By the time Anna reaches the gallery, her shock has turned into a righteous, roaring fury. Every stride she takes feels like it drives an electric bolt of anger through her body.
She skids to a halt on the Level 1 catwalk above the gallery floor. There’s a muted alarm blaring somewhere, along with the recorded voice advising evacuation. The escape pod bay doors are still closed, with nothing but darkness through their viewports.
For a moment, Anna is confused. Where were the stompers? Why didn’t they stop Dax and his group from…
That’s when she sees them. Two bodies, clad in grey stomper jumpsuits, sprawled face down on the floor. It’s impossible to miss the blood pooling under them.
Another electric bolt shoots up through her, and she pounds her fist on the railing in frustration. Jordan. That must have been her price. Places in the escape pods for her and her buddies. Did the two dead stompers refuse? Did they try to stop them?
A strange sound pulls her out of her thoughts. It takes a second to place it: someone is crying. No–not just someone. A child.
Anna launches herself over the catwalk railing, turning one-eighty degrees in mid-air, using a hand on the railing as a fulcrum. She comes down with her toes in between the railings and her heels hanging out over the edge. She relaxes into the landing, then pushes herself off the catwalk.
It’s not far down–ten feet, maybe, no more. She lands with a thud, not bothering to roll, staggering a little on impact. The crying is coming from her left, and she turns her head, hunting for the source.
Ivy.
She must’ve been here when it all went down. She’s huddled by the wall, sitting with her back against it, her hands wrapped around her knees. Anna sprints to her, pulling the trembling girl into an embrace.
“It’s all right,” Anna says. She says it again, then a third time, as if she needs to convince herself.
There’s nothing she can do. She should take Ivy back, find somebody to look after her. She gets to her feet, cradling the girl. Ivy is still crying, but the sobs are silent now, and she snuggles into Anna’s shoulder.
That’s when Anna notices the last airlock.
The viewpoints in almost all the airlocks are dark, but the last one is different. There’s the faintest glimmer inside it, so faint that at first Anna is sure she’s imagined it.
She crosses the floor, avoiding the two dead stompers. As she reaches the bay door, she sees that the viewport is just out of her reach. But she didn’t imagine the light–it’s a little clearer now, like the glow cast from a tab screen.
Her heart beating faster, she drops to one knee, whispering in Ivy’s ear. “I have to put you down, OK? Just for a second.”
Ivy doesn’t move. Slowly, Anna disengages the girl’s hands from around her neck, and places her gently on the floor, making sure she’s not looking at the stompers. Then she gets on tiptoe, straining to get as high as she can, and looks into the viewport.
The escape pod is still there.
Anna doesn’t know why they didn’t take it. Maybe someone got cold feet. Maybe they left so quickly that there wasn’t time to inform everybody. It doesn’t matter. Not now.
She crouches down, putting her hand on Ivy’s cheek, feeling still-warm tears as her fingers touch the skin. The girl’s face is deathly pale.
“Ivy? Honey?” she says. “I want you to do something for me.”
Ivy starts to answer, glancing at the stompers.
“No,” Anna says. “Don’t look at them. They can’t hurt you. I promise. Now, what I want you to do is run. Fast as you can, far as you can, until you find a grown-up. Can you do that for me?”
Ivy stares at her. Anna is about to repeat herself when the girl nods. Her enormous brown eyes prickle with fresh tears.
“Good,” Anna says, forcing a smile onto her face. She hugs Ivy one more time. “Go. Now.”
Ivy skims across the floor, her oversized red sweater trailing out behind her. She only looks back once. Anna stays put, anticipating the look, and even manages a wave. Then Ivy is into the corridor, and out of sight.
Anna turns back to the pod. Her fingers brush the release catch next to the door. “Oh, this is a very bad idea,” she mutters to herself.
She clambers into the airlock, pulling open the door of the escape pod inside it. The pod itself is tiny. There are three soft-backed seats arranged in a triangular formation at the front. A transparent locker on one side holds three space suits. Anna can’t see a thing through the cockpit viewport, which stretches around the seats. The only light comes from the controls themselves, from the multiple touchscreens on the U-shaped line of controls around the front seat.
I shouldn’t be doing this, Anna thinks. But then she’s clambering over the seats, dropping into the foremost one, fumbling with the safety belt. There are straps, clicking into place at her sternum. Three touchscreens in front of her, black and silent. There’s a single joystick beneath them, with two thick plastic buttons–one on the top, one on the front.
She doesn’t know that much about Outer Earth’s escape pods. She remembers being told once that they’re relatively simple to operate–they have to be, given the situations they might be used in. But how do you turn them on? How do you launch them?
Breathing fast, she gives the nearest touchscreen an experimental tap. Somewhere behind her, she hears an engine kick into action, rumbling through the little craft. The airlock around the pod comes to life. A rotating light near the ceiling comes on, and the door to the station seals shut behind her with a grinding noise.
A dozen readouts appear on the screens: fuel capacity, estimated range, attitude, thruster locations. Anna stares at them, horrified. A half-second later the displays dim, and a message appears on the centre display. LAUNCH?
Anna raises a finger. Stops.
She is out of her depth. The fear is setting in now, crawling out of her nightmares and tearing its way into the real world. You’re going to die out there, she thinks, and it’s almost enough to send her flying out of the chair, back into the station, back to her parents. There has to be someone else who can do this.
And then, before she can stop herself, her finger touches the screen.