FORT LIBERTY: VOLUME ONE (12 page)

Captain fucked up big… that’s all they know.

She climbs toward the tube, hot in the suit and breaking a sweat.

The ascent’s got the look of nightmares, narrowing to a tight cylinder bathed in red light. A pathway once like home, always drifted through without thought, is now surreal, a crushing ladder… an organized life disintegrating with the sparkle of caution indicators.

It comes in pieces, in the heat, in the glow, a flash of Voss’s smile, like nothing in the world’s gonna go wrong. In that one kiss, in what already seems like last moments, as if she’s looking back on a life of pain, and looking forward into the nothing and that’s the thing she’s choosing to face it with.

There are other memories, brighter, closer to the heart, but burdened by such loss as can’t be faced… so it’s the idea of an Assaulter which brings the courage.

Just so, and no regrets…

She grits her teeth, pulling up past compartments, all powered down except for the Assaulter cabin, which sits in the thrum with its hatch still closed, the VIP executive not moved to an evac shuttle, despite the danger.

The personal comm on her collar hisses, followed by Clara’s voice pitched through the device’s tiny speaker. “Will you move on that ladder? Like double what you’re doing? We got sightings.”

“Sightings of what?”

“What do you think?”

Petra sucks in a breath, so sharp it feels like panic, and grabs the next rung.

Clara’s strapped into the seat, cheeks flushed with color, gloved fingers awkward along the console. Data streams in blue—messages through light comms—and she’s sorting through them, switching between feeds with a curse. The suit’s too tight, in too many places, restricting her movement, forcing a hiss as she reaches across the control panel.

“Where is it?” Petra asks.

Clara shakes her head, her eyes locked on the screens. “Captain Rico’s one position back on the grid, says he saw something right after the attack.”

“And he’s just now announcing it?”

“Wanted to be sure. Only being discussed on the low, ‘cause there’s no admitting of a striker on official channels… though all the laser cannons at grid checkpoints are supposedly powering up, so what does that say?”

“Says the NRM knows that cruiser wasn’t hit by a rock,” Petra replies, grabbing her own suit from one of the wall cabinets. A slim suit is a wrestling match in zero G, but easy enough to pull on with years of practice and a sudden dire motivation. She jams her legs in the stiff fabric, yanking the damn thing up over her shoulders.

Clara watches, still talking. “Yeah, only those cannons are not of much help, with the closest checkpoint in red orbit. We’re on our own.”

“So what’s Rico saying?”

“Saying it looks like a debris field, or ice chunks, in holo—not on an intersect path—so it gets filtered out by the system… so no one sees it. But older systems like ours, you can mess with. You can disable the filters, and so it shows up on holo. Look up.”

Petra lifts her gaze to the holo grid, which is now a liquid sheet of light stretched above her. The spherical rings of Midstation are behind them, with a few small ships between, and some sailing along flight path ahead. And then, running parallel, there’s a blurry cloud. It’s star-shaped, with what looks like several pieces clustered together, racing fast up the grid.

It’s close.

It’s almost on top of them.

Clara shakes her head, a tremor in her voice. “Rocks don’t move that fast. We’re at full burn, and it’s accelerating to come alongside us. That thing is man-made. It’s closing starboard, on a non-intersect path.”

“Change our path.”

“Yeah, I’ve—”

The alarms sound, a reeling blare from the ship wide intercoms. The grid flashes red, collision object detection warnings… too late.

“Projectiles incoming,” Clara says. “We’re getting shot at.”

No way a machine like that fires a dumb round. We’re getting hit—a missile?

“Lock your helmet,” Petra orders.

“I can try to outrun it.”

“Which’ll do nothing but jeopardize evac. Lock your helmet, cut engines, and launch crew shuttles. Now.”

Clara grabs her suit helmet and locks it into her collar, swearing in a ruthless streak as she initiates engine shut down, flipping switches to close the crew shuttle airlocks and launch the cargo units.

Petra presses the key for the ship wide intercom. “Incoming. Close suits. Lock helmets. Brace for impact. Voss, do you copy?”

A second. “Copy.”

“I’m getting your exec. Tell your man inside Cabin Two to follow me to the evac shuttles. Make sure that gun is hot when I get there.”

“I’m coming up.”

“No, you are not.”

“Captain—”

“Helmet on, switch to comm three.” Petra locks in her own helmet, the reflection of the grid splashed bright across her visor. One small hiss, and the suit’s life support powers up, projecting the head’s up display and scrolling through lines of system checks.

“Two minutes to impact,” Clara says, already out of her seat. “Proceeding to armed evac unit.”

“Go.”

“You coming?”

“Right behind you.” Petra reaches back into the wall cabinet and draws out her personal firearm, slipping it into a zippered suit pocket in case she’s picked up by a striker crew and has got no other form of greeting.

Engine thrust shuts down, acceleration dropping to nil, pulling them both into weightless air. Clara grabs for the ladder and sails down the tube.

Petra follows, stopping by the Assaulter cabin.

She keys her master code into the compartment’s keypad. The hatch unlocks and slides back… and there he is… the fourth Assaulter. Younger than others, and out of his element, teeth bared behind the visor of his helmet. He’s under strain, equipment roped to his waist, his arms locked tight around… a girl.

A girl.

A half-starved Earthbounder, drugged, feverish, or both, clawing at her helmet and screaming, putting up as much fight as she’s able. “Leave me! I am not yours to take, not yours to force! Leave me!”

Force.

As in prisoner.

As in held against her will by four men.

Petra glares at the Assaulter, who concedes this with a grimace, like he’s not proud of it, like looking her in the eyes is a special kind of torture.

Voss… you…
The rage is instant, welling up from places which have got no control, no reason.

The tube jolts, metal tearing apart.

Sparrow
’s hit. Petra grabs tight to the rungs as the flight deck shreds away on a bright clap of fire, tearing the tube open to the nothing. The vacuum sweeps in, drowning collision alarms, vaporizing moisture to the glitter of ice crystals.

The ship is spinning, its rotation sweeping them up against the walls. Breach locks activate. One hatch seals the tube at the damage point. Emergency power engages, light flickering through the panels.

The Assaulter’s kept himself and the girl just inside the compartment, and now he propels them both out, dragging his prisoner and pushing Petra down the tube. She skims along one wall, half-floating, no right-side up, or upside-down, just the struggle to move against the force of spin.

The Assaulter drops down and pushes her again, his message clear. Grab onto anything, kick anything, drag, roll… just move.

Yeah, like I was gonna.

She grabs onto the rungs and regains control. She slips out of the tight passage and into the weightlessness in the cargo hold, where she’s touching no walls. The Assaulter comes after, plunging into the open space and grasping for handholds, the girl thrashing against him.

“Incoming.” Clara’s voice in the comm, proof that she’s now sitting at her station in the armed evac shuttle. “Object on collision.”

“Almost there.”

“The thing’s headed straight for us.”

Petra curses, grabbing the Assaulter by the collar and pushing off a crate, flying across the distance with him and the girl in tow. The walls of the cargo hold rotate around them, rolling in violent arcs, flashing with silent alarms.

“Incoming,” Clara’s voice is tight.

“Launch your shuttle before impact.”

“This
is
before impact. Not going to launch this shuttle without—”

Another jolt in the metal. The hull compacts. Bulkheads crumple inward, shearing panels, vapor misting through crushed pipes. The
Sparrow
goes pitch black, waiting for the last blow.

Lost in the cold.

“Petra.” Voss is there, a voice in the darkness.

Petra’s without words, time frozen, heart stopped in her chest.

“Petra,” he says again. “Shuttles are intact. Are you close?”

Are you close? Shuttles are intact.

“Close.” It’s all she can say, all she can think. “Light.”

Her helmet light activates, releasing a spray of white in the cold.

The young Assaulter, with girl, is holding onto a cargo net nearby, his visor reflecting the glare. She signals and he rights himself. He grabs onto a crate then pushes toward her through the air, following as she navigates the ladder ways, emerging in the maintenance corridor between the remaining evac shuttles.

Voss is there. He’s heading for her, and might still be of great help, if that didn’t happen to be the exact opposite of her plans.

She draws her firearm and squares it on his chest. “I’m taking her.”

Voss keeps his expression calm. Petra’s too far away to rush, and the dynamics of zero gravity combat, gun included—in a ship that’s quickly disintegrating—puts nothing in his favor. And she’s lost… eyes bright with anger, trauma he can’t touch… something that goes way back. A reaction to the girl, to a helpless person, to the ship coming apart… he doesn’t know.

In short, this woman might shoot him.

“Don’t do this,” he says, knowing it’s not enough. “You don’t understand.”

“Does the gun loader work?”

“Yes.”

“Then get your other two men and get into the other shuttle. Not my shuttle. The other one. This young Assaulter and the girl… they stay with me.”

“We can’t separate.”

“Oh?” The gun in her hand doesn’t tremble, its black muzzle staring him down, far colder than the woman holding it. “Then we’re all going to die just sitting here. Striker crew knows this is the ship, and they’ll blast us to the last shred of scrap. For what? For a girl? A girl you kidnapped? You’re drugging her, aren’t you? What else have you done to her?”

“We saved her life,” Voss answers forcefully.

“Like you saved mine?” she snaps back. “Get into the other shuttle.”

“Incoming!” The pilot’s voice cuts off his reply. “Brace!”

There is no choice now. They can live through this in two shuttles, or they can die in a standoff as the ship bursts apart. Voss’s team, the girl, and Petra herself are all in the balance… fight now, or save their lives under whatever terms.

Voss backs away from her. “Gojo! Wyatt! Into the second shuttle now! Logan, stay with the Captain.”

“Yes, sir,” the kid answers, accepting both the order and its implied meaning.
Wait to act.

Gojo and Wyatt push from one hatch to another behind him, and he follows, pausing to watch Petra move into the armed shuttle. She ushers Logan, with Niri, through the hatch and lowers her sidearm.

Then she looks at him, a look that could have a thousand meanings, though what he sees is the harsh weight of a decision made, that moment just before important things are lost.

She disappears, and the airlock closes.

Cursing, he ducks into the remaining shuttle.

Gojo is already strapped in.

Wyatt’s sitting in one of the pilot’s chairs. “Something you said?”

The
Sparrow
lurches to the side, another hit tearing into its hull.

“Go.” Voss slides into the next seat.

Wyatt flips up the switch guard and hits the button. The airlock seals shut. Rockets fire. They blast forward, streaking out from the shadow of the
Sparrow
with debris scraping over the flight shield.

Voss grimaces, searching cockpit screens that show everything but what he wants to see. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“We can’t slow this thing down?”