Page 9

9

I ’m not doing it for free, obviously.

Rian told me a price that was generous for me to give it an honest try, and he offered to double it if I actually succeeded. So, the next morning, I trot my suited self down to the shuttle bay.

I did a check in my room, even though thincraft suits are pretty failsafe. My LifePack is fully charged and every port’s connected. My boots are sealed. I even inspected my helmet; my visor is dual-layered with all my controls and comms there. I may take risks, but never with a suit that’s not tops.

Magnusson and Saraswati are already there, and before I reach the shuttle, Rian shows up. Also suited. So, the boss is coming with us this time. Just to keep an eye on me. I’m flattered, really.

“Suit check,” Saraswati tells me as I put on my helmet and lock it into place.

“It’s self-contained,” I try to tell her, but she ignores me. She manually checks all the connections, ensures everything’s sealed, double- and triple-checking the gauges to make sure I’m full up on the essentials. She’s focused, going over a mental checklist, seeing each individual point rather than the suit as a whole.

“See? It’s fine. Want me to check you?” I ask, grinning.

There’s just a flicker, the barest shuttering of her emotions, and then she grins too. “No, that’s okay. Magnusson?”

Magnusson checks her suit, then she checks his. They’re both still wearing blasters.

I try not to let that bother me.

I don’t offer to check Rian’s suit. Magnusson does it. And when I stomp up the ramp into the shuttle and Saraswati shoots me a concerned look, I don’t try to mask what I’m actually thinking.

I’m not being fair. And I know it.

But still.

Stings a little.

Magnusson takes the pilot position; Saraswati sits as copilot. Rian and I strap in behind them on jump seats, little pulldown metal chairs that seem to have been added as an afterthought. We face each other, our knees bumping together. The captain sees us off, then seals the shuttle bay. It takes time to decompress the bay, and the exterior hatch won’t open until that’s done.

Not unless someone pushes the big red emergency button.

That would pop off the bay door and suck us out into space in a wild burst of explosive decompression.

Not that I would do that.

Would be kind of neat to see it happen, though.

But I wouldn’t. Really. Even I’m not so reckless to toss a whole ship out into space without proper decompression. I’m just a curious sort, that’s all.

No one talks once the shuttle is out in the black. Magnusson and Saraswati are focused on maneuvering the shuttle down to the planet, and Rian’s not looking at me. I try to catch his attention, but he’s got his eyes shut. I can just barely hear his breathing over the comm channel we’re all sharing in our helmets.

He looks a little sick. Which is kind of hilarious, considering. Never thought he’d be the nervous flyer of the group.

Magnusson is a good pilot. There’s not much atmosphere on this protoplanet—certainly not enough for humans to dare take off their helmets—but there’s some nitrogen and methane at least, enough for the shuttle to adjust slightly when we hit it. I was right. Give it an eon or so, and this may be a whole new world, with breathable air, oceans, flora and fauna. Maybe even people, the curious sort. Like me.

Not now, though.

Now, it’s just a barely crusted-over lava field waiting to kill us all.

Saraswati points out a landing spot about a klick away from the crash site, clear and flat. It’s made of cooled lava, and while this area is absolutely volatile, it’s not a bad place to park, all things considered.

Before we reach it, we fly over the wreckage. From up high, the lava river shines vividly, bright red with flecks of orange cutting through the burnt-black rock. I can see the long line of debris and scorch marks that lead to the crash, but my eyes are drawn to brighter colors under the cracked, black earth, a stark contrast. People think of living worlds as blue and green, cloudy atmospheres over water and plants. But there’s life here, too, or the potential for it, at least. That molten rock may as well be placenta.

Once we’re landed, Rian tosses off his harness and stands. “I’ll stay with the ship,” he says so quickly that at first I wonder if maybe he’s afraid of the planet, not flight. But the others seem to take this in stride. They must have discussed everything before. Without me.

Saraswati motions for me to follow her and Magnusson. “We’ll get visuals first,” she says. “You were already on the crash site. Did you go to the bridge?”

I shake my head, but the helmets don’t exactly convey emotion. “No,” I say over the comm sys.

“This way.” Magnusson takes the lead.

Despite being a baby planet with little atmosphere, this world does at least have gravity, which slows us down considerably. I notice stakes imbedded in the ground along our route, and Saraswati has a seismic reader in her hand. They were busy yesterday.

“Level two coming in,” Saraswati says, and a moment later, the earth trembles. I’ve never seen anything like it. Back home, on Earth, there’s water—a whole ocean—surrounding my island nation. Sometimes, I’ll watch the waves crest and fall. But I never thought I’d see earth do the same, a solid mass that is supposed to be flat and stay flat rippling up and shuddering like liquid.

Magnusson curses. He’s quite good at it. I learn a few new words.

He’s not upset at the earthquake; all things considered, it was a mild one, if freaky. In front of us, though, we see the nose of the crashed ship dip a little, sliding farther down into the crevice of cracked rock. I don’t think any of them care about the ship, but if the box they want is inside the rift, then the ship crashing down into it will knock it well out of r each.

I add that to my list of things that could go wrong and kill me:

1.

The radiant heat of the lava river at the bottom of the ridge could knock out my sensors and make me crash into it, burning me alive. It’s unlikely but possible.

2.

Getting the box and then dropping it may make the others mad enough to be a problem. Again, unlikely, but they already don’t trust me, and if I’m the cause of them losing this precious top-secret prize...I don’t think it would make any of them happy, at least.

3.

All my other plans could go awry, and then they’d definitely kill me. Or at least throw me in a brig and let a judge kill me a little more “fairly.” You can never tell with these law-abiding types.

And now, also:

4.

The forward part of the ship could crash through the rift and squish me into the ledge, into the lava river, or a combination of the two, which is less than ideal.

I stand with my hands on my hips when we reach the rift, looking down, and it probably makes them think I’m considering odds or something, but I’m appreciating the scenery. Rather than a smooth, sheared break, the rock that’s split apart looks as if it were made of vertical pillars stacked together, cracking apart like candle ice. It’s created a series of step-like platforms all along the face, many with debris, some sloping down or crumbling. I’m not sure what the integrity of this rock is. The ground under my feet feels solid, but I’m pretty sure the Roundabout felt solid before it exploded too.

“It’s about eighty meters,” Magnusson says.

I scan the rift with my helmet’s sensors. Eighty-one point ten meters. There’s a significant drop in temperature between the top and the bottom; standing a meter away from the edge shows only a negligent difference in ambient temperature; leaning over the edge and facing down noticeably shifts the gauge.

Once we reach the splintered nose of the ship, Saraswati stays outside, focused on the seismic reader.

“We’re not going to go all the way in,” Magnusson says. “It’s already not stable, and I’m just trying to get you a good visual from this side. It’s how I found the box in the first place.”

The Roundabout hit the planet at a sharp angle that forced the nose to snap off, leaving the back end to skid along the edge of the surface. There’s a kilometer-long track of metal scarring the ground, and the bridge tips along the edge of the cliff at such an angle that the open wound of the ship faces us. We don’t need a door to enter; the side wall has been worn away in the worst type of road rash.

I pause, eyes tracing the damage. With one side burned off and the different levels of the ship exposed in an unintended cross-section, it feels as if I’m looking at the bones of a half-rotted corpse. Wiring dangles from the top and sides, veins cut off from the main core with nothing left to bleed, not even sparks. This ship is four times the size of the Halifax at least, and a monster compared to my Glory . It was never meant to have its skin peeled back, its weaknesses exposed.

Glory was breached, and not a one of them batted an eye. The old and the weak are supposed to die.

But this is a ship cut down in its prime. An unwanted reminder of fragility and mortality. That merits some reverence.

“Come on,” Magnusson says impatiently.

Maybe I’m the only philosophical one here.

I bound up to him, using a hunk of twisted metal to leverage my way up to what should be the second floor. We stick close to the edge, careful to not fall out the exposed side, but with enough room, I note, that we could launch ourselves back to land if another seismic shift happens and the ship starts to fall.

It doesn’t take long to get to the bridge, and stepping through the mangled wall is easy enough, even if I have to be careful to keep my suit from sharp edges. The carbonglass viewport is completely shattered, bits of debris crunching under the solid soles of my reinforced boots.

I linger at one of the crew’s seats. The navigation console in front of the chair is pristine, not a mark on it. The harness attached to the metal frame of the seat dangles loosely, the metal latches gleaming in the dim light.

Wherever the crew had been when the Roundabout crashed, it wasn’t here.

When I turn around, Magnusson is staring at me, eyes narrowed. Before I can do anything, he raises his gloved hands and makes a gesture I know well.

You sign?

In space, you can’t always count on comms. Things break or malfunction or glitch, and when communication can mean life or death, you learn to have backups. Stuff that doesn’t rely on tech. Everyone who’s done enough black walks knows the basics of sign language.

But Magnusson isn’t signing now because of broken tech.

Yes, I sign back.

He knows that Rian is listening to our comms. He knows that anything we say in our suits will be analyzed, recorded.

Possibly used against us.

You a friend of Jane? Magnusson signs. His eyes are sharply focused on my face, not my hands, and he almost misses my an swer:

I’ve worked with her before. Jane is not a person. Jane is a code word—one that I clocked Magnusson recognizing—to indicate a pro-Earth movement. They’re not a bad lot, if misguided. Ideals will do that. Nobility only goes so far, and it certainly doesn’t pay the bills. Any job I do with them begins and ends with a paycheck. I’ve worked with a lot of different people.

Magnusson’s jaw is so tight, I can see it tense even from here. You working with them now?

I shrug. I work for whoever pays me best. Currently, that’s Rian.

You ever work for the Jarra? It takes him longer to finger-spell that name, each letter carefully formed by his gloved hands.

My answer is swift and clear. No. Never. I make a sharp gesture with my hand, a slash through the dead air, to emphasize my words.

I may chase coins, but even I have standards. I’ve crossed paths with the Jarra before, enough to know that if I ever shake my hands with someone from that organization, my palms will come away bloody. They’re freedom fighters, emphasis on the fighter part. They want Earth separated from all the colonial planets, from tourism to intergalactic governmental aid, and they don’t care who they hurt in the process. I don’t have the bank account to give me morals, but I’ve never been low enough to cross that line.

Magnusson still doesn’t trust me. That much is clear. But at least my rebuttal of the Jarra has met with his approval.

Is that what this is? I ask, gesturing toward the broken bridge, but I mean more than just the crashed ship; I mean the missing items they’ve all crossed the galaxy to get. Something the Jarra want?

He hesitates before answering. He still doesn’t trust me. In the end, he just shrugs. I’m not sure if that means he doesn’t know if the Jarra did this, or if he doesn’t know if he can trust me enough to tell me.

“This is where the box was supposed to be,” Magnusson says over the comms, pointing to a security wall that’s been blown apart by the impact. I guess my silent interrogation is over, and now it’s time to get to work. He turns, indicating the broken, twisted frame that once held the viewport. “That’s where it is.”

I step closer, moving carefully. From here, I get a view of just how wide the rift is. How deep.

And how precariously small and close to the edge the box is.

The port view window smashed on impact, contents spewing through the opening. When the Roundabout vomited up whatever wasn’t strapped down in the bridge, a good chunk of it probably fell straight down into the lava. Smaller items are scattered along the broken edges of the rift.

The box is made of white, reflective material, and from here I can see the silvery reinforcements around the edge.

“You sure whatever’s inside isn’t melted or broken?” I ask. No point risking my life for something that’s already gone.

“There’s some pretty heavy padding and insulation.” Rian answers from the comm unit, not Magnusson. “The actual object inside is no bigger than your palm. I’ve not been able to get a proper scan in, but the chances are legitimately good. ”

“For now,” Saraswati says. “Eyes up. Incoming level three.”

Magnusson and I brace against whatever we can reach that’s bolted to the floor of the bridge. I grab the nav console; he hangs on to the captain’s seat, legs spread wide. This was a slightly more violent quake, and the fact that I’m deeply aware of being on a ship hanging halfway over a high rift that ends in lava makes it worse, but thankfully, it ends quickly.

The whole time, Magnusson’s eyes are on the box.

“Still think you can get it?” Magnusson asks. He’s not being snide; he sounds truly curious.

I nod silently.

He moves closer, his voice dropping. “Listen, you don’t have to prove anything. You’re a scavenger, and you’ve got experience, but there’s no point risking your life for something just to prove a point.”

We’re on a public comm channel, and even if Rian’s in the ship and Saraswati’s outside, they can still hear him. Can still hear my reply. Kind of wish he’d signed all that rather than voiced it.

“That’s not what this is,” I say.

“But—”

I turn back to look at the box. This is going to be complicated; no point pretending otherwise. I can’t even lie to myself on this one.

“How?” Magnusson says in a whisper, like he barely dares to ask the question.

“Here’s how,” I say. “One goal. Full speed until you get it. It’s the only way.”