Zero-G (26 page)

The floor of the dock is humming with activity.

The stompers have returned, lugging crates, filling the room with the sound of clanking metal. They drop the crates with an enormous bang, and start pulling out weapons – not just stingers, but other guns, too. I see Syria rubbing his hands with glee.

Carver didn't come back with me. As soon as we left the hospital, he was off, saying he needed to find a working SPOCS unit and a soldering iron. Now I'm jogging down the middle of the floor, wondering how I'm going to fit into the chaos. I do a quick headcount of my own as I go. Fifteen stompers, excluding Carver, Anna and me. Plus nine Tzevyans. Just under thirty souls. It'll have to be enough.

“Hale.”

Iyengar is waving me over. Han Tseng is with her. He looks even more exhausted than before.

“This man claims he can fly,” she says.

I try to keep the surprise off my face. “
You?
”

Tseng shrugs. “You think I've been a councilman my whole life? I can fly a tug.”

“Not for twenty years,” says Iyengar, sniffing in annoyance.

He glares at her. “The technology's the same. You asked if I could fly? Well, I can fly.”

“Yeah, but can you fly in here?” I say.

Tseng's eyebrows look ready to fly off his head. “In the dock?”

“We need those tugs—” I point to the ships along the wall “—over there.” My finger jabs towards the door.

“You're crazy.”

I smile and shrug, my eyes locked on Tseng's. For the first time in days, I feel alive. “Well, if you can't do it…” I say.

He folds his arms. “Young lady, I once flew one of these tugs through a field of asteroid slag debris,
and
it had a damaged thruster. I'm probably the only person who
can
do it.”

Without another word, he spins on his heel and walks to the closest tug. “Just make sure nobody is standing underneath it when I turn the engines on,” he says over his shoulder.

He walks to the back and reaches up, standing on tiptoe. There's a hiss, then a clunk as a ramp drops down from the back of the tug. Tseng pulls it down the last few feet, then clambers on board. The tug itself looks like an enormously fat man, with a bulbous nose and tiny fins jutting out of the sides. Even though it's in the smallest class of ships, it still dwarfs us.

Iyengar is shaking her head. I don't give her the chance to comment. “Make sure everybody has a weapon,” I say, as Tseng appears in the tug's cockpit. “And make sure they've got something to hide behind.”

“I can't do both,” she says, sounding sullen and resigned.

“Then pick one, and find somebody to do the other.”

With a guttural roar, the tug's engine springs to life.

Tseng might be right about the tech being the same, but the moment the tug lifts off the magrail, I find myself wondering about that little trip of his through the debris field.

All activity in the hangar comes to a screeching halt. Watching the tug jerk itself upwards, seeing it nearly clip the wall and spin out of control prompts a burst of horrified gasps from across the floor.

It doesn't help that the tug looks about as manoeuvrable as a chunk of rock itself. I can just see Tseng at the controls, his head visible in the cockpit, high above. I see him look down, then the tug slowly begins to drift forward, moving towards the middle of the dock. The roar of its engine is huge.

It takes me a second to notice that it's still rising. It's only a few feet from the ceiling, on the verge of clipping it.

“Look out!” someone yells. It's impossible to know whether Tseng hears them, but the tug drops, plummeting to the floor. Just as it's about to crash, Tseng gets it under control. It rocks from side to side, hovering over the magrail track, its engine thrumming with a sound like water being sucked through a distant pipe.

After a moment, Tseng starts to move forward, scattering the crowd which had gathered to watch. He brings the tug to a grinding stop near the doors – I can hear the metal keening as the tug judders to a halt.

I don't stop to watch him climb out. Moving is good. Moving means that I have to pay attention to my body, working out how to minimise the impact of each step to lessen the pain in my knees.

I'm at the entrance of the hangar, helping Iyengar move a crowd barrier into place, when I almost back right into Prakesh.

He's aged ten years. It makes my breath catch in my throat. His face is haggard, his eyes red and raw. When I hug him, it's as if he barely has enough energy to squeeze back.

“How you holding up?” I say, as we pull apart.

He looks away, shrugs. At that moment, I want nothing more than to go back to our hab in Chengshi, curl up with him on the bed, and go to sleep. I want to pretend my kiss with Carver didn't even happen.

There are a million things I want to say to him. I want to tell him it'll be okay, even if it won't. I want to hug him again, and not let go.

Instead, I say, “We could use some extra hands. Can you help me with—”

“We can't do this, Riley.”

“What?”

He waves at the rest of the hangar. “This. We can't let more people die. If I can go and talk to whoever is coming, try and convince them, then maybe…”

He trails off. I open my mouth, then close it again, not sure what words to use. We don't have time for this.

My eyes find his. “I know what you're saying, but we've met these people. They want off the station, and they're prepared to go through us to do it.”

“They'll listen to reason. They have to.”

“Kesh—”

“You don't understand,” he says, pushing me away and holding my shoulders at arm's length. “This is the only way I can make it right. I
have
to help. Please tell everyone to stand down.”

I take a deep breath. “No.”

It's one word. Two letters. A single syllable. But in that instant, it's heavier than any word ever uttered. Prakesh's body sags, as if I'd just punched him in the gut.

“They won't listen,” I say. I've never been more sure of anything in my life. It's all too easy to see the weapons they were stockpiling, the determined look in Mikhail's eyes. “Either we stop them here, or they'll kill us all.”

His shoulders sag. After a few seconds, he says, “What do you want me to do?”

The next twenty minutes are one big multi-stage cargo run.

Anna and I zip back and forth across the hangar, ducking and diving and dancing past anybody who steps into our way. We ferry stinger parts and help lift barriers and deliver messages from one end of the dock to the other. I break off every so often to direct operations.

The tension builds so slowly that it takes me a little while to realise that the friendly chatter has ceased. I can feel people becoming more harried, dropping things more often and cursing when they do.

After a while, there's not a lot left for us to carry. We rest for a moment, over by one of the remaining tugs.

“What are you idiots standing around for?” says a voice.

Royo. He's pale, haggard, and moving with increased care. But he's upright, being supported by Carver.

“Captain,” says Anna solemnly, “you have an ability to take a beating that is nothing short of outstanding.”

“Why, thank you, Beck,” Royo says. “You have an ability to never shut up that I find similarly awe-inspiring.”

His gaze finds mine. I can't describe what passes between us at that moment, but it's not something I have words for.

“Resin,” I say. “Is it…”

“Getting there fast. Not everyone is responding to the injection Arroway cooked up – I think some are too far gone. But for what it's worth, yes, we beat Resin. Not that it helped ninety per cent of this station.”

There's an uncomfortable silence.

“We'll deal with that later, Cap,” says Carver. He reaches over, and passes me something. A SPOCS unit. It's been torn apart, and put back together again – when I jam it into my ear, it makes an uncomfortable fit.

“Is it working?” I say.

He nods. “Yeah. I think I got the frequency. But…”

“What is it?”

“Ry, there's no way of testing it. Not unless your friend Knox puts a stinger to his head. And it's a stop-gap at best – you'll have to keep it charged up.”

“
Shinso
's started moving,” Royo says. “But they're not going to have nearly enough time to get clear, Hale. These tugs look small, but they've got plenty of range.”

“It'll help,” I say. “It has to.”

Another wave of exhaustion slips through my barricades, and I have to bite my lip hard to get enough pain to fight it off.

Royo is eyeing us. “Where are your weapons?”

“We'll get there, Cap,” Carver says. “Besides, who needs weapons when you have the Boneshaker?”

Royo raises his eyebrows. “You mean that thing?”

He jerks his head at the dock entrance, where the Boneshaker, black and hulking, is parked up against the wall.

“Run it right at 'em, and they scatter like bugs,” Carver says, a huge smile eating up his face. “Riley's got her speed and Anna has One-Mile.”

“Nope,” Anna says. “Earthers took it.” She casts a dirty look at the entrance to the dock.

As I look at her, an idea comes to mind. “Anna?”

“Huh?”

“Come with me.”

Before she can say anything, I'm striding out across the dock floor, hopping over the magrail. I hear Anna following, calling my name, but it's drowned out as Tseng swings another tug overhead. I don't have to look up to know that I could probably reach out and touch the bottom of it.

I don't stop until we reach the weapons crates. The stompers are there, cleaning the stingers, and the bright smell of oil gets stronger as I approach. One of them looks up, then reaches down to get me a gun.

“Not one of those,” I say, and he looks up, puzzled. I point to one of the other weapons in the crate. One I saw earlier, when they were first brought in.

“The long gun?” he says, his brow furrowed. “I was leaving that until last. I don't even know if it'll fire – last time this thing saw action was the Lower Sector Riots.”

“Pass it here.”

“Think you can handle it? It's heavy.”

“It's not for me.”

He shrugs, then lifts out the gun. Anna's eyes go wide.

It's long – as tall as I am, easily. A thin barrel, an extended stock, and, screwed onto the top, a scope. It stains my hands black, turning them gritty with oil.

She hesitates before grabbing it, like she isn't quite sure it's real. When she does, the expression of wonder in her face is just amazing. Anna hefts the rifle to shoulder height, jamming the stock into her shoulder and welding her cheek to it, squinting down the scope. When she lifts her head off, there's a black mark on her cheek. It's at odds with the white gleam of her smile.

“Do you even know how to use that thing?” asks the stomper cleaning the weapons.

Anna racks the breech, clicking it back, then glares at the stomper. When she speaks, her voice is a low growl. “Just give me the ammo.”

The sheet on Knox's bed is stiff with dried Resin. He's been coughing for the past hour, and the fluid coming out of his lungs has gone from thin streams of liquid to sticky chunks. With each cough, he is able to breathe a little more easily.

And with each cough, his hatred for Riley Hale grows.

He curls on his side, tucking into the foetal position. Pain racks his body, and another round of coughing lodges a gluey hunk of Resin behind his back teeth. He sticks a finger in his mouth, fishes it out, and flicks it away. His head is clear – clearer than it's been in what feels like years. He knows what he has to do, and the sheer force of that knowledge, the clarity of purpose, is enough to make him swing his legs out from the bed.

He almost falls. He has to grip the mattress to steady himself, nearly pulling it off the bed. His nose is blocked, and, in the silence of the isolation ward, his breathing sounds harsh and hot.

He needs a weapon. Taking Hale on bare-handed is a non-starter. After all, her crew leader taught her to fight, didn't she?

From the door of the ward, Amira says,
That's right. She'll break you in half if you let her, just like she broke me.

“I don't know where she is,” he says. “I'll never find her.”

You do know. Think back.

He pauses, his hand still gripping the mattress. That was it. Hale's friend, the blond one, said something important.
Let's get back to the dock.

Knox runs a hand across his sticky lips, looking around him. His eyes fall on the wheeled instrument tray beside the bed. There's a syringe on it – the same one that Hale used on him, he's sure of it. Its plunger is depressed, and he can see a drop of liquid beading on the end of the needle.

He scoops it up, holding it in a two-fingered grip with his thumb on the plunger. Amira smiles, then turns and walks through the closed door. This bothers Knox for a moment, but then he pushes the thought aside.

He still feels horrible. Every muscle aches, every movement bringing agony. He makes himself walk, pushing open the door of the ward and shambling through the hospital corridors. Some of the lights are out, and he has to grope his way through. Several times, he bangs his shin or his hip into something in his path. Each impact feels like it vibrates his very bones.

He starts to hear voices, which grow clearer as he makes his way towards the entrance. He tightens his grip on the syringe. As he approaches the lobby, the voices grow clearer. There are two of them: two men, silhouetted in the main doorway, facing each other. They both wear the off-white uniforms of medical orderlies, and they look bone-tired.

From somewhere out of sight, Amira says,
Wait
.

The man on the left scratches his head. He has an untidy ponytail, and he keeps tugging at it. “How many we got coming?”

“Gods know,” the other replies.

The first man yanks his ponytail again, his arm cocked over his right shoulder. “It's going to be a nightmare. How can Arroway expect two people to run this place?”

“Gods know,” his partner says again. “You start setting up. I'll see if I can scrounge up some more volunteers.”

“Seriously? You think you're actually going to find any?”

But the second man has already gone, his footsteps fading into the distance.

Ponytail shakes his head, then strides into the lobby. He's muttering to himself, and Knox can hear the words clearly. “Sure, sure, I'll just do all the hard work, why not?” he says. He starts clearing the main desk, shifting tab screens and food containers out of the way.

Now. Go
, Amira says.

Knox crosses behind the man, trying to be as quiet as possible. He's almost at the door when he hears the man turn. “Hey. Whoa, hey!”

Knox doesn't look round. Ponytail pads up behind him, moving quickly across the floor. “Hey, you all right?” he says, putting a hand on Knox's shoulder. “You were inside? We've got a cure, so you can just hang out here and—”

In a single movement, Knox turns around and brings the syringe up, burying it in the man's eye.

He almost doesn't get there. The muscles in his arm feel like they're made of glass. And Ponytail sees the needle coming, tries to deflect it. But he's not fast enough.

He starts to scream, and Knox puts a hand over his mouth, shoving him backwards. They fall to the floor, the man bucking and writhing underneath him. Knox leans on the syringe, pushing it further in, and he feels the needle scrape bone. It isn't nearly long enough to penetrate beyond the eye socket, but it gives Knox the opening he needs.

He yanks the needle back, pulling it out of the deflating eye. Ponytail is still trying to push him off, but his hands have strayed to his face, exposing the rest of him. Knox takes a split second to locate the carotid artery in the man's twisting neck, and then he stabs the needle downwards, again and again.

Soon, the man's struggles begin to get weaker. When they stop completely, Knox is drenched in blood.

He gives the syringe one final twist, then gets to his feet. He's shaking, and he knows that it was stupid to burn so much energy so fast. But his head is clearer than it's ever been, his purpose a bright shining light.

He looks down at the man one last time. “I'm discharging myself,” he says, and keeps walking towards the doors, moving in long, loping steps.