Impact (29 page)

Prophet is hunched over a bank of screens, staring down at the scenes unfolding on them. His eyes flick back and forth, terror on his face. Gunshots flare on the screens, washing out the cameras.

Riley Hale is there. Okwembu saw her moving through the corridors, saw her take out one of the guards.
She's still alive.

She looks around the bridge. It's packed with people, all of them watching Prophet, all of them waiting for an order. On one of the screens, something explodes, sending another flare of white light across Prophet's pale skin. His lips are moving, but no words come out.

“Sir?” says one of the men, standing by the map table. He's older than Prophet, more grizzled, but it's impossible not to see the fear in his eyes.

Okwembu looks at him, then back at Prophet. He doesn't react to the question, his eyes locked on the screen.

“Prophet?” the man says, more urgently this time.

Okwembu doesn't hesitate. Prophet's thin veneer of control is cracking open, and she's not going to let the opportunity pass.

“You, you and you,” she says, pointing. “Lead your men down there and provide support. Get word to the gunner: if anybody tries to get off this ship, blow them out of the water. It'll stop anyone else from trying to leave.”

She ignores the surprise on their faces. “You three,” she says, turning to face the others. “When they're gone, you lock this bridge down.”

The man by the map table sneers, disgust winning out over fear. “I don't take orders from
you
.”

For the first time since she killed Mikhail, Okwembu loses it. “
I don't care who you take orders from.
If you don't stop this right now, you lose control of the ship.”

She jabs a finger at Prophet, who hasn't reacted to the outburst. “It's exactly what he'd order you to do if he was thinking straight. Now get moving.”

A dart of worry shoots through her, but she ignores it. She's lived through revolutions before–usually, all it takes is a few deaths, and then the instigators stop fighting. They should be able to keep the majority of the
Ramona
's workforce.

A ripple of emotion travels around the room, borne on glances and nods. The ones at the back move first, hefting their guns, then jogging for the doors.

“One thing,” Okwembu says, talking over the rising tide of voices. “The woman who Ray and Iluk brought in earlier. If you find her, I want her alive. Bring her to me.”

Prophet is finally looking at her, but she ignores him. She drops her head and closes her eyes, just for a moment.

Okwembu is tired. Tired of trying to keep people safe. She's sick of it. She has tried, over and over, but no matter what she does, it never works. She has suffered, been imprisoned, nearly tortured. Whenever she has found supporters, they've been snatched away. And now, just as she finally finds a place she can keep safe, a place of order which she can control, Riley Hale comes along.

A woman she respected. A woman she had high hopes for. A woman who hates her, and wants to destroy everything she would build.

On some level, Okwembu understands Riley's hate. She knows she deserves it, after what happened to the
Akua Maru
. But Hale is about to destroy the one thing she has left, and Okwembu will not stand for it. Not this time.

She is going to kill Hale herself.

All Anna Beck can see is stars.

There was no sound when the pod ejected. No roar of rocket engines. The airlock is designed to open completely in a fraction of a second, letting the vacuum shoot the pod away from the station. Anna's heart has climbed up her throat and into her mouth–she's struggling to breathe, as if she can't push the air around its mass. The G-forces have welded her to the chair.

The touchscreen displays are alight, each one incomprehensible, as if the craft is daring her to take control. The pod is spinning, the stars give way to Outer Earth's massive hull, moving from the top of the viewport to the bottom, vanishing before she can pick out any details. Three seconds later, it appears again, and Anna is sure she's going to smash into it.

The feeling passes. Her hand is still locked tight around the joystick, and she makes herself push the top button. An engine bursts into life behind her, rumbling up into her spine. The pod tilts on its axis, the stars yawing to the right. A million tiny pinpricks, more than she could ever have imagined. The sun flashes into view, filling the cockpit with an awful glare.

Anna pulls the stick towards her–gently, almost tentatively. A different sensation this time, as boosters on the side of the pod fire. Dimly, Anna realises that she's weightless. There's a ripple of nausea in her stomach, and her sinuses feel strange, like they're slowly filling with mucous.

With a tiny rasp of fabric, her beanie comes loose from her head. It was dislodged by the launch, and now gravity floats it above her eyeline, mocking her. She grabs it, pulling it back on.

“Fuck,” Anna says, the sound more of a breath than a word, horrifyingly loud in the silence.

Slowly, carefully, she stops the pod from moving. Outer Earth is no longer appearing in the cockpit viewport, and she has no idea where she is in space, but the stars have stopped moving. That's good enough for now.

Tiny movements are best. Little flicks on the stick, no more. The two buttons control her thrust–the top one sends her forward, and the one on the front of the stick causes a burst of white smoke to shoot from a nozzle on the front of the craft, out of sight below the cockpit.

Outer Earth comes back into view. She nearly loses it, brings it back, and holds it.

For a few seconds she can't tear her eyes away. Outer Earth is a monolith: a scarred, grey, ancient relic, hanging in the black void. The sun is behind the escape pod, and its light picks out the station perfectly.

The dock is easy to spot. It's as if a giant monster locked its jaws around the station, and tore away a huge chunk. The wound is marked by a haze of debris, glittering in the vacuum.

Anna doesn't know exactly where the tug will be–Dax didn't tell her–but the dock's her best bet. Pushing back the fear, she thumbs the thruster. The pod responds, and Outer Earth begins to get larger. It's hard to control–the station keeps sliding away, only for Anna to overcorrect and send it veering in the other direction. How much fuel does she have? She doesn't dare look down at the gauges to find out–if she does that, she feels like she'll never be able to look away. The thought of being lost out here, trapped in the void forever, is enough to send her heart back into her mouth.

The hull looms in front of her, and she brings the pod around so that the nose is pointing towards the dock. It's a little further along the station's curve, but she can see the debris. Slowly, ever so slowly, she heads towards it, keeping a close eye on the nearby hull.

The debris takes shape. A crate here, a destroyed tug there. Half of the dock's smashed airlock door. The mag rails that pulled the tugs inside the station are twisted and torn, spinning gently, as if they weighed no more than a human hair.

There's an urgent beep, and one of the displays flashing a warning. PROXIMITY ALERT.

The hull. It's too close, swallowing the right half of the viewport. She jerks the stick, and the pod drifts to the left, silencing the alarm.

There. She sees the other pods, just inside the destroyed dock. They're widely spaced, rotating on their individual axes. Their doors are open–Anna can see inside one of them, right out of the viewport on the other side. Dax and the others have got their space suits on. They'll be transferring to the tug, clambering aboard, getting ready to depart.

Anna thinks hard, picturing the dock as she remembers it. A huge hangar, packed with tugs and equipment. If she can manoeuvre her pod inside, if she can spot Dax's tug, she can ram it. If it's damaged, they won't be able to use it, which means their only option will be to return to Outer Earth.

Except…
shit
. She's not wearing a space suit. She didn't even think to put one on yet. An awful image comes to her mind: the escape pod hitting the tug, cracking down the middle. She's heard stories about what happens to a body in space–everybody on the station has.

There's no time. She's coming up on the debris. Anna pulls the stick, trying to steer her way through. Something scratches across the roof of the pod, and she yelps in fear.

She can see the tug. It's hanging right in the middle of the dock, facing outwards. It dwarfs her escape pod: a bulbous, misshapen thing, with a prominent nose and small fins on the sides. There's something on its underside, just out of view, something gold-coloured and thin. The heat shield.

Anna steers herself between two escape pods.
Almost there
, she thinks. Maybe she can come to a stop, let herself drift while she straps into a suit.

For a second time, the proximity alarm explodes to life. Anna's head snaps to the side, expecting to see the wall of the dock creeping up on her. But there's nothing–she's through the pods, past the debris, so what—

She has half a second to register the man in the space suit, half a second to see the horrified expression on his face. Then he slams into the viewport with a bang that shakes the tiny escape pod.

I don't try to process what I'm feeling: the relief, and joy, and fear, all tangled up in a big knot. I just let Carver hold me.

It's a full minute before he lets me go. By then, the fabric of his overalls is wet from my tears, and my face is red and puffy.

He cracks a smile. One of his teeth is gone. “Nice of you to join us,” he says.

I smile back, wiping away more tears. “Not like I had anything better to do.”

There's splashing ahead of us, and we turn to see a worker lifting one of the guards' rifles from the water. He's painfully thin, with lank hair and a gaunt, scarred face, but his hands are sure as he checks the gun. Another worker is at the door, a woman with a closely shorn head and a nasty scar across the back of her neck. “Does anyone know how to lock this?” she shouts over her shoulder.

“Riley, I don't…” Carver stops, shaking his head. “How are you even here?”

I open my mouth to tell him, but then I realise that explaining everything that happened to me would take longer than we have. Instead, it's Prakesh who jumps to the front of my mind. I look around again, certain that I'll see him among the other workers, but he isn't there.

“I'll tell you later,” I say. “Promise.”

“Seriously, what—”

“Right now, we need to get Prakesh, and then we're going to find Okwembu. Where is he? Was he with you?”

“I can't lock this,” the woman by the door shouts. A couple of workers respond, wading over to help out.

Carver looks at me. “We got separated. I sort of maybe mouthed off to the guards.”

He sees my expression. “Yeah, I know. Not smart. Ended up getting the shit beaten out of me. Bastards still put me to work, though–yesterday we were cleaning out the guards' quarters, and today it was here.” He gestures around the dank space. “Water was leaking in and fried some of their generators. They put us to work repairing them.”

I point at the worker with the rifle. “But if you were working, then what happened with—”

“Beats me. One minute we were fixing holes in the hull, then the next a bunch of other workers burst in here and start shooting. Took the guards by surprise.”

He pauses, looking over at the man checking the rifle. “At least, I think they're workers. We haven't really had a chance to get to know each other.”

“We're workers, all right,” the man says. He finally decides the rifle isn't worth using–water-damaged, probably–and throws it aside, disgusted. “We were in the farm. The new guy did something–had us all soak our shirts in piss, then knocked out the guards with… hell, I don't know
what
it was. Some kind of chemical stuff. Never seen anything like it.”

Carver raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah. That makes total sense. Thanks.”

Chemicals. Prakesh.

Before I can say anything else, there's a panicked yell from behind us. We turn to see one of the workers standing over Koji, a hand wrapped in his jacket at the scruff of his neck. He has a gun in one hand, one that doesn't look like it hit the water.

I get between them. “Don't even think about it,” I say. Koji is on his knees, shaking in fear.

The man stares at me. “He's one of
them
.”

“I
told
you. He can help us.”

“Who are you?” the man says, glancing at my cuffs. “What are you even doing here?”

Carver steps between us. “Back up, Adam,” he says.

The man–Adam–spits, his saliva plopping into the water. He jerks his head at Koji. “These people don't deserve to live.”

“This one does,” I say.

Adam holds my gaze a moment longer, then turns away, disgusted.

“What's his deal?” says Carver, nodding to Koji.

“Long story,” I say. “But I need him.”

“Come on,” says the gaunt worker from behind Adam. “Jojo said to get to the boats.”

“The hell is Jojo?” Carver says.

“Forget the boats,” Adam says. He points to the body of one of the guards, face down in the water. “We leave without taking care of the rest of 'em, they'll come after us. Hunt us down.”

“You're gonna get yourself killed, man,” says Carver. “You and everyone else.”

“He's right,” Koji says, and everybody turns to look at him. “Believe me, you aren't getting to the bridge. It's too heavily guarded.”

Adam tries to speak, but the gaunt worker talks over him. “Then we get as many weapons as we can,” he says. He looks over his shoulder, raising his voice. “Find 'em, bring 'em here. I'll check 'em for any water damage.”

As the workers start to move, Carver looks down at my hands, frowning as he takes in the cuffs.

“Hang on,” he says, casting about him. He spots what he's looking for, and holds up the old-fashioned cutter. It's acetylene, not plasma, and he aims it at the metal join between the two cuffs. I wince as the torch singes my skin. But within a second my hands spring apart. I badly want to get the actual cuffs off my wrists, but a cutting torch isn't the way to do it.

The voice inside me speaks, reminding me that Prakesh isn't the only reason I'm here. “Carver, was Okwembu with you? What happened to her?”

“Gods know,” he says, running his fingers along the cuff on my right wrist. “Lost her when they took me and Prakesh.” He sees me about to protest, and talks over me. “I know you probably want to throw her off the side of the ship right now, but it's too dangerous. Let's just get out of here.”

“Hold on,” says the woman by the door. “There's—”

She doesn't get a chance to finish. The door flies open, smashed from the other side, knocking her and the others aside.

Gunfire deafens me. Adam flies backwards, his arms stretched over his head, like he's calling out for his own personal god. I feel blood speckle my face, and then his body slaps the surface of the water.

A split second later, something else comes through the door–a small cylinder, squat and black. I get a momentary glimpse of it before it vanishes under the surface, bumping up against Adam's body.

Koji moves faster than I would have thought he could, grabbing me and Carver, pulling us down. “Flash-bang!” he shouts.

Everything goes white.