Network Effect

Kanti jolted forward and I caught her. “It wouldn’t open,” she gasped. She clutched the kind of tool used on surveys for chipping rock samples and her hands were bloody. The power inside was out, the only light from the emergency glows along the walls, and equipment and sample cases were jumbled everywhere. Amena was across the compartment, her leg pinned under a lab bench that had collapsed when the bulkhead crumpled. She was conscious and struggling to free herself.

My hatchway drone showed the warning lights blinking around the lock. Yikes. I pulled Kanti out into the corridor and took the tool away from her. “Get to the gravity well, now.” On what was left of the feed I told Rajpreet, I’m sending Kanti to you.

Kanti hesitated, eyes wide and glazed over. Blood trickled down from a cut above her hairline. Behind me, Amena yelled, “Kanti, go!”

Kanti pulled away and ran erratically down the corridor, bouncing off the bulkhead. I ducked into the compartment and went to Amena. Tears streamed down her face, her nose running in that gross “badly upset human” way. She banged on the lab bench. “Here, here, we couldn’t pry it up!”

I felt under it carefully, where the support strut had pinned her leg. There wasn’t blood, though it had to hurt. I felt marks on the metal from the tool Kanti had been clutching. She had had it in the right spot, but didn’t have the leverage needed to pry up the strut. I wedged the tool back in place and leaned on it. My drones met Kanti at the end of the corridor and formed a protective cloud around her as she stagger-ran through the foyer toward the gravity well.

The strut bent back and Amena tried to wriggle out and yelped in pain. I said, “Just take it slow,” and managed to sound like we had all the time we needed. (We did not.) My hatchway drone relayed the rising energy readings from the airlock where something was trying to override the security seal.

In the access tube, Rajpreet had grabbed Kanti and was climbing with her up the gravity well, both surrounded by my cloud of drones. Amena wriggled some more, wincing, then reached for my arm and said, “Just pull really hard!”

I took her arm and tugged and she slid out from under the bench. I stood, pulled her with me, and picked her up in one arm. I’d lost contact with Rajpreet but my drones confirmed she wasn’t in the gravity well anymore. I told Amena, “Hold on,” and ran down the corridor.

I couldn’t make anywhere near my top speed; there was too much debris, the corridor too narrow and curving.

I made it almost to the end of the corridor just as the hatch blew with a loud pop. The smell of melted metal and ozone filled the corridor. My hatch drone sent me a view of hazy smoke and movement inside the lock. Time for a split millisecond decision—could I sprint through the foyer, past the breached hatch, up the ramp to the gravity well, and climb up into the baseship so we could close the hatches and separate before the hostiles stormed inside?

Uh, maybe?

Then my input from the hatch drone dissolved in an abrupt burst of energy. I took a silent step backward, then another, keeping the motion smooth and slow. I started a quick analysis of the drone’s last transmitted intel. On the feed, I sent, Hatch is breached, hostiles onboard, seal and jettison now.

I didn’t pick up any acknowledgment and couldn’t tell if it went through or not.

Amena was silent, holding herself stiffly immobile against my side, her heart pounding. I eased back around the curve in the corridor, and stepped into the first open hatch. I set her down and mouthed the words “No noise.” She nodded, gripped the hatch’s safety rail to stay upright, and looked up at me with wide eyes. I wanted to use my drones to look at her, but while that was calming for me, it wouldn’t be for her. If I was going to get her out of this alive, keeping her calm and communicating accurately was going to be important. I put my face in an expression that I hoped would convey reassurance, then changed it to intense concentration and stared at the bulkhead. The image analysis finished and I reviewed it. The drone had caught a sensor ghost of something that was emitting energy and floating about two meters above the deck. I included Amena’s interface in my relay and said, Close the hatches, Arada, do it now. They have drones.

Amena caught her breath and bit her lip, but didn’t say anything.

Still no acknowledgment. I didn’t know if they could hear me, if they had already jettisoned, what the hell was going on up there. We had to be close to the wormhole by now.

(It sounds like I was calm, but I had no idea what the hell I was going to do.)