Chasing Stars (35 page)

‘How can I help you?’ asked the security officer at Residents’ Clearance.

‘I have lunch for the guard on Admiral Wolfe’s ship.’

‘Your card?’

I passed it over and silently prayed that it didn’t say anything about my employment status not beginning until tomorrow. He scanned the card and handed it back, without looking at either the screen or me.

‘C Dock. You can’t miss it. It’s the only one there. But you’ll have to be quick. We’re opening the airlock to let a supply ship dock in ten minutes.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, and hurried past him.

A white ship with the logo
International Lunar Correctional Facility
was the only vessel parked at A Dock. I shuddered and hurried past. B Dock was busy with small vessels and people hurrying to and fro. Ben had said there were two thousand full-time inhabitants on the spaceport, but obviously there were many visitors too. And then I was at C Dock. Just the one ship. Admiral Wolfe’s official spacecraft. I paused for a second to gather my courage. The last time I’d seen Ryan I’d told him, ‘This is not goodbye’. What must he have thought when I hadn’t rescued him from the Institute? Did he think I’d given up on him? Moved on with my life?

I hurried up the gangway towards the open hatch, aching to see him again, my heart beating so loudly it drowned out the sound of my shoes on the metal stairs.

I was only halfway up the stairs when the guard approached the opening, his gun at the ready.

‘Permission to come aboard, sir?’ I said, keeping my head bowed. ‘I have your lunch.’

The guard indicated his assent with a nod of his head. I continued walking up the steps, holding the tray steady, begging my knees not to buckle. I glanced at Ryan who was handcuffed and slouched in his seat. He was pale, the set of his mouth hard. I willed him to look at me, but he just stared at his hands.

The guard sat down just across from Ryan and lowered his tray table.

I placed the tray on the table in front of him and lifted the cover off the rice and seaweed.

‘Today’s special is seafood soup and rice and wakame stir-fry,’ I said, noticing that he had rested his gun on the seat to his left, out of my reach.

‘Terrific,’ he said sarcastically. ‘You can leave now.’

‘Let me,’ I said, reaching for the napkin that held his knife and fork.

I had some vague notion that I could stab him with the fork. But before I had the chance to remove either utensil, the guard wrapped his burly hand around mine.

‘I can manage my own silverware,’ he said.

‘Then let me pour your drink,’ I said.

The soup was cold and I had lost my chance to use the fork. The water bottle was my last chance. It was small, but it was glass. I made as though to twist off the lid and then quickly smashed it over the back of his head. It thunked against his skull, but the bottle didn’t break. The guard yelled out and his head fell forwards. Desperately, my eyes searched the cabin looking for something hard to break the bottle.

‘Here!’ yelled Ryan, holding out his hands.

Our eyes locked and for a split second I was lost in their deep bronze warmth. He didn’t seem surprised to see me. He seemed relieved. And proud. As though he’d known I would come through for him. As though he believed in me.

The look was quickly replaced by one of panic. ‘Break the bottle against the handcuffs.’

I smashed the bottle hard against the ring of steel around one of his hands, shattering glass and spilling water all over Ryan’s lap.

The guard was reaching across the seat for his gun. Adrenalin and instinct took over. I whipped around and held the jagged bottle edge under his throat. I had no idea what to do next. He stilled, but I could tell he was sizing me up, deciding whether he could risk throwing me off him.

And then I heard footsteps clanging rapidly up the steps.

‘Put the bottle down,’ said the guard, ‘and no one needs to know any of this happened.’

I didn’t know what to do. A figure appeared in the doorway. I risked a look. It was a man silhouetted against the open hatchway.

‘Don’t come any closer or I’ll go for his jugular!’ I shouted, trying to hide the quiver in my voice.

‘It’s me – Peg,’ said the figure.

‘Thank God!’

Peg ran down the aisle. He was wearing a set of cleaner’s overalls. He reached across the guard for the gun and pushed the nozzle into the side of his neck. ‘Where’s the key for the handcuffs?’

The guard lifted a bunch of keys hanging around his waist. I took the key from his belt and started unlocking Ryan’s handcuffs.

‘What’s the plan?’ whispered Ryan.

‘We have an escape shuttle on the other side of the space­port,’ I said, unlocking the handcuffs. I pulled them free of Ryan’s wrists. Underneath, his skin was pink and raw. I ran my thumb over the tender spot and felt the throb of his pulse against my skin. He moved one hand and tilted my chin so that our eyes met.

‘Put these on,’ I said, pulling the kitchen porter’s uniform out from my waist.

A loud screech, urgent and insistent, began to sound.

‘Oh God,’ said Peg. ‘Security alarm. They must be on to us.’

‘It’s not that,’ I said. ‘It’s the ten-minute warning for the airlock. There’s a supply ship coming in. We have to get off the dock within ten minutes.’

‘Or stay on the ship,’ said Ryan.

‘By the time the airlock is shut again, Wolfe will be waiting for us at security,’ Peg said. ‘We’ll never make it.’

‘Why don’t we take this ship?’ I said. ‘If they’re opening the airlock, we could just fly out. It’ll be a lot easier than trying to cross the spaceport to the emergency shuttle bay.’

‘This is a little trickier to fly than a space hopper or escape shuttle,’ said Peg.

‘I thought you said you could fly anything?’ I said.

Ryan laughed sharply. ‘Did he really say that?’

‘I might have exaggerated a little,’ said Peg.

‘We have about nine minutes,’ I said. ‘So make up your minds right now.’

‘Does this ship have an escape pod?’ Peg asked Ryan.

‘It has two. One right through that door.’ He pointed to a doorway with a green arrow above it.

‘You’ve got thirty seconds to get in that escape pod,’ said Peg to the guard. ‘Or I’m gonna be forced to shoot you.’

He held the gun to the man’s neck and pushed him towards the door.

‘Do you think you can fly this?’ I asked Ryan.

‘I’m going to give it a try.’

‘That doesn’t fill me with confidence.’

‘There are flight suits in that locker,’ said Ryan. ‘Put one on. And a helmet. Just in case.’

‘What about you?’

‘There’s no time.’

Peg shoved the guard through the doorway. Ryan opened the locker and chucked me an orange flight suit.

‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ said Ryan as I ripped the plastic off the suit. ‘How the hell did you manage to get to the spaceport, get everyone off the ship and then show up just as they’re about to open the hatch for a cargo ship?’

‘It’s a long story,’ I said, as I stripped off my kitchen tunic. ‘And – for the record – this is Plan B. The first one didn’t work so well.’

Ryan helped me with my flight suit, pulling up the zip that ran from the waist to the neck. He rested his hand on the side of my neck. ‘Kiss me?’ he said quietly. ‘Just in case Plan B doesn’t work well either.’

I reached up and brushed my lips against his. Ryan wrapped his other arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him.

The door to the escape pod slammed, making us both jump. We pulled apart.

‘He’s in the pod,’ said Peg. His eyes swept across mine and then continued to the hatch.

‘Thank God you showed up,’ I said.

‘I had a hunch you’d need some help in here.’ He met my eyes again, but fleetingly. ‘You did great.’

Ryan dragged another flight suit from the locker. ‘Peg, you want to put this on while I start the engines? We need to go right now.’

Peg looked from me to Ryan and back to me again. ‘I’m not going with you.’

‘What?’ I said. ‘You have to come. You’ll never make it off the landing bay in time.’

‘I will.’

‘You might never get another chance to fly a Guardian Class ship,’ said Ryan.

‘I thought you wanted an adventure,’ I said.

He pushed his fingers through his hair. ‘You two need to make this journey on your own.’

Ryan and Peg locked eyes for a second and then Ryan backed into the cockpit.

‘Please come with us,’ I said.

Peg shook his head and made for the metal stairway. ‘I need to make sure Lyra’s OK.’

I followed him to the hatch, wishing we had more time. In a different time, a different timeline, our paths might have crossed and led us to a different destination. But in this lifetime, this place in the universe, this was where our paths diverged. I followed him halfway down the stairs. ‘None of this would have happened without you,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Pegasus.’

He nodded. ‘Say goodbye to Ry for me. We sort of ran out of time up there.’

‘Look up Penpol Cove in Cornwall one day,’ I said, my throat constricting.

‘Penpol Cove?’ he repeated.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Peg kissed my cheek, turned and clattered down the stairway.

‘Come on, co-pilot,’ Ryan called from the hatch. I ran back up the stairs. Ryan pressed a button and the metal stairway slowly retracted. ‘We have four minutes.’

I followed him into the cockpit. It was no bigger than the cockpit of the space hopper Peg had taken me in. I strapped myself into the co-pilot’s seat. In quick succession, he tapped a grid of buttons on the panel.

‘You realise I’m not going to be any help to you,’ I said.

For a second, Ryan stopped tapping buttons and looked at me. ‘I can’t believe you did all this. You’re crazy.’ Then he was back at work on the screen. I heard a hiss and felt a jolt as the ship freed itself from its constraints.

The alarm stopped sounding.

‘Hatch is opening,’ said Ryan. ‘We’re going to have to slip through the opening at the same time as that cargo ship comes in. It’s going to be tight; our ship isn’t exactly small either.’

‘Have you ever flown a ship like this before?’

‘Only simulations,’ said Ryan.

The ship slowly backed away from the dock.

‘What do you know about security?’ asked Ryan.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘We didn’t have the chance to check it out. I didn’t notice any security shuttles on the docks, so I’m guessing they’re on another part of the spaceport.’

‘They’ll probably be waiting for us on the other side of the hatch then.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘I’m going to fix a portal while you fly us through the hatch.’

‘Ryan . . .’

‘Just take the controller for a minute. You’re going to fly under that cargo ship. It’s just a matter of steering. Like driving a car.’

I wrapped both hands around the controller in front of me and Ryan pressed a button to transfer the control to me. The controller vibrated in my hand.

Ryan went back to tapping away on the screen in front of him. I watched through the window before me. The hatch was fully open now and a ship – a mammoth ship ten times the size of ours – was slowly floating through it.

‘What’s the destination?’ I asked.

‘I’m gonna set the coordinates for Titan,’ said Ryan. ‘It’s the obvious choice.’

‘If it’s that obvious, won’t they follow us straight there?’

‘It’s the first place they’ll look,’ said Ryan. ‘They’ll portal there and try to intercept us. Everyone goes to Titan.’

‘Then why are we going there?’

‘We need a decoy. Something to throw them off our real destination. And once we get beyond the asteroid belt, our portal signature will be harder to trace.’

We were approaching the cargo ship now. Its colossal bulk almost entirely filled the window in front of us.

‘Coordinates are set,’ said Ryan. ‘The portal should be ready in sixty seconds. I’m going to transfer the controller back to me now.’

The cargo ship was completely inside the airlock. I held my breath as its shadow passed over us and the doors to the outside came into view. They were closing, but slowly. Ryan accelerated the ship and swore. ‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered. ‘The acceleration on this ship is a piece of shit.’

Frowning, he bit his lip and moved the controller abruptly to the right, turning the ship on to its side. I could see the doors to the hatch closing faster. We would make it. But only just. Then there was a ping on the side of the ship, followed by another.

‘They’re firing on us!’ shouted Ryan. ‘We’re not even through the freakin’ hatch and they’re already on us.’

Something hit the side of the ship hard. We jolted sideways.

‘Oh God,’ I said.

‘It’s a Guardian Class ship,’ said Ryan. ‘Reinforced hull. It can take a little damage.’