Tethers Page 2

  “No!” Kat tried to pull away from him. “Where’s Alex?”

  Eric closed his hand against her sleeve and jerked her toward him. Frank was right behind them, inching around the collapsed pipe. He held Jerica in his arms, trying to shield her. Sparks shot out of the ceiling, peppering them with white hot embers. Jerica wailed in terror.

  “Jerica!” Kat cried, struggling against Eric. She watched the sparks pelt her, but didn’t feel them. She heard Frank yelp in pain.

  “Watch it,” Eric said in her ear. He pushed her head down with his hand.

  They got around the piping and the ship lurched again. Kat staggered and fell to her knees.

  “Go!” Frank hollered at Eric. He passed Jerica to him. “I’ll help Kathryn, go, go!”

  “Come on!” Leia pleaded shrilly.

  Frank got his arm around Kat, hurrying her to her feet.

  “Goddammit!” she screamed, angry, fighting. “Where’s Alex?”

  They reached the shuttle and Kat was thrown into a chair. Her head smacked against the back of the seat.

  “Mommy!” Jerica yelled, and she ran away from Eric. She jumped into Kat’s lap and crushed against her in a fierce embrace. “Mommy, I’m scared!”

  “It’s okay, Jerica,” Kat whispered, leaning over and kissing her hair. “Sit over here, next to me. Come on, pup, just like in the drill.”

  Jerica clambered into the adjacent seat. Kat lowered the safety harness over her daughter’s small shoulders. “Watch your arms…here, okay,” she said, securing the straps.

  “Are we going to crash?” Jerica asked.

  Kat struggled to smile. “No, pup.” She exchanged a quick, anxious glance with Eric from across the shuttle. “It…it’s going to be fine.”

  Frank helped Kat, fastening the safety harness over her. She saw Eric strapping Leia into the seat directly across from her. Leia whimpered quietly, her eyes huge and round and glassy with fright.

  Frank fell into the seat next to Jerica and began struggling into his own harness, his movements quick, jerking, frantic.

  Something was wrong. Kat knew it. Alex was taking too long on the bridge, and there was still no sign of Doc. “Where are Alex and Doc?” she yelled to Eric. “They should have been here by now!”

  “I don’t know.” Eric checked Jerica’s harness, pulling the straps taut. He cupped her face in his hands. “Having fun yet?”

  She shook her head and he struggled to smile as he pushed golden curls back out of her eyes. “Me either, kiddo.”

  “We have to go and look for them,” Kat said, drawing his gaze. “Get this thing off of me. We’re not leaving yet.”

  Franklin blinked at her. “Are you crazy? We have to get out of here.” He turned to Eric, his eyes wide and alarmed. “Launch the shuttle, Eric!”

  “Like hell!” Kat snapped, balling her hands into fists. “I’m second officer—it’s my goddamn call! Eric, unhook this thing and let me out of here.” She began to struggle, pushing her shoulders against the bars, trying to get the harness off. “Eric, I said let me out of here! I’ve got to find Alex and Doc!”

  “Eric, we have to—” Franklin began.

  “I’m in charge here, Franklin—not you!” Kat shouted. She glared at Eric. “We’re waiting—we’re going to go look for them.”

  “This thing is going to go and you know it!” Frank screamed and his voice cracked along a ragged, panicked edge. “Something must have happened to them. They’d be here by now if they could! They’re not coming!”

  “We’re waiting!” Kat screamed back at him, thrashing now against the restraints of the safety harness.

  Eric stared at her, his eyes stricken and uncertain. Kat could hear the ship groaning around them. Smoke rolled into the little shuttle, bitter smelling, acrid. It curled around Eric’s legs and he shied away, coughing, stumbling.

  There was a cracking sound from somewhere deep in the ship’s bowels, and the recoil pummeled the little shuttle. Kat’s head snapped sideways, the side of her face smacking against the hard, unyielding pipes of the safety harness.

  Eric fell, catching himself clumsily on the seat next to Leia, his knees banging hard against the floor. His face twisted in pain.

  “Eric!” Jerica began to mewl again, quietly.

  “We have to go!” Leia screamed. She struggled against her restraints, terrified, drumming her boots against the floor. “Please, please!”

  “Close the goddamn door!” Franklin shouted.

  Eric looked at Kat desperately.

  Because I’m senior officer here, Kat thought. Because he’s waiting for me. It’s my call.

  She saw the glow of the fire, orange and yellow against the smooth oiled steel of the corridor walls. She heard the flames licking their way eagerly toward the shuttle doorway, heard the ceiling caving in, spilling down, feeding the blaze.

  “Kat, Eric, please, for God’s sake!” Franklin cried.

  She looked at Jerica, whose cheeks were flushed with fear. Her eyes were wide and shining and alert, like a small deer pinned by a car’s headlights.

  Alex, oh, Christ, Kat thought, her eyes flooding with tears. I can’t kill us all. I can’t kill my daughter! Do it, Eric.

  She must have spoken aloud. Eric staggered over and sealed the hatch closed. He moved to the front of the little craft and fell into the pilot’s seat. She watched as he pulled his life-support mask over his mouth and nose.

  He looked back over his shoulder and met her eyes.

  Such a shame what happened to his leg…

  “Do it.” This time she knew she spoke; she heard the flat, dead sound of her voice, and somehow there was a strength in it, a courage, an authority, a conviction she did not feel.

  There was bright, brilliant, white light. She could hear people screaming; Leia’s frightened, panicked peals, Jerica’s high-pitched, bird-like cries, Franklin’s bellowing, her own terrified shrieking.

  There was no air. She hitched in a breath to scream, but there was no air to take in.

  And then there was blackness.

  And the pain and burning in her eyes.

  ***

  Once upon a time, five years ago, in the dawn of terra-farming borrowed moons, they had been in Illinois, at the loading platform. Somewhere high above them, slowly circling in the upper atmosphere, was the Daedalus, their cargo craft, hers and Alex’s command.

  Kat remembered Leia on a heavy payload lift. Leia worked the enormous, bulky metal arms with a deftness and ease that Kat found remarkable given the other woman’s small, slight stature.

  She looked across the tarmac and saw a young man walking with some of the ground crew techs. She also recognized the gentle, arrogant swagger of one of the men in the group, and a soft smile found the corners of her mouth.

  Alex.

  The men seemed to be engaged in heavy, deep conversation. Shop talk of some sort. It occurred to her that the young man with Alex was incredibly handsome; the kind of guy you caught a glimpse of somewhere, like in a movie, and fell for head over heels.

  She had never seen him before.

  “Who is that, Leia?” She raised her voice over the whine of the lift’s engine.

  Leia stalled the motor out, and the lift grumbled to a halt, its arms poised purposefully out in the air in front of it.

  “Who?” Leia asked, wiping sweat off her forehead with the side of her slender wrist. Her auburn hair was caught back in a rakish ponytail, but strands had worked their way free and blew across her cheeks in the breeze.

  “That guy over there, walking with Alex and the techs. See?”

  “Oh, Kat.” Leia smiled. “That’s Eric Nagel. You know, the Sovereign pilot. He was in all of the news.”

  Alex raised his hand to Kat in a wave. She saw his handsome grin below his dark, mirrored sunglasses. The other man, Eric Nagel, followed his gaze.

  “Such a shame,” Leia said, and then the payload lift was rumbling back to life underneath her. “What happened to his leg.”

&
nbsp; ***

  Kat stirred lightly aboard the shuttle as something cold and wet hit her in the face. Plop!

  What is that? she wondered, her pain-dazed mind slipping back toward unconsciousness. Rain? It…can’t be raining…not in space…

  Plop!

  ***

  She dreamed of that day in Illinois again, of Alex catching up to her on the tarmac. It was an Indian summer, and unseasonably warm and humid. Autumn had not had time yet to rob his skin of its summer bronze tone, or his dark blond hair of its sun-gold highlights.

  He had two teenaged daughters and a son in college, though one wouldn’t know it just to look at him. His son was the spitting image of Alex, while the girls favored their mother—dark eyes, dark hair and the sort of exotic, olive complexions Kat had always longed to have.

  His wife’s name was Cassandra. Cassie for short. Kat had met her more times than she could count at company picnics, holiday parties, New Year’s get-togethers. She had a hell of a recipe for broccoli salad and once, at a pot-luck supper, she’d copied it for Kat.

  “You can use all Miracle Whip,” Cassie had told her. “But it’s better if you do it half and half with mayonnaise.”

  She’d had no idea that less than an hour earlier, at that very same gathering, Kat and Alex had ducked into a bathroom together for a quick but fiery lovemaking session.

  “You look beautiful.” Alex had to speak to Kat on the tarmac in a low voice, with only a hint of a smile playing on the corners of his lips and a simmering, lusty glow in his eyes. She watched his gaze crawl down her body, lingering like a caress along her breasts.

  Kat blushed and lowered her head. “Stop it. Who is that, Alex?”

  Alex glanced over his shoulder and his brow furrowed. “That,” he said, in a somewhat irritable voice, “is the one-time Lieutenant Eric Nagel, Sovereign pilot extraordinaire. You’ve got to have read about this guy, Kat. He had some kind of wreck. Lost his leg, the left one. Its all biomechanical, clear up to his hip. You can’t even tell. I mean, I’m walking beside him and I’ll be damned if I could see a limp.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  Alex shook his head. “That’s our new pilot. Dylan officially left our crew as of yesterday morning.”

  “What? Why?” Kat said, dismayed. She had liked Dylan Wayman; he had been a member of their crew for as long as she could remember. She had trusted him. Wayman had been almost like a father to everyone on board.

  Alex shrugged. “Well, you know, he was getting up in years, and all of that extended hyperstasis was starting to wear and—”

  “Oh, bullshit, Alex.” Kat frowned. “In other words, Nagel’s injury got him discharged, so the suits in their million-dollar high rises decided to bump Dylan and give this guy his job to make for good public relations.”

  Because she could not have known what would happen five years later, on a routine mission to X-1226, a stupid, desolate moon and future terra-farming colony, Kat arbitrarily decided she didn’t much like this Eric Nagel.

  ***

  Plop!

  Whatever was hitting her began to fall faster—PLOP!—and soon she was soaked. It trailed down her nose, down her throat. Kat tried to sit up, coughing, choking, sputtering. The safety harness caught firmly across her shoulders and snapped her backwards into the seat.

  She spat. Bloody phlegm smacked against her pant leg. She squinted. Her eye still vaguely burned.

  I’ll be damned, she thought, dazed. It is raining.

  The shuttle had landed on the terra-farming moon—or crashed was more like it. A slight downpour pattered in through an enormous hole that had been wrenched into the ceiling of the craft. It had washed most of the blood away from her eyes, and she was able to see again.

  Kathryn shivered. She tried to free herself from the harness mechanisms, but her hands were shaking badly.

  What in the hell happened? Where am I?

  Jerica…!

  She looked around, her eyes wide with bright panic, and found the little girl in the seat next to her. Her face was turned down, her chin rested against her chest. Her hands were curled in small fists in her hair. She seemed very peaceful, like she was taking a nap.

  Kat began to fight frantically with the seat harness. It flew up off her shoulders unexpectedly, and she slipped out of the seat and onto her ass.

  She crawled over to Jerica. “Jerica?” she gasped, trying to get the harness off the girl. “Jerica? Hey, pup, hey, it’s me…”

  Jerica moaned. Her long eyelashes fluttered, her eyes opened sleepily. “Mommy?” she whispered, bewildered.

  Kat pushed the harness off Jerica’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Oh, God,” Kat said, on the verge of tears. “Oh…”

  A soft grey bruise was forming at the right corner of Jerica’s mouth and a single, dark drop of blood dried at her lip.

  “Are you okay?” Kat smoothed her daughter’s hair back, clutching at the child’s shirt. “Jerica, are you hurt anywhere?”

  Jerica blinked at her, staring blankly, silently. She was in shock.

  “Sit down, Jerica, just sit here a minute,” Kat said, easing Jerica down in her seat again. “It’s okay now, pup.”

  Franklin was next to her. He was limp in his seat, but Kat could see his chest rising and falling steadily. He was alive.

  She looked toward the pilot’s chair. Eric was slumped to one side, and she couldn’t see his face. His hand dangled limply over the armrest, and she remembered that he had been hitting Leia, beating her in the head because her hair had been on fire.

  Leia, Kat thought, remembering the screams that had seeped into her unconscious mind after they’d crashed.

  Something had punched through the pod where Leia had been sitting. A large, leafy tree limb draped across the crimped metal. Leaves and branches were scattered across the floor.

  Leia had been knocked clean out of her safety harness and lay in a sprawled heap at the back of the module. Her back was arched at a crazy angle, and her head was turned all of the way around on its axis, so it looked eerily like she was a sideshow contortionist.

  Come See the Amazing Rubber Band Girl! a voice screeched in Kat’s mind, resounding in shrill, strained cheer. Only a Nickel!

  “Oh, God.” Kat gulped, feeling bile rise in her throat.

  Leia’s eyes were open. There was blood smeared around her mouth and nose, drying, crusting. The left side of her face had a strange, sunken look where her skull had splintered.

  Kat whirled clumsily, throwing up until there was nothing left to come up but thin, foamy fluid, and her stomach was wrenched into tight, agonizing knots. She glanced over her shoulder and realized to her horror that Jerica was looking at Leia’s body. The little girl’s face was blank and shell-shocked, her eyes vacuous.

  “Don’t look, Jerica.” Kat scrambled for her, turning her face away. “Don’t look.”

  She crawled over to Eric on her hands and knees. “Eric?” she whispered, taking his hand. She reached up and touched his face. The instrument panel had collapsed in places. Part of it was crimped down around his legs, trapping them at mid-thigh.

  “Eric,” she said again, her voice ragged. She pulled the face mask over his head. She felt the immediate push of his breath against her face. He drew in a deep, gasping mouthful of air. His brows knitted slightly in pain.

  “It’s okay. I’ll get you out.” Kat grabbed the fallen console. She gave the twisted metal an experimental shove, but it was impossibly heavy.

  She pushed her damp hair back from her face and struggled to her feet. She limped over to Frank. “Franklin?” Kat shook his shoulder tentatively. “Frank?”

  Having Frank join their crew had been easier to take than when Eric had first come along. The only constant in the Daedalus’ medical officer position was that no one seemed to keep the job for more than one flight mission. They had just picked up Frank—Franklin Mackenzie Brown, M.D.—four days earlier, when they’d docked at the stellar platform.

  Some we
lcome-aboard this has been, huh? Kat thought as she shook him again. “Frank? Can you hear me?”

  Franklin groaned. His head rolled from side to side for a moment, and then his eyelids fluttered open. He stared dazedly at her.

  “Are you okay?” Kathryn asked.

  “Wuuhh…what…?” Franklin touched the back of his head and grimaced, sucking in a quick hiss. Blood dotted his fingertips when he pulled them away.

  She began to help him as he fumbled with his safety harness. The straps were wet and clumsy to handle. She loosened them and pushed the frame up over his shoulders. “What happened?” His voice was stronger now, less cracked and hoarse, but she could tell from his eyes he was hurting and dazed. “Where are we?”

  “We crashed. I don’t…I don’t know exactly what happened, but we’re on the moon. Leia…she…oh, Christ…”

  Frank looked over and saw Leia. “Jesus!” He turned to Kat, wide-eyed and alarmed. “Jerica—?”

  “She’s okay… I think…I think she’s just in shock.”

  “And Eric…?”

  “He’s alive, but he’s over here. His legs…it fell on him. I think he’s hurt. I can’t get it off him.”

  “Get what off him?” Frank said. She stood and helped him stumble to his feet alongside her. She noticed blood matted thickly in his hair at the base of his skull.

  He blinked stupidly, owlishly at the hole in the ceiling, and at the trees filling the view. “So this is X-1226,” he observed.

  He reached across Eric’s hips and released his safety straps. He cupped the side of Eric’s face with deliberate care, his thumb resting against the side of his throat.

  “His pulse is strong,” he said. “But he’s got to be in pain. We have to get him out of here and to the compound.” He gripped the console with both hands. His knees were flexed, his feet planted. “I’m going to try and lift this thing up. If it moves, you pull him out. Don’t quit until he’s clear, okay? I’ll hold it as long as I can.”

  She nodded.

  “You ready?”