Justice (10 page)

It didn’t
budge.

She ripped her
knife out of her belt and cut away at the stem. Her knife tore
through the green stalk until the leaf fell to the ground with a
gentle whoosh. She moved to the next leaf and cut that one off as
well. With one leaf in each hand she stomped back through the trees
to where Jack’s prone body lay.

She laid one
leaf next to her friend and with infinite care she rolled him over
so that he lay on top of it. She tucked the edge of the leaf up
over his body and then rolled him again until he was encased in the
leafy shield with just his head and boots poking out either end. He
looked like a human caterpillar asleep in a cocoon, and she hoped
it would fool the plants into leaving him alone.

She pulled the
cocoon onto the second leaf. She tied the two stems with a section
of rope from her bag so that his head was raised off the ground and
the rest of his body trailed out behind. She hoisted the open leaf
higher on her shoulder and trudged slowly, but determined in the
direction of the complex.

Jack weighed
more than she did and his feet caught on every root and twig they
passed. His head lolled from side to side with each step,
accompanied by a soft moan of pain.

She ignored
everything except the need to put one foot in front of the other.
Her back felt ready to break; pain seared up her spine and pooled
between her shoulders. Her arms shook with the effort of pulling
him, rapping against her chest and against each other. Inside the
confines of her suit she felt trapped and even with the temperature
control, heat rose to her face. A layer of sweat coated her skin
and her breath clouded the front of her helmet.

“
How much longer, Cal?” she asked when she was sure the
complex had to be behind the next row of trees.

“
At your current speed it will be two more hours before you
reach the complex,” Cal replied.

“
What?!”

She stopped
walking and lowered Jack’s stretcher to the ground, gasping for
breath. Her head spun with the effort. “I’ve been walking for
ages.”

“
Unfortunately, you are still some distance from the complex,”
Cal said.

“
Grishnak.”

She tried to
catch her breath and in the end collapsed onto a nearby tree root.
“What are the odds of me surviving the night if I sleep?”

“
On your own, the chance of survival is five per cent. With
the monitoring abilities of the suit, combined with my own
monitoring for predatory species, fifty.”

“
Fifty,” Nova echoed.

“
Confirmed.”

“
What about Jack?”

“
As long as you survive, the same as you.”

Nova took a
deep breath. “And if I don’t?”

“
One per cent.”

Nova squeezed
her eyes shut and held her helmeted head in her hands. The silence
of the forest was deafening, broken only by Jack’s tortured gasps
and her own laboured breathing. She put aside her fear for a moment
and turned to her analytical side. She started at her head,
monitoring her health. Could she make it the rest of the way or
should she save her energy to set up a defensive position for the
night here?

Her head
pounded from where it had smacked against the inside of her helmet,
but it wasn’t so bad that she couldn’t go on. There was some
Parapem painkiller in her bag that she could feed into her
nutrition supply, but she didn’t want to use it all now in case
Jack woke up.

Nova gritted
her teeth, tapping a finger against the helmet. Her shoulders
ached. Two more hours of dragging Jack and she could easily believe
they’d drop straight off. The problem was the awkward angle of
dragging her arms, and him, behind her. If she could adjust the
stretcher so that her shoulders weren’t at such an angle then she
might be able to make it.

Blisters
covered her hands, despite her suit. She couldn’t see them, but she
could feel the raised lumps brushing against the fabric. If they
burst she would be in a world of pain. But again, if she could
adjust the stretcher it might be okay.

Her legs
burned and the hole from the drop of acid dribbled puss down her
shin. The atmosphere of Drigoon was deadly to breathe, and by the
looks of her skin, wasn’t that great to touch either. Her legs,
where they were exposed through the holes in her suit, were red and
flaking. She rubbed a gloved hand down her right shin and a layer
of white skin peeled back, falling to the ground.

Her mouth
dropped open as she stared at the white flake, the size of a leaf
that had fallen from her flesh. The skin beneath glowed red and
raw, stinging. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore it. The
new pain lay atop the other aches, like the burn in her calves and
thighs. It would be so easy to lie down and sleep. At least then
the pounding in her head and the ache in her legs would go away. It
wouldn’t have to be long. She was sure that if she just napped for
fifteen minutes then she’d be right as rain, ready to get going
again.

“
Nova!” Cal said.

His sudden
voice startled Nova out of her daydream. She had slumped to one
side against a tree branch. The forest had fallen eerily quiet.

“
You can’t afford to be asleep unprotected out there,” Cal
said.

“
Yes I know. I just shut my eyes for a second.”

“
Are you staying there or not?”

“
No. I think I can make it the rest of the way.”

“
Stay alert. You never know what else might be lurking out
there.”

“
Tell me about it.”

She took a
deep breath and placed her hands on her knees. She winced at the
sudden pain shooting out from her exposed skin. She pushed up to
her feet and her legs cried out in agony.

Jack was still
breathing. That was a good sign.

She knelt down
by his leaf stretcher, and then went to work retying the rope
around the stems. She worked quickly, ignoring her own aches and
pains. It took ten minutes, but when she stood she had a workable
harness. She passed her arms through the loops and pulled the
straps tight.

She took a
tentative step forward. The weight of Jack’s body pulled at the
centre of her back, distributing evenly through her muscles. She
nodded to herself. It would have to do.

Once again she
started towards the complex. The harness didn’t pull down her
shoulders like it had before and she could use her arms to move
aside branches and leaves as opposed to letting them smack her in
the face. She moved faster and once her legs got moving again it
was easier to keep going.

One foot in
front of the other.

She tried to
ease Jack’s body over the bigger bumps, but mostly she was forced
to let him drop from one root to another. Occasionally, he would
cry out but he didn’t come back to consciousness.

“
One more hour,” Cal said.

Nova nodded,
but didn’t reply. The air grated at her throat, burning her lungs
and her aching chest. She didn’t dare waste precious energy on
speaking.

One more hour.
She could do this for one more hour.

She glanced
back to check that Jack’s body hadn’t somehow been left behind. His
chest moved up and down, defying the wounds covering the lower half
of his body. She couldn’t see his face, but she imagined it was
deathly white, his features screwed up with pain. There may even be
blood streaked down his cheeks.

She shook her
head and forced the thoughts out. It was no good to think about
such things until she was at the complex, when something could be
done about it.

It was a
gruelling walk. The trees contrived to block her passage. The roots
tripped her and every twig caught on Jack’s body. By the time the
complex came into view she was so exhausted she was sure she had
slipped into delusion.

It wasn’t
until she walked into the metal door that she accepted that she’d
made it. She fumbled around for the entry button, but couldn’t find
it. Her glazed eyes stared at the blank wall as her exhausted
muscles convulsed.

Thankfully Cal
was ready, and the door slid open in front of her.

Nova dragged
Jack in behind her and the airlock sealed shut. The air exchangers
blasted into action and the toxic gases from the outside were
removed before the inner door opened. Cal waited at the entrance
along with a group of bounty hunters.

Nova let them
take Jack’s body from her.

She stumbled
into the landing bay towards Crusader, gasping for breath. She had
the inescapable feeling that her suit was strangling her and
whipped her hands up to her neck to undo the clasps. Her fingers
shook with exhaustion, stopping her from undoing the latches. She
sobbed as she scrambled at her neck, lights flashing across her
eyes.

Just as she
felt her consciousness slipping away Cal appeared in front of her,
his metal arms outstretched. He undid the clasps and the helmet
clicked loose, falling into Nova’s hands.

She looked
down at it with a mixture of relief and hatred before letting it
fall to the ground. She scrambled with the rest of her suit,
ripping the tattered remains over her shoulders and tossing it to
the floor. The jeans she’d been wearing underneath hung in ragged
shreds where the acid had eaten into them, but she barely
noticed.

Her attention
caught on the collection of Hunters gathered around Jack’s body.
The two leaves lay unfurled beside him. They were already turning
brown and shrivelling in the shipping bay air.

“
Will he survive?” she whispered, stumbling towards
them.

A Hunter
looked up at her, concern on his face. “He will, but only just. If
you’d taken even an hour longer to get back he’d be dead.”

Nova sighed
and the darkness swirling at the edges of her vision closed in.

She collapsed
to the metal floor.

3 Days after
Power-Out…

Nova blinked.
She was in her familiar bed inside Crusader. She tried to think
back on the events of the day before. There was the President’s
talk and then – the lights! She’d gone to find him… and… Jack! The
last thing she remembered was crumbling beside Crusader.

“
Glad to see you’re awake,” Cal said as he hovered into the
room.

“
How long?” she asked. Her voice rasped in her
throat.

“
Just over a day.”

She winced and
sat up. “How’s Jack?”

“
He’ll be okay. They’re keeping him unconscious until they
finish the skin graft.”

She nodded.
“The President?”

“
Are you kidding? After the two of you came back like you did,
no one is willing to go out there,” Cal said. “Also, you’ve almost
got a riot on your hands with people who want to leave.”

“
No one has though, have they?”

“
No. You’ll be pleased to know that your little protégé,
Jimmy, has stepped into his own. He’s managed to block the shipping
bay doors. It’s just you, me, him, and a few Hunters in
here.”

“
Good.”

“
You’re not actually thinking of going back out there are
you?”

“
I have to,” Nova said. “We have to solve this thing, and not
just for the money. Can you imagine what the Confederacy would do
if we let one of their own get murdered and didn’t do anything
about it? They’d come to The Jagged Maw and kill me
anyway.”

“
The plants will get you first,” Cal said.

“
Not this time. I’m taking extra weapons.”

“
Who will you take with you?”

“
No one. I’ll be damned if I have to drag another body back
here.”

“
You’ll have to drag the President back, if you find him,” Cal
said.

Nova groaned
and put her head into her hands. “You’re right.”

“
You could always take an antigrav with you.”

Nova smacked
her forehead with her palm and looked up at the labourbot. “That’ll
make it a piece of cake.”

“
So, you’ll take someone with you?” Cal asked.

“
No. No-way. That’ll just slow me down. Plus, if people are
starting to riot trying to get away, we need all hands on deck to
defend this place and make sure no one leaves.”

“
You know if you die I’ll be sold off for scrap metal?” Cal
said.

“
I’m not going to die,” Nova said, exasperated. “Besides, I’ve
already told Tanguin that she has to look after you if I ever
croak.”

“
That’s very thoughtful,” said Cal. “Except that Tanguin is
more likely to use me for spare parts for her
super-computer.”

“
She wouldn’t. She thinks you’re adorable.”

“
Charming.”

***

It took Nova
longer than usual to get ready. Every muscle in her body ached and
cried out with the slightest movement. Pulling on a shirt took more
effort that she would have admitted and putting her pants on was
almost impossible. In the end though, mostly through sheer force of
will, she was dressed and ready to go.

The suits
looked like a line of gallows when she walked up to them. Just the
sight of the white prisons was enough to make her shiver and regret
her decision, but she couldn’t turn back now. With great reluctance
she let Cal help her into a new, undamaged suit. She slung a large
gun over her back, and she had her usual pistol in her belt. Her
equipment bag hung over her shoulder and she tossed the antigrav
inside.