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It was the blacksuits' bad luck the Proambu airlock surrendered its resistance all at one time. The outer lock doors simply sprang open. The station air gushed out, catching the plate and shooting it outward, straight into the mechanical jaws positioned outside the hatch. They both crashed into the blacksuit operator caught behind them, hurling everything back into the net. Glimmers of metal shards spun outward, slicing the rigging lines.
The inner doors, freed of their obstacle, slammed shut, creating a swirling backrush of air inside the ring. Things creaked and rattled ominously in the darkness above me.
The damage inflicted by the hurtling plate gave the boarders a quick change of focus. The two uninjured ones freed the webbing on one side of the lock to tow the injured jaw operator and his tool back to their shuttle. Runnels of sweat crept down my body as I watched their retreat and wondered how much pain he felt compared to mine.
A dull sound drew me back from the edge of darkness. Shivering violently, I lifted my head and stared through bleary eyes. The blacksuits had removed the net and were wrestling it and the magnets back inside their shuttle.
It surprised me they were giving up that easily after taking what we Humans considered minor peripheral damage.
That was fine by me.
The problem was, I'd forgotten about the kid. I should have known that when everything erupted it would frighten her and she would come out to check on things. By the time I realized that, she was a stark silhouette in the light shining through the glass.
She had her back to it, looking inward, trying to locate me.
Mother—! "No!" If the blacksuits saw her, they would resume their effort to breach the ring. Frantically I ran my hand down the inside of my thighs to relax my awaysuit's grip on the chair base.
The movement sent a wave of dizziness rolling over me.
My painkiller had run its course.
I tried to reach the left sleeve of my awaysuit. In the cuff of my shipskins I had a stash of stim packs. I had avoided the thought of using one until now because a stim would blast my system with energy and counter the anesthetic.
Now I needed a final bit of edge to work through this.
I took two steps and fell on my left side. My right arm refused to push me up. Trembling uncontrollably, I watched the blacksuits bundle their equipment into their shuttle.
Their hatch remained open on what seemed a long period of inactivity...
The dull thud of something striking the plasglass of the inner airlock doors pulled me back to reality. A blacksuit stood inside the chamber, staring directly at me. When he saw he had my attention he made a gesture, a flippant motion of the hand with the first two fingers extended, the way spacers signed goodbye. Then he kicked out of the opening, pausing long enough to slam a hand on the external controls and close the outer doors before he pushed off and retreated to his shuttle. This time the hatch closed behind him. The light cut off and the shuttle became a black blotch rippling over the stars as it slid away.
I stared, confused at what had just taken place. They had gotten inside the airlock while I was out, then they just waved and left? Nothing was that easy.
And why had he bothered to close the outer doors after fighting so hard to open them?
What did it matter? They were gone. I needed to get the kid and get us the hell out of here—
The airlock erupted into the station with a spray of plasglass and construction material. Instantly, the air in the section, rushing outward, swept the ball of destruction backward, out into space.
The effect of the two forces clashing ripped a massive hole in the station's outer wall and Section Ten opened onto the universe.
***
DAMNED FRAIRY! I SHRUGGED to shake it off and the small form spun away into free space.
Mother Universe! That was the kid! I made a frantic grab for her foot, caught and pulled her back before she flew through the gaping hole in Idwal, out into oblivion. Instinct made me pull her tighter against me before I had time to collect my memory on what had happened.
Objects in the area were moving fast, spinning out into the Vasty, so I hadn't been unconscious for long. Still, the kid couldn't have much air left in her suit.
The ghost shuttle had vanished. Whatever was going on here, they'd apparently thought it was worth three acts of war against the Proambu and one unofficial act against the Earth Alliance.
At least they had given us a way out of Section Ten.
Pressing the kid to my chest, I tried to reach the controls on my left arm again. The sight of my hand nearly caused me to pass out. Frozen droplets of blood and plasma clung to blackened flesh and frost-rimed cracks that were deep and red. A chunk of exposed bone gleamed at the base of my forefinger where the frozen flesh had struck something and broken away. I had to stop and force control over panic. The cold had frozen my wound and dulled the pain, allowing me a few seconds of clarity. It wouldn't last. I had to stay calm and get to Idwal's upper hold, to the Hand. A med facility could always regrow damaged parts of my body. The MoMo and Thok would pay for that and any other damage we or the Thief's Hand sustained. I would make damned sure of it.
I needed a stim pack now for sure. I forced up the sleeve of my awaysuit and discovered, to my horror, that without the glove, my shipskins had not been able to protect my arm. The cold of space had moved up beneath the cuff, locking everything in a block of ice. The reality of my situation was even worse: the cold would swiftly continue up my arm, into my shoulder and up to my brain. It was only a matter of which killed me first, but I was going to be dead very soon.
If Saura was gone, so were the kid and I.
The little form I held pressed to my chest had stopped moving, whether from weariness, resignation, or lack of air, I didn't know. I tightened my arm and bitterly apologized to her for my failure.
I should have been smarter, better prepared for the unexpected. I should have insisted on more information from the cursed clown-duo on Mandragala.
Once again, Vivi Zant had failed to protect the young and helpless.
I howled in pain deeper than anything physical as Idwal slowly rotated, the gap in its side filling with the starry vastness that surrounded its remote bit of space.
Amid the debris there was a purposeful movement of something making its way toward us.
No sharp, starlight-eating edges on this one, I noted as my mind shut down.
***
SAURA? BUT SHE WASN'T white...
I blinked.
My angel was back, her hand poised above my face. It confused me until I realized she was staring down from outside a med unit, with her hand resting on the curve of the glass. Her transition suit was gone, replaced by something white that draped small shoulders and made her appear even more delicate.
I tried to smile, to ease the concerned expression in her dark eyes, but the effort was exhausting.
Her mouth tightened, but the tension in her face eased.
A gnarl-knuckled pale hand with three long, spatulate fingers and an equally long thumb settled on her shoulder and gently nudged her away.
My memory twitched.
Ritto-ssa. The EA did not have official relations with them, but they had a presence on the Outer Rim.
I could not form words.
A memory flashed: the maw of deepspace, with debris floating between it and me. A sense of the cold sinking in, the thinning air. The fear and outrage of knowing I was dying in the Vasty.
We had been rescued. I lay in an auto-doc of some type, inside a ship, and the kid was with me.
Where was Saura? Had our rescuers found her? Did they even know she was out there? The kid didn't know—maybe couldn't have told them even if she did.
I tried to move my head, to look upward, but my neck refused to respond. I tried to speak...
Barely forced a grunt.
I had no way to let our rescuers know there was another person on Idwal and that every passing second was taking us lightyears away from her.
A wild animal wail filled my ears and a warm sensation ran down my cheek. I was making the noise. I was crying.
There was a flicker of movement outside the glass and quiet peace flooded me, pushing my distress aside. Someone tranquilized me into darkness.
I woke several times. Probably there were many more I didn't remember. Sometimes I could see a blur of movement at the edge of my vision, but every time, my angel was there, watching me. Each time I attempted to tell our rescuers they had left someone back at Idwal.
Each time, I fell back into oblivion.
I was growing weaker. Moving closer to death. The Ritto-ssa had rescued me, but they did not know Human physiology. They could not fix me.
Worse, they had left Saurubi behind.
***
NOTHING STIRS THE HUMAN spirit like the touch of sunlight. Maybe it's something left over from our primordial days, when its glow told us it was a good day to hunt and forage as we climbed out of our tree or cave. I don't know. To me, it feels like...life.
I opened my eyes to blue sky and the face of my angel centered in a halo of sunlight. I was still in the auto-doc, with her hand perched in its place on the glass above my cheek. This time, however, her eyes looked sadder than usual as she stared in at me.
I sensed movement nearby. Activity flickered in my peripheral vision. The auto-doc had moved off the ship and into a place that at least mimicked a planet sky.
Perhaps a Human planet.
I wanted to know if a twin of my auto-doc stood nearby; one containing a splash of red and dusky blue, but I wasn't able to turn my head. I looked up at my angel.
She had an expression of regret on her face.
No! Wherever this place, who, or whatever was here, she was too young to cope with it on her own. If she stayed with me, I could help her.
Her brown eyes told me she recognized my concern. Her hand lifted from the glass. With a smile, a wave, and a flit of white, she was gone.
Our rescuers must have noticed the spike of distress in my vitals because peaceful darkness folded in around me again.