Nadia began to pace. Being alone for days, hiding in that crawl space was driving her mad. Why—
Her head snapped up. Her eyes grew round and she couldn’t breath.
A valve turned. A door creaked. Someone was coming.
Please, please let it be Marten.
A man turned the corner, a white-faced, sweating man who stumbled toward her. He looked exhausted and sick. Then Nadia breathed again as she realized it was Marten. And despite her resolve over the past several days not to, she felt a stirring within her.
9.
The attack came as a dreadful shock to the Highborn. It two places, space and molten debris floated where once had been the solid ring-factory. In other places, torn skin and blasted wreckage told of the fierce annihilating power of the proton beam. More than one Highborn swore awful oaths. Many premen sat at screens, studying the orange plasma clouds, the tumbling bodies and the gaping holes in the station. Maybe for the first time, they doubted an automatic Highborn victory. The superiors could be hurt.
Repair pods flew to the scene of the worst destruction, as well as damage control teams in Zero-G Worksuits. All over the Sun Works Factory, hanger doors opened and working orbitals zoomed out to emergency zones. Meanwhile, behind Mercury, the Genghis Khan powered up to fight as it was. The Doom Star Gustavus Adolphus halted refit as personal raced onboard. At this point, the Highborn expected anything to happen.
The Praetor of the Sun Works Factory ordered all premen to barracks. This would be the perfect moment for SU sympathizers to strike, or so suggested several Highborn in charge of various security areas. Debates raged on what to do next. Vectors and velocities of all known Social Unity spacecraft were carefully computed.
“I want to know when each of them can reach Mercury!” the Praetor shouted.
“Do you believe this a prelude to a mass premen space attack?” Lycon asked.
“What do you call this?” snarled the Praetor, before striding out to collect the latest damage reports.
“They will attack again,” messaged the Grand Admiral from the Julius Caesar in orbit around the Moon. “Implement total defense measures.”
Several minutes after receiving it, a communications officer handed the memo to the Praetor. He scanned it. Then he asked his staff, “What does he think we’ve been doing?”
“You’re one step ahead of him, sir,” said a staff member.
The Praetor grunted.
Unlike the lower species, the Highborn prided themselves on quick reactions. Shock often produced confused sluggishness. Surprise left many bewildered. Not the Highborn, however, and certainly not the Praetor.
The Genghis Khan and a hundred shuttles roared to the outer portion of the Sun Works Factory. They pumped aerogel with lead additives between the probable location of the Bangladesh and the space hab. The aerogel was a dull cloud. Behind it, other shuttles shot packets of prismatic crystals. It was reflective chaff, useful against lasers. Maybe it would help a little against the dreaded proton beam. The mass of protective “junk” moved at the same relative speed as the planet and ring hab, thus seeming to remain stationary. The volume of space needing protection was knowable and measurable. The problem was that it was also vast.
As bad, the next attack commenced before the aerogel and reactive shielding had begun to take form. Yet wherever the proton beam struck the aerogel with lead additives, it lost power because it had to burn through. The clouds weren’t thick enough yet to stop the beam. And most of the places the beams slashed were unshielded by these aerosols.
Just like the first attack, the second wreaked awful destruction. More bodies tumbled into vacuum. Purple, orange and red plasma roiled into space. The proton beam sliced through another two sections of the ring-factory. Months of factory work burned, exploded or drifted into the void. Debris began a slow tumble toward Mercury, captured by the planet’s gravity.
There was, however, an incredible amount of mass to attack. The sheer volume of the Sun Works Factory made its total destruction a matter of weeks of such beaming. Long before that happened, effective use of the factory would cease. The Highborn were as close to panic as they could be.
Three minutes later this attacked stopped just as the first one had.
“Faster!” the Praetor shouted. “More aerogel, more crystals, get my station shielded!”
10.
Hansen and Ervil watched her too closely. Hansen boasted endlessly during his watches. She found out he’d been a skinny boy in Sydney, Australian Sector when his parents had been kicked out of Social Unity for graft. They had been forced to move into the sprawling slums and eke out an existence there. According to Hansen, most of the slum dwellers were third and fourth generation and knew its filthy, brutal ways. People like Kang and Omi fit perfectly. But sensitive lads like him…
Nadia learned that around the city’s lower deep-core shaft radiated the slums, from City Level 41 to 49. Peacekeeper raids seldom helped keep order. Social workers rarely ventured into the slums even if guaranteed army patrols. Hall and block leaders kept a low profile there. Ward officers seldom set foot in their own territory. Desperate people lived in the slums, uneducated, violent people with bizarre modes of thought and behavior. Gangs roved at night, youth gangs being particular bloodthirsty. Drug-lords hired people called mules, bodyguards and gunmen.
Hansen told her that his only method for survival had been to sharpen his wits. Subterfuge and cunning, that’s how a skinny young boy had dodged the worst horrors.
She supposed that’s how a skinny older man had tried to dodge them on the Sun Works Factory.
Ervil’s watches were worse. He stared at her with those dead eyes. He didn’t say anything. Sometimes he did isometric exercises with a pull bar. When he did this, he took off his shirt. A layer of smooth fat hid his muscles and the stench of his sweat wasn’t pleasant. She once checked the amount of pull he used. Strange Ervil was strong, probably one of those naturals that could live in any slum, at least according to Hansen’s theories.
They didn’t even trust her to use the bathroom alone. Each took turns watching, making her keep the door open. That’s when she decided. There was no way she’d survive a six-month trip cooped with these two.
So when Ervil was asleep one shift she began working on Hansen. She found ways to nudge him. She laughed at his jokes. She kept her eyes bright and showed interest when he repeatedly told the same stories. She soon realized he considered himself the slyest man in the solar system. He had big plans. It dawned on her that his ambition had helped him trick the Highborn into thinking he’d been a PHC agent. He knew undercover procedures because he had informed on everyone in Sydney. The way he told it, he had taught some of the agents a thing or two when sent on sting operations. And he had thoroughly learned the drug trade.
Then came a day she dared let her eyes linger on him. When he turned and noticed, she looked away with a guilty start.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He moved closer. Ervil snored in the sleep compartment.
“Do you miss Marten?” he asked.
“Him?” she asked, facing Hansen. “Marten was a monomaniac. All he thought about was how to get to Jupiter.” A wry look came over her. “He didn’t have time for much else.”
“At least his single-mindedness was good for the three of us,” Hansen said with a laugh.
She laughed, too.
He let his hand fall on top of hers.
She looked up, her eyes wide. “What if Ervil catches us?” she whispered.
“Ervil does what I tell him.”
“I don’t understand that,” she said. “He’s so strong and nothing scares him.”