Chapter 40
Chaos ensued in the habitat. Everyone scrambled to get Zavir, Iylene, and Tobs to the cradle while I went to the armory.
The pirate’s shuttle had been damaged. They couldn’t break atmo with their engines sparking.
Pieces of them would rain down from the sky, over in an instantaneous blast. No doubt they had equipment to fix their engines, which meant I had limited time to find them.
The armory had all manner of weapons on the off chance that straiers appeared on planet.
My exoskin didn’t have the best defense; however, I moved better and silently compared to our interplanetary gear meant for deep space.
I kept on my exoskin while filling every strap.
It wasn’t until I heard the hiss of another exoskin being retrieved from the charging ports that I realized I wasn’t alone.
Maddy slid into an exoskin unlike the ones the scientists wore. Theirs protected them against the environment, while ours were more defensive. She had the exoskin to her waist when I grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?"
She swatted my hand away to slip her arms into the sleeves. The exoskin hung off her form until the seams met at the front. Once sealed, the exoskin shrank to hug her. “You aren't going after them alone. We don't know how many there are."
“You said six attacked you. I killed the two who attacked me. Your lot killed two and severely injured one. A pilot certainly stayed on board, perhaps an engineer, too, so that’s five potential assailants.
They know we’re going to search for them.
They will land to fix their shuttle and have at least two on lookout, if they’re smart.
On board, I’d have to handle two plus an injured pirate.
I can handle them, which means I am not taking you.
” I angled myself in front of her, ensuring that she couldn’t get to the weapons without going through me.
“You are annoyingly quick-witted,” she snapped.
“When I want to be.”
“And you could be wrong. There may be more.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
“I already told you, you aren’t leaving me behind.”
Her words weaved wounds no weapon ever could.
She didn’t need to draw blood to incite pain, even if, by her slow breath, she hadn’t meant to.
Consciously or not, she saw the correlation between our past and present.
I had been put in a situation where I could save someone or run and, for the first time, I didn’t have any urge to run.
“There are six militia team members left, and you cannot take them all. A team must stay here to protect the habitat in case pirates come this way,” she continued, bypassing the moment altogether. “A large force is more easily caught, so the two of us would work nicely.”
“Three,” Lilea declared in the entryway. “Whoever these people are, they blocked our interplanetary communications, either from a main ship off-world or a jammer. Mance is in the comm rooms now, and he can’t ping Corporate.”
“Most likely a jammer. Their ship was outfitted for deep space voyages, still, this means those bastards will exterminate all of us to keep this under wraps,” I growled.
“That or they’ll haul us off to work camps, and Corporate would be led to believe we were all devoured by flora.”
Not so different from the Colony, where we’d work for nothing, slaving away under the cruel hands of our wardens.
“Was that the plan all along?” Maddy asked. “Attacking the entire team just for Arana seems extreme.”
Lilea shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I think they were after Ryker, too.”
“What? Why?” Maddy asked, and the answer hit me.
“Fuck, his mom’s. They’re politicians,” I said.
“Politicians have a lot of high-earning enemies,” Maddy whispered.
“And they must have learned enough about us to know Ryker was here, figured they’d snatch them both with the captain being an unfortunate bystander.
Guess the score is big enough to kill us, or at least those of us who went out today.
They might have left the rest alone, and made our deaths seem like unfortunate accidents. ”
“Regardless of their plans, I think it’s settled.
The three of us will go. The rest of your team will stay to protect the habitat.
If the pirates had another way to get off-world, they would have left by now, meaning we have time to get our people back and make those fuckers regret ever stepping foot on this planet.
” Maddy shoved past me to load herself up with weapons.
I saw her wield a blaster throughout most of our childhood. Our parents ensured we knew how to protect ourselves long before we had to make use of that training. That didn’t make the decision to let her tag along any easier.
“Lilea, give us a moment,” I said.
Lilea looked at Maddy, then me, her gold eyes sympathetic. But she said nothing and walked away, claiming she’d inform the others.
“We aren’t debating this,” Maddy said before I had a chance.
“We are because I am not taking you along. I’ll take one other militia member. The three of us have worked together. We’re better prepared.”
“My team needs as many trained militia members to protect them and the habitat as we can manage. You and I both know I can handle myself as well as the rest of you.”
“Then you can stay and protect your friends. I am not risking your life! I just got you back, and we finally have an opportunity to be something, fucking anything again, and I will not risk that. You’re staying here where it’s safe and nothing bad will happen—”
She hugged me. Fiercely. Pouring all the years into a single crushing hold that had us both gasping on a broken sob. I didn’t know what to do, torn between breaking us apart because I didn’t think I deserved the affection, or clinging to her because that was what I wanted. What I needed.
“I’m not a trinket you can hide away for safekeeping,” she said. “You may think you are doing me a kindness, but it isn’t fair to ask me to send you off, either. I want… I do want us to have some semblance of what we once were, but that won’t happen if you treat me like an animal to be caged.”
“It isn’t that… I just…” My arms draped around her, returning the embrace I always yearned for, and I feared I would drop right there. “If I can leave you, I can leave anyone, and it might happen again.”
She laughed. Not humored or joyous, more astounded, then sad.
“Is that not a self-fulfilling prophecy? You say you left your sister behind, so you should leave everyone else behind to—what? Prove you made the right choice? To placate your guilt? I know you saw an opportunity and took it. I can’t say whether I would have done the same. ”
“You wouldn’t have,” I interjected because there had been countless times where I got in trouble and Maddy was the one to drag me out. She was the eldest and took on the mantle of being a parent, as best she could, after they died.
“I’d like to think I wouldn’t have, but none of us knows what we are or aren’t capable of until we’re looking death in the eye. We were children, severely fucked up children, mind you.”
That encouraged a weak laugh from both of us.
“I know it was hard because we both had it hard. Some days the anger and the hate aren’t there at all, and others I look at you and it all comes…” She winced as if she relived the moment, the pain and horror of seeing herself broken there on the dock.
Maddy stepped back, arms still around my abdomen. The pain faded from her expression, replaced by a stubbornness she wore more often than not. She caught the hem of my visor to tug it free, leaving me exposed, like a torn, bloody nerve.
The air stung my cheeks, and I realized then that I had cried, and more followed when she whispered, “There is nothing for you to feel guilty over anymore, Ethin, so please, let it go.”
There had been a weight, a decade old, smothering me, and in a single sentence, she shattered it.
I took a breath so free that I choked on it.
A child curled up alone in the dark wasn’t alone anymore, even if the hug was tense, even if we had forgotten how to fit together.
She tried. I tried. And that was all I needed to destroy the walls I built myself, brick by terrible brick.
Maddy smudged the tears across my face, as rough as ever, then tugged my visor on. “Come on, we have people to save. I am sure your boyfriend will find your heroism especially attractive.”
She shoved past me into the hall, where she called for Lilea to get whatever she needed. We would leave in five.
Maddy was right. All those years, I thought it would be better to remain alone.
Being alone meant distance, safety in the sense that I wouldn’t feel the pain of losing her again.
I would never be put in a predicament where I would lose someone I cared about if I only ever cared about myself.
I wrote the prophecy and played it out myself.
There was a risk on every path I took, and I decided I would rather risk myself than live the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if I had gone after Roys, Arana, and Ryker. I didn’t want a world without them in it. Simple as that.
I grabbed what more that I could when an idea hit me. We may need over five minutes, but I knew the best person to get this potential plan into action.
About ten minutes later, Lilea, Maddy, and I were on the shuttle. The preflight checks finished and off we went.
“So, what’s the plan?” Lilea asked from the cabin.
“Find the bastard’s downed ship,” Maddy replied. “Kill them to save our crew—”
“Stunning is quieter,” I interjected. “As much as I want them dead, Corporate will be less stingy about the report if we have pirates for them to… interview.”
And by interview, I meant torture because it was technically illegal, but I wouldn’t put it past them.
“Okay, we could kill one or two and stun the rest.”
I rolled my eyes.
“But how will we go about that?” asked Lilea.
“Galya reconfigured one of the fancy scanners to search for radiation leaks. Even if they patched the damage by now, there will be residue. We still need to be within ten clicks of them, but they shouldn’t have gotten far from the attack site, so we’re going to expand our search from there,” I explained, earning a quick glance from Maddy.
With her visor darkened, I couldn’t see whether or not she was impressed.
“Once we find their ship, I'll land the shuttle and we'll depart as a single group. They know we’re out here and will be on the lookout for us, so no going off alone. We need to take out their sentries quickly and silently, too. If their engines are anywhere near prepared, they can leave without notice. They may even risk going off-planet, and one spark will detonate them. Keep your blasters on stun and tie the bastards up before we head out. Once we’re on the shuttle, I will handle the pilot, and the two of you will deal with the rest.”
Lilea giggled. “Got it, Captain.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled.
“Where are you in the command chain, by the way?” asked Maddy and I chose not to answer.
“Bottom,” Lilea replied. “He has always been considered too unruly for any commanding duties.”
“Sounds about right.”
I gave them both the finger.