The turrets are functioning. The rifles have been calibrated. Belinda is prepared to open and close the correct doors, lead the hydras to the ship’s stern. The panic pod diagnostics check out. His shoes are tied and his heart pumps blood and he is ready, but when he looks in Lana’s direction he feels a pang in his chest. They are all reassessing him now. That’s unavoidable. You learn secrets about a close friend and your mind backtracks to process the pieces of a puzzle you thought you’d already solved. Otherwise, you ignore it, in which case you aren’t actually friends.
He leans over the holo-screen to get another look at those unnerving tentacles. Lana comes up behind him. They need to talk, she says. She leads him to the hallway and into the side room, and they shove through the wrappers and cans. Jack kicks his canteen out of the way. Lana’s body language says she is upset. How much more pain is he going to cause this woman?
She closes the door behind them.
“What is it?” he says.
She shrugs. “Tell me you aren’t trying to martyr yourself.”
Jack sinks. “What?”
“Just tell me.”
“Martyr myself?”
“Nobody here wants you to die for them.”
“Why would—”
“Just shut up and listen.” She steps toward him. Then again. And again. Until they are face to face and Jack’s breathing slows, and he can almost feel what the monsters must feel when following their prey—an electric warmth around her body, some kind of glow. It has always been there. Even in that clinic seeing her for the first time in years, still half-drunk and barely able to hold his head up. He’d been trying to ignore it. But now she’s got that gleam. She was always the dominant one, pulling him into her room and fiddling with his belt, the pursuer.
She lays a hand across his neck. “This is bullshit,” she says.
He flinches. “What?”
“This.” Her hand bears down on the flesh of his neck. “This thing, this tattoo. It’s bullshit. You did what nobody else could. They were the cowards, not you.” Tears in her eyes. Hand trembling. “They had no right.”
He doesn’t know that he agrees. Probably he doesn’t. But he is stunned. He’s not sure what he expected—disappointment maybe, or anger directed at him, or feelings of disgust and shame at having slept with a man who helped murder 150 people. She has no right to feel bad for him, or worse, forgive him. He has to look away or he is going to lose it.
She grabs his chin, turns him back to her.
The needle in his mind slides into his throat. He tries to swallow it, but it’s stuck.
“I’m not asking you to deal with this right now. Just tell me you want to live.”
He stammers something about whatever happens is going to happen—
She pulls his lips to hers and everything he was going to say melts away and seems very stupid. They pull apart, and he leans back and looks into her face, soft features, dark eyes, knee-trembling beauty. “I want to live,” he says. And means it.
Chapter 36
Double-check everything. Portable is working. Hunter’s tool belt with screwdrivers, wire-cutters. Everyone wearing the torsos and lower halves of their suits. Holding off on the gloves and helmets to preserve maneuverability and oxygen. Hunter jumping up and down and shaking out her limbs, stretching her neck. Stetson at the control panel, spacing out, that blank stare as he fights his mounting agitation. Justin beside him with a similar expression, chewing the inside of his cheek. Dino in one of the chairs, teeth gritted and eyes clenched in pain. Gregorian kneeling and praying with Tarziesch—Tarziesch who disapproves of the bulky old-style space suits, wishes he’d worn his own. Lana on the helmet with the creature, studying the floor. And lastly, the Dandy, gripping Jack’s arm and pulling him aside and saying, “I have one final order, Jackie.”
The makeup has faded, wiped away by attempts to clear his sweat. The spacesuit makes him look like a mascot of some doomed sports team. Tiny head poking out of a marshmallow body. Pale complexion, smattering of acne scars, the shadow of a kid who never grew up. Is this what child kings looked like, acted like, felt like, with nobody questioning their authority as they fed their subjects to lions? These patterns of history play out on the Dandy’s face. “I’m not leaving here empty-handed,” he says. His little hands grip the inside of Jack’s elbow.
“Get the fuck away from me.”
Dandy does not seem to hear this. “I want you to go to the cargo bay and retrieve those gems. The ones from the sphere.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind.”
“Just hear me out.”
“I am. I did. This is me hearing you out.” Jack taps his ear. “Now stop touching me.”
Dandy licks his lips and blinks. His face goes red. How long since someone talked to him this way? “Alien technology, Jack. Think how much it’d be worth. We’ll be rich. Both of us.”
Jack laughs. “You think I’d cut a deal with you? The only deal I’ll offer is to let you live. That’s it.”
Dandy grins. “Alright, Jackie. Maybe when we get back, I’ll order your family—”
In a single motion, Jack peels away and swings Dandy against a wall, pressing a forearm into his throat. “You threaten me one more time I might just pop your ugly head off.” Jack shoves him and he falls to the floor coughing, the weight of his suit pinning him there.
Everyone watches them.
Jack trembles with anger.
No more delays.
Memory of Lana’s lips on his. Ghost sensation. Calming.
He has their attention. He says, “Time to go.”
Chapter 37
From her purchase on the helmet, Lana can’t see the display. The others crowd the console and hold their breath as Belinda sets her lasers to work. This moment has snuck up quick. She still half-imagines an alternative will come along and save them. Maybe the hydras will bite through the airlock and blast themselves into space. It doesn’t seem fair that this is the best option. The only option. She has always imagined she could sneak her way out of any disaster. Probably everyone feels that way.
She shifts inside her suit, her back sore from the weight. The things are bulky and outdated. Just bending her elbows is a struggle. Jack probably got them at a discount. Or for free. An old friend once warned her not to board a ship without a suit set to her own specs and accessible at all times. “It’s like taking a gun into battle. You don’t take one that’s untested.” Not that her friend, who’d been a plastic surgeon at home during the war, knew anything about battle. At the time, she’d come up with what she thought was a clever reply: If I cared about safety, I’d go to Earth. Funny that she followed through so many years later. So why did she leave?
“They’re taking the bait,” Stetson says, his voice wavering.
“Look at them,” says Justin. “Fuckers are fast.”
Jack, Hunter, and Gregorian move toward the door.
Belinda buzzes in: “Your path is clear.”
The door’s handle is a red lever resembling a breaker switch set into the wall. Jack steps up beside it. He calls for Justin to stand by and prepare to close it. His shoulders slump and he turns to face Lana. She tries to force a smile, but nothing comes. He nods, straightens his shoulders and puffs out his chest and reaches for the lever.
The door pops open with a clang.
The floor outside has been scratched to its underlying frame. Plastic chips and particleboard lie scattered like confetti. Like a dog had been scratching to get in. Even from where she sits she can hear the creature somewhere down the hall—thud, bang, thud—slamming against every surface, trying to catch an uncatchable beam of energy.