Rebel (Rebel Stars Book 0) (6 page)

Yed triple-checked their suits' levels and seals. "Remember, if anything happens to your suit, don't panic. It will close off the breach. If the hole's small enough, it will repair itself. If the hole's too big to self-repair, the suit will warn you to take other measures."

"I know," Rada said.

"I know you know." Behind his mask, he met her eyes. "But if something happens, I want to make sure you remember."

They took devices, sampling kits, a small fold-out handcart. Stem had his gun, a big white pistol with a long grip to hold more of its caseless ammo. Parson, Kerry, and Genner descended to cargo to watch them go.

"Go slow and be careful," Parson said. "If you don't know what it is, don't touch it. In fact, don't touch anything at all."

Genner looked up from her screens. "Besides the Swimmers."

Rada rolled her eyes. "This thing has been dead since the days of Walt Lawson. Besides, you'll be watching through our vids. Shout if something's creeping up on us."

Parson chuckled. "I don't care if you get eaten by space lobsters. All I care about is making sure you don't break anything."

They climbed in the cart, drove into the airlock, and waited for it to cycle. The autopilot would have driven them fine, but Rada took over the controls, guiding them out into the bleak and shining ice.

"We're sure this is a good idea?" Stem tried to grin, but she knew the tautness around his eyes.

She guided the cart around a black fin of rock. "Not too late to turn back."

"Is this as fast as this thing goes? Punch it."

She maintained speed. The carts had worn a trail to the entrance and she followed the ruts. The tunnel through the ice swallowed them up, banded and pale like an intestine. It spat them into the cavern overlooking the ship and she followed the ramp maintained around the space's edge. Below, the Swimmer vessel stretched across the floor like a chubby geometric worm. The hairs on her neck stood up like she'd been brushed with an ice cube.

She parked the cart to the side of the ship. Her skin continued to prickle, the sensation flowing up and down her limbs and spine like kelp in the tides. They got out and made for the airlock. The gravity was so light the slightest spring sent her bounding.

They reached the airlock and her magnetic soles snapped to the floor. It felt like she was being drawn in, beguiled.

Stem drew his big white pistol and checked its readings. "I'm point. Rada, you take the middle. Yed, you got rear."

"The drone already cleared it," Rada said.

"If we trusted the machines to do everything, why are we going inside?"

She laughed hollowly. "I'll take the middle."

The ship was pitch black. Their helmet lights slashed across the airlock. Stem advanced slowly, pistol held before him. Rada followed, splitting her attention between the way ahead and the readouts on the device on her suit's forearm. In the long tunnel, the air smelled briny, but she knew it was her imagination—the only air was inside her suit.

"How's it going in there?" Parson said. At the sound of his voice, Rada jumped, one foot coming unstuck from the floor.

"Fine until you piped up," Stem said. "Now you're gonna have to convince Yed to hose out my suit."

"Convince? Isn't that his job?"

"Scrubbing Stem's undies is definitely not in my contract," Yed said.

Rada laughed vaguely. Her light swept over the seam where the wall of the tunnel met the floor. Blue, spongy material grew along the crease. "You seeing this?"

"Looks organic," Genner said. "Grab a sample?"

Rada stooped. The substance looked porous, but her scraper bounced off the rock-hard matter. She peeled pieces into her container and stood. Stem tried three of the doors, but there was no obvious handle.

He reached the T-intersection, swinging his pistol down one hall, then the other. "Clear!"

"Thanks." Rada moved past him down the right-hand tunnel. The dead alien rested against the wall, collapsed amid its jumble of limbs. She avoided its gaze as she scraped out a sample of its yellow blood, then its pebbled carapace.

"Oh man," Yed said. "If that thing so much as twitches, I'm going to explode. There won't be anything left of me but red spray and teeth."

"It's -450 degrees in here. This thing wouldn't move if you hit it with a hammer."

"Hey," Stem said. "Did you hear that?"

Rada dug her chisel into the alien's flank. "The only thing I hear is you two. Anyway, there's no atmo in here."

"I mean, did you
feel
it?"

His voice sounded wrong. She sat back. Behind her in the intersection, Stem pointed his light up at the ceiling, sweeping the nooks.

"Feel what?" she said.

"Vibes. In the floor."

"Is the ice shifting? Genner, anything on scans?"

"Nothing," Genner said over comms.

"I'm telling you," Stem said. "There it is—!"

A blue light flashed from the intersection. Stem screamed and toppled to the floor.

5

"Stem!" Rada burst to her feet hard enough to send herself flying. Her magnetic soles held her fast, yanking at her knees. She started toward the intersection.

Yed grabbed her arm. "Stop it!"

The blue light flashed again. A straight line ran between the ceiling and Stem's prone body. Smoke expanded into the air. The light flashed off, leaving its reverse image blaring on Rada's retinas. She turned and ran down the hall, remembering the drone had passed an open door during its reconnoiter.

"What's going on in there?" Parson said over their comm.

"The ship's defenses!" Rada found the doorway and piled into the dark room. "They just kicked in!"

"That's not possible," Genner said. "It's been frozen for centuries."

As Yed neared, Rada snaked an arm into the hallway and yanked him inside. "We just watched Stem get cut down. By a laser."

"I saw the light." Parson's voice shook. "We're not seeing anything on our sensors. From here, the ship looks completely cold."

Rada turned for a look at the room they'd holed up in. It was about sixteen feet deep and thirty feet wide, festooned with metal furniture that resembled medieval torture devices or plumbing as art. She believed she was looking at exercise equipment. An alien gym.

"What is
happening
?" Yed pressed himself against the wall, arms spread wide, gazing in horror at the ceiling fixtures. "Are we safe in here? Why didn't it shoot when the drone was here?"

"It must be keyed to biologicals." Genner's tone was confused, musing. "But how has it stayed active so long?"

Rada kept both eyes on the ceiling, wary of movement. "Stem had the gun. The cart, too—all the supplies. How do we get out of here?"

"We could cut our way in," Parson said. "But it would be through the hull, not an airlock. Could take hours."

She checked the device on her suit's arm. "We've got about five hours of air. Is there another way out of this ship?"

"There's another airlock on the starboard side. But it's under about twenty feet of ice."

"And we'll have to cross half the ship to get there. Could be more defenses along the way." Rada moved to wipe her eyes, but her glove bounced against her faceplate. "Better start cutting a new way in. As close to us as possible. In the meantime, we'll work on finding a way past the intersection."

Yed swung to face her. "How do you propose we get past a
laser
? Run really, really fast?"

"If you don't want to help, you can go first."

"We'll get the machines on the move," Parson said. "Sit tight, okay? We've got plenty of time."

"Copy." She wasn't so sure about that. Her readout had already adjusted its estimate downward by nearly an hour to account for the extra oxygen she was burning with her heavy breathing. She forced herself to inhale through her nose and exhale gently from her mouth. "Think. Did Stem do anything to trigger the defense?"

Yed gazed blankly at the ceiling. "He was just standing there. Maybe it took a minute to warm up."

"Or maybe it only activates after multiple targets have passed through."

He laughed harshly. "Testing that theory sounds like Plan Z."

With nothing better to do, she searched the room and found a bin of fist-sized balls nestled in a foam crate. She went to the door and lobbed them down the hall one at a time toward the intersection. The laser didn't fire once.

"Great," Yed said once she ran out. "So it's not firing on them for the same reason it didn't fire on the drone."

Within half an hour, Parson had the machines down in the pit. Rada couldn't hear or feel them go to work on the hull.

"Okay," Parson said twenty minutes later. "I'm not going to sugarcoat this. You're going to run out of air before we get inside."

"What are you talking about?" Yed bolted to his feet, gaping up at the ceiling, as if Parson were watching from above. "I thought we had top-end gear!"

"That equipment is designed to handle rock. Ice. Not the hardened hull of a spacecraft."

"So try something else! Use the mole!"

"We don't have the strength to punch our way in. We have to slice out a hole. Unless you can find more oxygen, you won't have time."

"Where are we going to get more air?" Yed's voice was nearing a screech. "Should we take it from the guy who was just cut in half by a sentry laser?"

"I don't have a solution," Parson said calmly. "I'm defining the problem. We can find an answer together."

"Easy," Rada said. "Send in a drone with more supplies."

"Damn, you're good," the captain laughed. "We'll get right on that."

She killed time wandering around the room, poking at the walls. The lower halves of them were covered in an inches-thick, mat-like orange substance. Its surface was pebbled like the skin of a toad. In places, it had peeled from the wall when it froze, leaving it free-standing.

"Sending in drone," Genner said.

Rada moved to the doorway, standing just inside it. A minute ticked by.

"Approaching intersection," Genner said. "Entering. Crossing—"

Blue flashed down the hallway. Rada shut her eyes. A second burst followed, pure white.

"Shit." Genner's voice was clipped.

"What was that?" Rada said. "Did it just shoot the drone?"

"Drone's dead."

"Why? How did the first one get through?"

"Don't know. Maybe the system hadn't warmed up yet."

Rada pressed herself to the doorframe, willing herself to look around the corner. "What about the balls I threw down there? Why not shoot
them
?"

"I don't know, Rada!" Genner sighed, breath fluttering against the mike. "You want me to find out which of those alien corpses is the tech and ask him how his security system is set up?"

"Less arguing," Parson said. "More thinking."

"Could try a smaller drone," Karry put in, his voice gravelly from disuse. "Something lower to the ground."

"Do we have anything like that?"

"Nope. But I can see if I can patch something together from the hold."

"Do that," Parson said. "Rada, Yed, hang in there, you got me? This is a long way from over."

Rada acknowledged and went to sit on one of the sturdier looking pieces of exercise gear.

"He's wrong." Yed's voice was soft, resigned. "It's already over. There's only one way out."

"Got an idea?"

He nodded, staring into her eyes. "Take my O2."

It took her a moment. "Quit that thinking right now."

"Right now, neither of us has enough air to last until they make a breach. But if one person has all the air, they'll live. There's only one move that makes sense."

She gazed back at him, weighing the offer. She knew it was sincere. She also knew that he was making it not
because
it was the only option that made sense, but rather because it would make his death meaningful—he would finally have her; she would literally owe her life to him.

But why not give him what he wanted?

"I won't let you do that," she said. "Not when there's another way out."

"We can't get to the other airlock. You said it yourself—there will be more defenses along the way."

"We'll use the airlock we came in through. And we'll use these to get there." She walked to the wall and thumped the orange mat at its base. "They're the best protection in the world."

"Oh yeah? Where'd you learn that? More wisdom from renowned, ancient Chinese alien-fighter Sun Tzu?"

"
The Battle of Haleakala
. Samantha Keahi. She said the most effective shield against lasers was the Swimmers' own building material. She described it just like this."

"Like a gym mat?"

"They aren't gym mats. They're an organic matrix the aliens used inside their buildings and spacecraft. Sometimes they grew whole buildings out of it."

He quirked his mouth, regarding the dense orange matter. "You're going to trust our lives to some old book?"

"I am," she said. "Because Keahi was there."

He sighed. "Guess getting shot by lasers beats suffocating."

As they waited to hear back from Karry, they went to work on the mats, chiseling them free from the wall. The mats were dense—once you got them moving, it was hard to slow them down—but in the fractionally gravity, she could easily move one by herself. Using the tethers on their suits, she affixed two mats to a hollow frame of aluminum bars, creating a mobile wall.

"How's it going, Karry?"

"Ain't happening," he said. "I mean, never say never. But I'm not finding much."

"It's okay," she said. "We've got another plan."

"But it's one you'd rather not use?"

"You got it. Let us know if things change?"

He assured her he would. While they waited, she informed Parson of their plan. Then she and Yed practiced pushing the wall around the room, enhancing its mobility by cannibalizing a pair of ski-shaped treads from another machine and fixing them to the base of the wall. Her O2 dropped below 120 minutes, then 90.

At 67 minutes, Genner informed them they'd tried a stripped-down drone. It too had been shot.

"Karry won't have time for another," she said. "And we're still at least five hours from breaching the hull."