He can’t go out there now.
Ratta-tatta-tatta goes the hydra, somewhere nearby.
“It is alive,” Gregorian says. “How?”
Jack punches the door.
Something flashes by the porthole. A shadowed amalgamation, unspecified shapes.
“I am think I saw something.”
Jack raises one hand, indicating silence.
The hydra comes back, slower this time, settles over the airlock, blocking most of the view. It is seriously very fucking large. Bolts of lightning snap across its manifold arches, having no effect at all. It presses against the exterior door, blotting out all light. And then the ratta-tatta-tatta starts again, and everything begins to shake.
Jack backs away. “I think we might be in trouble.”
Gregorian just nods.
Slow motion. Two objects nearing each other. One, a woman in a tight blue suit, turning in circles, reaching out her hands, kicking her legs as if she is underwater. The other object an abandoned escape pod decorated with scratches and dents, surface damage left there by a monster. The hydra must have kept on punishing the pod after Dino and Lana left. Maybe searching for food. Maybe testing the strength of its hull. Maybe just smashing out of anger. A sea of garbage hangs around this useless lifeboat. Scraps of fabric might be bits of Stetson’s suit. And tiny red specks of frozen blood. She tries not to notice these things.
Inches. If she misses the pod, it will be by inches.
Fifteen feet and closing. Absurdly, she must have kicked off the EM-pack too hard, overcompensated for the angle. She will overshoot her mark, skim right past the open door and around the curved edge of its stern. Inches.
Still she reaches and kicks at empty space, refusing to believe that she brought her worst fear upon herself. She has a contingency plan. She will find a way to plug the hole that vents her air and she will breathe exhaust until she dies sleepy and warm.
As it all comes true, as she misses the surface by little more than six inches, fingers flexing, every molecule in her body trying and failing to stretch, the pod lights blinking innocently, she comes around the rear of the pod, rotating fully one more time, now facing the rear thruster ports she could not see from her previous angle jutting out of the pod’s back by a good eight inches. She stretches one last time. Those beautiful cone thrusters, like bullhorns. Her right hand clamps an inner lip. She hangs on. Even when her body whiplashes. When the muscles, tendons, bones, everything that makes up her right arm screams in protest, she hangs on. Her momentum slams her against the hull, beside yet another thruster port. She wedges a foot against one to keep from bouncing off. She hangs on.
Chapter 59
“Here’s our culprit,” Hunter says, pointing at a string of floating numbers. “Diagnostics found it almost immediately.”
Jack does his best to hold it together, but grits his teeth to keep from shouting. Every moment they stand here in front of this abstract display of data, the hydra is that much closer to ripping the airlock door off its hinges. “We don’t have time for guessing games. Tell me what and where it is.”
“It’s a short. Somewhere in the ignition system. Jack, it could take hours to find. Maybe days. I need to go through the schematics one section at a time. There are thousands of them.”
Gregorian clears his throat. “Are you forgetting me? I know these error codes.”
“Be my guest,” Hunter says with a dismissive wave.
He puts his face to the floating screen, eyes practically crossed. “I know where. See these letter, upper case, lower case? This indicate quadrant. This is inside ship. I can fix.”
“How long?” Jack says.
He raises his arms uncertainly. “Twenty minutes.”
“You’ve got five.”
He raises his eyebrows, then nods and bolts out of the room.
Jack calls: “You need help?”
“You slow me down!” he shouts.
Jack sinks into the copilot’s chair, slaps his face with both hands. Until they get out of the plasma field, there is absolutely nothing they can do, and they can’t get out of the plasma until the thrusters are back up. Hunter pulls up the view inside the airlock. The porthole is a circle of squirming shapes, as if a pile of intestines has been smashed against it. Even the camera vibrates. Hunter points to a fluctuating number in the top right corner, indicating the pressure. The numbers rise and falclass="underline" .998, 1.003, .998, 1.005, .993. The changes are to a few thousandths of an atmosphere, and although there hasn’t been a breach, they prove that the hydra is able to flex the material of the door, sucking it out and pushing it in, expanding and contracting the chamber itself.
Jack could use a drink. Something tall and very strong.
“We’re not getting out of this, are we?” Hunter says.
What can he say? Justin is dead. Stetson is dead. Lana…
He can’t bring himself to think it.
Something blips on the holoscreen, and a new window pops up.
Jack ignores it. Probably some new error code. Hunter leans forward. “I don’t believe it.”
“What now?”
“Look!” She smacks him in the ear, flails her hands at the window.
He hardly believes it himself. But there it is, unmistakable.
Panic: Lana here. Do y0u Read?
“How?” Hunter says.
He grins. Thank the stars. “Answer her.”
Homunculus: We read you. Assumed the worst.
Panic: You don’t 10ok so good your$elf.
Jack wipes his eyes. He knew she was okay. She had to be.
Hunter punches his shoulder. “I knew she had a sense of humor.”
“Get her up to speed.”
Homunculus: Homunculus’s thrusters are down. Gregorian working on repairs. Will come to you when done.
Panic: Field of plAsma? What happened?
Homunculus: Hydra.
Panic: No+ much time before jump. 45 mins by my count.
Homunculus: You count correct. There is another major problem. Hydra has secured itself over airlock. No way in or out.
This message sits for a long time. Jack imagines her in that derelict pod, alone and anchorless, reeling from this news.
Finally, a reply:
Panic: Need to get hydra off.
Hunter clucks her tongue. “No shit.”
Homunculus: Ideas?
Panic: Yes. You will need to suit up.
Chapter 60
Lana perches along the pod’s exterior. Secured into a freshly charged EM-pack, she holds to the door and watches the Homunculus change course. The thrusters release controlled bursts, and when the bursts hit the glowing plasma, they set it spiraling. Lightning dances, but the ship slides steadily away, turning as they swing into position. It looks effortless, spanning that distance with such precision, and she is struck with awe that they have come this far, not just in spite of the creature, but of space itself.
The Homunculus settles several hundred feet from the panic pod’s stern, the bow pointed at Belinda.
Lana tests the comms: “Do you read me?”
A scratchy voice replies, half-broken: “Inter—ence. Re—eat.”
“This is Lana to Homunculus. Do you read.”
“—ead you. C—… mission?”
It’s no use.
She pulls back into the pod and types at the main console.
Panic: Still too much interference. Will try again when closer.