Over the Moon (Star-Crossed Book 1) (2 page)

Carmen nudged herself away from the door gently. The huge room presented an interesting puzzle. The galley - where presumably she could get some water - was almost directly across from her. But how best to get from here to there? If she pushed off too hard, she'd never break in time. But she didn't want to end up suspended in mid-air. She'd already been rescued once in the last fifteen minutes. Requiring a second save from another crew member would be more embarrassment than she could stand.

This wasn't space. Carmen knew the air in the compartment would slow her down. But how much? She wasn't sure. It was hard to gauge how fast to push off. There might be another way, though. She eyed the tables and chairs, all carefully attached to the hull. They had to be for the passengers, to give them the feel of a meal. The tables all had velcro on their surfaces to keep things from drifting away, and the seats all had straps to hold someone in place while they dined.

A gentle nudge pushed her off toward the nearest table. She caught hold with her right hand, and brought herself to a stop. Carmen exhaled, smiling. This was going to work! She shoved off toward the next table, pushing a little harder this time. Again, she caught herself just fine.

"Heads up!"

She looked to see where the voice was coming from, and spotted a man wearing the shipsuit of a crew member. He had pushed off from the same doorway she'd come through, but he hadn't given himself a gentle nudge. He'd kicked away hard, flipped end over and, and was gliding past her feet first. He caught the edge of a chair with a grace that made her envious and brought himself to a stop just a couple of feet from where she clung to the edge of her table.

He was around thirty, she guessed. Red hair, cut short - most of the full time spacers seemed to keep their hair cropped fairly short, she'd noticed. He had a little beard growth, just some stubble from a day or two without shaving. And he was wearing a smile that made her stomach do flips.

"Trying to get over to the galley?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied. She wasn't doing that badly, either. She'd figured out how to get there, right?

"Want to take the fast way?" he asked, still smiling.

“Um. OK?” Was she babbling? What was he asking about? What fast way?

“You’ll need to let go of that,” he said, gently pulling her fingers from the table. “Hold on to my hand.”

She wrapped her fingers around his. His hand was larger than hers, warm, and solid feeling. He slid closer to her, and gently took hold of a loop on the side of her suit. Then he kicked hard, carrying them both away from the table, out into the middle of the room.

Carmen held back a squeal of glee, but only just.

It was like flying. The closest thing she’d ever felt to how she imagined the birds must travel. They flew across the room, tables zipping by under and above them. He looked at her, and must have seen something of her joy in her expression, because his face lit up with a smile that touched her heart.

Then they were almost across. He swung his legs around, bent his knees a bit, and absorbed the impact from the landing into his legs. They both began to rebound, and Carmen started to wonder if they’d drift back out and need a rescue. But he caught a rail with one hand, still holding her with the other, and swung them both down to the large window looking into the galley.

“What can we get you?” asked a man in a white ship’s uniform inside the kitchen.

“Just water for me, please,” Carmen said.

The white-suited man looked at her companion. “Coffee for you, right Patrick?”

“Yup. Black, and -”

“Sweet. Yeah. You ask for it the same way every time, Pat. Not gonna forget.”

The galley crewman handed her a small plastic ball, about the size of a softball. It was translucent plastic, filled with what looked like water, and felt squishy. He placed the thing in her hands carefully, and she held on to it with just as much care. It looked a little like the squeeze bottles of lemon juice you might see in a supermarket, complete with a pull-out drinking spout on one end. The familiar shape and unfamiliar purpose was a little jarring, but she carefully pulled the drinking bit out and experimentally brought it to her lips. She sucked gently through the tube and got a trickle of fluid - cold water. Sucking harder got an even faster flow.

She was thirstier than she'd realized, and drank half the bulb before she remembered the tylenol. She downed the two tablets with some more water, although she was pretty sure her headache was already less severe than it had been. Carmen was glad she seemed able to adapt quickly to being in space. She might be up here for quite a while.

The two crewmen were still chatting, so this seemed like a decent time to slip away and check on the medical supplies back in the cargo area. She glanced back at the one who'd helped her across the room - Patrick. Her hand still felt warm where he'd held it, and she rubbed the spot self-consciously. Carmen turned away, hoping that she wasn't blushing enough to be noticed.

The cargo section was just to the rear of the one she was in. She spotted a tube-like corridor leading in the right direction, and pushed herself off gently in that direction. She managed to land about where she aimed and stopped herself by grabbing a rail. She'd get the hang of this yet!

The tube was easy. It was designed for crew to get from one end to the other without too much trouble. The lighting flickered on as she went down, automatic sensors detecting her movement and turning on the lights. The ship wasn't some maze you could get lost in, after all. It was more like a huge airliner.

At the far end of the tube was a closed hatch, and this one didn't open as soon as she reached it. She looked around for the display - all passengers were briefed before takeoff on basic ship safety, which included checking the atmosphere display on all closed hatches. You didn't want to open a door if there wasn't enough air on the other side.

But the display was showing green - which meant equal atmosphere on both sides of the door. Why wasn't it opening for her? She examined the display panel, and saw a little padlock symbol. She pressed the symbol, and it vanished, to be replaced by a display of numbers, like a pin-pad. Password locked. To keep out whom? Everyone on this mission was carefully vetted before launch. It wasn't like people were going to steal anything. Where were they going to take their ill-gotten gains on the moon, anyway?

She recalled an old trick from college, and wondered if the same thing might work here. The panel was a flat pane of glass. Carefully, she pulled herself close to the glass, took a deep breath, and exhaled. Her breath misted the glass – except where oil from peoples’ fingers lingered on the glass. Sure enough, there were four buttons with oil on them: one, two, three, and four. She chuckled. It couldn’t really be that simple, could it? But then, she seemed to remember reading somewhere that the most common password was ‘password’. So maybe?

She pressed the buttons on the panel: one, two, three, and then four, in order. The door beeped, the lock symbol vanished from the screen, and the hatch hissed open. She was in! Before the door could change its mind – and before someone spotted her and told her not to go back there – she pulled herself through the doorway and into the cargo hold.

It was always easier to beg forgiveness for something than it was to ask for permission.

C
ARMEN STAYED
close to the wall in the cargo area. She’d never been down here before, but the map on her tablet said that it was one extremely large room. It was hard to tell that from where she was, though. The entire are seemed filled with crates, lashed to the walls and floor with thick nylon straps. Between the rows of cargo containers were alleys that she could float through – but not a lot of space for seeing what was about.

In fact, the place was pretty simple. The containers were laid out in rows, with alleys between the rows. She pulled herself along, looking to see if she could figure out how the place was organized, but whatever system they used was beyond her. She was still curious about finding her father’s lab gear, but it looked like everything was packed in pretty well back here. There wasn’t going to be much risk of things flying about and being damaged.

Something clinked, the sound of metal on metal echoing up through the rows of crates.

The sound caught Carmen’s complete attention. What could it have been? Something badly packed and falling over? Maybe there were rats in here, floating around confused without gravity. The image of rats drifting about in the hold, pinwheeling their little legs as they tried to run in the air made her chuckle.

She was curious, so she pulled herself along down the row of crates, in the direction she thought the sound had likely come from. And then there was another clattering sound, a lot like the first. It was close – had to be in just the next row over. She drifted that way.

It was the wall of the cargo area. And not just any wall. Just ahead of her Carmen could see the huge cargo airlock – a set of double doors big enough to handle the enormous crates stored inside. They looked large enough to pass a small shuttlecraft. Right now, the inner door stood open, while the outer airlock door was closed.

Another clatter. This time, Carmen could be sure. The sound was coming from inside the cargo airlock.

She drifted closer, some instinct telling her to keep quiet. Once she reached the edge of the airlock, she grabbed hold and snuck a peek inside. At first, she didn’t see anything. Then she saw a bolt pop out of the wall to join three others floating in the room. It popped out with enough speed that it banged into the far wall with that same metallic clang that she’d heard several times now. Four bolts floating in the air – and now an entire panel was being pushed away from the wall.

Behind the panel was a man.

He was dressed in heavy duty work clothes. Boots, heavy khaki pants, and a heavy work shirt. She didn’t see any identifying marks on the clothes; they looked like just normal clothing someone might wear every day, if that someone was working with their hands most of the time.

Then Carmen saw his face, and she sucked in her breath hard. He was sick. Not just sick – he was sick with the alien virus. She was pretty sure of it. He had all the symptoms – the fever slick face, flushed cheeks, dripping nose, and even the raccoon black eyes. That last was a late state symptom. The brain was starting to bleed, and pressure from the bleeding was forcing blood out into the sinuses.

The man would be dead within hours. But in the meantime, he was likely to be irrational, even dangerous. That was a side effect of the bleeding – once the virus got into the brain, the victim could have periods of delirium or hallucinations.

For a moment she was flat out terrified. She’d never been this close to someone infected with the virus before. If he so much as coughed near her, she’d catch it, too. And no one had recovered yet. Everyone who got the virus died.

She couldn’t let her fear stop her from acting, though. The entire ship was in jeopardy. She didn’t know how this man had gotten aboard – the ship had been searched, the area specially quarantined. Every precaution was taken to ensure that all passengers and crew were clear of disease, and that no one who’d been infected went anywhere close to the ship. Somewhere along the line, someone had to have helped this man. It was vital they figure out how he got aboard. But for now, it was even more important to ensure that he stayed put. If he got out into the ship, everyone aboard could die.

She looked around for the airlock control panel. There it was – set into the wall on the far side of the open door from her. She started slowly working her way hand over hand around the edge of the door. But the doorway was huge – it was going to take her a long time to get around to that panel. It might be more time than she had.

Carmen was sweating, her fingers slick, which made it even harder to hang on. Any moment, the man was going to spot her fingers, and rush out at her, and she’d be dead. She peeked at the panel – still so far away!

“Hey! You there!” the man shouted from inside the airlock.

He’d seen her! No time for anything else now. Carmen aimed herself at the spot where the control panel was, and pushed off hard from her perch. She glided through the air across the open access – watching the man carefully as she went. Luckily, he seemed too started to take action, and he was too far away to infect her. Now if only she could stop herself once she reached the panel.

She was going too fast! She’d misjudged, and she was going to pass by completely. Carmen stuck out an arm as far as she could, reaching for the edge of the doorway. Her forearm slammed into the metal hard. She bit her lip to stop herself from yelling, and her arm was throbbing. She didn’t think she’d broken it, but it hurt like hell.

The move had worked, though! She brought herself to a stop just a foot from the panel she needed. The man inside was moving now, pulling himself along the wall toward the doorway. She touched the panel, and another number lock display came up.

Could it be the same number password? She tried it: one, two, three, four.

The airlock doors snapped shut, slamming into place before the man could get out. A red light started flashing overhead, and a klaxon sounded an alarm. Shutting the door must have set off some sort of safeguard or alert. All the better, really – Carmen needed help on this. She wasn’t sure what to do with the man now, but there must be something they could do to help him. He was sick – she was a doctor. That made helping him her business, even if he was someplace that he wasn’t supposed to be.

It took less than a minute for crew to respond to the alarm. Three of them jetted into the cargo hold. One of them was the man who had helped her across the dining area to the galley – Patrick. He pushed off hard from the same door she’d come in through, gliding to her side and pulling himself to a stop by the panel. He checked the panel quickly, shutting off the alarm. Then he turned to glare at her.

“What did you think you were doing, playing with the airlock?” he barked. “You could have spaced yourself!”

“I wasn’t playing with it!” she shot back. She was surprised at the sudden hostility. He’d seemed so nice, before. Why was he yelling at her now? “There’s a stowaway.”

He blinked, and turned to look through the window into the inner airlock. “Damn it!” he said. “He’s infected, isn’t he.” It wasn’t a question. Everyone knew what the symptoms looked like, at this point.

Carmen nodded anyway. “Yes.”

Patrick grunted, and went back to the control panel. She watched over his shoulder, wondering what he was doing. She saw a question flash: Safety Override? For a moment she wondered what he was doing. Then the flashing red lights started again – this time, inside the airlock. The man she’d locked inside pounded on the door. She couldn’t make out what he was saying through the thick plating, but she could hear him shouting.

Patrick pressed another button on the panel. It flashed. A handprint scanner appeared.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“The computer has safeguards,” he replied, his voice hollow. “Only someone with command authorization can open the airlock from outside, if it detects a living person inside the lock.” He reached out to place his hand on the print.

Carmen caught his hand before he could complete the motion. “Wait – you’re going to open the airlock?” she asked. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

He turned and looked her in the eyes. “You said it yourself: he has the virus. Do you have a cure?”

“Well, no. But there must be something we can do!”

“And risk all of us? You might be willing to risk the lives of everyone on this ship, but I can’t do that,” he said. “This mission is too important.”

“Don’t you dare!” Carmen said. How could he be so cold? So cruel? You couldn’t just kill a person like that. It wasn’t right. And she’d trapped the man in there! If he just opened the airlock and jettisoned the sick man like so much trash, it would be her fault. She locked the door.

“I have no choice,” Patrick said.

“I’ll get the captain,” she said. “He won’t let you do this.”

Patrick cocked an eyebrow at her. She heard a cough from behind her and looked over her shoulder. The two crewmen who’d come in with Patrick were there, floating right behind her. One of them was the source of the cough.

“That is the captain, ma’am,” the crewman said.

She blushed. How was she supposed to have known that? It didn’t make it any better, either. She’d been told the man running this ship was also in command of the moon base, running the entire mission. But he wasn’t the only important person out here. Her father was, too. She bit her lip, on the verge of telling him she’d tell her father on him. But the last thing she wanted to do was use the privilege that came with her father’s name.

Besides, she realized that her father would undoubtedly be informed anyway. An incident like this – a sick stowaway – indicated a major breach in security somewhere. Reports would be filed. People would be questioned. The people in charge down on Earth would do everything they could to find out how he’d gotten aboard. Her father would be told.

“Please,” she said at last. “There has to be another way?”

His eyes softened, and for a moment thought she saw a crack in the ice. Then it was there again. “I wish there was,” he said. Then he pulled his hand free of hers, and placed it on the palm sensor.

Carmen heard the sound of motors whirring somewhere in the airlock. A klaxon went off again. The sick man hammered on the door, screaming and shouting. Then there was a thunk, and the sound of rushing air. After that she heard nothing at all from inside the airlock. He was gone.

She closed her eyes, crushed inside by the feeling of utter helplessness. She’d locked him in there. It was partly her fault that he was dead now. But what else could she have done? She couldn’t let him get out into the ship. She hadn’t had any alternatives.

“You’ve made me party to murder,” she said softly.

Patrick took her hand in his. She opened her eyes again. He was looking at her strangely. “No,” he said. “You did the right thing. You might have saved us all, by locking him in there.”

It was small consolation. The man was still dead.

“Come on,” he said. He sounded tired and empty. “Let me get you back to your seat.”

T
oo many questions
, and not enough answers. Patrick pulled himself forward into the ship’s cockpit after dropping the woman off. She seemed more than a little stunned by the experience, and he really couldn’t blame her. It was a nasty business. The place on his wrist where she’d grabbed him still felt warm. He remembered her pleading for the stowaway’s life. The look in her eyes, that intensity! If there was anything he could have done to give her what she wanted, he would have.

Hell, he didn’t want to kill that man. That never should have happened in the first place. Nobody could get on board his ship without some outside help. Security was damned tight even during good times – which these were certainly not! So how had he gotten here? And what was he trying to accomplish?

Amy was in her seat when he arrived. “Heard there was some trouble out back?” she asked.

“Stowaway.”

“Shit. Sick?”

“Yup.”

She reached for her buckles in reflex, getting ready to unbuckle and go – somewhere. He didn’t know where she was thinking to go. He waved her back into her seat. Everyone was so damned hair-trigger when it came to this virus. Even Amy, and she was level-headed as you could get. That’s why he had her as his second in command out here.

“It’s dealt with,” he said.

She stopped moving. Inhaled. Exhaled again. “OK,” she said.

“A passenger spotted him, locked him in the airlock.” He slid into his seat and buckled himself down. His eyes scanned the computer screens displaying the ship’s status. Everything looked good.

“What’re we going to do with him, Pat? We don’t have a place to quarantine sick people,” Amy said. She still looked worried. And it made sense to be. There were damned few really safe places left right now, and the moon happened to be one of them. He could understand not wanting to lose that sense of security.

“He’s not going to be a problem, Amy,” Patrick replied. “I opened the outer airlock. He’s gone.”

She gaped at him for a moment, then snapped her mouth closed before answering. “Jesus, Pat. You spaced him?”

He turned back to his displays. The last thing he needed was more of this crap from someone else. He was still burning from having had to kill the man in the first place, and the verbal thrashing he got from the passenger only made it worse. “I don’t need this from you, Amy.”

“No, of course not. Sorry,” she said. “Nothing else you could have done, Pat. Just…Jesus. I’m sorry.”

It was the least crappy call of a few crappy calls. He pushed buttons on his console, trying to find something to occupy his mind. He was going to have a lot of spare time for the rest of the trip out to the base to consider what he’d done, and if it had really been the only good choice. Too much damned time. He found himself checking out the passenger manifest, wondering who that woman was. Finally he found her photo.

“Was that who found the guy?” Amy asked, peeking over his shoulder at his screen.

“Yeah,” he replied. And it could be trouble. Carmen Rosa. Rosa! Damn it, that was the doctor’s daughter. Not only was she supposed to be Doctor Rosa’s primary assistant, she was also the guy’s kid. Their one biggest VIP on this entire mission was that doc, and he’d already allowed his daughter to be in jeopardy. And pissed her off, too.