Crossways (26 page)

Hatch. Emergency hatch.

Dizziness threatens to overwhelm him. His chest is one fierce ache.

He pulls himself hand over hand, but his left hand is barely functional. He yanks the release mechanism with his right. It springs. He tumbles inside. As darkness closes in he smacks the air lock control.

He comes to in a disordered heap on the air lock floor. Gravity drags him down, chokes him with his own weight. He rolls over sideways, throws up, and passes out again.

The next time he comes around he manages to reach the door release and he commando-crawls into the corridor dragging his left arm. The ship feels solid beneath him.

Keep believing it's solid.

Got to get the ship out of the Folds.

How long has it been?

Too long.

If he can't find his way out again, it's all been for nothing.

Slowly, slowly, he climbs up from the belly of the ship to the flight deck, through the cargo hold and crew quarters, past his own cabin and to the final shaft. No antigrav here, just a steep companionway halfway between a ladder and a
stair. He wraps his good arm around the rail and pushes his feet onto the first tread.

He arrives at the top sweating and shaking, but manages to stagger to the pilot's chair and collapse into it. He powers up the jump drive and searches for a way home.

Home to Crossways.

The Folds are black, amorphous, ineffable. He can't see a way through. Is he so deep in that he'll never get out? He checks the time. No, that can't be right.

He sinks a little more deeply into the chair. Out is more important than where right now. But he can't see the way.

He's lost the line.

Lost the line . . .

C
ARA JUMPED UP, SPILLING COFFEE ACROSS the table into Tengue's lap.

“Attack on Port 22,” she said unnecessarily. Tengue had received the news at the same time as her.

It would take ten minutes at least to get to Port 22 by tub-cab, but it was the only option. Cara reached out for Ully, Mother Ramona's Telepath.

*Update on Port 22?*

Ully brought Mother Ramona in on the conversation instantly.

*Can you reach your security?*
Cara asked.

*Negative,*
Mother Ramona said.
*Assume they're down. Sending reinforcements.*

*How long?*

*Minutes.*

Cara called a general alert as she ran for the tubs. Tengue and Gwala and their squad had beaten her to the first available transport so it took at least another minute, though it felt like hours, for another tub to pull in for passengers. She leaped in, rocking it wildly. Ronan hit the seat next to hers, emergency pack in hand, and Archie landed next to him with a bag of bots slung over his shoulder, trailing little critters coming to his call. He lifted the flap of his bag and
scooped up the last few. Surprisingly, it was Kitty who made it to the last seat.

As Cara's tub pulled away blast doors rumbled closed across Blue Seven's access. Wenna was locking down and going into fortress mode. An attack on the port may be a diversion preceding an attack on their HQ.

“Come on. Come on!” Cara muttered as the tub bounced into the main traffic lane. “Is this the best we can do?”

Ronan reached forward, slapped off the auto and shoved both hands into the manual control gloves. They ricocheted off the track wall, sideswiped a laden goods tub and pulled clear of the traffic.

“Faster!” Cara heard sirens in the distance, Crossways security she hoped.

*Ben?*

*Limpets.*

*On the
Solar Wind
?*

*At least four.*

*Hang on. Tengue's team's coming. We'll defuse the bastards.*

*No time.*

Cara could feel part of Ben's attention taken and then she realized what was happening. He was firing up the
Solar Wind
's drive aiming to get her out of the docking bay before she blew. Before she blew with him inside it.

*Ben!*

“Ben!” Cara pounded her fists ineffectively on the solid docking bay door, leaving a smear of blood from broken knuckles. Through the view panel
Solar Wind
all but leaped between the closing jaws of the docking bay and winked out into foldspace.

Any closer and he'd have hit the Folds inside the docking bay and turned the whole station inside out.

*Ben!*
“Fucking idiot!”

She didn't know whether that last was for Ben or for herself on the wrong side of the window behind reinforced blast doors with no more hope of being heard than a spiderfart. Once he hit the Folds, Ben was lost to any mental contact.

Ben had opted for the hero's way out. He'd saved the
docking bay and possibly the whole sector of the station, but at what cost? The only course now was to repressurize the bay as quickly as possible and get the surviving security guards out of there.

Tengue slapped the control panel to flood the bay with air at maximum speed. He hit the door release. The emergency protocols wouldn't allow it to open until the levels were safe. It seemed like hours, but was probably only a couple of minutes before the door cracked and a rush of wind from the corridor as the pressure equalized gave Cara a push through the opening along with Tengue's mercs and a squad of Garrick's guards. Tengue's mercs immediately began to check for survivors. Garrick's squad checked exits and sealed off the hangar as a crime scene and administered emergency oxygen. Ronan dealt with survivors, moving between them quickly and efficiently. The bay had been fully open to space for less than two minutes. Any guards who had not been sucked out of the open air lock stood a good chance of surviving, especially if they'd managed to activate their breathing tubes. Even so, two of them were dead, one with his skull caved in and the other with a chest wound.

“Wes! Oh, Wes.” Kitty dropped to her knees by the side of the one with the chest wound. Cara hadn't immediately recognized him, though seeing Kitty's reaction she remembered the young man. He'd been handsome, but he didn't look so good now. His lips were swollen, his brown skin dull and gray, his eyes open. Kitty closed them gently.

Shaking inside, Cara barely registered Kitty's distress. She didn't have any spare capacity for comfort. All she could do was stare at the empty space where the
Solar Wind
had been. She pushed down the snakes that were turning somersaults in her belly. Think logically.

There had been no explosion before Ben entered foldspace. Once in foldspace the laws of physics changed in ways no one really understood. She remembered the missile punching through
Solar Wind
, in and out like a needle with no explosion or hull breach. The limpets were clamped on, however. What would happen when
Solar Wind
emerged into realspace again?

She swallowed a sob.

A small and deliberate throat clear caused her to stiffen.
How long had she been standing there? She turned to find Gwala at her left elbow.

“He's good,” Gwala said. “He may even be the best I've ever flown with. If anyone can come back from that, it's Benjamin.”

If
was such a tiny word with such a big meaning.

Kitty sat by Wes' corpse, shock keeping tears at bay. She might as well have been sitting alone for all that she registered medical staff working on the living, engineers checking the bay doors and interior pressure, maintenance staff going over the docked ships for damage. It was only when an antigrav gurney dropped into the space next to Wes that she realized she'd been muttering, “No,” repeatedly.

“You can't—” she began, but they obviously could. “Where are you taking him?”

“Morgue at Dockside Medical, Miss,” said one of the orderlies. “Are you next of kin?”

Kitty started to say no, but Ellen Heator came up behind her and put her hands on Kitty's shoulders. “Yes she is—as good as.”

Kitty swiveled and looked up. “Isn't there anyone else?”

“Captain Syke would stand in, but Wes has no family.”

“They died in an accident,” Kitty said, “before he was dumped here as a child.”

“That's more than he ever told me, and I worked with him for four years. You go with them, complete the paperwork, say good-bye. It may seem like indecent haste, but we cremate our dead immediately unless there's a forensic reason not to.”

Kitty nodded numbly. That was standard on most space stations. She'd seen it happen before, but she'd never considered what it might be like to turn the body of a loved one, so recently vital, to ash. She reached out and touched Wes' face, already cooling, already empty of the spark that made him Wes.

“You know where I live. Come by tomorrow,” Ellen said. “Someone will have to clear out his stuff. We'll do it together.”

Kitty wanted to scream that he wasn't even cold yet.

The orderlies lifted Wes' body onto the gurney where an open body bag waited. Kitty gulped back a sob as they sealed the bag, but Ellen helped her to her feet with a strong arm under her elbow and nudged her to follow Wes on his last journey.

*Keely, report.*

In her haze Kitty had not even noticed Remus' implant handshaking with her own. She stiffened and by some miracle kept putting one foot in front of the other, helped by Ellen's guiding hand.

*Remus, not now, please.*

*Report!*

*There's been a thing. They're dead.*

*Who? Make sense, Keely.*

*People. Guards.*
She wanted to say Wes Orton, but she held the name back. It was too precious to give to Remus.
*An attack on Benjamin and the
Solar Wind
. He's gone.*

*Who's gone where?*

*Benjamin.*
She swallowed. And Wes.
*Limpets. Flew the
Solar Wind
off station and into the Folds. I don't see how he could have survived. Casualties on-station.*
She didn't even know how many. Wes was all that mattered.

*Clarify.*

*Fuck off, Remus. Leave me alone. They're dead! Have some respect!*

She cut him off and blocked him out. He tried twice to reconnect, but with growing anger she refused to acknowledge him. He was stronger than her; he could force a connection, but thankfully he didn't try again. She'd pay for it next time.

She thought about the bill they threatened her mother with and fought down nausea. Wes was dead. What could be worse?

But a little voice at the back of her mind said:
Take care of the living
.

All Cara could do was to keep trying to contact Ben. The longer a ship was in foldspace the less chance it had of coming out again.

She was dimly aware of Archie leading her out of the dock to a waiting tub. She was concentrating so hard on
finding Ben that she missed her footing. If Archie hadn't caught her she'd have ended up in a heap on the floor.

Wenna grabbed her hand as they led her into Blue Seven. “Keep searching. Cas is on her way.”

*And I'm here, too.*
Gen was in her head immediately, adding her Telepathic whammy to Cara's. Then Cas Ritson joined them, adding her considerable Psi-1 strength. One by one, as they realized what was happening, every other Telepath in the place, from strong Psi-2s down to weak Psi-5s, joined them in the search. Even Max, so recently outfitted with an implant, tagged along.

*Can I help?*
Jussaro asked.

*Damn right, you can,*
Cara replied, drawing his consciousness into the whole.

Work stopped. Blue Seven fell silent as every psi-tech with any talent for Telepathy, however slight, formed a gestalt. Cara took the focus and concentrated on Ben outside in, inside out: warm brown skin; ready smile; the planes of his cheeks; the strength in his muscles. And inside: level-headed intelligence; desire to bring out the best in people; loyalty; the burden of dead souls he carried; damned annoying white knight syndrome that sometimes led him by the nose; his talent for Navigation and spatial awareness. All that was Ben and more she put into her search for him.

How long had it been? Minutes? Hours?

*Three hours and fifty-six minutes,*
Ronan said, slipping into the mix.
*Sorry I'm late. Work to do.*

*Casualties?*
Cara asked.

*Five survivors, two dead and three missing presumed lost into space. There are Finders out now, looking for the bodies.*

*Damn.*

*Yeah.*
Ronan settled down.
*Any hint of Ben?*

*Not yet.*

*In foldspace?*

*Seems likely. We keep trying.*