THIRTY-ONE

Brooklyn swung the binocular attachment back to the side of his helmet and opened the channel they’d picked for the operation. “At least twenty exos down there.”

The prison was at the bottom of a crater and laid out like a wheel, with a central habitation hub for guards and staff. At the rim of the wheel were the dome-shaped single-occupancy cells. Tracks laid between the cells and the central hub allowed rolling airlocks to go to and fro to retrieve prisoners for interrogation or bring them consumables.

“We counted twenty-eight on the last fly over,” Milk said.

The day before, they’d banged out a couple of simple satellites, each about the size of a toaster, and put them in an orbit that carried them over the black site every few hours. They offered an overview of the area and filled in some of the blanks the map left.

“Doesn’t matter much. There’s hardly any cover down there, and I can’t tell what cell hers is. Sierra said seven, but I can’t see any damn numbers.”

“Come back an’ we’ll figure again,” Demarco said.

“Longer we wait, more likely they’ll get what they need from her.”

“Might have it already.”

“Then they got less reason to keep her healthy.” The crater was forty feet deep. Free falling to the bottom would take a while, and he’d make a good target all the way. Or he could dive headfirst and speed up the descent with the suit’s small thrusters. Flip around halfway and land on my feet. Or land on my head and bust open my helmet. “I’m dropping down. If I can’t see the numbers from down there, I’ll bust into the hub and find her that way.”

“Do that an’ you’ll have two dozen robots on your ass quick,” Demarco said.

“You better pick us up quicker, then.” He scanned the ground below. He could see the exos, but there was no good way to know if they were looking his way.

A sixty-foot fall on Mars is safe. Safe-ish. A twenty-eight-mile-per-hour drop. I can do that. Mars gravity was about three-point-seven meters per second squared. Deimos was point zero zero three. That’s less than a percent of Mars gravity, so… “Fuck it.” He dove off the crater’s edge and triggered the thrusters.

The regolith on Deimos was as fine as baby powder and stupid thick. Even a slow-lob tennis ball would kick up quite a cloud of the stuff. Brooklyn triggered the thrusters too soon and shot away from the wall of the crater instead of accelerating down it. His flip was also badly timed and poorly aimed. The central hub of the black site grew rapidly in his visor. Bad fucking plan! He threw up his arms to protect the glass of his helmet. The surface came up fast. He belly-flopped and slid, sending a plume of regolith up and out.

Demarco said something faded and thin over the radio. Brooklyn pushed himself to his feet and looked around. He was dizzy, and he fought to keep from throwing up in his helmet. From inside the circle, the numbers on the inflatables were visible. “I’m between the hub and number two. Bet seven is on the other side.”

He shuffle-stepped toward the hub and hoped billowing regolith was a sight common enough to ignore.

He wiped his visor. There it was. Good ol’ number seven. Assuming Claire’s intel was accurate, Andy was inside. He timed the interior patrol and made his move, busting out his best low-low-gravity skip toward the inflatable and hoping like hell no one would spot him.

He stumbled to a stop outside the seven dome and shucked off his backpack. Setting up the emergency airlock was a matter of sixty seconds in trained hands, but it had been a while since Brooklyn had practiced. He got the thing up and inflated, and cycled through it with the spare vacsuit. The cell door popped right open.

Brooklyn unsealed the visor of his helmet. “An–!”

The cell’s narrow bed was occupied, a pneumatic redhead riding Andy like a cowgirl. She was facing away from the door and slid slowly to the ground as Andy sat up. “Brooklyn?”

He held up the vacsuit. “We’re getting you out of here, an’ the plan’s already halfway to hell.”

“I can’t leave without Beth.” Andy was buck naked but for a thin metal band across her forehead.

“Who’s Beth?” Milk’s voice crackled through Brooklyn’s suit radio.

“Standby,” Brooklyn said. “Got eyes on the prize.”

The redhead had pulled the blanket off the bed to cover herself. She looked none too pleased at the interruption.

Brooklyn looked from the scowling redhead to Andy. “Only got the one vacsuit.”

“I can survive vacuum for short time,” Andy said. “Beth cannot.”

Brooklyn thrust the vacsuit at the woman. “Guess this is yours. Don’t bother gettin’ dressed. Clothes’ll just get in the way.”

Beth yanked the suit out of his hands, her eyes fierce.

His mouth twisted. “You need to prep or anything ’fore you go out there?”

Andy nodded. “Give me about two minutes. Help Beth with the suit.”

Andy knelt and began taking deep breaths. Brooklyn helped the redhead dress, an activity that consisted of getting his hands slapped away several times and adjusting the straps that made the suit formfitting or as close to it as possible. “You ever spacewalked before?”

She paled. “Once or twice. How far are we going?”

“One crater over. A couple hundred meters.”

“I’m ready.” Andy’s skin was darker green, and her eyes had filmed over. “I won’t be able to communicate with you until we are inside the ship.”

“You gonna put some clothes on?”

She smiled. “First person to go streaking on Deimos.”

Brooklyn triggered his radio. “About to make our move. Any thoughts?”

“Run like hell,” Demarco sent. “We on the way.”

He gave Andy his rifle and pulled a long knife out of his toolbelt. “Time to catch our flight outta here.” He sealed his visor and slashed at the back wall of the inflatable.

It took multiple cuts to get through the double layer of tough fabric, and they emerged under fire. Andy brought the rifle up and began trading shots with the eight exos that had formed a semicircle behind the cell.

“Shots fired and en route!” Brooklyn opened up with his plasma blaster, scorching two of the military exos. Another jerked backward as Andy fired the long gun. None of the targets fell, and they resumed their slow march toward the escapees.

“More behind us!” Beth said. “We were spotted coming out.”

“Copy.” Brooklyn dropped to one knee. His suit was tough enough to take a couple of hits, maybe, but sustained fire would turn it into scraps of fabric and foil. “Any ideas? I’m barely slowing them down!”

“Brook, we got a problem. Om’s having a… a fit… or something,” Demarco said. “It won’t fly the ship to the rendezvous.”

“We’ll come to you.” He pointed the way he had come. “Beth, head that way. Listen for instructions.” He traded weapons with Andy and urged her to follow Beth. “Demarco, Beth is on the way, and she’s ears for Andy. Keep ’em on track.”

Okay. Brooklyn bent his knees and pushed off hard. He gave his emergency thrusters a goose, gaining more speed and altitude, and spun in space to point his rifle back the way they’d come. Eight– no, nine exos aimed their weapons his way. This is going to suck. Every shot would he took would change his velocity and alter his course. He fired anyway, absorbing the recoil the best he could and letting his reflexes handle the shooting.

Below him, Andy raised the plasma blaster and twisted to fire. The blaster had far less range than the rifle, but what it lost in usefulness it made up for with a distracting light show. Brooklyn’s suit flared with alarms. Oxygen leak, decompression warning, plumbing and electrical malfunction. “Think I’m hit!”

Sky, Mars, ground, sky, Mars, ground. He was tumbling. Flashes of light in his eyes that almost looked like numbers and letters. Fire thrusters in… A countdown.

Zero. Brooklyn triggered his thrusters. Sky, Mars, ground. Sky, Mars, ground. Ground came up hard, and he bounced. His helmet struck rock, and his visor starred. It didn’t matter; he couldn’t breathe anyway. Suit alarms buzzed, but he couldn’t hear them. No sound in a vacuum.

Pressure on his back forced him against the rock. Night fell all the way.

Not again. Not this again.