"You couldn't possibly trust me if I joined you."
The captain's smile twisted. "I have it on good authority that when push comes to shove, we don't trust anyone. You'll be outnumbered, and even if you could get away from the rest of the crew, where are you going to go? We're in deep space. You could make a run for it when we reach a station, I suppose, but should we dock at a station that might offer sanctuary, I suspect I'm smart enough to lock you down for the duration."
"Being a member of your crew sounds a fuk of a lot like being your prisoner."
"Beats the alternative. And you have nothing to go back to, remember? Your ship was destroyed, your woman left for dead."
"Left for dead?" Torin wasn't dead.
The Captain shrugged. "She was alive when we folded, but her suit had been breached, and vacuum has a way of taking care of these things. Think the offer over," he added turning toward the hatch. "It's open for a limited time."
Torin wasn't dead!
Craig heard the hatch slam and looked up to find himself alone in the small room, bruised, bleeding, still hard enough to pound nails, and tied to a chair.
Torin wasn't dead. She'd been left for dead, but when talking about ex-Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr, that was a long way from being dead. All he had to do was stay alive until she found him.
Damn, but she was going to be pissed.
"That went well," Doc said, thoughtfully looking up from the monitor as Cho joined him.
Cho glanced down at the screen and frowned. "Why is he laughing?" "… unless one of you lot have learned how to breathe vacuum. Private Kerr!"
Torin jerked awake and onto her feet. Since she'd arrived at Ventris Station, her days had been filled with intense physical and mental training and her nights had held no more than four to five hours of sleep. She wasn't the only one dozing off in quiet moments-or even not so quiet moments. Tom Wiegand had fallen asleep during drill. His body had managed to keep marching in a straight line, but an order to about face had caused a pileup and resulted in an extra 5K run for the entire platoon.
But Wiegand wasn't the one on the hot seat now.
She blinked and managed to bring Staff Sergeant Beyhn into focus. His eyes were dark-most of the light receptors open-and his hair-which was honest-to-gods scarlet and not auburn or strawberry blond-jerked back and forth. She'd never met a di'Taykan until she got to the Marine Corps recruiting center on Paradise and was amazed to discover that the stories about them were mostly true. She'd never met a staff sergeant either, and the stories about them were definitely true.
When he saw he had her attention, Staff Sergeant Beyhn smiled and said, with exaggerated patience, "Perhaps Private Kerr would like to tell the platoon what she would do should she find herself in vacuum in a leaking HE suit."
Oh, thank gods, this was something she knew. "I'd patch the leak, Staff Sergeant."
"You'd patch the leak, Private Kerr? That's it?"
Torin had no idea what he was getting at. "Yes, Staff Sergeant. I'd patch the leak in the suit." Since he seemed to be waiting for more, she added, "Or I'd die."
"And you don't intend to die, is that it?"
She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "No, Staff Sergeant, I do not."
His eyes darkened further and she wondered how much more there was for him to see. After a long moment he nodded, and said, "Good."
Wait…
She frowned. She had a leak in her HE suit?
Not good.
Leak in suit…
As soon as the pressure dropped, the internal patching material would have been released. If the leak was large enough, a further drop in pressure would release the secondary IPM.
Conscious personnel were instructed not to wait for the release. Conscious personnel needed to preserve more air. Torin's first attempt resulted in an inarticulate croak. No good enough. She wet her lips, swallowed, and tried again.
"Command! Patch release!"
Better.
It was cold. She remembered that from training. Cold and a little slimy.
"And then what, Private Kerr?"
Staff Sergeant Beyhn's red eyes were blinking. Off. On. Off. On. Off.
Torin blinked when the lights stopped and the surrounding stars came slowly into focus. The surrounding stars and quite a bit of moving debris. Calming her breathing, she worked back from what she knew.
She was in an HE suit. In space. Surrounded by moving debris. There'd been an explosion. Frowning, she opened and closed her right hand. She'd been holding something.
Craig. She'd been holding Craig. The tethers had been cut.
She couldn't see him. Not even with the helmet magnification on full.
"Craig! This is Torin, do you copy?"
A ship had come out of nowhere, shot out Promise's cabin, cut the tethers, and blown up the clump of wreckage she and Craig had been tagging.
"Craig! Damn it, answer me!"
The wreckage had blown as spectacularly as it had because the shot had set off the eight small charges they'd set to free up that piece of Primacy tech.
"Command! Run diagnostics on communication unit."
By tucking her head down, she could see Promise's lights flashing in the distance and her own cut tether pointing back the way she'd come. She was moving away from the ship. Diagnostics told her there was nothing wrong with the comm.
"Craig!"
No answer.
No sound at all but her own breathing. Usually, Torin found that comforting.
She'd been carrying twelve hours of air when they left the ship. They'd been out for ninety minutes when the shooting had started. Her suit said she had four hours and twenty-three minutes left. The leak had not been a hallucination. Or not only a hallucination.
Four hours and twenty-one minutes before the scrubbers were no longer effective and the oxygen levels dropped below what the suit considered air. She could manage for another ten to fifteen minutes after that as long she didn't need to do anything too complex
Even more fun, two layers of internal patching hadn't quite stopped the leak.
"Shit."
Had she been wearing jets, it wouldn't have mattered; she'd be back to the Promise before she ran out. But she'd been wearing a safety line. Jets and a safety line were redundant.
Apparently not.
Had she been in Craig's suit instead of one of the new military tested designs, she'd have been screwed and this was not the time to think about Craig in Craig's ten-year-old suit, unconscious, unable to make repairs. "Command! Foam release."
The foam-more or less the same material that protected Navy fliers in disabled pods-filled in all the space between Torin and her suit, started warm, got very hot for seven seconds, then semi-solidified, becoming, in essence, a second suit. She could still bend her arms and legs but not without effort. Design flaw-fix a leak, but then make her work harder, breathe harder. To add insult to injury, the foam itself was a brilliant pink. So was the skin under the foam. On the other hand, insulted beat dead. The collar seals bulged up against the bottom of her chin but held.
Giving thanks that she'd bothered to hook up the plumbing this trip, Torin considered her next option.
She wasn't moving particularly fast, but she was moving away from the ship. Fortunately, the tagging gun was still strapped to her leg and…
Her tanks hit first.
Given the amount of debris around her, moving at differing angles and speeds, it was inevitable she make contact with a piece of it. This felt like a big piece. And, in this instance, make contact was clearly a euphemism for full body impact.
Her tanks, or tanks like them, had been dropped out of a low orbit and continued to work when the defense contractors dug them out of six meters of dirt. Torin had seen the vid; she wasn't worried about her tanks.
Instinct said, brace for impact.
Training said, relax
Torin had seen Marines thrown about like rag dolls by unexpected explosions, ending up bruised and battered but without major injuries. Rag dolls didn't break.
The foam pressing against the collar seal held her head in place.