The ship struck.
Father moved away fast.
Victor’s body slammed into something hard, the wind rushing out of him in a violent impact to his chest. He felt a flash of pain. The corporates had hit him. He was flat against their ship, and then he wasn’t, spinning away, free again, tumbling, disoriented. He turned his head and saw El Cavador moving away from him, his lifeline stretching out, growing taut. He couldn’t breath. His lungs were screaming for air. He looked at his lifeline and knew that a hard jerk might tear it from his back. He reached back and grabbed the line just as it went taut. The line jerked him hard, but it stayed connected. He held on. He was tumbling again, trailing behind El Cavador like a trolled fish line.
Then in a single, painful inhale of breath, his lungs expanded again. He took in air. His chest burned. His arm hurt. His suit was cold. His head was ringing. The air was stale.
“Father!”
There was no reply. He still had no power.
El Cavador was drifting awkwardly ahead of him, moving abnormally to the side, like a boat turned sideways in an unforgiving current. The twelve severed mooring cables hung loosely below the ship. Two more laser blasts hit sensors on the side of the ship, though Victor couldn’t see what they were. He was still spinning, flying, dazed, limp. Everything was happening too quickly.
Behind him, he saw the corporate ship fire its retros and slow down, coming to a stop right where El Cavador had been. They wanted the rock, Victor realized. The bastards had bumped them for the rock.
Victor rotated his body, trying to control the spinning. El Cavador was still in a dead float, moving away from him. His lifeline was still taut. He was probably forty meters from the ship. He pulled on the lifeline, using the momentum to stop the spinning. His body steadied. The spinning ceased. He could see Father clinging to the ship.
The siren started beeping in his helmet again. His heads-up display flickered to life. He had power. The auxiliary generators had kicked in.
“Victor!” It was Father’s voice.
“I’m here.” He was already hitting the propulsion trigger on his thumb, flying forward, hurrying toward the ship.
“Are you hurt?” Father asked.
Victor could see Father getting to his feet and then jumping from the ship, flying out toward him. Victor rotated his arm. It wasn’t broken. Or at least he didn’t think so. “No. I’m okay.”
El Cavador was still drifting. He and Father were coming at each other fast. Victor let up on his propulsion just as Father did. Even still, they collided, clinging to each other. Father scanned Victor’s helmet, looking for fractures. “You’re not hurt? You’re not leaking?”
“No.” He had never seen Father this rattled before. “You?”
“Fine. It’s Marco. Help me get him inside. He’s not responding.”
Only then did Victor realize that there was a second lifeline trailing behind the ship, albeit farther down the ship from his position. Marco’s line had snagged on one of the mooring braces, and Marco’s body was limp and lifeless. Father oriented himself and hit his propulsion trigger, flying straight toward Marco. Victor followed close behind him.
They reached Marco and anchored themselves to the ship. Marco’s body was limp and nonresponsive. They turned him over. His eyes were closed. His helmet was cracked, though it didn’t appear as if air was leaking.
“I don’t think he’s breathing,” said Father. He looked up, thinking, not sure what to do, then came to a decision. “Go open the hatch to the bay airlock. As soon as Marco and I come through, pull in the slack from our lifelines as fast as you can. Then come in after us and seal the hatch tight. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Father got behind Marco and wrapped one arm around his chest and another around his waist. He was going to fly him in. “Go, Victor.”
Victor launched, pushing the thumb trigger down as far as it would go, hurtling straight to the airlock hatch that led into the cargo bay. The exterior siren lights were spinning, bathing the whole ship in rays of moving red. The damage was everywhere: scorch marks, stumps where equipment had been. Victor reached the hatch, opened it, then moved to the side. Father was coming up fast, carrying Marco’s limp body. Marco’s legs thumped against the frame of the hatch as he came through, but Marco showed no response. Victor followed them inside and began reeling in the slack from their lifelines, pulling hand over hand as fast as he could. Father was beside him now, pulling frantically. Finally it was all in. Victor sealed the hatch, and air immediately began pouring into the airlock to fill the vacuum.
“Help me anchor him to the ground,” said Father.
The lifeline slack was everywhere, floating all around them. Victor pushed as much of it to the side as he could, getting it out of the way. Then he hit the switch on Marco’s waist belt to initiate the magnet. He and Father lowered Marco’s body to the floor. Father grabbed two anchor straps and put one across Marco’s chest and another across his legs, anchoring him flat against the floor. By then the airlock was almost full of air.
“As soon as we get the all-clear,” said Father, “take his helmet off nice and slow. Don’t jerk it. We need to be easy with his neck.”
Victor nodded, and they both got into position.
Father looked at the time counter on the wall and saw that there were twenty seconds before the room was fully pressurized. “Close enough. Go.” Father began taking off his own helmet while Victor delicately unhinged Marco’s. When he finally got it off, the all-clear sounded, and the light above the exit to the cargo bay turned green.
Father felt Marco’s neck for a pulse while Victor fumbled to get his own helmet off.
“Call Isabella on your handheld,” said Father. “Get her here now. Tell her I can’t find a pulse and he’s not breathing.”
Victor’s hands were shaking as he dialed the code on his handheld. Marco was dying. Or maybe already dead. Father tilted Marco’s head slightly back and began giving him rescue breaths. Isabella didn’t respond.
“She’s not answering,” said Victor.
“She’s probably already treating people or moving to the fuge. Find her. Get her here now. Have her bring her kit if she has it with her. Go.”
Victor detached his lifeline and was up and out of the airlock in an instant, launching himself across the cargo bay to the hatch on the far side of the room. The siren was loud inside the ship, and only the emergency lights were on, leaving much of the room in darkness. No one was in the cargo bay, but Victor found plenty of people out in the hall, a main thoroughfare on the ship. Everyone was wearing their emergency air masks and moving down the hall toward the fuge in an orderly fashion as they had been trained. Babies and small children were crying behind their masks, but their parents held them close to their chests and spoke words of comfort. Everyone seemed alarmed, but Victor was pleased to see that no one was panicking. Most people were upright, wearing greaves, but a few like Victor were flying, calmly moving with the crowd.
Victor scanned the faces but didn’t see Isabella. Knowing her, she would be one of the last people to head for the fuge. As a trained nurse, she would stay behind and help anyone who had been injured in the collision, making sure everyone got to the fuge. She was the closest thing El Cavador had to a doctor, and she had even performed a few surgeries over the years, though only in life-threatening situations and always as a last resort.
Victor spotted a familiar face. “Edimar!”
Edimar saw him and pushed her way through the crowd to reach him. Her air mask covered her entire face. “What happened?” she asked. “Why are you in a pressure suit? Were you outside? Where’s your mask?”
“Have you seen Isabella?”
Edimar pointed back up the way she had come. “She was helping Abuelita. Why? Who’s hurt? What happened?”
Victor didn’t wait to answer. He was already away, pushing his way past people, going against traffic, using the handrail to pull himself forward. Edimar called after him, but he didn’t turn back. Several people shouted at him as he brushed past them, but Victor didn’t care. Marco was dying. He wasn’t breathing. Every second counted.