“Look, Tripp. Look at Enceladus. It’s heading for Saturn”
He joined her at the window. The impossibly large ball of fire left a thick, pink vapor trail as it rocketed away. The vibrations of the window in her palm conveyed the sheer ferocity of the event.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Wool, we have to go.”
She kept facing the window with her arms folded and refused to move, “I c-can’t go.”
“Why not?”
He moved next to her and clocked her reflection in the plastic pane. Something about her face wasn’t right.
“I can never go home ever again, Tripp.”
He applied pressure to her shoulder and tried to comfort her, “Don’t be stupid, just—”
A cold sensation on his fingertips made him look down. A Shanta talon crept across his knuckles, stretching from Wool’s fleshy arm.
“Oh, no.”
A tear rolled down Wool’s cheek, “When you leave, close the door and seal me inside. Have Jaycee break the wall panel so I can’t get out.”
“Wool,” Tripp muttered.
“It’s okay,” she half-laughed and sniffed through her tears, “It was bound to happen sooner or later. We’re mostly human organs, after all. I guess the Symphonium just takes a little longer to work with our synthetic insides.”
She turned to him at once. His face fell when he clapped his eyes on hers. She seemed desperate and beyond hope.
“Oh, Wool,” Tripp’s lip quivered. He looked at her pink, bloodied arm. The skin cracked apart above the elbow. The three cat scratch marks pulsed and revealed a fleshy, white layer.
“Do you have your Rez-9?” she asked.
He offered her his weapon with caution, “Yes, of course. Here.”
“No, Tripp. I can’t do it.”
He pointed at his jaw, “Remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” she turned to the window and widened her eyes at the glorious ball of fire, “Say goodbye to the crew for me. Tell them if it was going to be anyone, then I’m glad it was them.”
A pink tear rolled down Tripp’s cheek as he hooked his index finger around the trigger. He placed the end of it at the back of her head.
Tripp’s voice croaked, “Do you want me to tell Jelly—”
“—No. Don’t tell her anything,” she reached behind her head and gripped the barrel of the gun in her right hand, “In my battery, please.”
Her hand dragged the nozzle down across her back and pushed it between her shoulder blades.
“I could just open you and take it out.”
“Destroy it. Make sure I’m dead. Shoot it,” Wool burst out crying, “Tell Jelly her mommy is sorry.”
Tripp sobbed like a helpless child and made sure his reflection didn’t give his emotions away.
Wool took a lungful of air and widened her eyes. The light from Saturn filled her pupils, “Whatever is out there, we found it—”
BLAMMM!
Her chest opened out and splattered her insides against the window. Globs of thick, pink goo slid down the plastic, against the view of Saturn and the infernal Enceladus.
Wool crumpled to the floor, dead. Her smashed battery hung out through her ribcage and hit the floor.
Tripp lowered his gun and wiped his face.
“Sleep well, Wool.”
Tripp exited Medix and closed the door.
Jaycee, Alex, and Nutrene turned around, expecting to find two crew members.
Tripp lowered his Rez-9 and marched through them, “Wool won’t be joining us.”
“What? Why not?” Jaycee asked and chased up to Tripp, “Hey, you can’t walk off like that.”
THUD.
He planted his giant hand on Tripp’s shoulder and prevented him from walking, “Answer me.”
Tripp grabbed Jaycee by the collar and shunted his back to the wall. A miasma of self-doubt and fury flew through his eyes, “Don’t you ever, ever touch me like that again.”
Jaycee grabbed Tripp’s hand and pushed it away from his neck, “You’re out of your mind.”
“I know I am. We all are.”
“Where’s Wool?”
Tripp snorted and continued up the walkway, “She’s not coming.”
“Why?”
“She’s dead.”
“Dead?”
Alex and Nutrene decided it best to let the two men carry on their conversation a few feet ahead of them.
“Who’s Wool?”
“Ah,” Nutrene whispered, “My predecessor. Actually my second predecessor, after Katcheena. She was chief medician for USARIC. She oversaw the Star Cat Project back in one-eighteen.”
Alex squinted at her, “That Wool? Wool ar-Ban? The Iranian?”
“Yeah, you know her?”
“Oh. Uh, no. Just heard about her,” Alex cleared his throat and grew nervous, “Dead?”
“You heard the man,” she smirked, “Still, her being dead is good practice for all of them soon enough, eh?”
Jaycee pummeled the wall with his fists in anger, “Bastards.”
Tripp held out his arms, “Hey, hey, calm down. There’s nothing any of us could have done—”
“—You didn’t have to execute her, you know,” Jaycee spun his wrists around, ready to break something. A protruding pipe knocked against his knee, “God damn it.”
He grabbed the pipe in his hands and wrenched it from the wall in a fit of rage. A blast of steam sprayed into the walkway as he swung it above his head and hurled it up the corridor, “I swear to God I’m gonna shoot someone.”
“Jaycee, no. No more deaths, please,” Tripp screamed at him, “Who are you gonna shoot?”
“Someone.”
“Let me ask you this, tough guy,” he prodded Jaycee’s exo-suit chest plate with his finger, “What if what you want to shoot is inside you? How are you gonna kill it?”
Jaycee slowed his breathing and pushed his captain’s finger away, “I guess we’ll find out soon enough. If it turned Tor and Wool, who’s to say you and I aren’t next?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The inner airlock hatch slid up. Oxade clutched his D-REZ semi-automatic and entered Opera Beta proper.
He pressed his finger to the ear compartment on his gelatin helmet-mask, “Please tell me this piece of crap spacecraft has its control deck on level one.”
“It does,” Poz’s voice came through Oxade’s mask, “I advise you take the stairs. We can’t trust the elevator on this malfunctioning hunk of junk.”
“Pah. Morons can’t even get that right,” he took a look around the meager inner workings of the ship and chuckled to himself, “You’re right, though. Opera Beta really is a hunk of junk, isn’t it?”
“Soon to be was, I’ll think you’ll find.”
“Very true. I’ll see you in sixty seconds.”
Keen to express his disrespect for the ship, Oxade coughed up a wad of phlegm and spat it on the wall.
Neg danced around the nuclear canister’s beeps, “Beta gonna blow, Beta gonna blow.”
“Will you knock it off, Neg?” Poz eyed the last of the data transfer through his arm, “Any second now.”
Ba-Beep.
“Data transfer complete,” announced the communications console.
“Thank you, kindly,” Poz retracted his arm into his body.
Oxade marched into the control deck and stood in the middle of the room. He looked around with disgust, “Ugh, USARIC really broke the mold when they made Beta, didn’t they? This is one stinking hellhole, for sure.”