating electro-magnets to lock itself to the ship’s hull. The airlock doors closed, although the inner ones stayed shut.

Whoever they were, they’d come aboard now. The real question was, how could he help them against Pierce and his men? He thumbed through the cameras, fingers fumbling with the console controls. Pat cursed under his breath. He should be able to do this blindfolded! He rubbed his forehead, wiping sweat away from his brow. A few droplets went spinning away, the lack of gravity causing them to drift in little free-falling balls of smelly water…

Pat snapped his focus back to the task. His mind was starting to drift. The fever was burning through even the meds Rosa had given him. He tried to remember how long it had been since he’d last taken a pill, but couldn’t. Didn’t matter anyway – what was a little kidney damage if he was dying anyway? He took the pill.

He knew it would take a while to work, but just the act of taking it seemed to help him focus again. His fingers found their way to the controls with some semblance of their old, practiced routines. He tapped into the camera in the airlock. There was the Hopper. As he watched, the hatch started to open up – and Carmen pushed her way out of the vehicle into the open space of the airlock. For a moment he hoped that he was having fever dreams. This was something out of a nightmare. She wasn’t even wearing a helmet! If one of Pierce’s crew spotted the Hopper, or her, and opened the airlock… It was the worst thing he could imagine.

His fingers flew over the keyboard, executing the commands to open the airlock door. There! He reached out to press the button to execute the command – but someone slapped his hand away from the console. Then another blow landed, this one on the side of his head, just under his eye. Pat’s head snapped sideways, and if it hadn’t been for the straps holding him in his seat he’d have been knocked into the wall.

He looked up, trying to see through the stars dancing across his vision. It was Pierce who’d struck him, Pierce who’d picked the worst possible moment to come check on the situation in the cockpit. Pierce who was staring down at him, his face flushed red, a muscle in his cheek twitching – and the first hint of bruises showing around his eyes. The virus was making his brain bleed.

“Knew I couldn’t trust you,” Pierce said, taking another swing.

Pat managed to bring his arm up in time to stop the blow. His other hand went to the buckle holding him strapped to his chair. He needed mobility – right now! Pierce didn’t know much about moving in space. But he was strong – and the virus was going to make him more dangerous and unpredictable than ever.

Pat slipped off the straps just as Pierce slammed two more blows in on his head. But this time, he wasn’t stuck in place. Pat rolled with the first punch, letting the impact push him out of the way. The second barely connected at all.

Pat lashed out with one foot as he slid backward toward the wall. His boot connected with Pierce’s jaw, but the man rolled away from the impact. Pat braced both hands against the wall and kicked hard with both feet. He timed it right – Pierce was trying to close on him again, and his feet slammed into the man’s gut. Pierce grunted, and Pat could hear the air rushing out of his lungs as he flew backward again.

The soldier who’d been sleeping away in the chair was awake now, but groggy. He was working at the fastenings of his straps, trying to get free of the chair. Soon as he got up, he’d be another problem for Pat to deal with – one too many. He reached down and grabbed a wrench. He didn’t have time to aim too well before flinging it. He had to throw and pray. But his aim was good, and the thing cracked into the kid’s skull with a sickening sound. He was back out again.

Grounders would forget that just because something was weightless out here didn’t mean it lost its mass. A thrown steel tool still hurt.

Pat whirled back to his console. He had to do something to save Carmen. No time for anything fancy, but the commands he’d entered were still blinking there on his console. He pressed the execute button. The airlock doors started to open. Carmen pushed off toward the opening, and someone else was following close behind her – was that Fred? What the hell did the two of them hope to accomplish up here, anyway? His heart warmed to see her, but he wanted to shout to her, to tell her to run while she still could.

He heard movement to his left and looked up. Pierce was there, sailing through the cockpit toward him – the same wrench Pat had just thrown gripped tightly in his hand like a club. Pat cursed his luck – the tool must have bounced right where Pierce could grab it. He didn’t have time to move clear, so he raised his right arm to try to block.

The wrench slammed into his forearm, pain lancing through the limb, jarring him as far up as his shoulder. Worse, the blow sent him into a roll, spinning out of control toward the cockpit seat. He collided with it head first. Pat fought to get his feet between him and his attacker, but Pierce was too fast. He closed in before Pat had the chance to react. Again the wrench came crashing in toward Pat’s head. He tucked his head behind his arms, trying to protect his skull.

Pierce hammered blows against both his arms. Pat heard something crack with the third blow. The pain was more intense than anything he’d felt before, but he managed to deflect two more blows. Vainly he tried to push away, but Pierce grabbed his shipsuit by the collar. This close, Pierce couldn’t miss. The next wrench swing took Pat in the head, and he didn’t feel any more blows after that.

* * *

C
armen still felt more
than a little queasy. She was glad she hadn’t had to fly the Hopper – she’d never have been able. That red-out had turned into a blackout. Fred wasn’t any better off – both of them were knocked out, and only woke up after Jacob parked the Hopper in the big cargo airlock on the shuttle.

So they were in. And they’d had a real stroke of luck – somehow, the inner door was already opening. That was something Carmen had worried about. Fred assured her he could open the thing, hotwire it. But she was just as glad to see it already open and waiting for them.

“I’d go for it,” Jacob said over the radio bud in Carmen’s ear. “Whatever you do, don’t hang around in the airlock.”

Carmen privately seconded that motion. She couldn’t help but remember the first time she’d seen this space. She remembered the sick man, already dying, remembered her desperate rush to lock him in. It was like it all happened just yesterday. And she remembered Patrick ejecting the hapless man into space. She shuddered at the thought. Jacob was right. They were far too vulnerable here.

Fred wasn’t so sure. “It don’t smell right,” he said.

“I think it was Pat, trying to help us,” Carmen said. “But trap or not, we need to move. The bad guys might not know we’re here yet, but that won’t last.”

She pushed off for the doorway into the rest of the ship. It was hanging halfway open, like someone had pushed the button but was even now considering changing their minds. Carmen shook her head to clear the thoughts. They had to move, yes. But if she started thinking that the bogeyman was watching them, waiting to pounce… She just had to hope that it really was Pat who’d opened the doors, and was looking out for them.

Carmen looked back over her shoulder, realizing that Fred wasn’t with her. “You coming?” she called back softly. She didn’t want her voice to carry through the open airlock doors.

Fred was rubbing his arm where she’d injected him with her cure. “You sure that stuff will work?”

“Nope,” she replied. “But you’re already exposed either way. So you’d better hope it does.”

“Shit,” he replied. Then he shook himself like a dog shedding water, and pushed off from the Hopper to join her in a motion that seemed surprisingly graceful in such a big man. Fred glided to a stop alongside her and peeked his head out through the opening. He ducked back inside.

“Looks clear,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Without waiting for her answer, he darted through the gap into the cargo hold. Immediately gunfire ripped through the space he’d just been, bullets pinging off the cargo door. Carmen screamed – she couldn’t help it, the noise was too loud, too sudden. She dove back behind the cargo door, the steel reassuring against her back.

Where was Fred? Had he been hit? How many gunmen were out there? She thought it had sounded like only a single gun – so maybe just one person? But she’d never fired a weapon before. She was more than aware that most of her education on the subject came from bad movies. The sound effects from films didn’t do the real thing justice.

She didn’t have a weapon. None of them did, really. The best she could do was slide the large multi-dose injector she’d brought along out of her pocket and palm the thing. Carmen knew that scream had given away her position. Someone was going to come looking for her.

It only took a few moments. But it wasn’t the menacing figure she’d expected. A boy’s face appeared in the opening of the airlock, barely old enough to shave but still dressed in fatigues and carrying a rifle. He brought himself to a rough stop, only just catching hold with a free hand before he tumbled into the airlock. He clearly wasn’t too good at maneuvering in space yet. He swung his gaze around and saw Carmen, his eyes widening. They had the telltale raccoon mask. He was sick – very sick. He only had one hand on his weapon, and he seemed confused about how to grip it properly while still hanging on to the airlock door.

Carmen used his hesitation to her advantage. She reached out and grabbed the arm that was anchoring him in place with one hand, and then stabbed her hypodermic down with the other. The boy yelped – and let go out of reflex. He drifted, tumbling a few feet away from the door.

Carmen grabbed hold of the edge and darted inside. She glanced around, half expecting another shooter to open fire on her as soon as she came into sight. But there was only silence inside.

She knew just what to do this time, anyway. I quick push brought her to the airlock control panel, and she ran the sequence to close the door. It rumbled for a moment and then snapped shut. She heard the guy she’d locked inside yelp, and peeked in through the window to be sure he was all right.

He wasn’t really all right. The injection she’d given him had a sedative along with her cure. But the cure would take a good long while to work on him, if it could save him at all in this advanced stage of the disease. And the sedative would take a few minutes to work. In the meantime, the virus had him in a rage. His face was mottled with red, his mouth contorted into a grimace. He was yelling something – Carmen couldn’t hear what. But she saw the threat. He had his rifle in both hands now, aiming it at her. Before she could duck, he fired. The bullets hit the window and left star-shaped marks there. He saw that his bullets weren’t helping, and turned instead toward the Hopper. The first rounds bounced off, but if he kept shooting, he was going to eventually hit something vital in the small craft.