The Saffron Malformation (105 page)

             
“They blew them up,” Leone said softly.  Everyone knew he was right.

             
“We got further this time,” Carmen said.  “Further than anyone ever has.”  Eyes found her and watched as she settled back against the platform the ship sat upon and sat down, looking up at it.  “On south continent we tried so hard to make it off this rock.”  She huffed a chuckle and finished, “Never even saw a ship.”

             
Something heavy banged against the door with force.  Muffled shouting followed.  It was only a matter of time.  They were going to get inside.

             
Marcus nodded and stepped toward Carmen.  “Sorry for overstepping earlier.”

             
She smiled up at him and replied, “Sorry for being such a cunt.”

             
They both had a laugh.

             
Natalie and Amber gripped each other while tears silently poured from their eyes.

             
Leone walked over to a bit of scrap metal, a hollow cone shaped bit, and sent it across the room with a kick.  His next few steps were taken with a slight limp and Amber went to him.  As much as it pained Natalie, she let the girl go.

             
“How do we look on ammo?” Carmen asked loudly.

             
Marcus answered, “Enough so they’ll remember we were here.”

             
There was a rumble of agreement through the soldiers.

             
Arnie tossed the pack off his shoulder and opened it.  Quey looked to Ryla who, for the first time, seemed afraid.  “Looks like now’s as good a time,” Arnie announced as he lifted a pair of bottles from his pack.  He handed one to the soldier next to him and tossed one to Quey.  The moonshiner caught it, looked down at the clear liquid, and pondered.  Going back to an ex you don’t really want because it’s easy.  He’d wanted something else.  Finally he could say what that was.  After being on the hustle since he was fourteen, living on the move with one eye open all the time, he just wanted a bit of rest.  That’s what he’d been aiming to buy with all his moonshine earnings after all.  A few more years and then the rest of his life somewhere small, simple, and far away from Once Men, and Blue Moon, and the bullshit that came with them.

             
Arnie pulled a third bottle from his bag while Quey stood staring down at the Pickens and Zaul label.  That’s what he was.  That’s all he’d ever be.  Just a moonshiner who’d grinded his life away one day at a time.  He didn’t want fame, or riches, or anything that came along with that sort of stuff.  He just wished that once, he’d have been able to do something more.  He might as well have worked for Blue Moon.

             
“It’s been a good run,” Arnie said, raising his bottle, smaller than the others and labeless, and drank.

             
Quey’s brow furrowed.  Railen.  Dusty.  Reggie.  Rain.  The city of Fen Quada and the countless others.  Ross, whose kids didn’t have a father, whose wife was now a widow.  Elvy… he hadn’t learned much about her.  The dozens lying dead not far from where he stood, their blood drooling from the docks and painting the ocean red.

             
“What?” Quey asked, his voice a ghost.

             
The bottle Arnie had given to the soldiers was making the rounds.  Quey looked at Arnie and waited for him to say it again.  When he didn’t Quey asked, “What did you say?”

             
Arnie’s face shrunk.  “Just that… It’s been a good run.”

             
Quey cracked open his bottle and said, “No it hasn’t,” then he drank.  It felt good, that burn slowly moving down to his belly.  He’d been away from it for so long.

             
The banging on the door stopped.  It was replaced with a more mechanical sound.  They were starting to use tools.

             
“Spacesuits,” Amber said as if she’d just figured out the answer to a mystery.

             
Quey looked over at her.

             
“Spacesuits!” Leone yelped.

             
Understanding spread through the room.  They were standing under a spaceship, there was bound to be suits.

             
“Get that thing open,” Quey barked, then took another sip and closed the bottle.  “Here,” he said to Arnie, “Better hold onto this a bit longer.”

             
Arnie took the bottle and shoved it and the one he’d kept for himself into his bag.

             
Carmen dashed up to the ship and was looking for a way in.  Ryla thought that was funny as she made her way to the control panel and pressed a button.  A door slowly lowered in the ships belly.  It was a long ramp that led up at a slight angle.  Quey hurried up into the ship, Carmen and Marcus followed.

             
It was dark inside but they seemed to be in a loading room, probably a place to store luggage and cargo.

             
“Where do you suppose they keep the suits?” Marcus asked.

             
“Maintenance,” Quey replied.  He turned back to the door and shouted, “Can you power this thing up?”

             
Someone relayed the request to Ryla and a few ticks later there was the dull hum of electricity and they had light.

             
“There,” Carmen said and ran toward an open room just off the massive hold.  Inside there were lockboxes full of tools and parts and lockers along the far wall.  Inside they found what they were looking for.

             
“We don’t need the whole suit,” Quey barked as Marcus began pulling the helmet out.  “We just need the magnetic holds.”  Quey reached into the locker and pulled the boots and handgrips free then turned and ran for the door.

             
Ryla was waiting on the platform when Quey made his descent.  He tossed the boots to the floor at her feet and she stepped into them then engaged the straps, which tightened until they fit her.  The boots were supposed to be one size fits all, but still they seemed a little loose.

             
Quey helped her slip the magnetic grips over her hands.  They fit over her palms and had a trigger for her thumb.  The harder she pressed them, the tighter the magnets grip would become.  He pulled the straps as tight as he could without cutting off her circulation before clamping them in place.

             
The security forces were working hard on the other side of that door as Quey and Ryla moved toward the edge of the ship.  It stood high off the ground, more than enough room for men much larger than Quey to walk comfortably beneath, so he bent to give her a boost.  She was heavier than she should have been, he couldn’t help but notice, as she stepped into his hands and he lifted her up into the air.  His wound screamed and he realized in all the excitement he’d forgotten getting shot.  Still, he strained to lift her higher but he was getting shaky. He was about to call for help from the room full of spectators when she said, “Hold still.”

             
“Hu?” he asked but then she stepped up onto his shoulder.  He braced himself for the weight of her and she used him as a stool and stepped up, reaching for the side of the ship.  If her balance hadn’t been as good as it was she would have fallen as Quey gripped her ankles and gave her all the height he could manage.  Finally she reached the side of the ship and squeezed the thumb press, causing the magnet to grip.

             
“You’ll have to raise it a bit,” she yelled, pointing to the nose of the ship.  Then she reached up with her other hand and caught the side.

             
Arnie was the first over to the panel.  There were so many buttons and he wasn’t sure what any of them did.  Rachel arrived shortly after and pressed one.  Hydraulics began to move and the nose of the ship slowly rose upward.

             
Ryla crawled up the side of the craft and onto the roof, then turned and started for the front.  “A little more,” she called down and Rachel pressed the button again.  The nose lifted to near a forty-five degree angle as Ryla made her way to it.

             
“You have to be shitting me,” Natalie said as they watched her pose on the tip of the craft, looking over at the metallic wall of the launch shaft.

             
“She won’t make it,” Burke said, mouth agape, then added, “No way she makes it.”  He looked to Marcus who simply stood silent.

             
Quey was holding his breath.  Finally she jumped.

             
“Oh fuck,” Natalie said moments after her feet left the ship.  There was no way she was going to clear the distance.  She was falling.  Panic shot through Quey like a jolt of electricity and stunned him.  He didn’t know what to do, couldn’t think of anything he might do, so he stood watching.

             
Ryla was partially synthetic.  In her brain there were tiny circuit boards that helped her process information.  One way this was helpful was in plotting trajectory.  It really wasn’t that different from ping-pong.  Though those below may have been nervous, she was not, for she knew, without a doubt, that she would fly through the air at just the arc necessary to catch hold of the bottom of the metallic shaft.  When she was within range she thrust her hands out, gripping the triggers with her thumbs as tightly as she could manage and felt the sudden jerk of a stop before her chest collided with the wall and her legs dangled freely past the edge of the tunnel.

             
Below her there was a sigh of relief and a handful of people even clapped once or cried out.  The jump had hurt more than she’d anticipated, considering she was wearing armor, but she wasn’t seriously injured so she scrambled until her feet were under her and then began scaling the wall on her hands and toes, like a free climber ascending a rock face with plenty of cracks to hold.

             
Quey breathed out, finally, as she began to move upward and grinned as he looked around the room.  The relief was broken by the screams of metal coming from the door.  He wasn’t sure what they were doing on the other side of that barrier, but whatever it was, it was working.

             
Ryla made it to the top of the shaft and climbed up onto the edge where she sat for a moment, breathing deep.  Her right shoulder burned from when she’d caught the edge of the wall and jerked to a stop.  She moved the socket around a bit as she lifted her forearm and looked at the holographic display projecting from her device.  When she saw she had a good signal she smiled slightly and activated the button that Boyfriend had given her.  It wouldn’t be long now.

             
She took a moment, there at the top of the shaft, to look out at the ocean and the shards of light the afternoon sun spewed across it.  It was beautiful and she realized how rarely she’d had an opportunity to see something like this first hand, and how little attention she’d paid it when she had.  As advanced as holoscreens were, she realized, there was something about being there in person they’d never be able to recreate.  Then she took a moment to note that she thought it was a shame she didn’t pack her paints.

             
After a set of ticks she returned her attention to her device and accessed the communication line that the militia was using.  She contacted Eric Hoss.

             
“This is Ryla, can you hear me?”

             
“The robot girl?” he asked a bit puzzled.

             
She sighed heavily and let go of the swelling anger she felt in her guts.  She’d wasted too much time on things like that all ready, made too many mistakes on account them.  Besides, was it really that far from the truth?  “I was curious,” she said to him.  “I believe we’ve drawn a good degree of the security personnel away from your position and the robotics compound’s defenses are deployed.  They’ll begin hitting targets sometime in the next fifteen minutes, depending on location, so I was wondering what you would like.”

             
“As far as?”

             
“I could open the blast doors and maybe you make it or perhaps you’re gunned down, or I can leave them closed and you’ll live but you’ll likely be trapped there until you die or are captured by Blue Moon.”

             
“Open the doors,” he said.

             
“Stand by and be ready,” she said then began to climb down the shaft.

             
Marcus and Carmen got a message from Eric as Ryla began climbing back down.  They gave him a report on the situation and, after a moment, he said, “We’ll start moving toward your position.  If they manage to get through we’ll have ‘em flanked.”

             
“Sir, just make it to the boats,” Carmen told him.

             
“I’m not leaving anyone behind,” he replied.

             
Ryla leapt from the side of the launch tube and twisted through the air so she could catch herself on the ship, landing like a cat, before climbing back down.  When she made it to the floor she went to the terminal next to the ships launch controls and found that Blue Moon security had tried to lock down the computers.  She chuckled at their feeble efforts and hacked through the system.  Within a tick and a tock she opened the blast doors and released Eric Hoss and his remaining soldiers.