Haywire (33 page)

Artemis busily typed commands into the shuttle’s computer with one hand while steering it with the other, but she spared a second to give him a sympathetic glance. “Don’t let them lie to you, Shawn. Heroes aren’t born. Heroes are just people do-o-oing the best they can when shit is falling all around them. There’s no magic to it, no trick. The only thing standing in your way is you. Besides, I saw how har-r-rd you fought on Hygeia. You are a fighter.”

“
You should write a self-help book,” he replied with a grunt, no closer to believing himself capable of the plan she’d laid out. It was suicidal, a fool’s errand, and he was in no hurry to be either. But then he thought of his mother, wounded, maybe dying, and when he pictured her in his mind he saw what real courage was. In that moment he told himself he’d do whatever was asked of him if it meant she might have a chance at a tomorrow.

The lifeboat shimmied as Artemis approached the ship they were going to ride on. He knew the space they were flying into was crowded, but her hand on the stick was sure and smooth. He admired her ability, as well as her grace under pressure, while at the same time hating what it had made her. He hated even more that it might make him into the same. He’d seen the weary soldier in her eyes, the decades of blood and loss, and he didn’t want to end up that way.

“
Ther-re she is,” Artemis said, breaking him from his spiraling thoughts. She pointed at a battered hulk of a ship directly in their flight path. Its hull was dark gray and mottled, like it had seen far too many years of service in unkind regions of the solar system. Stubby wings shot out of its sides for atmospheric flight, but they barely seemed adequate for the task. Letters were painted in dull characters down the side – EUS
Cherry Blossom
– and he laughed. He stopped laughing when his eyes caught sight of an array of struts and antennas that rose up from the top of the ship like the quills of a porcupine. He knew that was where he and Artemis were going to be holding on. A coil of fear and doubt in his stomach tightened.

Artemis tapped a quick series of buttons and then rose from her chair. In the cramped confines of the lifeboat she had to hunch over and half-walk/half-stagger to the rear of the shuttle. “It’s time to go.”

A rock the size of a mountain sat in his gut as he rose from his seat, and he thought it would drop him to the floor before he could join her, but somehow he managed to make his legs take him to the exit hatch.

“
Suit up,” she said, her armor pouring across her skin in stuttering pulses until she was encased from head to toe.

As he imagined the same thing occurring to him, the cool sensation of his nanites pushing through his pours and flowing over him sent a chill down his back. It was strange, even oddly erotic, and despite his misgivings he couldn’t help but enjoy the sense of power that filled him.

“
How am I able to breathe?” he asked inside his helmet. “Does my body store more oxygen or something?”

Artemis flipped a toggle next to the exit hatch, and then turned a heavy latch. As it clicked into place, decompression vents opened and drew the atmosphere into storage tanks.

“
Yes,” she replied as wind whipped past them. “The cells of your body no-o-ot only contain more air, but you use it more efficiently. With minimal exertion you should be able to operate within a vacuum for hours. If you were able to lock yourself down and enter a hibernation state, you could potentially last days, maybe a week. I’ve known Titans who did it. But do-o-on’t worry, we’ll be planetside long before you’d have to worry about suffocation.”

“
What a comfort,” he said, his lips numb at the thought.

The tilt of her head said that she understood what he meant, but the way her shoulders were pushed back and level said that she didn’t care. They had a job to do, and babying him wasn’t it. He understood that and tried desperately to find the courage he knew was buried down in him.

Artemis hit a button as the last of the lifeboat’s air vanished, and the hatch opened. Suddenly Shawn was two meters from stepping into open space. The feeling of vertigo that hit him was overwhelming. All he saw was black upon black upon black, with distant stars winking back at him from distances so far away the mind couldn’t grasp it.

“
Okay,” she said, “when I say ‘Ready’ I want you to step-ep up here and grab the hatchway. Below us you’ll see our target. When I say ‘Steady,’ point your eyes ahead of it. We’re two bodies in mo-otion, so you can’t aim right for it. You have to lead it. Understood?”

He nodded. He’d played enough video games to know what she was talking about. You never aimed at a target in flight; instead you shot in front of it. That gave your bullets enough lead to meet their objective. In this instance, though, he was the bullet. He gulped unconsciously.

“
Good. When I say ‘Go,’ you pull yourself out of here as hard a-a-as you can at the space you locked your eyes onto. Keep your body straight, and your hands out in fron-nt of you. When you get close enough, grab something and hold on. Doesn’t matter what, just something. You’ll be able to find a more secure spot before they start their final descent. Got all that?”

Shawn didn’t know if his voice would hold, so he only nodded again. Artemis nodded back at him, glanced out the opening, and then stepped away from the hatch.

“
Okay then. Ready!”

Forcing his limbs to function, he moved forward and brought the tips of his toes against the bottom lip of the hatch. Six centimeters away was the longest drop in the universe. Ahead of him were a score of starships. When his vision trailed past them into the inky black, waves of nausea forced him to shift his eyes back to a solid object, the closer the better. A passenger cruiser glided silently past them, and when he looked at the portholes trailing down the side of it he found his telescopic vision could actually make out faces. It was surreal.

“
Steady!” Artemis shouted, her voice snapping his wandering attention back into place.

Several kilometers below their shuttle, the
Cherry Blossom
glided silently toward Mars. He looked ahead of the ship and focused his eyes on a star that represented where the ship would be in a short period of time. His nanite-enhanced brain double-checked his targeting and painted a new destination in his eyes. He’d only been a little off, which part of him took pride in before realizing that in space jumps a little off might as well have been a billion light years. Grunting, he locked his eyes on the highlighted destination marker and placed his hands around the jam of the open hatchway. When his feet were pressed down so hard they dented the deck, he nodded.

“
Go!”

Shawn didn’t give himself time to think or worry or second guess. As soon as the word was in his ear he yanked his arms, pushed his legs down, and was flying. One moment he was safely surrounded by a tried and true space vessel, and the next he was soaring naked through space. Or, at least, that was what it felt like. The nanite armor had become his skin in every sense of the word, and as he hurled through the cosmos he felt… powerful. He felt free. He was flying, he was alive, and he had power no normal human could ever understand. His fear became a fading echo he could no longer hear.

“
Looking go-o-od, Shawn,” Artemis said. “Your speed and trajectory are going to bring you right to their antenna cluster. Those are some sto-stout masts, but be careful.”

“
I’ll do my best,” he replied, irritated that she’d shattered the illusion he’d created in his head. It had been a moment of pure wonder, and he’d wanted to enjoy it for as long as he could. But, now out of it, he looked ahead and saw what she meant. The antenna array was like a small forest of trees, and they all seemed so delicate from where he was. Text displays in his eyes informed him of his speed in relation to his target, his angle of descent, and the thickness of the antennas he was going to land amongst. A substantial metal stalk looked like his best bet, so he focused his eyes on it and stretched his hands out to grasp it once he got close enough.

“
You’re almost there,” Artemis replied. “Get ready! Be careful!”

He wanted to snap at her, tell her to back off, but his attention was locked straight ahead. Meter by meter he closed on the
Cherry Blossom
. The antenna orchard thickened. His hands stretched forward. His displays changed with every passing second. He was awash in sensation and information, and as he closed on the ship he feared he would blink at the last second and screw everything up.

But he didn’t. Whether his actions were purely reflexive or an automatic reaction caused by his nanite-enhanced mind, he didn’t know. All he knew was that when he reached the thick stalk, his hands closed around it and dragged his body down to follow suit. Once he was stopped and secure, he closed his eyes and shook.

“
Not bad, Shawn,” Artemis said as she landed a few seconds later near a different antenna. “I know… knew… a lot of soldiers that couldn’t have made a drop like that. We’ll make a Titan out of you yet.”

He didn’t respond. She was trying to be supportive and encouraging, but he didn’t want to hear it. At that moment all he wanted to do was ignore the fact that he’d just flown across space and was now holding onto a deorbiting ship by a metal pole. A manic laugh bubbled against his closed lips.

“
Let’s move,” the Titan said, her tone urgent. “We ne-eed to be near the edge, and on my way in I saw a group of sensor pods on the port side near the aft of the ship. Those should do just fine.”

“
And how are we supposed to get to them?” he asked, his jaw finally unlocking. “Walk?”

“
We crawl,” she replied. “In your mind envision tiny barbs growing from your knees and palms. You can use those to grasp the hull of the ship without actually doing any damage to it. Watch me.”

Shawn turned away from the antenna pressed against his body. Several meters away, Artemis lay down against the ship and scurried across it like a lizard wiggling its way up a wall.

“
It’s easy, Shawn. Ju-u-ust think it and do it.”

Knowing he had no alternative, Shawn hauled himself down until he was laying flat on his stomach and facing her. Then, doing as she’d instructed, he pictured dozens of little hooks extending from his palms and knees. A warm flush went down his limbs, and when he pressed his hands down he felt himself attach to it. He brought his right hand up, and it came away like Velcro. He shook his head, once again reminded how strange his life had become as he pulled himself toward her. Despite his inexperience, they made good time. They were huddled behind a group of meter high sensor blisters a few minutes later.

“
Getting here was one thing,” Artemis said, her body flat on the hull two meters from him. “No-ow we have to ride this bull all the way down. She’s going to try and throw us, but we’re more than a match for her. Grow your bar-ar-arbs and let them sink into the plating beneath you. Once you’ve done that, ke-e-eep your head down and maintain your focus. I’ll let you know when we have to bail.”

“
Okay,” he replied. His body tingled again as he deepened his grip on the ship. His eyes told him that the hull, while not in the best of shape, was still sound, and as his barbs locked into it he knew he’d be okay. The more he used his nanites, the more they became part of him.

A minute later he felt a thrum vibrate through the body of the
Cherry Blossom
. A dull orange glow appeared in the corner of his left eye, and then the tremors that shook the ship took on a whole new life. Despite his grip, his chest and pelvis slammed up and down against the hull, and his muscles strained to hold him in place. The orange glow quickly turned into red flames that licked up from the scorched underbelly of the ship as it torn into the thin Martian atmosphere.

“
Hold on!” Artemis said, her voice barely able to overcome the vibration of the ship and the bones in Shawn’s head. “Just hold on!”

He didn’t need her urging. His fingers were curled so hard against the hull they were gouging into the metal, and he knew if he held on any harder he would rip the plates right off the ship’s superstructure. Staying where he was wasn’t a matter of strength, but of will, not to mention more than a little luck.

When the
Cherry Blossom
stopped shaking and leveled out into a smooth flight path an eternity later, he closed his eyes and focused on slowing his hammering heart. He’d thought the quakes were never going to end. Once he had himself under control, he looked at his hands. Hull metal was bunched in his fists like crumpled paper.

“
I see Bellona ahead of us,” Artemis said. The Titan had scurried forward and was holding herself against one of the sensor blisters. “The Labyrinth is running under us as we speak. We’re nearly there.”

Relief poured through Shawn like cold water. He’d gone through a lifetime’s worth of crazy in less than a day, and he didn’t know how much more of it he could take. “Just get me off this thing, and soon,” he replied.

Artemis chuckled and looked back at him. “You just rode in the universe’s greatest rodeo. Not too many people can say that, soldier.”

Shawn wasn’t a soldier, and he was about to tell her that when she turned back around and said, “Okay, our stop’s coming up. Get ready.”

“
What do I do now?” he asked, numbness stretching over his frazzled nerves.

“
Just… just keep your eyes on me, and do as I do. You’ll be fine. Now here we go.”