Survivor (2 page)

Her bandaged finger made it especially hard
to work. It bumped into a collection of wires and knocked them
free. Cal's warning alarm flared in response. The loose wires fell
deeper into his machinery. She had to use her little finger to grip
the cables whilst keeping the rest of her hand out of the way.

A quiet hiss snapped her attention from
Cal's charred wires. Her eyes focused on the fuel cells. A new leak
had sprung. It was smaller than the other one but fuel was spurting
out and creating a new pool on the floor.

"No, no, no!" she said.

She carefully laid Cal's wires on the bench
and dashed to the fuel cell. She'd left the tube of sealant lying
on top. She pulled the top off. Her tense hands clenched too
tightly and the grey sealant spurted out of the top. It landed on
the floor with a splat and formed hard bumps.

"Shit!" she said.

The tube was squeezed flat. There was the
thinnest layer coating the very top of the tube but that was
all.

Nova's voice tremored as she looked from the
empty sealant tube to the spurting fuel cell. "Do we have any more
sealant?"

"Negative," Crusader said.

"Can we make some?"

"According to the Cloud, the formula is
hidden by confidential patent."

"Of course it is."

Nova glared around the engine room for
anything that could stop the leaking fuel.

"Could really use some help, Crusader."

"Scanning all inventory."

Nova kicked the lumps of sealant on the
floor. They were completely solid, no chance of salvaging any from
that. She gripped the work bench until the edge cut into her palms.
Her head pounded as she tried to solve the problems crowding in on
her. Crusader's engines were failing, Cal's systems were failing,
the fuel levels were critical.

"Compartment twelve has rubber putty,"
Crusader said.

Nova ran for the cupboard. "Will that be
enough?"

"It is the only possible solution."

Nova yanked open the compartment door. She
grabbed the putty and massaged it as she moved around the engine to
the fuel cells. She stretched it as far as she could and covered
the leak. She wrapped the putty around the cell as far as it would
go.

The leak slowed.

"It won't hold for long," Crusader said.

"I know."

Nova didn't stop for breath. She dashed back
to Cal's side and picked up a loose wire. She pushed the wire into
the receiving jack. Cal's core systems stabilised. At least for the
moment, he wasn't getting worse. The next part worried her the
most. One wrong connection and she'd fry all of his internal
circuits.

She breathed deep to steady her hands. She
pushed her fear to the very back of her mind. She imagined a solid
crate into which she shoved her emotions and then she mentally
threw away the key. There was no time for emotions now. She put her
cleared and logical mind to the task of fixing Cal.

Piece by piece, she reattached his intricate
components. With every new connection, another system came back
online. There were three wires left. She reached in for the red
cable. As her hand brushed past the inner workings her bandaged
finger caught on the stabilization switch.

She watched in horror as the fabric caught
on the metal switch and tugged it loose. It clicked off. Lights
flared up through Cal's inner machinery. The motor shot into
action. It spun at ten times the normal speed. The inner machinery
whirred as it went into overdrive.

"Fuck!" Nova whipped her hand back. Threads
of bandage stayed caught on the metal, loose threads waved in the
flowing air from the motor.

Each intricate part of Cal's machinery
pumped faster. It was if each component was racing to fail
first.

Nova plunged her other hand into Cal's body.
She fumbled with the loose switch. It took all of her coordination
to put it back in place with a single hand. She shoved the switch
home and turned it on.

Cal's systems powered down to normal speed.
The gears clicked into a steady rhythm and his motor stopped
smoking.

Nova breathed a sigh of relief.

When she finally attached the last wire, she
lowered the charred section back into place. She opened the
interface panel and held down the red restart button. She squeezed
her eyes closed and held her breath.

After what felt like hours, but was really
only a few moments, Cal beeped. His motor whirred into action
inside his metal casing and the robot lifted out of her hands. Cal
righted himself mid-air. His camera-eye looked straight at
Nova.

"There was a bright white light!" he
said.

Nova sighed in relief. A smile spread across
her face. Before she bought Crusader both the ship and Cal had been
badly damaged. His fried circuits interfered with his artificial
intelligence which meant that he could be uncomfortably human
sometimes.

"Don't be melodramatic. You're a robot,
remember?"

"My whole life flashed before my eyes!"

"It wasn't that bad."

"I thought I died!"

"Cal, be serious," Nova said. "I fixed the
fuel cell for now, but it won't last long."

Cal turned in mid-air to study the fuel
cells.

"How are your systems?" she said.

"Diagnostic scan reveals no major faults,"
Cal said, his voice returning to the flat monotone of his
artificial intelligence. "However, long-distance travel is
unadvised."

"Can you fix the cells?"

"Temporarily."

Cal hovered to the fuel cells.

"Alright."

Relief flooded through Nova's body. The
dull, nagging pain inside her left temple disappeared. Her hands
ached with the strain of fixing Cal. She stumbled to the pilot's
pod and collapsed into her chair with a sigh.

The adrenalin faded from her veins and pain
poured in to replace it. Her entire left side ached from where
she'd smashed into the side of the ship. Her arm was covered in
dried blood and her cut hand stung.

She stood on aching legs and stumbled to the
first aid kit. She yanked the door open and pulled out a Parapem
strip. She laid the painkiller on her tongue and let the tendrils
of cool relief flood through her. The soothing sensation spread
over her head, down her arms and into her legs. Nova closed her
eyes and enjoyed the sensation while battling with frustration.

They'd gone from having the biggest haul
she'd ever seen, to having nothing. Worse than nothing, in fact,
because now Crusader was broken. She needed to get the fuel cells
repaired or she'd be stranded in the outer reaches of space for the
rest of her life.

CHAPTER TWO

Cal hovered into view. "The fuel cell has another
leak."

Nova groaned and held her head in her hands.
They were still too far away from a repair station. She needed
those cells to hold together. Was it too much to ask that her ship
just keep flying for a little longer?

Crusader had seen better days, even before
the explosion. Now the engine screamed in protest. Every movement
caused the motor to seize up and choke.

"How can it keep leaking?"

She gripped the steering wheel tighter as
the ship jerked uncontrollably to the left.

"In addition to the explosion, it was due
for replacement five years ago."

Nova waved her hand at Cal. The last thing
she needed was another lecture about replacing parts. If she'd had
the credits, she would have done it months ago, but she didn't, so
that was that.

"How many credits do we have left?"

"Five," Cal replied.

"Only five hundred?"

She frowned and wrenched the veering ship
back on course.

"Negative. Five total."

She risked turning away from the front
screen to look at Cal. "Five? How can we only have five?"

"The recent sabotage has left us
underfunded. Based on its current condition, the fuel cell won't
last long enough to get us to the closest shipping yard."

"Dammit!"

Nova gritted her teeth. Her hands clenched
tighter around the wheel. Blood surged through her veins and
flushed her face. "Are there any jobs nearby? Anything at all? I
don't care what."

The view in Crusader's front screen changed
from showing the darkness of space, to a list of bounties. There
were jobs all over the solar system. It was mostly small fish,
simple robberies or missing persons. Too much work for not enough
pay.

"What about that one?" she said, pointing to
the third box down.

The other items closed and the box expanded
to fill the whole screen. Two fugitives were missing from the
Brakenreid Penitentiary.

Nova shivered at the thought. Brakenreid was
one of the worst prisons, aside from Ankar. The prisoners were
cruel, and the guards crueller. It was reserved for those criminals
that the Human Confederacy found especially repulsive. These two
fugitives were convicted of multiple terrorist acts against the
Confederacy, they'd definitely fit in.

They'd escaped three days ago.

"Two thousand credits. That would be enough
to fix Crusader and give us some spending money."

"Confirmed."

"I want every scrap of information related
to their case; possible sightings, their habits, where they were
nabbed last time. I also want to know if there are any Confederacy
activities going on in this system. Every time they've escaped in
the past they've made another attack within three weeks. I don't
think they'll wait long to strike again."

"Confirmed," Cal said. His processors
whirred into overdrive as he scanned the Cloud for information.

Nova bit her bottom lip. This could be just
the break she was waiting for.

"Crusader, power down to minimal life
support."

Nova concentrated on keeping her breathing
steady to conserve oxygen.

"Systems powered down," Crusader replied.
The voice was female, a standard for most ships after centuries of
research had proved that a female voice calmed pilots.

The lights dimmed and the temperature
dropped. The alarms stopped and the red flashing lights died out.
The ship was running only the bare essentials required to keep Nova
alive. With such a small vessel, they would barely register as a
blip on the radar of any passing ship.

She kept a firm grip on the wheel but with
the engines down, the ship stayed under control.

The front screen showed columns of sliding
text. Pictures and maps zoomed past as Cal scanned the Cloud. It
moved too fast for Nova to read but Cal droned out a summary as
pictures sailed past.

"These are the fugitives," Cal said.

The screen was filled with two photos. Each
depicted a dirt-covered man with a cruel smile. Their sneering
faces dared the viewer to follow after them, a taunting kind of
challenge twinkled in their eyes. Their skin was ragged and tanned;
they probably came from the Resources Sector and they looked
similar enough to be brothers. Their eyes were steely blue and deep
wrinkles framed their mouths. Puckered scars covered their necks
and arms, slashing across their skin in crisscross patterns.

"Jinks and Tiny Cupron," Cal said. "They're
wanted for acts of terrorism against the Confederacy. They
destroyed an embassy in the outer quadrants. Twenty Confederacy
diplomats, who had been exploiting the outer planets for labour,
were killed."

"Good on them," Nova said.

"The blast also fatally wounded four hundred
innocents at the embassy," Cal said, his tone terse.

"Oh," she said, her frown deepening. "They
should have come up with a better plan."

"They confessed to destroying a premium
Confederacy starship and interrupting intergalactic trade. They
also admit to killing two eminent ambassadors. It is estimated that
they have cost the Confederacy over twenty million credits in the
last ten years."

"They've been busy," she said, raising an
eyebrow. "It's a wonder they haven't met some kind of
accident."

"They have been in and out of jail for the
last twenty years. Each time, committing a new offence after
entering society."

"Why would the Confederacy keep letting them
go? Good behaviour?" she said.

"No. They're good at breaking out of
jail."

"If only they were better at staying out of
them," Nova said. "Good. It's pretty safe to bet they've got plans.
They won't be able to travel far without ID chips, so they're
probably still in this system. Did you find any Confederacy
activity?"

"There is very little going on in these
outer planets," Cal said, "Either Confederacy Projects or
otherwise."

"Yes but, Cal, you know as well as I do that
they don't always log their projects, especially if they don't want
people to know about them. I bet Jinks and Tiny know that too. What
ships have passed through here in the last two weeks?"

There were so many cameras, sensor nets and
monitoring equipment set up throughout the human colonies that it
was impossible for ships to move without being observed. With the
right passwords, it was easy to access the data feeds and find out
who was coming and going. A few dollars to the right harbourmaster
could also reveal a treasure-trove; all ships have to resupply,
eventually.

Nova's neck crawled with the thought of how
many eyes could be watching her at that very second.

"Seventeen unmarked ships entered this
system in the last three weeks. Five have been registered
leaving."

"So you've got fifteen ships unaccounted
for. To me that sounds like something worth investigating. Is there
any way to tell where they were going?"

"The last sighting had them heading towards
the binary Galleas System. It's not far from here."

"Then let's get a move on. Crusader, take it
easy and keep your scanners on."