The human was riding the Vulza.
Thirteen had spent valuable time coming to terms with that fact. On the face of it, it was an absurd idea, one that even the most foolhardy of trainers would never have attempted, and yet the human was parading himself around as if he belonged there. It was an insult to the evolution of the Vulza, as well as to the man hours spent turning nature’s greatest predator into a true combat machine.
When he had first detected it on the internal sensors, Thirteen had not truly understood what was occurring. The Human and the Corti had started moving again, much as he’d expected, but the Vulza had not only been allowed to live but it was moving with them. Their path had even straightened out from the meandering path that they’d been taking before, and now it was heading directly towards him. The sensors could tell him that much, but they couldn’t tell him how or why.
That was enough of a curiosity for him to take time away from the details of his other arrangements to send yet another useless sentry bot against them, and this time Thirteen had been sure to inhabit the hapless robot so that he could see for himself. And what he had seen was the complete farce that was being made of his prize beast!
Not that the beast seemed to belong to him anymore; someone, almost certainly the Corti, had fully suborned its control unit, and was now blocking out all other access. No matter what Thirteen tried, he had no ability to reclaim control of the monster, and when he had finally accepted that he had put the sentry bot to good use.
The sentry bot had only managed to fire a single shot before the Vulza was on it, and before all communication with the robot came to an end, but Thirteen saw enough to be certain that the kinetic pulse had at least imparted a glancing blow to the Corti that had caused him so much trouble. The internal sensors revealed him to still be alive, but they said nothing about the quality of his health, and after a shot like that he had to at least be in a serious amount of pain.
For the time being that would have to be enough, and perhaps it might even be preferable. It wasn’t as though any of them were going to escape, not now that Thirteen had activated the Emergency Option. There was no getting out of this one, and all Thirteen had to do was wait and enjoy the ride.
Their journey would be over soon. Forever.
+++++
Adrian carried the injured Corti in his arms, resting him gently over the back of the Vulza as it marched them towards the motherfucker who’d done this to him. He was furious at Thirteen, but also at himself; he had allowed himself to grow complacent with the sentry bots only targeting him, and Askit had paid the price.
That price, from what he could tell, was a broken arm and possibly some cracked ribs to go with it, but at least his suit remained intact as far as Adrian could tell. No matter what happened, the little Corti wouldn’t have to be worried about sudden decompressions.
“Don’t worry mate,” Adrian reassured the Corti hacker, “I won’t let any of those fuckers get you again, and you can bet I’m going to sort this fuckstick out.”
He had everything he needed to do just that, including Betty the friendly missile of promises needing to be kept, which was currently tethered to the space-dragon’s tail. It must have been bizarre to see their procession, but if there were any more sentries left to witness it they didn’t approach.
Askit, for his part in it, seemed remarkably upbeat about the deteriorated state of his health – although perhaps that was just shock – and didn’t do anything stupid like asking Adrian to leave him behind. That might have had something to do with him being a Corti, but Adrian preferred to think of it as Askit predicting the response where he’d be told to get fucked if he thought that was happening.
The space-dragon didn’t waste any time in getting them to where they needed to go, and the wide doors to the command deck opened to accept the whole of the beast. There, amongst the beeping consoles and one really weird looking chair, stood the smuggest motherfucker Adrian had seen in a long time.
“There’s no fucking way you’re not Thirteen,” he observed, his eyes sweeping over the rest of the weird alien biped.
Thirteen was probably the tallest alien Adrian had ever had the misfortune to meet, taller even than the blue giraffes, and it wore clothes – actual, proper clothes – to cover and adorn its slender body. Its face, however, looked like a child’s drawing, with big, widely set eyes, large pointy ears, and no fucking nose to be seen anywhere.
Askit turned his head with a grunt of pain so that he could see. “It’s.. a Qinis. They’re with the Celzi Alliance.”
“He’s missing his nose,” Adrian replied, fixated on the fact. “How does he smell?”
Askit turned his attention back to Adrian. “I’m sure he has some sort of olfactories-“
“Terrible, mate,” Adrian interrupted with a sigh, knowing that it was moments like this where he missed having another human around. There would have been no way that Jen would have missed a joke like that. “He smells terrible.”
Smiling faintly, Askit patted him on the hand. “Very amusing.”
Adrian pointed his gun at the creature, who stared at it with some mixture of fear and firm resolve. “You are correct,” it said, “I am Thirteen. I assume that is the missile you wish to lodge into my anus? And may I say, it’s very impressive that you’ve managed to take control of my-“
Adrian shot him in the left leg. It exploded.
Thirteen didn’t seem to enjoy it much, because he began screaming in agony before he’d even finished hitting the deck. His leg was gone from below the knee, if the creature had a knee, and he now seemed far too wrapped up in his own issues for Adrian’s liking.
Sliding carefully from the back of the Vulza, Adrian took care with Askit to avoid hurting him any further, and set him down in one of the comfortable chairs where he could watch the exchange that was about to happen, and made sure that it was far enough away from the Vulza that if something were to go wrong with Askit’s control of the beast, he wouldn’t become a Corti-sized snack.
“That was for my mate over there,” Adrian told the wailing alien as he stepped closer to it. “Now you’re going to tell me everything I want to know.”
That seemed to bring Thirteen out of his anguish for a moment, because the alien stared at him with naked hatred. “I’m not going to- AAAAAAHHHH!”
Adrian stopped pressing down on the stump of Thirteen’s left leg once he felt his point was made. “As I was saying, you’re going to tell me everything.”
“You’re a monster!” Thirteen accused, staring up at him with wide eyes. “Worse than I could have imagined.”
The alien recoiled from Adrian’s hard stare. “Maybe,” he grated, “but then I’m not the freak with one leg.”
Adrian pressed his foot down once again. It seemed this alien was a slow learner.
+++++
Normally torture wasn’t something that Askit liked, because it always seemed as though it was so messy. Thirteen was an exception, since Askit didn’t much appreciate being shot, but he still found Adrian’s methodology to be somewhat chilling. This almost seemed like the sort of thing that he had done before.
“There’s nothing you can do!” Thirteen told Adrian, his tone begging, pleading for some form of mercy. “It’s all locked out! Even I can’t get in!”
Thirteen had become extremely cooperative after his first few lessons in proper manners, and had let them know all about the fact that they were being shot into a singularity. This, Askit realised, was the Hierarchy’s version of the ‘self-destruct’ system Adrian had been talking about earlier, and it was every bit as terrifying.
“What do you know about black holes, Askit?” Adrian asked, turning away from the weeping Thirteen for the time being. “Is it as bad as I think it is?”
“It’s worse than you think it is,” Askit replied, interpreting the strange phrase to mean what it was intended to. He’d already been looking up the details that Thirteen had told them, and none of it looked good. “Gravity wells like that, or intense gravity waves like the ones used in Hunter traps, they’ll break down the warp field of any vessel in FTL.”
“Won’t that destroy the ship?” Adrian queried. “I’ve almost had that happen before.”
Askit levelled a stare at him; of course he’d almost had it happen before, the human was a walking disaster zone. And yet, somehow safer to be around than not, proving that sometimes you just had to take the good with the bad.
“It was aboard the Zhadersil,” Adrian added, and that was all the explanation that Askit needed or what going to get. From what he could tell from Adrian’s stories about the ship, it was a decrepit piece of crap that had been decommissioned by the people who built it aeons ago, and Adrian had repeatedly fouled up trying to put it all back together. It was a wonder it had ever been working as much as it had.
“External stimuli will dissolve a field safely,” Askit explained, giving the human a basic education any other space farer would already have received. “Only a systems failure will result in the kind of patchy breakup that nearly killed you.”
Adrian turned back to Thirteen, who was busy taking shallow breaths and staring vacantly at the ceiling. “Let me guess… pay attention!”
He pressed down on the stump again, getting Thirteen’s full and undivided attention along with a lingering yowl of agony. “We don’t get kinetic drives either?”
“Only… only the FTL is locked,” Thirteen replied, his voice wavering from the pain. “You’ll have kinetics when we leave warp, but it won’t have enough power to get you free.”
Adrian looked towards the exit that led to the life pod reserved for command deck personnel. “I’m guessing we can’t use the life pod either?”
“Locked!” Thirteen confirmed, some gloating returning to his voice before it was again pressed out of him.
“Then we’ve got no way out,” Adrian replied, once he was satisfied that Thirteen wasn’t gloating anymore. Then he turned to Askit. “We can’t try a slingshot, can we?”
“Imagine I don’t know what that is,” Askit replied weakly, “and then imagine I’d just been shot.”
“Right, sorry,” Adrian apologised. “I mean, I know this from… things. Entertainment things, but can’t we turn enough to swing around it? If we keep accelerating it might help us get out.”
Askit considered this, not seeing anything obviously wrong with Adrian’s plan except for the fact that it may simply not work. That way could certainly build up a lot more speed and momentum to get them free, rather than the usual tried and failed method of turning around to go back the other way. “It might work,” he agreed, “but I’d need access to the ship computers.”
Adrian turned back to Thirteen, who was by now staring at the pair of them in some sort of vacant terror. Shock had clearly set in, although his leg had quite surprisingly stopped bleeding. He wasn’t any kind of doctor, but Askit wondered whether this was the result of some sort of miracle drug, or if it had simply been cauterised by crushing.
“You’re going to give us full access to everything,” Adrian told him flatly.
Thirteen shrank back from him, pressing himself against the floor as much as he could. “I… I can’t! The things they’d do to me!”
“The things I’ll do you if you don’t,” Adrian replied. “Remember… you’ve still got another leg.”
+++++
Torturing Thirteen had been unpleasant, not in the matter of causing the creature pain – he certainly deserved it – but he had not even hesitated to do it, and that raised all sorts of very personal questions that Adrian did his best not to think about. It was the sort of thing that had nasty associations with Cameron White, and of course the other time…
At least it had paid off; Askit had taken control of the ship away from the Hierarchy agent, and was busy running simulations on slingshot trajectories. Since he had nothing better to do, Adrian ensured that Thirteen was properly contained and then contented himself with watching the small Corti grow increasingly frustrated.
“This isn’t going to work,” he finally said, looking up to meet Adrian’s watchful gaze. “The projections that are promising for us even withstanding the tidal forces won’t get us free, and the ones that will get us free will destroy us.”
“Maybe there’s a happy medium?” Adrian suggested. He wasn’t willing to give up before they’d even tried, whether simulations labelled something impossible or not.
“There is no happy medium,” Askit snapped irritably. Adrian remained silent; it was clear that the pain and frustration and fear of being crushed into a sprinkle of matter were all getting to him.
“Alright, mate,” Adrian said calmly, “but maybe put all that on the main screen so you can explain it?”
Askit glared at him, but relented immediately. “Fine.”
The picture that appeared on the main screen was simplistic in the extreme; a dark blue screen with a black-filled circle in its centre, with a trio of more colourful curved lines set to either side of it.
“The red line, Askit explained, pointing to the middle circle, “shows the minimum distance the ship can survive. Any closer and we die, no exceptions.”
Adrian looked at that line and saw that it seemed to come fairly close to the black hole. The yellow line was closer still, which wasn’t helpful no matter what it meant, but the cheerfully green line that was furthest out by far seemed promising.
“What’s the green one?” He asked, pointing to it. “Green is normally good, right?”
“The green line shows the maximum distance we can put between us and the ‘black hole’, given our projected warp exit point,” Askit explained. “And the yellow? That’s where we can get enough speed to actually escape.”
“So what do we need?” Adrian asked. “Less weight? More go?”
“Weight isn’t an issue so long as we’ve got the momentum,” Askit replied. “I varied the mass around in case you wanted to try blasting off parts of the hull… it seems that a higher mass yields a better result.”
“I guess Pegleg Pete over there gets to stick around then,” Adrian said grudgingly. “Could we push the drive beyond its normal limits?”
Askit shook his head. “Anything beyond its tolerances will cause damage, and the amount of extra power you’d need for this would burn it out within moments.”
“I’ll go take out the limiters just in case,” Adrian decided. “And if it comes down to it maybe we could get out and push?”
It had been intended as a joke, but Askit didn’t laugh. Instead he looked back at his calculations the a thoughtful frown. “That is… a potentially helpful idea.”
Adrian was puzzled for a few moments, not understanding what the Corti could mean by that. Then he realised. “The missiles…”
Askit immediately grew wide eyed in horror. “The missiles? I was only talking about the robots! They have small kinetic drives but they should give a small boost.”
“Why not the missiles as well?” Adrian asked. “They shoud give a lot more of a push.”
Askit blinked. “Because missiles explode?”
“Only if you arm them,” Adrian replied, “and from the looks of it we need all the fucking help we can get.”
+++++
Once they’d agreed upon the most insane plan of all time, Adrian had made the trip down to the reactor and kinetic drive to make them unsafe, leaving Askit to determine just how unsafe it would get. There’d been a lot of things to consider, such as how many missiles there were, and where they’d best be placed to push the ship along without breaking it in the process. Ultimately it proved that the room they were stored in was the best candidate, having the thickest walls inside the ship with more structural reinforcement than was strictly required.
That simplified things, and given the overall complexity of the rest of the mad scheme a little simplicity was a great comfort. The final numbers came back just before Adrian reentered the room.
“Still going?” he asked, taking a seat. He was out of breath, and must only have just finished preparing the engines for an act of desperation.
Askit looked up at him, cautious against appearing too optimistic. “We can do it,” he said. “But only if nothing goes wrong.”
Only if none of the ten thousand things that might go wrong did not go wrong. He was definitely not feeling optimistic.
“Good,” Adrian replied, sighing in resignation. “Then we’re only almost definitely fucked. How tight is it?”
Askit winced, and Adrian grimaced his understanding. “First human to dive into a black hole. Well, would have at least been nice to have that fucking entry in the world records. Pity nobody will ever know.”
“You’ll know,” Askit replied sarcastically. “I’ve been told that’s all that matters.”
That got a snort of amusement from Adrian. They were probably about to die together, so why not laugh in the face of it?
FTL cut out.
There was a lurch as the kinetics kicked in, pushed along by over one hundred machines, mines and missiles to give the ship drive the slight but consistent boost it needed.
Askit took the initial readings on their position, aware of the fearful anticipation with which the human was waiting.
Askit cleared his throat and turned to face Adrian. “Well the good news is that I planned for the tightest possible chance. Remember the red line?”
“Fuck!”
“Get buckled in,” Askit suggested. “It’s going to get bumpy, thanks to the time dilation and gravity waves.”
Adrian stared at him for a moment before doing as suggested. “I’d forgotten about that! Do you know how long this trip is going to lose us?”
Askit knew he’d be thinking about Jen, he’d be thinking about how she was out there somewhere, stuck on an alien world all by herself with only the ruins for company. It was probably much more pleasant than what was going on here, but Adrian wouldn’t be thinking that way.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” Askit said, gravely, “but at the speeds we will be going, what seems like a (ten hour) trip to us… well, everybody else we know will age an additional (fifteen… minutes).”
Adrian stared at him, mouth open. “You shit! YYou mean it’s not going to be like a fucking year or ten?”
“I’m not planning on taking up residence,” Askit snickered.
Adrian laughed, loud and long as though he was laughing out the awfulness of their day. “You fucking well had me going for a moment there! Jesus Christ, I almost shit myself thinking about life going on everywhere else while we were stuck getting away from this fucking thing.”
Adrian’s laughs ran dry, and he rested back into his seat. “You know, I was thinking that apart from the dragon slaying, today was probably the worst day of my life.”
“My today would probably be the worst day of anyone’s life,” Askit argued. “You defeated two Vulza, and you didn’t get shot.”
“Well, the day’s not yet over,” Adrian replied pessimisticly. “What’s the bet I end up getting shot now you’ve said that?”
Askit had heard of the human fondness for gambling and considered what might be worth wagering, then shrugged; why not bet it all? The odds were good that Adrian wouldn’t live to collect. “Fifteen million credits.”
Adrian blinked in momentary confusion. “It was just a figure of… wait, isn’t that a whole fuckload?”
“Yes,” Askit confirmed. It was probably a dozen times the yearly wage of a corporate leader, and it had been a lot easier to earn. “But it doesn’t count if you do it or have yourself shot.”
“Where did you get that much,” Adrian asked, annoyingly ignoring the details of the wager.
“Usually by hacking the accounts of most people who enjoy my delightful company,” Askit told him. “Altogether I picked up close to one million from the officers of the Celzi fleet alone.”
Adrian stared at him in complete amazement. “No shit?”
Askit returned a slight, self satisfied smile. “No shit.”
“Wait,” Adrian frowned, shooting a wary glare at Askit, “you haven’t stolen from me, have you?”
“You have no money,” Askit replied, rather amused. “And you steal absolutely anything you want, I mean… how many ships is this now? You even stole a Vulza… although technically I helped. It’s actually so inspiring that you could almost consider my own thefts as a sort of homage.”
Adrian seemed put out by that, and decided to stare at his console instead. “Didn’t think it was that much stealing…”
He proceeded to look thoughtful, and them somewhat embarrassed and discomforted by whatever it was he’d been thinking about. “Well… maybe it has been that much stealing. I should stop stealing.”
Askit thought that particular resolution would last just about as long as it took Adrian to find the next shiny thing, but he kept such comments to himself. Instead he turned on the main screen to display their heading, and the singularity itself along with it.
“That’s it then?” Adrian asked, staring at the screen. “I don’t see it.”
“It’s easier to see where it’s bending the light… there!” Askit pointed out. At his command an overlay appeared on the display to give a better indication of distance and position. The numbers on the former were decreasing fast.
Adrian must have noticed it too. “Looks like we’re moving a fair clip,” he noted. “How fast is that exactly? Something like light speed?”
“More like less than one percent of,” Askit said with a snort. “That’s still really quick.”
The hull began to rattle, and they both looked around at it, waiting for the moment when the whole thing fell to pieces. “What’s that?” Adrian asked, glancing at Askit.
“Probably debris hitting the ship,” Askit replied. “With luck we’ll actually last long enough to reach the ‘black hole’.”
That didn’t seem to make Adrian feel any better, because he was gripping his seat so tightly his knuckles were white. “Is it going to be like this all the way?”
“Not a chance,” Askit said. “It’s only going to get worse.”
+++++
Five hours was coming up fast, and it didn’t seem like Askit had been lying. The shuddering had only increased, and now its rattle had made its way down to his bones.
“Gravity is getting heavy,” Adrian said, wishing he could wipe the sweat away from his brow. They’d long since donned helmets in case of sudden decompression, although they didn’t bother with providing Thirteen with the same protection and there were simply no options when it came to Barney the Space Dragon.
Not that it mattered with Thirteen, his body had given out under the excessive gravity about the time the sirens started nagging about hull fatigue and other nonsense warnings that only mattered to people had some kind of choice.
“I noticed,” Askit replied weakly. Adrian didn’t need to be a doctor to tell the little Corti was suffering; he’d done an admirable job of persisting through the pain of a broken limb and cracked ribs, but those injuries would only be exacerbated the high G-forces.
“How much can the artificial gravity cope with?” Adrian asked, although what he really wanted to know was how long Askit himself could last. Adrian didn’t want to get to the end of this and need to bury another friend.
That kind of question wasn’t fooling anyone, and Askit turned his head to look at Adrian with defiance in his eyes. “I’ll survive more than this!”
The ship shook violently all of a sudden, and as a new alarm began to wail Adrian found himself nearly crushing the arms of his seat in an iron grip. “What the fuck was that?”
“Starboard dorsal finally came free,” Askit wheezed. “I’m recalculating the trajectory…”
Adrian tensed for bad news. “And?”
“Still good,” Askit replied, sounding far too tired for his own good. “Adrian… if I don’t make it…”
“Don’t talk like that, mate,” Adrian interrupted sharply. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Yes,” Askit agreed, “but in case I’m not, I want you to know that you can’t have my money. You can’t have any of it.”
Adrian blinked, turning his head back to look at the Corti to find him smiling weakly. He laughed. “You shit-stirrer, you’re fine!”
“Just a little out of breath,” Askit admitted. “Aside from the arm, of-“
They froze at the rising creak of straining metal, and slowly turned to face the starboard wall where the noise only grow louder.
“Oh…” Adrian whispered with a sense of dreadful anticipation. “Shi-“
A sickening scream cut through his words as the hull ripped itself apart; a violent twisting of ship and tortured steel pulling away at worn fastenings until they burst. The starboard side of the command deck fell away in a shower of lightning and a scream of air, spiralling into an inky oblivion that Adrian would never forget.
The void took it all. The air, the crushed remains of Thirteen, and every other scrap of shit that hadn’t been tied down; it all poured out to feed the terrible blackness. The Vulza scrambled, blind and confused, claws scraping uselessly along the convulsing steel deck until he too fell into emptiness, and his flailing form vanished almost instantly from Adrian’s sight.
Then everything was still.
Never in his life had Adrian been so glad that buckles existed, and were a thing in space. It was a pity about Barney, but at least it hadn’t been him, and the fact that he would no longer be able to turn up to rescue Jen while riding a dragon no longer seemed quite as important.
He had a moment of senseless incomprehension as he bore witness to the great engine of uncreation, and then the awful screams began. His screams.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he shouted in raw terror as the abyss yawned wide to his right, a direction that now felt very much more like down. “Holy fucking shitsticks!”
“Some of the computers are still working!” Askit quickly determined, relief in his voice along with a sense of desperation that hinted he was barely keeping it together. “We lost a big chunk of the fragmented hull there…”
“No fucking shit,” Adrian replied, unable to keep his eyes from the terrible blackness below. He clung to his seat to prevent himself from sagging too heavily towards the doom below. He didn’t want to be any closer to that fucking thing than he needed to be.
“Adrian,” Askit continued gravely, “we don’t have enough mass any more. When we get past the singularity we’re going to have to use that final push and hope it gets us far enough.”
“We haven’t exactly had a lot of fucking luck with hoping for shit,” Adrian snapped. Looking at that huge space of emptiness, and the way the light seemed to bend around it like it was passing through water, he didn’t think he’d ever been as flat out terrified. His own personal re-entry of a planet’s atmosphere now seemed absurdly untroublesome compared to what threatened him now.
“Maybe our luck will change,” suggested Askit. The poor Corti really must have been losing it at this point, because he was beginning to sound like an optimist.
Adrian reflected that it could also just be profound desperation, the same sort he himself was feeling right now; there were times when they began to sound pretty much the same, and if there was ever a time for them to overlap this would be it.
“How much more of this shit do we have to go?” Adrian shouted, more over his own terror than any noise. Even with the chasm below, tearing much-needed pieces of the ship from them, the void held only silence.
And it was an awful, deadly silence.
“Askit?” Adrian asked, twisting his head to see the form of the Corti hanging limp in the buckles. His eyes widened. “Askit!”
+++++
The intense gravity had been too much for Askit, and he had blacked out shortly after the ship had fallen apart. He must have remained that way for a while, because by the time he was conscious again the singularity was behind them and they were pointed out into open space.
“I feel like shit,” he declared as he woke, and if anything he was underestimating the sensation. He truly could not remember a time when he had felt more drained or more injured than he did now, and yet there was no time for any more rest.
“Askit?!” Adrian asked, sounding shocked, but glad at the same time. “You’re alive!”
“Some might call it that,” Askit replied bitterly. “People more optimistic than I am. I see we haven’t lost much more of the ship.”
Adrian laughed humourlessly. “Yeah, and thank fuck for that! Let’s never do that again.”
“Agreed,” Askit said without hesitation. “But let’s not forget that the day is still not over. We have that one last push…”
“I started that a minute ago,” Adrian said. “The last fucking kick. How are we looking?”
Askit inspected the trajectory projection, and to his surprise it was looking good so long as the drive held out for just (one minute) longer. “Looks like we’ll make it if it holds. Then we can punch back into FTL.”
“Do you reckon it will?” Adrian asked, but as far as Askit could tell there wasn’t any hope there, nothing but the question and a deep weariness.
Askit shook his head, the same weariness upon him. “I don’t-“
The lights all went out, with the exception of Askit’s datapad that now lit his vacuum suit pocket. He took it out and read the bad news.
“No.”
Adrian sighed heavily. “Fuck. Me.”
Askit sighed too. “We’re not done yet, Adrian,” he said, wishing with everything had he had that this day would come to its end. “We have one last chance.”
+++++
The life pod on the command deck had been connected to the starboard hull, and it had, along with everything else, been torn away to feed the maw of the black hole. It had been the only fully functional life pod on the ship, but it hadn’t been the only life pod.
There was no time to be gentle now, and Adrian had tethered Askit to his back in spite of the little Corti’s curses and yelps of pain. There was no way that he could move as quickly through the microgravity as Adrian could manage, and there was no way he could negotiate the broken hallways either. Not that there was much left of any other kind.
The command deck, it seemed, had barely been attached to the rest of the ship after what it had endured, and it seemed that their fortune had held at least that far. It was jutting out from its place on the ship, connected by a twisted wreckage to the larboard, and the long cables that now drifted free of any containment.
Adrian had made taken the two hundred meter uncontrolled leap towards the next section of the ship, landing lightly on the wall of some annihilated room and blasting straight through it to find himself in a storage room.
He nearly laughed; with the exception of the big hole in the starboard side, it had the same layout as the one he and Askit had broken their way into when they had first boarded the vessel. He briefly marvelled at what seemed so long ago now, despite only being a matter of hours, that it had begun to feel rather nostalgic.
There wasn’t much laughter to be had now, though. There wasn’t time to have it even if he could find any. The more time he spent fucking around, the less chance they would have of the life pod actually getting them out of there.
“Next door,” Askit said, peering from over his shoulder. “That’s the cargo bay.”
“I know,” Adrian replied, wondering how he was going to get through it. His anti-tank gun might have done the job, but that had been among those objects that fed the dark star. “Any ideas on getting through it?”
Askit sighed. “Got a pipe?”
Now Adrian did laugh, but he started looking through the boxes until he found something that helped. It wasn’t a pipe though; it was better than a pipe.
He smiled in weary relief, activated the fusion cutter, and started slicing through the door like it was butter. “Thank fuck for small mercies.”
“Look for a crate big enough to hold a life pod,” Askit said, and pointed over to the larboard side of the cargo bay where the bigger crates were stored. “It’s supposed to be over there, so it should still be in one piece.”
“I hope we didn’t blow it up with the missile earlier,” Adrian said, looking over and seeing the mess that had started sliding across the deck under the power of the black hole’s gravity. The huge starboard airlock was still in one piece, but a massive pile of debris floated around it. “We’re going to have to open that as well.”
“I’ll tell you what to do once we find the pod,” Askit urged. “Come on!”
They started looking, both of them trying to make out the possible content of the crates that lined the shelves, until Askit finally happened to spy it. “There!” he cried out with certainty, jabbing a finger in the direction. “That’s it!”
“You’re sure?” Adrian asked, peering at the box and finding nothing remarkable about it other than its size.
“There’s a beacon code on the side of the crate,” Askit replied. “Those only show up on things with beacons.”
Sighing, Adrian pushed them over towards it. “Here’s hoping it’s not a fucking satellite then.”
It wasn’t, and Adrian had never been so glad to have been wrong in his life. The life pod was not, apparently, completely operational – it didn’t have a functional FTL drive for starters, and it hadn’t been provisioned with food – but it had a kinetic drive, it had air, and most importantly it had a working beacon and stasis system.
“Alright…” said Adrian, freeing it from the crate with a few long slashes of the fusion cutter. “What do we do now?”
“Now we move it over to the door, and we feed some of its power into the thing so we can get out!” Askit told him. “Let me off here, I’ll get it over there and you can do the heavy lifting.”
More heavy lifting, Adrian thought with a sigh, but of course, one way or another, there’d soon enough be nothing left to do. So he had that to look forward to. “Fine.”
He was there before Askit managed to park the small capsule near the power conduits, and had already pulled out enough slack to get the thing jump started.
“Looks like you know what to do,” Askit observed over the link. “So do it. There’s an external lead port on the side I’ve oriented towards you. You should be able to see it.”
He did see it, and Adrian didn’t need any more prompting than that, and it took all of ten seconds to fix the cables into place. It took five more for Askit to push enough power through to the door to get it to open, or at least open enough to get the pod out; the door was massive, and their power and time were both too limited to push it all of the way.
“Come on!” Askit demanded as it widened enough, his voice full of urgency and fear. “Get in! Get in!”
The pod started moving as soon as Adrian fell inside, surprised by the sudden return of artificial gravity, and he lay there to catch his breath while Askit squeezed the pod through the narrow slot with only the gentlest of knocks and pushed it free of the dead ship.
“We’re out!” he reported, turning to look at Adrian. “Now we just have to hope we did it in time.”
“You don’t know?” Adrian asked, pulling himself to his feet for what he hoped would be the last time.
“The pod isn’t equipped with a sophisticated navigation unit,” Askit explained. “I don’t know anything except which direction we’re going and how fast.”
“But are we going fast enough?” Adrian persisted, finding he was now leaning heavily on a chair for support.
Askit shook his head apologetically. “I just don’t know.”
“Fuck dammit!” Adrian cursed, hitting the chair that supported him with the last of his strength, then leaning against it all the more heavily. “What do we do now?”
“Now?” Askit asked, turning back to look at the consoles. “Well, I’ve already retuned the beacon to ask for help from people we want to see, so all that’s left is to go into stasis.”
Closing his eyes, Adrian gritted his teeth, and found he just didn’t have the energy for it all any more. “So then if we don’t make it…”
“Then we don’t know,” Askit finished.
It sounded good. They’d either live and tell the tale, or this would be the last part of hell they’d need to go through. “Alright, let’s do it” he said, holding up a fist for the little Corti to bump. “See you on the other side, mate.”
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