Blue Bloods

One moment Grace clutched the heaving seat of the water taxi as the cabbie tried to fight his way up the enormous tsunami. The next moment, the wave broke, flipping the tiny boat end for end, slamming it down, crushing it into matchsticks in an instant. She clung to the seat cushion, hoping it would float, but the force of the turbulent water tore it from her grasp.

As the furious water whipped her around, she tumbled end over end until she had no idea which way was up or down, which way led back to land and which way would send her out to sea. Mud, blood, and smoke from the burning skyline of Hong Kong colored the froth of the wave. The waves spat her out, throwing her into the sky for a moment, and she vomited sea water and gulped in smoke laden air. Then she crashed back into the receding wave. She struggled against the undertow, a kitten struggling against a steamroller, a futile fight with only one possible end.

She cried out, heedless of the need to hold her breath, knowing that the battering would likely kill her long before she could suffocate. She cried her fear, she cried her pain, she cried the isolation that had remained her constant torturous companion for so long. She would die alone in the darkened depths, smashed like a bug.

No. You won’t.

The voice that spoke inside her head sounded familiar, hauntingly so. It echoed like it came from the far end of a long, thin tunnel. She tried to whip her head around, slowed by the weight of her sodden, waist-length hair. She saw no one, but she could only see a few meters in any case. Here at the end of her life she hallucinated, and she would still die alone.

I said no. You won’t. Rest.

The voice’s command hit her mind like the tsunami hit her body; far too strong to resist. Her eyelids drooped shut, the blood warm water heating and stiffening around her as she drifted. Her consciousness fled, and she felt nothing after that.

***

Walker did one final circuit of the space station. Three of the shuttles had survived, although most lost more crew members than Walker’s. At the final count, four shuttles, thirty-six crew members, and twelve station crew members had been lost. The bodies of the crew of the lost shuttles would likely never be retrieved; he’d seen one burning on reentry, the others had been crushed by the leading edge of the asteroid ship.

Walker seethed with impotent fury. The asteroid, its attack run completed, receded toward the sun. The parasite craft had disappeared, one dropping toward the Atlantic, the other toward the Indian Ocean. All that remained for Walker was to pick up the pieces. As the senior surviving officer, at least among the crew who were still up and moving, he had command. Wilson, Rosario and seven more were under near constant sedation. Pretty soon the sedatives would run out, before that happened they needed to get them down to the surface.

He finished his circuit. He’d found no leaks in the pressurized section of the station. Tomorrow they would begin cannibalizing one or more of the shuttles in an effort to get one of them ready for the trip to the surface. For today, he’d finished his work. A quick jot of thrust toward the station, and he drifted slowly toward the only functioning air lock.

His mind drifted by the time he reached the lock. He focused for a moment, long enough to start the lock cycle, and then let his mind wander again. It had been three and a half days since he last slept. He had some blank periods in there, even with the drugs he’d taken to keep himself awake. He hadn’t taken the suit off, hadn’t even entered the pressurized portions of the station for that entire time, and every breath he took stank of his own stale sweat. He couldn’t get a shower in the damaged station, but even a wipe down would be heavenly. Getting the suit off would be wonderful in and of itself.

The lock cycled open, and he pulled himself inside. Long habit made sure none of his lines dangled into the doorway before he hit the controls to cycle the lock shut. While he waited, he plugged his suit into the station intercom. Johnson’s voice had never sounded so welcome.

“Commander Walker, did you see any leaks?”

“This is Commander Walker. I did not see any leaks. We’re safe, at least until that thing comes back.”

Surprise colored Johnson’s reply, “Until? Don’t you mean unless?”

“I mean until. You saw the thing, right?”

Johnson was uncharacteristically hesitant. “No. No I didn’t, commander. I believe you, of course, but I didn’t see it.”

Walker muttered, thinking aloud as much as he was speaking.

“Mental disconnect. Must be why you’re not seeing it. When you make a solo bombing run, do you turn and head for home, or do you come around for another pass to make sure you hit your target?”

The past few days had hammered most of the snark out of Johnson, but every now and then he showed it he still had it, lurking under the surface.

“I was never a pilot, sir. I’m a tech. I think I know what you mean, though. You don’t hook up a machine and assume it works without turning it on. You make sure the job is finished.”

Johnson’s choice of words sent a shiver of anticipation down Walker’s spine. They had picked up news broadcasts on the jury-rigged radio receivers they’d cobbled together. Every broadcast so far assumed this was a natural disaster. The asteroid ship would come back to finish the job. When it did so, humanity would still be reeling from the bombardment, easy prey for whatever intergalactic vultures had targeted it. He couldn’t, wouldn’t let that happen.

The lock cycled open, and Walker stagger swam out into the station. When he made it fully inside the lock, he rotated himself and pressed the controls to shut the inner door. Once it had shut, he let himself hang there for a time, utterly exhausted.

“You need help?”

The female voice outside his helmet startled him awake. Ursula, the tech who had been manning the radio controls when the station got hit, would likely never walk normally on her own two legs again. Her knees and shins had been shattered by the same micro meteors that destroyed the station radio. In zero gravity that made moving around inconvenient, but not as debilitating as it would be when they returned to the surface.

“Commander Walker, do you need help?”

She tapped on his helmet, making him blink. Satisfied at his reaction, she waited for his reply. After a few seconds, he realized that his indecision was evidence enough.

“Yes, Lieutenant Grzyba, I believe I do.”

Quickly and efficiently, the injured Slavic woman stripped him down. When she rolled him over to get to his back, she gasped. Maybe he’d run out of oxygen while he worked outside, and that was why he’d gotten so befuddled. Ursula still hadn’t continued.

“Ursula? Is something wrong?”

“Yes… Yes, Commander, something is wrong. You… I… Sir, let me complete the removal of your suit, and I think you’ll see.”

“Go ahead then. I’m too tired to stop you.”

She continued, but a hesitant, almost confused scrabbling at his suit had replaced her former rapid competence. After what seemed like forever but could only have been perhaps half an hour, she pulled the last of the suit from him. Rolling him back to face her, she tapped him on the cheek, and he awoke.

She held something in her hands. He couldn’t quite tell what she held at first and stared in stupefied confusion while his mind worked through the shape of it. Most of it was white and silver, the colors of an American EVA suit. It even had a stars and bars flag on what might be one shoulder. If that was the shoulder, and the part with the controls was the front…

He stared in dawning horror at the gaping, red rimmed hole in the back of his suit.