Rork shot to his feet and ripped at his hair.
“Who’s this dark-haired girl? The one who had her hands all over you? That you kissed? In front of the whole system?” Lala sobbed. “Are you just going to abandon me here?”
The reality of her situation crushed him. He wanted to throw himself at something, pull his fingernails out, smack his head on steel. Anything but this.
He found his voice. “Of course not. That woman is nobody, just someone we, uh, had to kidnap in order to get out of that prison. We just got off the planet in her ship when the EDF stopped us.”
“Take a good look at your girl.” Barbary zoomed the camera in.
Lala cringed and turned her face away. Bruises stained her shoulder and back.
“You bastard.” A heaviness settled around Rork’s mouth and he balled his fists.
“She’s not pregnant, not yet. We’ve certainly been trying though, haven’t we boys? But she’s a fighter and you have to respect that. Your girl might even be third wife material for one of my grandkids, after a proper breaking in.”
“You piece of brax!” Rork screamed, a desperate cross between the shriek of a star destroyer’s alarm bell and the howl of a dying zolt drive. He grabbed the arms of his chair and shook them. He stood up, found the back wall of the bridge and punched it. The shockwave ran up his arm and into his shoulder but the pain didn’t compare to what he already felt.
Lala swallowed and looked at the camera. Something faintly brown or red was smeared across her forehead and down her cheeks. Her mouth made a tight, straight line. Her eyes showed a dull tension, exhausted and far away. “Have you seen a doctor yet? Did you get more meds?”
“I’m getting you out of there. I love you, Lala. I want to marry you and take care of you for the rest of our lives. We’ll get your seastead and build the house you want and have all the children you can stand. I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t say it before.”
Her viridian eyes fluttered and the skin around them twitched. She shook her head. “It’s alright. You’ll never get in here. It’s too tight, too many people and they’re all armed. They’re actually surprised it’s taking you so long to try.”
He’d free her or he’d die in the process, he told himself. Because Rork Sollix refused to live in a universe where people could do this with impunity to someone he loved, to a person under his care, to a child, for Jupiter’s sake. “I am going to get you out of there and that is that.”
“Go to a doctor. Don’t worry about me. Go back to your dark-haired girl and enjoy the rest of your life. Buff and I can take care of ourselves here.” She looked away.
The image of Lala’s captivity was replaced by the twilight abyss of near-Earth orbit. The sharp gray edge of the EDF destroyer hung in the middle of the screen.
“At least we’ll get a good meal,” Zero said.
“What?”
“Maybe some roast beef.”
The words were gibberish to him. All he could see was Lala, bruised, her dignity stripped and only the universe knew what else.
And he was still so far from reaching her.
“You won’t get us out of this, so don’t try it.”
The challenge zapped him back to reality. His body buzzed with the inevitability of it. But the EDF ship had them. There was no escape from the force field. It held even the minutest specks of space dust in its grasp. This ship was lost to them.
“I’ve heard the EDF serves prisoners real meat.” Zero smacked his lips.
“Did you miss— What about your calling to preach in space? What about your faith and all that other prappery?”
Zero opened his mouth.
“You know what, never mind. Move.” He exited the bridge and ran down the narrow corridor past the captain’s quarters and past the guest rooms. He punched open a door and they stood in a narrow but deep cargo hold filled with nothing much at all.
Zero looked at him. “Patience is virtudinous.”
“Shut up.” Rork bounded forward. At the far end of the hold was the aft airlock, sealed off by a crystalline white wall. A glass door protected a closet of spacesuits next to the circular door of the airlock.
Rork tore open the closet and pulled out a suit. It was a cross between footed pajamas and Europan mining garb, and it stood up on its own.
He pulled out his pistol, aimed it toward the bridge and neatly shot off the black metal cuffs that still hung from his wrists and ankles, each shot terminating at the wall or floor in a puff of smoke. The chains clanked to the floor. He let them lie where they fell.
“Aren’t you going to damage the hull?”
“There’s an internal field for that. Not all ships have it, though.” He took off the oversized prison guard pants. He ripped the throat constrictor off and tossed it aside.
He stepped into the full-body space suit. The inside of the boot grabbed his foot and adjusted itself to his contours. The bumpy fleece interior consoled his worn feet and scraped ankles.
“This is the EDF, Rork. They have no plans to hurt us. They’ll just return us to the prison. I’m not leaving the ship.”
Rork glared at him.
Fool has no business in the real world.
“Just meditate while you get the suit on, okay Swami?”
“I am not a swami! I am a Guru and a PhD in—”
“Hurry up and get dressed!” Rork pulled the legs up tight and the many-layered fabric tautened with a squeaking twist that made his testicles feel funny. He inserted his arms and pulled the chest up to his neck. He tapped the control panel on his left forearm and the back sealed. Rork exhaled, enjoying the sensation of the protective, if thin, material tight against his chest. He hit the large green button next to the airlock door. It turned red and the door popped open.
“How do you get this damned thing on?” Zero shuffle-ran to the airlock, the suit dragging behind him. He tripped on the raised edge and fell in.
Rork dragged the rest of him in and shut the door behind them. It sealed and Rork’s ears popped.
“What was that!” Zero slapped his ears and hyper-extended his jaw.
Rork craned his neck to look out of the round, concave window in the outside hatch. The EDF ship’s dull gray hull occupied his field of vision.
“I’m not ready!” Zero fumbled with the suit’s zipper. He had it on backwards.
Rork grabbed a fishbowl helmet from a high shelf in the cramped compartment. He jammed it onto his head and clicked it onto his suit. He grabbed another helmet and took Zero by the arm.
“I said I’m not ready!” His eyes went wide.
Rork reached for the button to open the hatch.
“You’d better not do what I think you’re about to do!”
Rork hit the button and pulled the panicking preacher with him into space.
Z
ERO
FLOATED
outside the ship, his cheeks filled with air, his eyes darting from side to side.
Rork laughed. He pulled Zero’s suit off and inserted his feet the right way. He jerked the pants up and covered Zero’s chest. He plopped the helmet on the mystic’s head and felt the vibration as it clicked into place.
Zero exhaled. “W-w-w-hy did you do that? I told you I wasn’t ready!” he said over the suit-to-suit radio.
“You’re fine. They always fill the magnetic bubble with atmosphere anyway. It’s just a little cold.”
Zero hugged his hands to his body. “You could have killed me. I probably have frostbite.”
“‘The body is but a shell for the soul,' right?” Rork smirked.
Their abandoned ship approached the
John McCain
’s dock, a wide sliver of black protected by a magnetic field. Rork and Zero floated alongside of it.
Zero looked up at the gray hulk and flinched. “We’re going to crash into it!”
“Relax. We’re stuck here until they terminate the field. Once they do, we’ll use our maneuvering jets and fly out of here.”
“They’ll just bring us back in. This is a stupid plan.”
Rork sighed. “Do you see how big this thing is? Even if they see us, they’ll think we’re space junk.”
“They blow up space junk. I watched something about that.”
Rork rolled his eyes. “It’s your first time in space. I get it. You’re scared.”
Zero stared at Rork, his eyes wide. His now darkened helmet darted from place to place as he surveyed the area around them.
“The real view will open up once we escape,” Rork said.
“Of what?”
A dizzying wave of distortion appeared behind the back of the ship.
“What the...” Zero waved his arms in front of him.
“Jets now!” Rork punched up the jets on his control panel. Zero and the ship fell away behind him. He got beyond the leading edge of the
John McCain
and a bright glow assaulted him from his right.
“Rork!”
Oh, brax.
Rork stopped his acceleration with a quick tap. “Control panel, left wrist, full acceleration, back jets. Now!”
“I-I-I can’t use computers! I don’t know what this is!”
“Just try, man, for Jupiter’s sake, just give it a try!”
Rork used his side jets to orient his front to the EDF ship. He continued gliding away from it at five meters per second, according to his control panel.
There was no sign of Zero. Rork brought his control panel up and configured ten times magnification on his left eye. The dock of the
John McCain
zoomed into detailed view. Sophia’s ship sat on the deck. Soldiers in EDF navy blue gathered around the open rear airlock. One soldier scanned outwardly, binocs held to his eyes. He turned to look in Rork’s direction.
Where the heck are you?
A white object hurtled past Rork, to his side, about twenty meters away.
“Ahhhoohhhhh!”
“Left wrist, cut your acceleration. I will come to you.” Rork activated his side jets to orient himself to a spot just ahead of Zero’s current trajectory and activated his rear rockets. He burst forward.
“I’m feeling kind of hot now,” Zero said.
“Did you cut your acceleration?”
“Where do I throw up in this thing? Is there a bag?”
“Did you cut your acceleration!” Rork looked down at the blue and white globe below. An orange and yellow glow skipped across water. White pillars followed by cloud waves stretched across to the far horizon.
Deadly. But very beautiful.
“How should I know!”
Zero’s feet rolled over his head. Rork laughed at the man’s basic incompetence.
He wanted to come out here. I didn’t force him.
“What the hell happened now?” Zero screamed.
Rork intercepted the hapless mystic. He activated his foot rockets to match Zero’s yaw. He grabbed the guru’s control panel and reversed his foot rockets, then his own.
“I really have to—” A deep gurgle interrupted Zero and his helmet clouded with a rainbow of digestive debris.
Rork suppressed a laugh. He eased their acceleration in sync. They floated now at approximately the same rate of speed, facing each other, the Earth spread out below them, the EDF ships behind Zero. “Did you catch the view yet?”
“I can’t even—” Zero spat. He dry-gargled and spat again. “...even see my—”
Rork grabbed his wrist and activated the helmet’s self-cleaning process. The helmet magnetized, shook gently and the remains of Zero’s last meal fell away.
“Oh! About time—” Zero caught sight of the Earth laid out below him. His mouth hung open. He closed his eyes and began to mutter.
“Only a damned mystic medicine man would close his eyes to a view like that!” Rork activated his side jets and Zero rotated gently to face the blue and white scene below.
Zero opened his eyes and looked away. “And what is that, over there?”
In the distance, a gray crescent hung, its surface a dark grid of squares with shiny spots neatly placed among them.
“Luna. Of course.”
Zero returned to his muttering.
Rork looked back at Earth. “It’s a stupid planet anyway. You live in plenty with soft dirt under your feet, blue air above you and green trees to shade you. Real gravity holds you snug. Out here, all we have is dead black space but you people have to control that, too. It’s a sickness and like all bugs it dies in the frozen light-pure vacuum of space.”
Zero opened his eyes. “I see the wondrous creation of the Universe, a tiny ball of life, so small, so rare and precious. It is beautiful beyond words.” He sobbed.
“Sure, the planet itself is pretty, like a piece of hard candy, but what’s inside of it will make you sick if you eat too much. Anyway, I’m a selfish snoof so I’m no better than the other sons of bitches around here.”
“But you are better, Rork, because you risk everything you have to help others.”
“Utter prappery. This is about me and what I want.”
“You brought me up here, just as I asked and at great personal expense.”
“That’s how much of a fool you are, with your mumbling and your cryptic sayings. I came up here for me. You were just the price I paid.”
And Lala is a price I’m paying, but for what? What am I getting in return? It’s a price I won’t pay.
“‘The fool who knows his folly becomes wise by that fact,’ says the Buddha. Thank you, Rork.” Zero beamed at him.
Rork rocketed himself away from Zero.
He wanted to pick a fight and, thus, get to the truth of something, anything. Like why that inner voice told him he was a disloyal fake and a failure. He wanted to pluck that feeling out of his chest and toss it down at the double-dealing planet below. He wanted to watch that idea burn up in the atmosphere like a dead hunk of space rock. If there was anything Rork Sollix refused to be, it was disloyal. A fake came in a close second.
“What’s that?” Zero asked.
“What’s what?” Rork refused to look.
“It’s coming up fast. I think it’s a ship. Maybe they’ll pick us up.”
I guess we will need to make some effort to get out of here.
Rork rocketed himself around and searched the abyss in front of him. “Holy brax!” He brought his wrist up but it was too late. The shiny yellow and orange wall of a Barbary ship slammed into him.
His suit’s chest panels expanded on contact and absorbed most of the impact but the unrelenting metal also smashed into his helmet. The silicon-based material cracked. Rork’s world became a labyrinth of opaque whiteness with random spots of visibility as the universe rotated around him from bright, blue Earth to pitch black and back again, over and over, the air squealing out of his suit.