Over the Moon (Star-Crossed Book 1) (19 page)

Carmen screamed and kicked down hard. The first blow snapped his head back. She kicked him again and again with her free leg – and he lost his grip! Swiftly she drew her legs back away from him. The door, the door – she had to shut the door. She grabbed the big metal frame and started to swing it closed.

Pierce smashed into the door from below with enough force to send her flying back away from it. He slid up into the cockpit, a wicked grin on his face. Carmen backed away from him, but there wasn’t much space in here. No room to maneuver. Piece drew a knife from his belt.

“I’m going to cut you out of that space suit. And then I’m going to get real creative with you,” he said.

Carmen was breathing hard. She needed to keep a clear head, look for a way to get the advantage. She pulled out her injector and dialed up a huge dose. If she could get that into him, she might have a chance of keeping him off her long enough for the sedative to work.

Pierce saw the device and snarled. “Not going to help you, honey.” He dove in at her faster than she could react and slapped her hand, knocking the injector away. It slipped from her fingers and lodged against the console. Pierce continued his mad rush, his left hand trying to reach for Carmen’s throat, and not quite managing it thanks to the suit’s helmet. His right hand still held the knife. Pierce stabbed downwards, trying to slash at the fabric of Carmen’s suit. It seemed he planned to make good his threat, but Carmen didn’t want to wait around to see what his idea of creative might be.

She grabbed his right wrist with both of her hands, stopping the knife cold. Pierce snarled at her, and pulled back his left hand to punch her. He swung. She turned her head so that his fist impacted the hard side of her helmet instead of her face. He howled with pain and rage, twisting his knife hand. The point was only a few inches from her chest now, and he wasn’t trying to cut the suit anymore. He was driving the point straight in.

Carmen gasped for breath. Pierce’s sweat-stink filled her nostrils. His face was right there, inches from hers. She tried to slide away from him but he stayed close. Carmen’s back was against the window now. She had nowhere to run, and Pierce had his feet planted in the pilot’s seat, so he could push against her.

“Going to slice you right open,” he said.

Carmen gritted her teeth together to keep from screaming. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. She looked aside, trying to look away from the deadly knife.

And saw that Pierce still had his pistol in its holster.

She twisted sideways, taking one hand away from the knife. The blade skittered past her, striking hard against the window behind her. She had the butt of the pistol in her hand. Moving faster than she’d ever thought she could, she whipped the weapon up and brought it around to aim at Pierce.

He saw the threat and dropped his knife, grabbing for the gun. His hand slapped it sideways at the same moment as she pulled the trigger. The gun roared, deafening thunder. But the muzzle was turned. The bullet flew at the window, instead of at Pierce.

Carmen heard a crack behind her. Where the bullet impacted, a huge spider web of cracks grew. She had just enough time to slam down the faceplate of her helmet before the window blew apart into fragments, spinning out into space. Carmen fell halfway out the window before she managed to stop herself.

The air whooshed past her. Pierce tried to check his forward movement, fighting to hold on to his seat. Carmen brought a booted foot down on his face. Stunned, he released his grip and slammed into Carmen. Both of them rocketed out into space. She could see him mouthing something at her – she thought it was “you bitch”, but she couldn’t hear him in a vacuum. She shoved him away from her, hard, and he was already freezing up. He didn’t even struggle.

The shuttle glided away from her. When the decompression pushed her out of the cockpit, it shoved her away from the ship, too. The shuttle engines were still off. But it was going straight toward the moon, and she was now drifting off at a sharp angle into space.

Carmen looked at the moon, tracking the shuttle as it grew further away, and gulped. She’d never been out in space, not like this. She doubted she’d have turned down a spacewalk on a good day, but this was anything but.

“Someone will come back and grab me,” she said aloud, as much to hear a voice as anything else. Pat would be out for a while, but Fred was still awake, right? She fiddled with the radio controls, making sure it was operating well so that she could reach someone when they came back for her.

A beeping reached her ears. At first she thought it was the radio – someone trying to contact her already? Then she saw the icon flashing red on her helmet display. Low oxygen? She should still have some… She looked down at the little bottle, remembering how little had been left before. The suit must have continued pumping air out of the bottle even though her faceplate had been up.

She had less than ten minutes of air left.

P
AT’S FIRST SENSATION
was stinging pain on his right cheek. A moment later, the pain repeated itself on the other side. He opened his eyes, and saw Fred – about to take another swing at him. He reached up and blocked the slap. Then he reached over, grabbed Fred’s arm, and twisted – hard. Fred grunted but had no way to stop the spin. Pat let go and Fred crashed into the hallway ceiling.

“Damn it, Pat! That hurt,” Fred complained.

“So did the slaps,” Pat said. His head was still fuzzy. What the hell had happened? He looked around. The lights were all flashing red. Rosa was floating there, still tied up and unconscious. And a big collection of Pierce’s goons were here, too, all out cold. No sign of Pierce – or Carmen! Memory came flooding back. She’d injected him with something, and then started in on Pierce’s men. He’d fallen asleep.

“She drugged us?” Pat asked.

Fred nodded. “Didn’t have much choice. I watched it through the doors. She had to prove that the drug was safe, so she proved it on you. I brought you around with these,” he added, holding up a handful of spent epi-pens.

Pat grinned. His head still felt like it was full of mud, but he was awake. That was something. “Where is she? And where’s Pierce?”

Fred frowned. “Last I heard, she was up in the cockpit with Pierce in hot pursuit.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing?”

Fred waved his hands at the flashing lights. “See all those? The ship automatic alarms and emergency systems at work.”

“What happened?”

“Explosive decompression,” Fred said, each word grinding out like he didn’t want to say them. “In the cockpit. I checked the cameras – both she and Pierce were blown outside before the emergency doors shut.”

Outside meant a death sentence for Pierce. He hadn’t had a suit on. But Carmen had – she might still be alive out there. And the shuttle was getting further away every second that passed!

Pat’s head whirled as he tried to move too fast and his body just didn’t have the reaction time. He blinked back the grey at the edges of his vision. He didn’t have time for dizziness or nausea right now. Carmen needed him. “How long ago?”

“Maybe a minute,” Fred replied. “But all we had were bottles for air – mine ran out about ten minutes ago. Hers might last longer...”

“Get us slowing down and turn the shuttle around,” Pat said.

“Will do. What are you going to do?”

“Try to save her.”

Pat pushed off, darting up into the cargo hold. The red flashes made the place seem more ominous than he’d remembered, and the occasional dizzy spells weren’t helping. What the hell had she dosed them with, anyway? He still felt sick from the virus, and now he felt sick from her sedative, too. But the cure was real – he knew that much. Fred wouldn’t have come along on this hare-brained mission if he didn’t believe in Carmen’s cure.

Pat reached the cargo airlock where the Hopper was still waiting. He tapped controls on the console, and the inner doors opened back up. His eyebrows rose when he saw marks on the aluminum shell that looked like the result of automatic gunfire. Hopefully the thing would still fly! Only one way to find out. He slipped inside the Hopper and flipped a few switches, bringing the small craft to life.

All of the telltale lights on the control console glowed green. “Miraculous,” he muttered. They really had built the thing tough as nails.

He used the Hopper’s computer to cycle the airlock, closing the inner doors and opening the outer ones once the air was vented out. Pat cursed twice while the vents slowly did their work. He tapped his foot the entire time. Every second mattered right now. Every second put Carmen a little further away.

The moment that the outer doors were open enough to let the Hopper out, Pat released the magnetic locks on the hull and activated the thrusters. Acceleration shoved him back into his harness as he jetted clear of the shuttle. He got a quick glance at the cockpit. The window was a ruin. There was nothing left of it, and he could see how they would have been flung free.

He wasn’t going to find Pierce. The man’s body was lost out there in the black. But Carmen’s suit had a strong transponder. The Hopper was designed to be able to handle emergencies like this one. He could track her suit.

Pat’s fingers raced over the keys, setting up the system. There! He had a signal. It was miles back, faint with distance, but it had to be her. He cranked the thrusters up as high as they would go. The Hopper leapt toward her at his command, the shuttle vanishing from sight.

He turned on his radio and set it to the same channel Carmen’s suit would be using. “Carmen, can you hear me?”

No response.

Pat’s heart ached with fear. He had to be in time. She couldn’t be gone. He’d find her, get her into the Hopper somehow, and then…

How was he going to get her into the Hopper?

He didn’t have a space suit, and the Hopper didn’t have an airlock.

“Shit.”

It was too far to get her back to the shuttle. The thing was flying away from them at top speed. Fred would bring it back around, but it would take time – time Carmen didn’t have. She needed air. Which meant he needed to get her inside the Hopper fast. If her suit was empty, then every second counted. He was going to have to get creative.

There she was! He saw the glint of sunlight against her suit. “Carmen, I see you. Hold on. I’m coming,” he said into the radio microphone. Pat didn’t know if she could hear him or not. There wasn’t any response. He didn’t know if that was because her radio out, or if she’d passed out. How long had she been out there? How many minutes since her bottle had run dry?

He started to decelerate. If the Hopper was going too quickly he could smack right into her, or pass by completely. Carmen’s still form kept getting larger as he got closer. Just a little more reverse thrust… He slowed the Hopper down to a crawl and came up right alongside her. She still wasn’t moving. If she was conscious, she’d have done something – waved, wiggled, something. Pat’s heart was in his throat, seeing her drifting there motionless. She was only out here because of him.

A few keystrokes brought the electromagnets on the Hopper’s rear to life. A few gentle puffs of the thrusters brought those magnets close enough for them to pull the metal in Carmen’s suit close. There was a soft thudding sound as her suit came to rest against the Hopper.

Now for the hard part.

Pat’s hands raced over the keyboard, overriding safety features. Damned if they hadn’t made this hard to do, but he knew all the back doors to make things happen on this machine. Air began to hiss out of the Hopper back into the storage tanks. The air pressure gauge rapidly plummeted from one hundred percent downward. It started getting harder to breathe fast. Pat grabbed a small air tank from the emergency kit. The Hopper didn’t have a suit for him, but the air would keep him going. The pressure went below 50%. Pat staggered to the rear of the hopper. He wouldn’t have a lot of time. Even with oxygen, the low pressure would knock him out and then kill him if he didn’t reverse it fast. Sparks flashed in front of his eyes. He slapped the panel on the back of the ship, and the door slid open. Air rushed from the Hopper out into space, and the ship obligingly pumped more in, trying to keep the interior at forty percent pressure.

The result was a whirlwind, air pouring through the ship. Pat hoped that the lower pressure might keep the wind down just enough…

He reached through the opening into space. There was nothing out there but a long fall into forever. If he slipped, lost his grip on the ship, he’d drift away and die in minutes. One hand locked on a loop of Carmen’s space suit. He pulled, hard, and yanked her free of the magnets. With an effort he brought her the rest of the way into the hopper and slapped the panel to shut the door again. It slid shut, and the wind stopped.

Pat floated there a moment, shuddering, gasping. He wasn’t thinking clearly. The air was still too thin. He saw the oxygen mask, snatched it from where it was floating and took a breath. Cool air flowed into his lungs, and almost instantly he felt a little stronger. His fingers hurt where he’d grabbed Carmen’s suit. He ignored the pain and pushed himself back to the controls, reset the atmosphere to normal. Air hissed back into the cabin.

Carmen still wasn’t moving. She was in her suit – he had to get her out! He grasped the helmet and worked the catches free. The movement was difficult – his right hand was stiff, as well as sore, and swollen. The helmet came free. There wasn’t a hiss. Her air bottle had been completely empty.

Pat looked down. Carmen wasn’t breathing. He felt for a pulse in her neck, and for a terrible moment couldn’t find one. There it was! His own heart leapt in his chest. Her heart still beat, but he needed to get her breathing again. He pushed Carmen against the wall of the Hopper and braced her there carefully, one of his arms holding both of them in place while the other tilted her chin up. He took a deep breath – the air in the Hopper was blessedly back to normal. He brought his lips to hers. She was still warm. He remembered their first kiss, and hoped more than he’d ever wished for anything that this wouldn’t be their last.

He exhaled into her mouth, and felt her lungs expand. Pat took another breath, and exhaled between her lips again, breathing for her.

He waited, watching to see if there was any reaction. His fingertips found her pulse more easily this time. Was her heart beating a little more strongly? He took another breath, placed his mouth over hers, and exhaled again. Her lungs rose, fell. He took a deep breath and went to breathe for her again, but as soon as his lips brushed hers, Carmen began to cough. Patrick held her gently as her body took over breathing again. He brought he oxygen mask up to her mouth and held it there while she took long, gasping breaths.

Carmen opened her eyes. Her smile broke his world and remade it again in an instant.

“I love you,” he said.

Her smile grew. “I know,” she mouthed.