Chapter 18 HUNTER
HUNTER
I LEAN BACK IN my chair once the screens start to blur together, gazing up at the ceiling where a passionfruit vine is snaking its way across the latticework.
It reminds me of Cleo’s tattoos, actually.
The plants seem to find a way to cling to every little place they can – kind of like humans on the red planet, I guess.
What are the intruders looking for? They’re still digging through the registers – well, what’s left of the tech team is – but they’re all over the place.
I let my gaze drop to the standard displays, scanning them idly. The navigation scan has Pax at the center of its circle, and a line that rotates slowly around the display, flicking past the nearby settlements one by one. I watch as they flash their names in turn. EURO W. EURO E. AFRO U. ARES TECH.
They’re all agonizingly close, but totally oblivious. It feels like we’re standing here in a crowd, but however loud we scream, nobody will hear us.
The scanning line sweeps around the navigation panel like a hand on a clock, and each one of them jumps to life for an instant as it passes. It’s almost hypnotic, watching as each one flashes in turn.
And then there’s a new ping.
I scramble forward in my chair, leaning down to get a better look at it. It’s a dot halfway between us and Ares Tech, labeled UR-9999.
Hope jolts through me like a shot of adrenaline, like a flutter in my belly. I twist around to look for Cleo, who’s hovering in the doorway. I can’t even spit out words yet – I frantically wave her over, getting to my feet.
She kills whatever display she’s looking at on the headset, jogging over toward me.
‘There,’ I manage. ‘Something’s coming. See that dot? It wasn’t there before. We’ve got things much farther out – all the big stations. So if that just started showing up, it must be small. In this storm, it had to get close enough to be picked up.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asks, staring down at the nav scan, watching the line sweep around the circle.
‘It means it could be a rover. Someone from Ares could be out and about.’
‘It’s not quite on course to have come from Ares,’ she points out, squinting at it. ‘Oh, but there’s a crevasse it would have to go around, and …’ She trails off, then lifts her gaze to me as hope dawns. ‘Hunter, you think we can get them on comms?’
‘I think let’s find out. The mercs have the main comms to the other bases blocked, but local stuff is on a different system. They couldn’t block it, unless they wanted to block on-base comms. Pair your headset to the console, hail them.’
She swipes up her headset’s menu – only visible to her, as the one using it – but her fingers dance in the air, and a moment later I accept the request at Susanna’s station. Cleo hands me the headset, fumbling a little to get it off her temples. ‘You do it.’
I don’t argue, but just slip on the headset, still warm from where it rested against her skin. And then I send a ping to UR-9999.
Time drags out, every second stretching into a lifetime, and I force myself to count slowly. I’ve reached fifteen when it pings us back, and the screen lights up.
‘Holy shit,’ Cleo whispers, and leans down to rest her hands on my shoulders, pressing her ear to mine to listen in.
I draw in a shaky breath and speak. ‘UR-9999, this is Pax Station hailing, do you read?’
There’s a pause, and then a startled voice, crackling with static. Pax Station, this is rover. What the hell are you doing there?
Relief rushes through me like a river. I want to laugh, I want to cry – I want to slide down and sit on the floor, or float up to the ceiling. I lift my hand to squeeze Cleo’s, where she rests it on my shoulder. She squeezes back, hard.
‘Rover, that’s a long story, but we are incredibly glad to see you.’
Cleo grips my hand even tighter suddenly, and I hear her quick intake of breath behind me. I mute the line, turning my head to look up at her.
‘They can’t listen in on this, right?’ she whispers.
‘We’re safe,’ I reply. ‘It’s a secure line, one comms point to another. We’re not on one of the five public channels, so they won’t pick it up on a general sweep.’
Pax Station, do you need assistance? Rover is asking.
It’s a woman, her voice flattened by the transmission, but I can still hear her surprise.
Our information was that the station is repressurizing after a bio vent, but the signal’s been fritzy, so I got diverted by Ares Base to scan from close up.
We thought the mess on the signal was the dust storm, but if you’re alive in there, I’m assuming you do have pressure?
‘Rover, I confirm the alarm was a false signal,’ I reply, lifting my hand to rest it over Cleo’s on my shoulder. ‘We’re alive, but we are not okay. The station’s been invaded by a hostile force. If you have enough battery to make it here, we could really use a pickup.’
There’s another pause, and this one draws out just a beat too long – long enough for my gut to clench in fear that the signal has dropped, or Rover thinks we’re pranking her, or—
Holy shit, comes Rover’s voice. Say again? Pax has been invaded?
‘Confirm, invaded,’ I reply. ‘By an armed force. We don’t know what they’re here for, but they’ve discovered our presence and they’re trying to kill us.’
Holy shit, Rover says again, shock audible in her tone. How many of you are there? I don’t have a lot of room in here.
‘There’re two of us,’ I reply. ‘We’re holed up in the greenhouse right now, but we can move to meet you.’
Okay, yes. This thing isn’t designed for three, but if you can bring an auxiliary oxygen tank with you, we’ll make it work.
I’m a geologist, I’m not armed. I just happened to be in the area, so they asked me to – okay.
I’m the one here, I have to do this. I’ll have to pull up, get you on board, and then we run like hell.
‘Agreed.’
And I have to pick you up from a garage. I have to get inside an airlock before I can open up the rover and let you in.
‘Understood,’ I reply, then toggle the mute button again. ‘Cleo, they came in on the east side. So it’s safer on the other side, right?’
‘That’s right,’ Cleo whispers, lifting her head and looking over her shoulder, as though she can see through the walls, see where our enemies are right now.
‘She’ll have to pull up on the west side, where the main garages are.
I don’t know how we can get there without being seen, though. It’s a long way.’
‘If the alternative is staying here, we’ll figure it out,’ I reply. Then, unmuting the channel: ‘Rover, we’ll meet you at the west garages, do you know them? They’re the main intake facility here, so I’m guessing they’re marked on the outside.’
Visibility’s almost zero with this dust storm, Rover replies. But I can lock on to the nav beacon.
I punch a button to bring up the external display, and get a view of outside the base that’s a hazy red, the camera lens half encrusted with red dust, the air beyond it filled with the kind of fog that the dust storm creates. Rover’s right – visibility’s terrible.
Just please be there, all right? Rover continues. I don’t want to meet these people. My ETA is forty-five minutes.
‘We’ll be there,’ I promise.
Okay. Going silent now. Rover out.
The faint hiss of static on the line dies away, and for a long moment, neither of us moves. Then I let out a slow breath and let my head fall back. ‘Did that just happen?’
‘That just happened,’ Cleo whispers. ‘The cavalry’s coming. Someone’s going to freaking rescue us.’
Slowly, the realization that this is real is trickling through me, bringing me to life one degree at a time. There’s a way out of this.
There’s a way out of this.
I push to my feet, turning and shoving my chair out of the way so I can reach for Cleo. She throws her arms around my neck, clinging to me, laughing as I whirl us in a circle, dizzy with relief and disbelief.
Then my foot catches the leg of my chair and I’m moving too fast in too little gravity to stop myself. Together we go staggering backward, Cleo’s feet still not on the ground.
I let myself fall, arms around her, and land flat on my back, Cleo on top of me.
Her brown eyes are laughing, and her lips are right there, curved to a smile she can’t hide. I want to kiss her so badly, and all I’d have to do is lift my head just a fraction. Then she’d lean down, and curl a hand around the back of my neck, her weight just right on top of me. And I’d—
Cleo rolls off me, landing on her back beside me, her hand finding mine. She’s still laughing, though she tries to stop. ‘You okay?’
‘We’re getting out of here,’ I tell her.
‘We’re getting out of here,’ she agrees, looking at me sidelong. And her warm brown eyes are dancing, and her red hair’s falling around her face, and in this moment, I wish I could—
‘Cleo,’ I hear myself say.
‘Mmm?’
‘Fair warning. If we live through this, I’m asking you out.’
She gives me one of those smiles I’ll do anything to earn. ‘If we live through this, I’m saying yes.’