Genesis (20 page)

“Poor little Pipsqueak. Do you really think Helios would risk anything getting out about what goes on there? He’s planning to take what he needs then make it go away – with all witnesses.”

Pip felt hot and cold at the same time. Yuang was going to destroy the Enclave? “You’re lying,” he said.

“Yeah, sure I am.” Her tone was caustic. “’Cos good old Yuang would never lie to you, would he?”

He grabbed the edge of her bed, his knuckles going white from the pressure. He knew what she was saying was probably true. He felt it in his gut, a glaring truth he’d been trying not to see.

“Even if I did unstrap you, you can’t stop him,” he said. “There are a hundred grunts on this ship, plus the crew. They’ll find you before you get anywhere near the bridge and then you’ve got to get to the weapons and …” Pip stopped. He realised he’d said too much. She’d made him angry on purpose.

“Weapons?” she said, and her gaze measured him. “Why would they need to fire weapons? He’s got them in his sights, hasn’t he?

Pip turned away from her, running a hand over his dreadlocks. Why had he let her make him mad?

“Pipsqueak! You look at me. Yuang’s caught up with them. He’s going to fire on them, isn’t he?”

Pip exhaled. “Only if they don’t stop.”

“And he was planning on using me to force Rosie to stop?”

Pip couldn’t answer her. But he didn’t need to.

“So,” she said, “he threatens to slice and dice me to get Rosie and Riley to give up. And what about Adam, her dad? Do you know about him?”

“No.”

Essie was silent for a minute and Pip wondered if the wound was hurting her again, and why he should care so much. But before he could ask she said very quietly, “Have you ever killed anyone, Pip?”

He half turned back to her, his arms crossed over his chest. One time he’d come close but he didn’t want to think about it. He’d been hungry and the kid had taunted him over and over.

“I don’t think you have,” Essie went on when he didn’t answer. “And even if you think it’s not going to be you pulling the trigger, or pushing the button, if you let it happen, it’s the same thing. It changes you, Pip. Do you want to be that person?”

He could feel her eyes on him as he stared at the floor. It was very quiet in the mediroom. The only sound was the ever-present hum of the ship, vibrating steadily as it cruised through the stars. He remembered the whites of the kid’s eyes staring at him in the dark. The glint of the knife in the moonlight and the rotten stink of the river. He thought of Rosie’s angry, accusing gaze.

He took a long breath but didn’t move. If he let Rosie’s aunt go, what would Yuang do to him?

The air in Rosie’s suit was getting thin.

They’d swapped to the last breather from the third suit now, and she was trying not to inhale too deeply. If everything went according to plan, their chances of surviving the atmosphere breach and freefall were good, at least forty per cent. If things went badly, the chances of survival were up there with ploughing into the sun at full tilt in a tin can.

She tried to stay focused on keeping the pod steady – and trying to miss the really big rocks when they made it to Mars.

“Rosie, I’m going to need you to go back into the fuel cell chamber when we get close,” Riley’s voice sounded flat through her com and she could hear the hiss of the breather releasing air into his helmet.

“How close?”

“Close enough to see the atmosphere.”

That close? She’d barely have time to make it back to the bridge.

She reset the nav controls. “You want me to change the cells around to make them uneven?”

He nodded. “We need to increase the pressure enough to burn out the thrusters.”

Without blowing ourselves up, she thought, or getting hit by Yuang’s missiles.

She didn’t understand how Pip could work with someone like Yuang. How could he do it, knowing what was going on? Or did he actually think Helios was doing the right thing?

Riley suddenly made a low noise. He was staring intently at the view screen in front of him.

“What?”

“Yuang’s hailing us.”

Rosie’s insides jumped.

“Can you put it on the holo projector?” he asked her.

“Yes.”

“Do it.”

She depressed the touch pads and a transparent image of Mr Yuang appeared, with a greenish cast, on the console between them. He smiled when he saw her.

Rosie tried to slow her racing pulse. Behind was a super high-tech-looking bridge with a black woman at the controls. Rosie had stupidly hoped to see Aunt Essie, or Pip, just to prove to him she was still alive.

“Yuang,” Riley said.

“Simon Shore,” Yuang replied. “So nice to see you again. You always did have a talent for survival.”

“No thanks to your predecessor.”

Yuang frowned. “Believe me, Simon, I would not have allowed them to torture you as they did if I had been in charge.”

Riley’s breathing was sharp in her com and Rosie looked at him in alarm.

“Easy to say now,” he said. “What do you want, Yuang?”

“What does everyone want? A place of comfort, an end to fear, but that is irrelevant. The question is, Simon,” he emphasised Riley’s real name, “are you willing to kill this young woman to achieve your end?”

Riley paused and glanced at Rosie. “That’s your plan, is it? Shoot us down, make us choose between surrender or death?”

“It’s up to you, Simon,” Yuang said. “It’s out of my control.”

“Shifting the blame?” Riley looked back at Yuang. “You used to be a better man.”

“Things change, times change. There is too much at stake here now, Simon.”

“But it’s your hand on the gun, not mine. Besides, nothing is certain. I believe a famous man once said that.”

“Famous and deceased,” Yuang replied.

“Where is Essie?”

“Alive for now, but as you said, nothing is certain. You could ensure her safety.”

“But what of the others – the lives in the Enclave? Who will ensure theirs?”

“You can, if you want to.” Yuang paused. “What do you think, Miss Black? Do you trust him?”

“More than I trust you,” she said.

He smiled. “And yet you know so little about him. About the many he has sacrificed in the name of his cause.”

“You mean the people you’ve trampled to get to me,” Riley said.

“You could have saved them by giving yourself up.”

“Like now?” Riley’s tone was filled with scepticism.

“You’ve already let Rosie and her aunt lead me right to you,” he said. “Why not cut your losses now, before more people are hurt?”

So that was why he’d let her go when she’d seen him at Orbitcorp. Rosie met his cold smile with a frustrated glare as she remembered his wink. Riley continued talking to Yuang: going on about something to do with the past, debating about the greater good. Then, without turning to her, he tapped one finger lightly on the console.

Her heart almost stopped as she saw the indicator flashing – Mars was close. She could see it now, the spherical shape patchy with its man-made atmosphere clinging like a semidetached shroud. Rosie drifted backwards until she was at the door of the bridge, then she turned and pushed herself away from the doorframe, arrowing down towards the hatch. She had three minutes max to change the cells and it felt like it took twenty. The cells floated so slowly from their chambers and she had almost ground her teeth flat with anxiety by the time she sneaked back into the bridge.

Riley and Yuang were still talking but their voices were harder now, and as she settled back in the pilot’s chair, Rosie got a shock. Pip was standing at Yuang’s side. She could see just one side of his face. He looked nervous, scared almost. She didn’t think he could see her, or at least he was acting like he couldn’t. Yuang was speaking and she tuned in, trying to work out what she’d missed.

“You can help her, Riley. Surrender and we can talk. Don’t make me fire on you.” Riley gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t think Essie will be as easy to outwit as you think. You look nervous, Yuang.”

“And you’re playing for time.” He smiled. “I’m a step ahead of you though, Simon. She has nowhere to go and you know what I’ll do when I catch her. This ship isn’t endless. Hasn’t Essie been through enough for you?”

Rosie’s heart leaped. Had Aunt Essie got free?

Riley kept talking, keeping Yuang’s attention. “You’re enjoying this game, aren’t you?” he said.

“Life is a game, brother,” Yuang replied.

“And the pieces fall according to fate, do they? How do you know I don’t have some of those lab results ready to go to a source in the Senate, or the news? You don’t know what else was in the box, do you? If something happens to me, perhaps I have left instructions for the information to flow.”

Yuang smiled, but Rosie saw the tension around his eyes. “A good bluff, Shore, but there’s still your sister. I can find her.”

“No, you can’t. She’s beyond even Helios’s reach.”

“Nothing is beyond our reach.”

Riley seemed disappointed but not surprised. “I see you’ve become the perfect Helios clone. Well, I guess there’s nothing more to say but, see you in the next life.” He flicked a switch and the hologram blinked out.

He turned to Rosie. “Ready?”

“No.” She put shaking hands on the pod’s controls and made sure her harness was secure, then dialled up the thrusters.

A dull whine started to fill the cabin and the ship leaped forward. Mars was suddenly hurtling towards them at terrifying speed. It was freezing but sweat was gathering in the headband of her helmet. Then lights began blinking on the dash and she saw the flashing of a weapons lock warning. An alarm rang through the cabin. Yuang was going to fire. She gripped hard to the pod’s steering and looked at Riley. His face was set and hard, his eyes bright.

“Now, Rosie!” He had to shout over the siren.

She let go of the right steering arm and punched it to back-burn. The force threw her back in her seat and she uttered a short shocked scream.

A massive roaring sounded and the pod shuddered so much, she could barely control the steering. Suddenly, the pod veered hard left. It was all noise and chaos and then a streak of bright light flared the cabin to white and Rosie stared as a missile shot past them. It had missed. Yuang had missed. The heat shield must have worked. Triumph filled her and she turned to Riley, grinning – then they hit Mars’s atmosphere. The pod shook and screeched as the force of the planet’s gravity took hold.

“Hang on to it!” Riley’s voice was a scratched shout. She grasped the steering arms, the vibration working through her body as though she was having a fit. The air in her helmet was thin and she began to feel light-headed. A strange whining, grinding noise was coming from somewhere. Lights were blinking all over the console and the force of entry was pressing her back hard into her seat. All she could see through the view port was a streak of grey as they plummeted towards the planet’s crust.

Their angle of entry was all wrong – they were breaking up!

Riley’s voice came through her helmet com, shaky and full of static. “The trajectory! Rosie, change angle.”

“I know!” she yelled. Did he think she was an idiot? She pulled hard on the sticks. It was like trying to shift an elephant stuck in mud. “Help me!”

Riley smacked his hand down on the button on his chair that activated the copilot controls. Nothing happened. He swore and punched the control again and again, but the sticks remained stowed. “Damn it.”

Rosie tried to quell her spiralling panic. The ship shuddered violently, and the vibrations from the steering felt like they were shaking the bones in her arms loose. She needed Riley’s help. “Use manual!” she screamed at him. “Pull them out!” She tried to point her elbow at the lever in the middle of the console. He understood and stretched towards them. But his seat harness had locked him in tight. He couldn’t reach it. The sensors must have decided that as the copilot, he was safer strapped tight against the seat. Riley didn’t hesitate. With a loud grunt, he unbuckled his harness and, hanging on to his chair with one hand, reached for the control release with the other. The intense shuddering of the pod threatened to throw him against the wall, but he held on, his face grim, and pulled on the release. A set of extra steering sticks ejected smoothly up on either side of his seat. He gripped them and pulled back hard.

He was almost too late.

Rosie heard the outer hull start to buckle and then, slowly, the pod’s nose rotated and straightened out, the shuddering eased. They’d done it. Riley turned to her with a triumphant grimace as he held on tight, helping her keep the ship in line. She grinned back, a feeling of elation flowing through her. But then she saw the view screen as they plunged out of the atmosphere.

Everything seemed to happen at once.

A loud alarm went off in the cabin, collision lights blinked rapidly and terror ran through her as she registered the sheer face of red rock in front of them.

She didn’t even have time to scream. Instinctively, she pulled the pod right, with all her might, but it was too late.

The ship slammed into the rock at a forty-five degree angle. From the corner of her eye, she saw Riley being flung from his chair. He slammed into the console and was then thrown behind her. Her seat harness held, but the force of the crash snapped her neck forward and she could barely breathe as the reinforced straps squeezed her rib cage.

The cabin filled with the sound of tearing metal. The outer hull ripped open and a massive fracture cracked the view screen.

Desperately, Rosie fought for control as they skidded through scree, rocks thumping off the sides of the ship. Then suddenly the rock ended and there was nothing but air.

For a split second the pod soared free of gravity. Then it dipped and dived straight down into a deep canyon.

Rosie saw a silver gleam of water at the bottom and smudges of green rushing up towards her. Glide in! her brain screamed at her. She punched down on the controls to deploy the emergency crash glide wings, but nothing happened. They must have been sheared off with the outer hull. Then the engines cut. For a moment there was no sound but her ragged breath and the air whistling past. She stared, frozen in fear and disbelief, as they plunged towards the river. The last thing she saw was the console as she smashed into it.