Genesis (32 page)

Yuang looked disappointed and moved towards her. “You’re a terrible liar, Rosie. You’re going to have to learn to do better.” He reached into his jacket and drew out a small black pulse gun. He pointed it at her middle and she heard the subtle whine of it powering up. “It’s time for you to consider your options, child. Helios has room for smart girls like you but we can’t have you telling stories about us. Even without proof.”

Rosie stopped breathing. Yuang’s dark eyes were calm, regretful even, but there was a terrible hardness there as well. He would pull the trigger – he might not be happy about it, but he would do it.

“I can’t–” Fear made her voice a whimper and she coughed, tried again. “You want me to join Helios?”

“If you want to save Riley’s life and your own – yes.”

Was he saying his grunts had caught Riley, or was he just trying to scare her? She glared at him, terrified but furious as well. How was Yuang always one step ahead of them?

Yuang brandished a com in his other hand. “One word and he’s free. It’s up to you, Miss Black. Otherwise …” He lifted the gun until it was aimed at her head.

She wanted to scream. As if he would let Riley go, even if he did have him. There was no way out. They had the information. They had Pip to cure her family and now Yuang was stopping it all. The detonation alarm was ringing louder, almost in time with her pulse.

“You’ll never let him go,” she said.

Yuang sighed and he looked at her with pity. “Don’t make me do this, Rosie.”

“I’m not making you!” Her voice rose to a shout and she watched his finger tighten on the trigger.

“One more–” He didn’t finish as he suddenly sensed Pip behind him. He whirled around but Pip already had his gun raised. Rosie glimpsed Pip’s face; his eyes were dark blue and glittering with contempt and a kind of madness. He didn’t speak but, with mouth set and a shaking hand, he shot Yuang point-blank in the chest.

The force of the pulse shuddered through Yuang’s body and flung him backwards. He fell to the floor, his gun still clenched in his hand, a smoking hole in his chest. He hadn’t made a sound as he died but for a sudden intake of breath.

Pip stood over him, shaking, the gun still held high in his outstretched hand. Yuang’s face held an expression of angry surprise and the stench of burnt flesh filled the room. It turned Rosie’s stomach. The automated voice echoed through the corridors again.

Time to detonation: twenty-five minutes
.

“We have to go.” Pip’s face was empty, pale.

Rosie could only nod. She turned around and pushed open the plastic bubble that held her aunt and dad. She was moving like she wasn’t really in her body, like a bot, not really human. The alarm clanged louder.

She went to her dad first. His eyes were closed and his skin covered in the red rash of the MalX, but he was breathing. And he smelled sweet and that almost knocked her to her knees. It was what happened to people with the MalX not long before they died. It was a reaction in the blood and sweat. Her mum had smelled like that. Memory crashed over her like a wave and Rosie began to shake. Not now, she thought desperately and forced herself to keep it together.

She disconnected the drip and peeled the tiny pods from his head as fast as she could. Pip was doing the same for Aunt Essie.

“We need to get your aunt awake,” he said. “She’s not as bad as your dad. Look for adrenaline.”

He was crashing around in the stationary medi units beside the bed. She turned to the unit by her side.

“Is this it?” She held up a syringe sealed in opaque mediplast.

“Give it here.” Pip snatched it from her hand. His movements were jerky, unsteady. He punched the needle into her aunt’s neck.

It worked fast.

Aunt Essie stirred and opened her eyes. “Pipsqueak?”

Rosie rushed to her side to help her sit up. “Aunt Essie, we’ve got to get out. Riley couldn’t stop the selfdestruct.” She was babbling but her aunt seemed to understand.

Her gaze took in Rosie’s dad, then Pip, then the rash on her own bared legs, but all she said was, “How long have we got?”

“About twenty minutes,” Rosie said.

She swung her legs off the bed and to the floor, wincing. She was only wearing a singlet and underwear, but didn’t seem to notice. Then she saw Yuang’s body. Her eyes went from Rosie to Pip and the gun shoved back in his waistband. Her mouth hardened slightly but without comment she stepped towards Rosie’s dad.

“Can we wake him as well?”

“No more adrenaline,” Pip said. He was already kicking the bed’s wheels down, rocking the frame.

“You okay to run?” Aunt Essie looked at Rosie’s ankle. Rosie realised she had stopped noticing the pain.

“Yes.”

“Come on.” Pip pushed the bed towards the opening in the plastic.

“No, you lead,” Aunt Essie said and grabbed one side of it, motioning for Rosie to take the other. Pip didn’t argue. He jogged ahead and Rosie and her aunt followed, rolling the bed past Yuang’s corpse and out into the corridor.

The alarm was louder in the empty hall and they pushed the bed as fast as they could towards the airlocks. Long, frightening creaking sounds were coming up through the structure of the Enclave, like a great metal beast seeking to rise – or fall apart – and every so often a dull crash could be heard and the floor would shake beneath them. Riley’s bombs must have caused more damage than he’d thought.

The pain in Rosie’s ankle returned with a vengeance. She gritted her teeth against the pain and leaned as much as she could on the bed without slowing it down. She worried about Riley. Was he still alive?

Pip had pulled the gun out again and a few metres ahead she saw an outer airlock.

She tried the com again.

Her aunt was watching her. “Riley?” she said. Her voice sounded weaker than normal.

“He was in the lower levels.” Rosie didn’t need to see Aunt Essie’s face to know what she thought about his chances of getting out.

The com spat loud static.

“Riley, come in,” Rosie spoke into the com, leaving the view screen off for maximum power. “Riley.”

Hope surged as a faint voice answered. “Rosie?”

“Riley!” she shouted, catching her aunt’s eye. “Where are you?”

“M … n … lev …” The signal was breaking up, but Rosie tried anyway.

“Riley. We’re getting out – all of us. We have the files.”

She could only pray he’d heard as the com erupted with loud static and then the sound of sharp cracks.

“Gunshots,” her aunt said, her voice strained with the effort of pushing the bed.

“Riley!” Rosie yelled into the com.

“Greenhouse. Go.” His voice suddenly came through clear then the com went dark.

“Where’s the greenhouse?” Rosie called to Pip.

“The other side. Too far. It’s above ground though.”

Rosie looked at Aunt Essie. There were shadows under her eyes and her skin had a yellow tinge to it. She was fading already, the adrenaline being eaten up by the virus.

“He’s on his own, kid,” her aunt said.

Pip was at the airlock. He checked a cabinet on the wall beside it.

“No breathers.” His expression was bleak and Rosie wanted to scream at the injustice of it. Where the hell would they go?

“Rovers?” She practically spat the word at him.

“Not here,” Pip said. “This is a service way. I thought there’d be less chance of grunts …” he trailed off, his dismay at his decision plain.

Time to detonation: fifteen minutes
. The calm mechanical voice spoke again.

“We gotta take our chances.” Aunt Essie pushed the bed towards the airlock. “Open–”

“Wait,” Rosie grabbed the bed and said to Pip, “How about Yuang’s ship?”

“It’s probably gone.”

“Without Yuang?”

He held her gaze for a heartbeat.

“If it’s there, I can fly it,” Aunt Essie said.

Pip opened the lock. Rosie couldn’t even have guessed what time it was, but it was dark and very cold and almost immediately her muscles tensed up against the chill. They shoved the bed out as fast as they could. Rosie kept a hand on her dad’s arm and felt the thinness of the air as she took a breath. Not enough oxygen. The alarm was spiking loudly and the bed jerked and rattled over the edge of a slab of crete. The wheels dug in as it hit a dirt path but her dad didn’t move. He was so still.

“Which way?” she asked Pip. A garden surrounded the Enclave and the looming mass of the Tharsis Mountains rose behind, cutting a shadow across the starred sky.

“This way.” Pip threw Rosie’s dad over his shoulder and led them up the path towards a light tower on a hill.

It took them nearly ten minutes to reach the landing platform. It was on the top of a hill surrounded by garden and the
Cosmic Mariner
sat, dark and closed up, above them. They were all suffering badly from the lack of oxygen, as well as fatigue. Pip was sweating and making an awful wheezing sound and Rosie had to support Aunt Essie up the last steep incline to the doors of the launch-pad lift. Pip punched it open and they crowded inside. There was a blessed blast of regulated air as the lift sealed and shot them up to the hatch.

The ship came to life around them as they entered the cargo hold. Lights flickered on as automatic sensors picked up their movement. The
Cosmic Mariner
was enormous. Seven decks, ion core, solar flare shielded, a long-distance cruiser. Strapped in web locks on either side of the hold were cases of supplies and a central runway led to a deck access lift at the far end.

The pilot and crew were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they were stuck inside. Maybe they were dead. Rosie didn’t care; she was already beginning to worry that Aunt Essie wasn’t going to be able to fly the ship. She was way too pale and Rosie had to help her onto a nearby crate. She groaned softly and slumped back against the hull, her eyelids fluttering closed.

“Aunt Essie?” She didn’t respond and Rosie looked with fear at Pip as he laid her dad down on the floor next to her. Her dad looked even worse and despair began to work its way up her throat.

“He’s breathing,” Pip said, but the expression on his face wasn’t hopeful. Rosie began to bargain with the universe.
Please, just let them live, get us out of here. I’ll do anything
. She kneeled down by her dad and gently touched his cheek. He was so feverish. So still.

“Rosie!” Pip’s voice was sharp enough to jolt her out of her misery. He grabbed her aunt’s shoulders as she slipped downwards. “Can you fly the ship?”

Rosie tore her gaze away from her dad’s face.

“I don’t think so. We’ve got to–”

“You’ve got to what?” a voice said. They both started as a tall black woman emerged from the launch pad lift.

“Nerita,” Pip said under his breath. “Ship’s pilot.”

“What you doing here, Feral?” she said to Pip and strode towards them. “I’m surprised you’re still alive.” She had a large gun in her hand.

“Just trying to get off this rock, same as you,” Pip answered.

“Uh-huh.” She eyed Rosie with her aunt and dad. “And who are your new friends? Haven’t I seen them before?”

“We need to get out of here,” Rosie said quickly. “The Enclave’s going to explode in about five minutes.”

Nerita seemed almost amused. “I’d say it’s more like three.” She went to a panel on the hull and swiped her hand over a bio reader. “And it’s lucky for you I’m here. You’d be going nowhere without these.” She waggled her fingers with a smile like a shark’s grin. Bio dent ignition. Rosie got a sick feeling in her gut. If she’d tried to start the ship, she would have been fried in the chair.

Nerita looked like she knew what Rosie was thinking. “Let’s get one thing straight,” she said. “The way I see it, Yuang’s gone missing and that means the ship’s mine.” She tapped the gun.

“Yuang’s dead,” Pip said in a low voice.

“Really?” She gave him a speculative look. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Pip.”

Pip tensed and moved as if to step towards her.

Rosie jumped to her feet and grabbed his arm before he did something stupid. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said quickly. “We’ve got to go.”

“Agreed,” Nerita said. “Pip, toss the weapon.”

His mouth thinned, but he pulled the gun from his waistband and threw it towards her. She caught it and looked at Rosie. “I saw you fly that pod – you’re coming to the bridge with me. Pip, close the airlock, then stay here and do what I say. Move it.” She motioned for Rosie to go ahead of her to the lift.

“You sit there.” Nerita tossed the guns down on a console and pushed Rosie towards a podium beside her pilot’s chair on the bridge.

“You know your charts?” she snapped.

“Sure.” Rosie climbed into the copilot chair and placed her palm on the bio interface on the armrest. Immediately, an opaque holo screen rose from the centre of the podium and a slim panel unpacked itself like an elegant spider stretching out two legs on either side of her. It lit up with touch-sensitive controls for navigation and ship functions. Rosie stared in apprehension. She barely knew what half of the controls did.

Nerita already had her bio link helmet on and an orb of amber-coloured holo controls sprang up around her.

“Good, we’ll–” Nerita stopped as a deep boom came from outside and the ship rocked hard. Rosie stifled a scream and gripped the armrests of her chair.