Hard Vacuum 1 (4 page)

Kyra walked to the nearest window and watched the pods disappear into space. "What a bunch of ungrateful dickheads."

Kyra caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the window. Streaks of blood and clumps of brain covered her helmet and chest. Even she had to admit she looked like a demon. She shrugged and turned from the window. "Maybe I can get the mercs to run away screaming."

She opened her ReadyNet and found the quickest route to the security office.

VACUUM

K
yra kept to the shadows, making for the centre of the station. The door to the power room had been broken open, and she could see flashlights arcing around inside it. At the end of the corridor, the station hub looked empty, but then she saw a flashlight beam glance off a wall. There were mercs patrolling there, too. Kyra froze, pushing against the nearby wall.

Pulling up her ReadyNet, she found an alternate route to Alpha Wing that led through the soft coupling. She retreated back the way she'd come, her eyes on the entrance to the power room. But no-one emerged, and she made it back to the docking area without incident.

She ran for the soft coupling, hoping the mercs hadn't thought of it. She pushed through the door and bounced along the plastic connector. By the time she reached the far door, she was out of breath. She forced it open and stared at the corridor beyond, alert for any trouble. It seemed quiet.

Kyra moved inside and padded forward. A door on her left was open. Kyra peeked around the doorframe.

Bang

Her helmet snapped back. Kyra used the motion to throw herself backwards, out of sight of the door. She focused on her faceplate and saw a bullet lodged in the centre of it. Kyra pulled the bullet free and dropped it to the ground. Her suit's power warning flashed — two percent left.

Kyra screwed off her helmet, rotating it in her hand until the faceplate faced her. She held it to the door's edge and looked in the reflection of the visor.

Inside the room, two gun turrets on heavy tripods spun backwards and forwards, searching for targets. Behind them, Kyra could see a stack of crates with warning symbols on them.

She put her helmet back on. Auto-turrets were lethal. They didn't have a powerful AI, but they didn't need it. They would shoot anyone not carrying a badge. Kyra had used them countless times against the Xenomigrants.

She fell back to the airlock, giving herself as much space as possible. Springing forward, Kyra sprinted to the edge of the door, and then dove for an open corridor on the far side. She heard the sound of bullet fire and something slammed into her ribs.

Landing on her stomach, Kyra scrambled away from the door. She pulled herself up and checked her side. A bullet was flattened against the armour of the suit. Her power warning flashed again - one percent. A couple more shots would render her suit useless.

She activated her ReadyNet and checked the room. A tag on the map read 'Missile Battery'. The mercs had placed their auto-turrets guarding the station's defensive missiles. Kyra opened a connection to Manik.

He looked flustered when he answered. "Oh, you're still alive."

"Manik, the mercs are doing something with the missile battery on the station. There are auto-turrets guarding it," Kyra said.

"I know," Manik said. "They just called us. The missiles are pointed at every WeaverCorp headquarters in twenty countries. Can you disable them?"

Kyra shook her head. "I need more suit power first."

"The security office has an emergency recharger," Manik said. "If you're beside the missile battery, it's just across the other side of the wing."

Kyra padded to the end of the corridor and looked out at Alpha Wing. A decorative park filled the centre of the wing. Through the trees, Kyra could see the blue light of a security office shining.

"Be careful," Manik said.

Kyra stepped out of her hiding spot and padded across to the park. She crossed the grass, beneath the tall trees that scraped the ceiling of the station. Just being around greenery after so long felt relaxing. The air in her helmet smelled crisper.

She reached the far edge of the grass and strode to the security door. She shoved it, but it wouldn't budge. "It's locked."

"One second," Manik said.

The door clicked and flashed green. Kyra pushed it open and stepped inside. "Nice work, Manik. Where's this recharger?"

"It should be on the wall nearby," Manik said.

Kyra glanced around and spotted it. The recharger was a metre-wide box with a metal door on the front, sealed shut. She walked to it and pulled the door open.

BLAM

DOUBLE PLAY

K
yra struggled back to consciousness. Her ears rang with all seven bells of hell, and she felt like someone was stabbing through her right eyeball. She opened her eyes and saw only darkness. For an instant, she worried that she'd gone blind, but then she spotted a dim beam of light on her shoulder.

Her ReadyNet blinked at her. Her suit was out of power. Whatever just happened had drained the last dribble. Kyra struggled, finding her hands and moving them to push against whatever was holding her down. With a grunt, she shoved a large, flat piece of ceiling off her and clambered out from under it.

The security room had been destroyed. The walls were gone. Only jutting shards remained at the top and bottom. Fragments of furniture and wall lay strewn around. The front of her suit was blackened. The recharger had exploded, destroying the security office and nearly killing her in the process. Kyra could see the park through one wall behind her and the outer hull of the station on the other side.

She pulled off her helmet and probed her head with her fingers. Her mind ached, but there didn't seem to be any broken bones. She looked at the helmet in her hands. A long gash ran up the front of it, leading to a crack at the top. Kyra applied a little pressure, and the helmet broke in two.

She tried to jog from the room, but her left leg wouldn't bend. She looked down and saw a piece of shrapnel stuck in the knee joint. Kyra pressed a button at her collar, and the back and leg seals broke open. Pulling out of the suit, she stepped backwards, leaving it standing on its own. She still had her close-fitting jumpsuit on, but felt naked without her combat suit on top.

Kyra rounded the suit, crouching down and looking at the leg.

"Over here!"

She whirled in surprise at the shout. Her ears were still ringing, but through it she could hear boots running. She twisted, searching for somewhere to hide, but couldn't find anything.

Snatching the picture of her daughters from the pocket of her suit, she darted to the chunk of ceiling and pulled it up. She squeezed back under it and lay down, lowering it onto herself. The ceiling felt a lot heavier without her suit on. She struggled to catch her breath.

Kyra heard the running feet skid to a stop nearby. Someone panted for breath. "Where is she?"

"How did she survive the bomb?" another man asked.

"Do I look like I fucking know? Grab that thing and take it back to the control room. The rest of you spread out and search for her."

The feet shuffled for a moment, and then Kyra heard them moving away.

She waited a long few minutes before she pushed her way out again. Her suit was gone. Out in the darkness of the station, she could see flashlights arcing around, searching.

Kyra padded out to the park, creeping to the nearest tree and hiding beside it. The men were all searching the rooms on the far side of the wing. She kept to the trees and bushes all the way to where the park ended at the station hub. Across a wide gap, the control room door was open. Inside, Kyra could see two men arguing. Her suit was standing upright just inside the door.

Kyra gave her suit a little, reluctant wave and turned towards Bravo Wing. She padded into the wing, glancing around. It was as quiet as the vacuum outside the station. Everyone seemed to be searching for her in Alpha Wing.

The merc's ship was ahead, its airlock open. Kyra padded forward, alert for any kind of a trap. Nothing happened.

She stepped into the dazzling brightness of the ship and moved into a small loading bay surrounded by crates. A set of steps led up. Kyra jogged up them and deeper into the ship.

The bright corridors of the ship made Kyra feel exposed after the dark of the station. She found a model number on a nearby panel and pulled up the ship's plan on her ReadyNet. It was an NCP model, and the cockpit wasn't far away.

Kyra jogged down a series of corridors to the cockpit. The door whisked open as she approached. She moved closer and looked inside.

A man was in the pilot's seat, his trousers around his ankles, his eyes closed.

Kyra stepped in, creeping up behind his chair.

His brow was screwed up in concentration, but something made him slow. He opened his eyes and looked up. "Hey, who are you?"

Kyra punched him in the face, knocking him out cold.

The man collapsed on the joystick in front of him.

Kyra grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled him from his chair. She dragged him out into the corridor and dropped him face down. Finding a loose length of cable (that became even looser when she yanked it from the wall) Kyra tied him up.

She double-checked his bonds and returned to the cockpit, staring at the controls. There were more buttons than she could count. She accessed a training program on her ReadyNet.

"Hello, and welcome to the Falcon Ramdrive 200 tutorial," a cheery man said. "In just one hundred hours, we're going to show you how to—"

"Fuck that," Kyra said and began hitting buttons at random.

***

The ship slipped away from the station. It leant to the right and scraped off a nearby communications dish. Kyra watched from a station porthole as it fell away into space. The jets activated, spinning it farther and farther into the blackness.

The PA above her crackled. "Attention, fuckwits. The soldier, Kyra Sarin, has just taken our ship. Don't you think hanging onto our only means of escape is a little important? I'm remote piloting it back to the station. Go and kill her, or I'll turn off the oxygen and wipe out the lot of you."

Kyra ducked away from the porthole and ran back down Bravo Wing. She slipped into the first door she found and stopped, calming her breathing.

She heard boots outside moments before she saw the men. Six of them, all running for the Bravo docking port. None of them noticed her.

"If they weren't such dumbfucks, I'd be dead by now," Kyra muttered. She turned and looked around the room she'd entered. A sign nearby read, 'VIP section'.

"Well, well," Kyra said. She walked through a small reception area and into a massive lounge filled with deep leather chairs. On one wall, a large screen watched her, blacker than the shadows.

Kyra searched. "Come on, I know it's got to be here."

Spotting her target, she strode for it - a small cabinet under the screen. She threw it open and stared inside. "Bingo."

Kyra pulled a bottle of scotch from the cabinet and read, "Chipley's Royal Backwash, fifty years aged."

Above her, the lights flickered and came on. The screen sprang into life, a cheery computer-generated anchorman beaming out at Kyra.

"General news," Kyra said, finding a seat and sinking into it. She unscrewed the top of the bottle and swigged from it. She figured it would take the mercs a few minutes to search Alpha Wing, she could relax for a moment. Besides, the scotch tasted so good, she couldn't rush it.

SHOWDOWN

A
glance around told Kyra that no cameras monitored the VIP lounge, so she figured she had plenty of time to savour the soft chair and the delicious scotch.

After ten minutes of scanning the news and looking for any reports of the space station invasion (there weren't any), she called Manik. "Hey, Manik old buddy."

"Sergeant Sarin, are you alright?" Manik asked.

"I'm better than alright. I found the best room on the station."

"Are you drunk?"

"Nah, nah, I'm jus' tipsy. Takin' a break before killing the rest of the bad guys," Kyra toasted Manik with the bottle and took a swig from it.

"You need to stop fighting them. My boss, Manana Masih has agreed to a compromise with WikiDeath. We're going to release some information in return for them abandoning the station. You should stay there, out of sight."

Kyra blew him a raspberry. "Come on, Manik. You know they'll stab you in the back the first chance they get. Don't worry, I've got it covered."

A fierce woman pushed Manik aside and glared at Kyra over the ReadyNet. "Sergeant Sarin, I'm Manana Masih, head of space operations for WeaverCorp. You are ordered to lay low. You're threatening everything we're working on down here."

Kyra sighed and looked at her half-empty bottle of scotch. "Fine, you twisted my arm. I won't move from this chair. You fucking geniuses can sort it all out."

Kyra closed her ReadyNet connection and stared at the screen in front of her. The newsreader blathered on about some crisis in the radioactive wilds of Japan. Kyra took another swig of her drink.