Greenshift (21 page)

“Maybe because I vented
the hydroponics bay. But I didn’t have a choice.”
The panic swam in
her voice again.

Sean swore under his breath.

Like David, he was probably imagining
every horrific scenario. “It’s okay, Mari. Is the ship still venting
atmosphere?”

“No, the barrier sealed
off that compartment.”

Something was amiss. “The
alarms should have cut out by now if the danger were contained. Look at your
atmo readings for the entire ship. Is there another breach somewhere?”

“Let me see…no, they’re
reporting every place else as secure.”

He was about to insist about the
alarms, when Mari must have caught on.

“Wait. The alarms haven’t
stopped because I had to blow the failsafe on the condensers in the hydroponics
bay. It’s just the result of my bad rewiring.”

He shot a look at Sean to see if
that could be a real possibility. When Sean gave him a response somewhere
between a nod and a shrug, David felt placated enough to return to his original
question. “How about you? Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer right away.

David suspected what that
hesitation meant. And he knew she was keeping the truth from him when she
answered,
“I’m okay.”

The thought of Dale or Carlos or any
man raising his hand to Mari made David’s blood boil. “Where is Dale
now?”

“Probably headed here to
the bridge.”

“He can override the lock,”
Sean said.

Though he looked at David when he
spoke, Mari responded.

“He can’t. I destroyed
the lock panel on this side. That should do it, right?”

“Probably,” Sean said.

There were too many
probablys
in this whole scenario for David. He needed some concrete action. “Do you have
full control of navigation, Mari?”

“Yes.”

“Then you need to reroute to
a public dock.”

“Which one?”

Sean already had the information
up on a screen in the holo-controls. “If she’s headed toward Sinder Isle,
then Abigail Landing is her best bet. It’s a small municipal dock, but it’s
close enough that the reroute will be simple, plus the local contractors’ guild
is within a few kilometers.”

“Hang on. Sean’s sending you
the coordinates for Abigail Landing.”

David waited.

“Got them.”

“Good. Let the auto-pilot
make most of the adjustments for now. It will be too difficult to free fly a
ship as big as the
Thrall.
Your inertia alone will be fighting against
you. That freighter won’t maneuver like the
Bard,
but the principles are
the same. It’s the landing that’s going to be touchy.”

“
I have to land this
thing?
By myself?”
Her voice pitched higher in rising panic.

“I’ll guide you when the
time comes,” he said. “This will be easy for you. I’ve never met
anyone who could take to navigating and piloting like you, and that includes
most of the fleet recruits I trained. You’re smart, Mari. Maybe the smartest
person that I know. All you have to do is remain calm and we’ll do this
together.”

She offered silence in reply.
David and Sean shared a concerned look. If Mari couldn’t hold it together, they
might lose her. Then a loud exhale sputtered through the comm, and Mari
launched into a systems check with the confidence of a seasoned pilot.

“Navigation is go. Life
support, go. Comms systems…except video, go. Auto systems are a go.”

David grinned, and Sean actually
gave him a half-smile in return.

She finished with,
“Systems
check complete. I’m go on all systems.”

“Now reroute your arrival to
Abigail Landing.”

“Rerouting.”

They waited.

“Reroute confirmed.”

“How close are you to
reentry protocol?” David asked.

“Looks like fifteen
minutes.”

“Good. Check your harness
one last time.” Every muscle in David’s body was tense, but he had faith
in Mari. He meant it when he said she was a natural at piloting.

“Hmm.”

“What is it?” David
asked.

“There’s another
transmission coming in.”

“From Abigail Landing?”
It made sense that the dock would be pitching a fit about an unscheduled
freighter knocking at their door.

“Can’t be,” Sean said.
“I’ve been trying to raise them the whole time to give them a warning, but
haven’t gotten through.”

“It’s from an Armadan
gunship.”

David’s heart sped up and his
mouth went dry. If the dock felt the
Thrall
was a threat, they’d call in
the Armada. His mind went to the destruction of that UTV over Tampa One a year
ago when he’d been ordered to take out the threat.

“Mari, open a channel to Abigail
Landing and the gunship, then say this exactly. ‘Armadan gunship, this is
Thrall
7
requesting an emergency docking at Abigail Landing. I am an unarmed
civilian pilot.’ Did you get all of that, Mari?”

“Yes.”

The small affirmative was all he
got before his comm link went silent.

“She’ll get it right,”
Sean said, as though to affirm it to himself as much as to David.

David agreed, but said nothing in
the tense silence.

“David, the gunship has a
message for you.”

“For me?” Had he heard her
right?

“Yes, but I’m not going
to repeat it because it’s not very nice. Something about this serves you right
for picking them so young. What does that mean?”
Mari’s tone hinted
that she already understood the implication.

Sean snickered.

Relief flooded over any
irritation or embarrassment David might have felt. “That means when you
land, you get to meet my brother, Ben.”

“The one who annoys the
shit out of you, isn’t that what you said?”

For the first time since this
whole ordeal began, the mood lifted with tentative relief.

“That’s exactly what I
said.”

“I like him already,”
Sean said.

“You haven’t met him yet,”
David said.

A muffled explosion ripped
through the comm, crashing the mood.

“Mari, what’s
happening?”

“Dale just blew the door
to the brid—”

The comm went dead.

Mari screamed as the explosive
wave rippled through the bridge, making her ears ring. The acrid odor of fried
circuitry and melted plastic punctuated the detonation. She swiveled in the nav
chair, the holo-orb rotating with her. Through the transparent glow of its
orange and pink controls, she spied the damaged door. It had only opened a few
centimeters, but bulged at its center from the blast. This warping would make a
forced manual opening impossible. Dale still shoved against the twisted metal
with both hands, but he would need a lot more muscle to move it. Several other
hands joined his.

He pushed them away with a crazed
shriek and managed to squeeze his left arm through the opening. As though under
a spell, Mari simply stared at his contorted body trying to push past the
equally twisted metal door. He was shoving his left leg in when he stopped to
look at her. She could only see one crazed green eye and part of his mouth.

In between labored breaths he
said, “When I get in there, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Then the comm blasted back on, so
distorted Mari couldn’t tell if it was David or someone else on the other end.

“David?”

Nothing coherent, just white
noise.

To adjust the comm, her fingers
flew over the airscreen inside the holo-controls, blurring her view of Dale’s
struggle with the bridge door.

A new alert bleated within the
din of the breach alarm and sizzling comm. The ship took on a steeper angle and
a slight pull of g’s tightened around Mari’s skin. Several thumps and curses
came from the door area as Dale’s men slammed into each other and into him,
crushing him within the confines of the door.

She recognized the fear on his
face as he also realized what was happening—the
Thrall 7
was initiating
atmospheric reentry.

In a dizzying whirl of
holo-controls, she spun the chair back to face the viewscreen. Tampa Deux’s
marble of blue and white filled her vision.

Reentry was the most critical
part of a flight. The last thing Mari needed now was a crazy man distracting
her. The auto-pilot had committed them, but perhaps the
Thrall
could
save her from Dale, too. Her finger hovered above the little black button which
would override the auto-pilot and return manual flight to her.

“Just press it.” If no
one else was around to encourage her, she’d have to depend on herself,
something she’d been doing since last year.

She pressed the button.

The entire orb of holo-controls
flashed an angry red, warning her that manual flight had been engaged.

She had expected the ship to buck
or list or start spinning into the awaiting planet. But nothing felt different.
Somehow that seemed unnerving, as though any second the whole ship would
shudder and break apart.

“Don’t invite misfortune.”
She murmured the phrase her mother always used. Growing up on Deleine Mari had
always felt that someone must have invited a shipload of misfortune onto her
family.

As if on cue, a flashing message
alerted her that the angle of trajectory was slipping away from forty degrees
and their speed was picking up. She felt the extra g’s press her back further
into the sour-smelling pilot’s chair until she had to pant for shallow breaths.

She evened out the angle and
velocity by making little adjustments with fingertip controls built into the
nav chair. Thankfully someone had thought of this design perk, though someone
who had probably never dreamt up her current scenario.

She heard clambering and cries
behind her but couldn’t lose focus as she put the
Thrall
‘s hull shields
against the burning and rumbling atmosphere of Tampa Deux. Waves of flame
roiled past the viewscreen. She swore she could feel its heat as sweat formed
along her brow and wet her palms. The light was beautiful, but so brilliant she
could barely look at it. She probably should have put the outer shield down,
but with Dale moving in, she had had to act fast.

Her approach was like a woozy
bird, so she corrected, actually overcorrected. Doubt took root in her mind.
She was in over her head. What if she crashed them?

The thought brought a rush of
adrenaline, but not out of fear, out of an epiphany. That’s how she’d take care
of Dale upon landing—she’d crash the
Thrall.
Just a little bit.

Once they broke through the
atmosphere, she edged their nose down a bit, sending new alarms blaring through
the cabin and warnings flashing across the holo-controls. There were so many
now her brain just ignored their pleas.

The
Thrall
‘s auto-pilot
kept kicking in, trying to level out the ship and engage airbrakes, but Mari
kept enacting the override. She felt faint, either from the pressure or the
stress. Maybe a little of both.

The altimeter counted down at a
sickening pace, and the ground enlarged like zooming in on a vid screen. Mari
suddenly thought this was a terrible idea—her heart pounded, she fought for
breath that wasn’t there. The silver grey docks of Abigail Landing filled her
viewscreen. She squeezed her eyes shut just before impact because she was
afraid to see her own death.

“Get a call out for an extra
medical team…what’s happening on the other decks…the ones still alive should be
taken into custody…search for survivors on the bridge….”

Mari heard a man’s voice fading
in and out. Then she realized it was her that was fading in and out. Trying to
force consciousness back with a deep breath, she only managed to choke.

“I’m here,” she croaked
out.

After another coughing fit, she
called again. “Here!”

Dust thrown up from the crash
stung at her lungs. Or was that smoke? The smell of scorched plastic and the snap
and pop of circuitry, which burned outside of her vision, gave her the answer.

A man in blue fatigues, a grey t-shirt,
and navy flak jacket stepped through the settling smoke. He lowered his battle
rifle and slung it into his shoulder harness as he picked his way over debris
to get to her position.

This trooper looked so much like
David in the eyes that Mari couldn’t help but stare. His hair was much shorter,
the military cut emphasizing his forehead, but the shock of rich brown was thick
like David’s. This guy’s jaw wasn’t quite as squared, but he certainly had the
same build and bearing.

“You’re Ben, aren’t
you?”

He crouched down next to her. “And,
you’re the woman who’s been kissing my brother.”

Her surprise had to show on her
face, as the blush that crawled down her cheeks and neck…past all the dirt and
grime. She pulled at the harness trapping her in the nav chair, but Ben placed
a halting hand on her arm. “Let’s wait until I get my medic over here to
be sure you’re not injured, okay? You did just crash a freighter.”

Ben’s Yurian accent was stronger
than David’s, and his voice had a slightly richer tone. “Hans, over
here,” he yelled toward the back of the bridge.

She closed her eyes and wished it
were David’s hand on her arm. As the adrenaline seeped out of her body, she
felt weary and distracted.

“Mari?”

Her eyes flew open at the sound
of her name.

“It
is
Mari,
right?” Ben asked, rubbing her arm.

She shook her head yes.

“I want to see those pretty
eyes open, okay? We need to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

Just then a dark-haired man with
olive skin, who could have been mistaken for a contractor if not for his hazel
eyes, introduced himself as Hans. Ben made to leave, but Mari snagged his hand.
She didn’t want to be alone anymore. Ben was the closest she could get to
David right now, and that gave her comfort.