The Paradox Initiative (24 page)

Very clean. A dark metallic dashboard, clearly marked buttons, easy-to-grip throttle. She reached out and punched a button—the restraints reached out of their own accord and wrapped around them.

“
Of course,” Wolfe muttered. The lights on the board flashed on. The cabin lights dimmed. Kestrel took a deep breath, then flipped the five switches that powered up the engine. The ship groggily began to hum.

“How long?” Wolfe asked.

“Probably thirty seconds.”

“We’ve got less than that.”

Kestrel’s head came up.

Outs
ide the spacescreen, where the two of them had broken into the hanger, six more androids barreled through. Their red eyes now shining infrared-searching beams, they began darting between the ships, searching…

“As soon as the engines come on they’ll know where we are…” Kestrel gritted.

“As soon as they come on we’ll be out of here,” Wolfe corrected.

“Really?” Kestrel said. “Because I still haven’t figured out how to get the hangar doors open.”

“We’ll have to shoot them.”

“This ship doesn’t have weapons!” Kestrel cried. “It’s…It’s a glorified
car
!”

“I said
we
.” Wolfe hefted his gun and set it in his lap. Kestrel looked blankly at him.

“What?”

With an energetic thrum, the ship powered up.

Life vibrated through every beam. And every android looked straight at them.

“Oh…
no
,” Kestrel winced.

“Go,” Wolfe commanded.

Kestrel punched the thrusters.

With a thunderous blast, the ship lifted off the floor. The nearest android toppled backward. Kestrel gripped the controls as they levitated, rising up higher than the roofs of the other ships. Carefully, she turned the T300 toward the hangar bay door…

Zap. Zap. Zap.

The whole vehicle shimmied.

“I think they’re shooting at us,” she noted as she accelerated forward, ever-so-slightly. “And I’m
really
close to the ceiling…”

“Is there an upper hatch?” Wolfe asked.

“What—Why?”

“Answer
me.”

“Yes—”

“Open it.”

“Jack—”

“Ask me later,” he said, pressing his restraint release and getting up. “And whatever you do, don’t hit the roof.”

Kestrel shakily clicked the switch for the upper hatch
, then grabbed the controls with both hands again. She heard the hatch pop open and hiss. Wolfe charged aft. His boots clanged on the ladder as he ascended.

The broad hangar door waited ahead. The
zaps
stopped as she accelerated.

“Jack,” Kestrel winced. “If you’re planning on shooting the controls—”

“That’s what I’m planning,” he called back at the top of his voice.

“
Space
will open up in front of us,” Kestrel shouted. “A
vacuum
. It’ll suck at you and everything in this whole hanger—and
then
an emergency blast door will probably slam down over the opening—”

“So I’ll shoot and jump down, and you’ll gun it and make it out before the door comes down,” Wolfe answered.

“Yeah. Sure!” Kestrel rolled her eyes, breaking into a cold sweat. The door loomed.

“Ready?” Wolfe asked.

“Why not?”

“Here goes!”

Kestrel bit down.

Brilliant yellow bolts lanced out from the top of their ship and peppered the controls on the right side of the door.

As if it was spring-loaded, the hangar door snapped open.

Kestrel hit the throttle.

The ship shot forward, even as all the other ships in the hangar began skidding toward the gaping hole.

Wind
sucked her backward.

Her eyes went wide. Had the hatch—

They blasted out of the cruiser and into vast, black, open space.

The emergency door slammed down behind them, clipping their tail.

The ship’s whole frame rattled.

A deafening clang battered the interior.

Wolfe crashed to the floor.

Kestrel twisted in her chair.

“Are you all right?” she cried, her pulse jarring through her ribcage.

Wolfe groaned, turned over onto his side, then heaved himself to his feet.

“Lost my gun,” he muttered, brushing his hair away from his forehead as he came through and sat heavily down in the other chair. He fought to catch his breath as the restraints wrapped around him. He stared out front.

“So they’ll be after us now,” he assumed.

“Most likely they’ll contact the planet and the station,” Kestrel answered, absently clicking the shields on, as she always did in
Ortheus
. “Send out space security details to escort us to the surface. Or they could just—”

A
white flash consumed the spacescreen.

The whole ship rocked.

Wolfe grabbed her arm.

“What was that?” Kestrel rasped
. She reached out and snapped on her rear screens—

Then
yanked the controls to the left.

The ship spun.

A huge, wicked green bolt seared the space where they had just been and knifed toward the planet.

“The
Exception
!” Kestrel yelped, righting them. “It’s shooting at us!” She sucked in a breath. “If I hadn’t just put up the shields—”

“Go, go, go,
” Wolfe urged.

Swallowing the rest of that horrifying thought
, Kestrel opened up the throttle, and the little ship lunged forward, blazing straight toward the space between the huge, Saturn-shaped Gain station—with all its tangled metallic members and twinkling lights—and the half-green-half-red planet of Alpha.

“They’re trying to kill us,”
Kestrel realized—then flinched back as the area all around them exploded with laser fire.

“You were right,” Wolfe murmured, gripping the armrests. “
It’s him.”

Kestrel glanced at him, her stomach sinking…

BOOM.

Her teeth rattled. Her vision blurred.

She shook herself, her hands clenching the controls—even as she felt them slipping. She blinked her vision clear, cast a look at her readings…

“We’ve been hit,” she muttered. “It broke through part of the shield, cut into our port side engine.”

“What does that mean?” Wolfe squeezed his armrests harder as the ship bucked again.

“It means we can’t turn toward the Gain Station,” Kestrel answered, pushing the ship’s speed. “And the harder we accelerate, the more we’ll turn toward the planet.”

“And if we
don’t
accelerate?”

“The next shot will blow us apart.”

Alpha’s green side loomed in front of them. Kestrel could make out the shapes of the swirling clouds, the large bodies of water…

They picked up speed.

“We’re going faster,” she noted. “The planet’s gravity is pulling us.”

“They’ve stopped shooting,” Wolfe glanced behind them.

“A cruiser can’t handle a very shallow orbit,” Kestrel adjusted her sweaty hands. “They don’t want to risk—”

A red light flashed on and a shrill alarm cracked the air.

“What’s that?” Wolfe demanded.

“
The port engine’s gone,” Kestrel slapped her hand down and cut its power. “I’ll have to maneuver with just the starboard engine and the thrusters—”

“Can you land that way?”

“Don’t know,” Kestrel confessed, trembling. “Never tried it.”

Alpha filled the whole space
screen. They rocketed toward it, Kestrel pressing back into her seat. Gray wisps began flashing across the screen.

“We’re in the atmospher
e,” she gasped. “And I…I can’t—Wait.”

She pushed forward, against her restraints, and frantically searched the board.

“There’s a…an autopilot landing switch…”

“Where?” Wolfe gritted.

“I don’t know—look for it!” she urged.

The ship began to rattle—and list dangerously to the left.

“There?” Wolfe pointed to a blue button in the middle of the console.

“Yes!” Kestrel cried. “Yes, yes!” she reached forward and pressed it
hard.

“
Engage autopilot landing?”
the masculine computer asked.

“
Emergency
autopilot landing,” Kestrel emphasized.

“
Understood. The autopilot has engaged,”
the computer said. The controls instantly pulled out of Kestrel’s hands and moved on their own.

“However,” the computer went on. “With a missing port engine, possibility of ejection is sixty percent.”

“Ejection?” Wolfe repeated.

“Understood,” Kestrel answered the computer, then leaned back and clenched down on her own armrests.

The ship’s flight smoothed, tilting to begin a gradual arc. But Kestrel felt the port side shivering, as if it might shear off at any moment…

The wisps outside the space
screen gathered body, until they became billowing fog that obscured the entire spacescreen. Kestrel squeezed her eyes shut and pushed her feet down on the floor with all her strength. Her heart pounded erratically, but she couldn’t hear it over the roar of metallic friction vibrating through the whole cabin.

G-force crushed her chest. The rattling worsened to a cacophony, like clattering pots and pans…

A strong hand found hers. Fingers wound through hers.

Clenched so hard she thought her bones would break.

A siren wailed.

“Ejection necessary. Brace yourselves.”

SNAP.

Wolfe’s hand ripped out of her grasp.

A
buzz
as a shield snapped up around her—

The roof exploded.

She shot up, out, whirling, spinning…

Light
, dark, light, dark—

Green, blue, green, blue—

Falling…

Black. All black.

Silence.

Then n
othing more.

Buzzing.

Distant, persistent buzzing.

A stench. Poisonous smoke. Rough air.

Heat.

A pang, somewhere down low. Knee? No, further down…

Kestrel’s eyes snapped open and her first conscious breath threatened to tear her in half.

She blinked several times before her vision cleared. Her hands fluttered.

She lay over on her left side, strapped to the same chair. The side of her face
rubbed against red dirt. Clouds of dust rose all around her, the air stank, the restraints cut like sandpaper into her skin…

And her left foot was pinned under the chair.

She bit back a howling scream and grabbed at her knee, trying to pull her leg free of the heavy chair—as slithering agony clawed its way up her limb. The seat rocked, but though she tugged with everything in her, her restraints pinned her.

Tears leaked out. She bit her cheek, struggling
to keep breathing, to think…

She
gulped.

Had she heard something? Her skull buzzed so
badly…

Her head came up. Her throat closed.

She
had
heard something.

Scrambling. Or—footsteps.

“Kestrel!”

“Jack!” she croaked. “Jack, I’m—”

He landed in front of her. He crashed to his knees, the legs of his jeans charred, his gray shirt torn and dirty. Black smears covered his face and arms, but she’d never seen his eyes so bright as when he smiled down at her.

“Hey, Brown Eyes,” he said unsteadily. “Hang on, hang on a second—we’ll get you out, here…” He fumbled
with the right side of the seat…

The restraints snapped loose.

He caught her. Wrapped his arms all around her, keeping her leg from wrenching. Then, he sat back and kicked the chair.

It rolled
noisily off her leg. She scrabbled at his shirt and took fistfuls, strangling on a cry but not letting it loose.

“You all right?” he asked,
quickly shifting her and helping her sit up.

“I’m…in one piece,” she said numbly, holding onto him. “That’s good, right?”

“Is your foot broken?”

“Don’t know. Never had one,” she muttered, her vision fading in and out.
“I mean, a broken one…”

“We’re too close to the crash,” Wolfe said
. “Need to get out of the open.”

Kestrel couldn’t t
hink of any reason for or against that, so she just nodded. Without asking, Wolfe dug underneath her shoulders and knees and hefted her up. Her left arm reflexively circled his neck, her hand gripping his shirt. He clambered to his feet, raising more dust, breathing hard and casting around. He cleared his throat, then faced forward again.

“I’m just gonna pick a direction,” he muttered. His strong arms tightened around her, and he started off, limping slightly. Kestrel closed her eyes, pressed her forehead to his throat, and focused on beating back the throbbing pain in her foot.

He trudged over a good stretch of uneven ground, jostling her, and then Kestrel felt the air clear. She opened her eyes.

Short, gnarled, thick-trunked trees crowded around them, their skinny lea
ves providing a shady canopy. They smelled vaguely like pine, but sweeter. Wolfe’s boots crunched through the underbrush. He paused, looked around again, then moved on in a slightly different direction. He kept hiking, saying nothing. Kestrel just held on. And breathed.

She breathed
him
.

Gone was that scent of
toxic smoke—tobacco and tar. Now, he smelled like shave cream, and the shampoo in the
Exception’
s showers. A tinge of isopropyl alcohol from the hospital. Spilled ship chemicals from the wreck.

She breathed deeper.

Dirt. Ashes. The beaten leather of that old jacket. And the faint, but unmistakable and familiar scent of gunpowder.

A pie
rcing, penetrating ache wound its way through her chest and slid like poison through all her veins. She tried to hold her breath.

After a long time,
a change registered in her consciousness. She lifted her head off his shoulder.

“What’s that?”

“Water,” he answered. Moments later, they rounded a huge tree and stopped on the bank of a gurgling, stone-bed creek. Beyond it stood a rocky shore, and what looked like a dark canyon wall, with several portions hollowed out by wind long ago. The twisted trees overhung the entire grotto, making it seem like they stood inside a huge green tent.

“Perfect,” Wolfe declared, stepped forward and sloshed through the stream. The stones slithered beneath his boots—Kestrel felt his gait slip as he walked. He set her down on the other side on top of a large ro
ck. She winced as he pulled away from her, then he glanced up at her face.

“May I
have a look at your foot?”

“Sure,” she gritted, gingerly adjusting her position on the rock. He crouched down in the gushing water in front of her, gently took hold of her left foot, unfastened her boot and slowly pulled it off. Kestrel sucked in her breath through her teeth, feeling sick.

“Easy, easy,” he soothed, tossing the boot up on her side of the bank.

He peeled off her
long sock, then let her heel rest on his knee. Kestrel risked a glance down at her foot. Red, and already swollen. Carefully, Wolfe took both hands and pressed his fingertips to her ankle, feeling along her bones, exploring…

She twitched
.

“Right there, huh?” he mused, holding her foot still and feeling around next to her inside ankle bone. The skin tightened around his eyes as he considered.

“Well…It doesn’t
feel
broken…”

“Yes, it does,” Kestrel muttered.

“I’ll bet it does,” he acknowledged. “But I think you’ve just bruised a bone. I hope so.”

Kestrel smiled ruefully.

“Now, this water is
very
cold,” Wolfe said. “So I’m going to lower your foot down into it and let it soak, okay? It’ll keep the swelling down.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, here goes.” Wolfe scooted back, sloshing, and eased her foot down into the water. Kestrel’s eyes went wide.

“It’s
freezing,”
she whispered.

“I told you,” he said, smirking. But he didn’t let her foot up, and didn’t let go until it was submerged past her ankle.

“Sit here for a second,” he instructed, standing up. Water poured off his jeans. “I’m going to go look around up here.”

Kestrel gritted her teeth as the icy water flowed over her foot, adding needling surface pa
in to the much deeper, sharper sensation inside.

In the back of her hearing, Wolfe clattered around in the rocks, occasionally talking to himself, or clearing his throat
…

The water began to numb her whole foot. Which made her want to scream—until it
abruptly faded to nothing. She glanced up, past the canopy of leaves.

The sky had gotten darker.

She shivered—then shivered harder. She hugged herself.

Two sharp
snaps
brought her head around. Wolfe strode back toward her, holding two broken sticks in his hand.

“These ought to work for a splint…” he said, stepping into the water again.

“No, no, no,” Kestrel held up a hand, then pulled her foot out of the water and scooted around to face him on the bank. “Don’t get back into that water. It’s too cold.”

“Thanks,” he said, then knelt down in front of her again. “Mind if I use your sock?”

“Go ahead.”

He set the sticks down, picked up her sock and tore it lengthwise. He snatched the sticks up again, holding the pieces of sock in his teeth.

“I need you…” he said through the strips. “…to hold these on either side of your ankle.” He pressed the sticks to her leg. Kestrel bent forward and took hold of them. He took one of the sock pieces from his teeth and started wrapping it around and around her foot, then back around her ankle, then over the top, then around and around the sticks. He secured one end, then tied the loose end to the next strip. He wound that around the sticks, synching it firmly, then tied it down. It still hurt. A lot. But Kestrel ignored it.

“What now?”
she asked as Wolfe sat back on his heels.

“First rule of survival,” he said, wiping off his hands on his shirt. “Find water. We’ve done
a good job of that—so the next things are shelter, warmth, food.”

“Any ideas?” Kestrel asked, shifting her
weight since she couldn’t tug on the splint. He glanced back over his shoulder.

“There’s a little hollow up there,” he said. “I’ll carry you—”

“No.”

He stopped.
Studied her face.

“I’m fine,” she insisted
. “I can make it.”

He hesitated, then nodded.

“Okay. It’s right up here.”

He got to his feet, then held out his left hand to her.

Her heart contracted.

She ignored his hand, pushed off of the rock, and hopped
up on her right foot.

“I’ve had a sprain before,” she said. “
This isn’t a big deal.”

He
watched her, confused. Then, he swallowed and ducked his head.

“Right. Um…It’s just up here.”

He walked slowly beside her as she hopped forward, determined not to reach out to him, to touch him at all. She caught hold of some rough, tall rocks and pushed herself up the slight hill, to a flatter place beneath an overhang. Panting, she stopped at the edge of it, assessing the partial cave in front of them.

“Okay,” she sighed, more to herself than anyone, hopped forward, turned and eased down onto the dirt, then leaned back against the rock wall. Carefully, she stretched her left leg out in front of her, then forced herself to begin breathing evenly.

Wolfe stood in front of her, watching her movements.

“So,” Kestrel managed, keeping her head down. “We’ve got water and shelter. Warmth is the next part, right?”

He cleared his throat.

“Right. I’ll go look for some kindling.”

He turned and started back down, toward the trees. Kestrel watched him go, grinding her teeth, her forehead tensing. She laid her head back against the rock and closed her eyes.