“Will do, Colonel!” Kwon shouted into my helmet.
I wondered if it was the last time I’d ever hear his voice.
“Missiles away,” Gorski said. His voice cracked with tension. “The ship to our south is slowing down, sir. She’s turning into the fire. We can’t hit the engines now.”
I saw a red spray of pulses strafe our metallic green bead on the big board. No one needed to explain to me what was happening this time. Rippling fire struck all over the ship. Major Sarin was knocked off her feet, but Sandra helped her up. For a crazy moment, I felt glad those two would at least die cooperating.
Another shower of red sparks came from the point Macro. They were all turning their guns on us, but still firing their missiles toward Earth’s cities. My eyes ran over a dozen indicators and I knew we didn’t have long. We didn’t have any time at all.
I looked around the bridge. Welter was tapping his alien boards like a crazed video-game player. His nimble hands flashed from spot to spot, touching an oblong area of color with his left and rotating a virtual circle with a single fingertip of his right. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and I hoped it wouldn’t cost him his life. Gorski worked the complex turret controls, still firing. He was blasting at the point ship now, he’d changed targets without asking. But it was a good call. If all of them had damaged engines, they wouldn’t be able to run from Kwon’s demolition men. If Kwon failed, Crow’s Fleet should be able to finish them before they ate Europe.
The showers of sparks on the big board were flying in every direction. Our engines would have blown already, but they were behind us, as we were the rear ship in the formation and the enemy ships were all in front of us. The hull took a dreadful pounding. The entire ship was being hammered on every side.
“Abandon ship,” I ordered, hitting the emergency override channel. Every helmet in range rang with my command. I knew my words were being repeated and broadcast by the communication center as well. Earth could hear it too, on the open channels. I didn’t care. At least this way, they would all know who we were. Macro Command couldn’t possibly hate us any more than they already did, and Earth’s defenders might figure out which ship to avoid firing upon.
“This is Colonel Kyle Riggs,” I said. “All hands, abandon ship!”
Everything went white shortly after I spoke those words. My visor turned opaque, and I couldn’t see anything. Something smacked me down, then picked me back up and threw me the length of the engine room. My suit kept the explosion from killing me outright, but I knew that this must be what it was like to die inside a doomed starship.
I stayed conscious. I blamed my new-fangled helmet. The world was full of pain and twisted sensations. I was hurt, busted-up inside. Parts of me were numb-my right leg from the hip down and my left shoulder. Other parts screamed with pain. One of my eyes was quite possibly missing. I couldn’t see anything with my left eye.
I howled in my helmet, unable to do anything else. Something had me again, something that pulled hard. I looked around and saw a thin arm wrapped around my midsection. I turned my head-flashes of purple light went off in my skull as I did so.
It was Sandra. She had me tucked under her arm and was carrying me out of the ship. I blinked in confusion. One of her arms was missing. How could that be? The nanites glistened in the wound. I could see them in the fabric too as they worked to close the gap in her suit. She shouldn’t even be conscious, I thought, but here she was, carrying me through the ship like a sack of potatoes with her one remaining arm.
I looked back behind me. Something strange was flying after me down the corridor. It took me a second to recognize Marvin. He was following us.
“What are you doing, Marvin?” I asked.
“Following you,” he said.
“What for?”
“You must survive to fulfill your commitments.”
It took me a dazed second to realize he was talking about his homemade spaceship fantasy. I would have laughed if I wasn’t nearly dead. “Go back and rescue everyone you can. Get them out of the ship. Then we’ll talk about building your dream body.”
He did a U-turn and sped away. Sandra paused and pressed her faceplate against mine.
“You’re awake,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I wish I wasn’t. Get us out of here.”
“My suit radio is broken,” she said.
“I figured.”
“I’m firing the airlock bolts now,” she said. “I need you to use your good hand to clamp my suit closed. The nanites haven’t sealed it completely yet.”
I frowned. Several things about her statement concerned me. One worry was her use of the phrase your good hand — which indicated I had a bad one. I quickly figured my left side was the bad one, because it didn’t move when my nerves sent signals to it to do so. I reached up with my right to grasp the dangling scraps of cloth around her stump. Another major worry was the implication she was about to launch us into space. Her flapping suit made this a bad idea.
“This won’t hold,” I said. “I can’t make a good enough seal.”
“Hold on,” she said.
Hearing her words, my first thought was she had meant to wait a second while she fixed the situation, but she didn’t mean that at all. She meant literally: hold on.
The air in the lock gushed out, and we gushed out with it into space. Sandra and I twirled out into a freezing void. We tumbled, but my suit jets automatically fired, steadying us. I grabbed up a handful of Sandra’s suit material and held onto it for all I was worth. It was like a cinched bag in my hand. We weren’t in a good position to touch helmets again, so I couldn’t hear her if she was talking. She pointed downward.
I hurt my neck in order to take a look. There was quite a drama playing out down there. Three ships were left in the fight. The fourth one, the Macro ship that had been to our north, was floating scrap. Our own ship was trailing fire and explosions. The cannon was still blazing, however. I figured the sparks along our hull were due to the continuous, hammering impacts from the enemy cannons. Tiny figures swam away in every direction out of my ship. I craned my neck around, and after my vision cleared, I saw my marines swarming over both the Macro vessels, setting their charges.
I smiled and listened as my men signaled each other. The plan was working-sort of. They were destroying them all. As I watched, they laid bombs on their hulls and sprang away like fleas jumping off a dying dog. We were the swarm plaguing them, now.
I turned my head back toward Sandra. She was watching the scene with me. It was silent, colorful and terrifying all at once. My fingers were still holding the cloth of her suit together. I knew if the nanites were in close proximity, they were more likely to meet and chain up into an airtight surface. Apparently, they had made a good enough seal, because she was still alive. We’d spun around to watch the battle, and I was able to twist enough to click my faceplate against hers.
“What happened to your other arm?” I asked.
“It hurts,” she said.
“Hurts? I’ve got some bad news…”
“It will be fine.”
“You should have listened. You should have kept your battle suit on.”
“Don’t start with me, Kyle,” she said. “My arm will be fine.”
“It’s been blown clean off, girl!” I shouted. “It’s about to burn up in that dying ship.”
Our old cruiser was sagging now, flying upside down like a dead goldfish. The top of it ran with streaks of fire and thick vapors as it scudded against the mesosphere, the layer of Earth’s atmosphere where most meteors burned up. The friction would soon melt the hull to slag. I was sorry to see it go down.
“No it isn’t,” she said, rummaging in her utility pack.
Sandra grunted and pulled something into view. It was a stiff, feminine arm. “See, here it is. Frozen solid, but with some hard-working nanites and microbial-loving, it will work again. You’ll see. I’ll give you a massage with this by Christmas.”