APRIL 7, 2074

NYS VEGA,

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND KILOMETERS BEYOND LUNAR ORBIT

Vega’s amber airlock panel clock blinked one minute and thirteen seconds until repressurization. Invisible snakes hissed in the vents. Vega’s bones shuddered. It was a cranky old man, spinning itself out of zero-g. The airlock’s space-charred, metallic walls groaned and creaked, and then hobbled towards her. She landed softly on all fours and then slid down the wall. She stood on the hull and outer airlock, which was now the floor.

With low gravity restored, the blood drained from her head, and the congestion in her lungs cleared. Gravity, even this ship’s low gravity, always felt better than zero-g.

She took a deep, square breath, letting the new-car smell in her suit slow her heartbeat. Outside the tiny window at her feet, Tesseract wandered away. With it, her escape.

The inner airlock beeped and clunked. When the airlock opened, the Chameleon surveillance drone hovering near it snuck through. It was invisible, riding on puffs of compressed air, while sending a three-sixty degree panoramic video feed to her hud from its twelve omnidirectional 32K cameras.

The Chameleon puttered beyond the equipment lock, in a narrow corridor wallpapered with a maze of metal ducts and pipes.

Waiting for her, four tall men in khaki uniforms, all easily a head and a half taller than her, one with Captain’s bars. She was tall, one-point-eight meters, or five-foot-ten, so they were well over two meters tall, or at least seven feet. None wore pressure suits or carried small arms. They had gaunt bodies and sunken cheeks, typical of people who let their muscles atrophy in space.

The corridor was too narrow to stand abreast, so two stood in a line to the right of the airlock, the Captain in front, and another two to the left. They’d have her surrounded when she exited the airlock. She’d have to escape the way she came in, or smash through them.

She stretched her fingers and tested the hydraulics in her suit’s leg joints. They weren’t likely to make a move while Jin controlled the ship. If they did, she’d take out the two in front by smashing their windpipe and ribs, then the two at the rear would be forced to hobble over their incapacitated friends, or run. They couldn’t go far. The crew compartment and bridge of Vega was a ring, an ouroboros. Every service shaft exiting the ring to the shipping containers was a dead end.

There were eight crew, four in the corridor waiting for her. Where were the others?

She climbed through the interior equipment lock. Her boots clanked on the metal floor. She raised her helmet visor and greeted the Captain. Framing him, a three-dimensional maze of silvery tubes and conduits. A hot, burned metal and charred food smell hovered between them, as if he’d hurriedly scorched his lunch in a microwave before she arrived. He spoke English with a Nordic, possibly Dutch, accent.

“Your fugitive is in container three-ninety-three.”

She sent the Chameleon drone to survey Vega’s crew ring. “Where is the rest of your crew?”

“We are day shift. They are night shift. Sleeping in quarters.”

She nodded, although day and night meant little in space. “So, some containers are reachable through the service shafts?”

“Container three-ninety-three, yes.”

“Others?”

“Some. You don’t need to go in those.”

She nodded as if she agreed, but she’d send a Chameleon drone to survey the ship. Anything in plain view was fair game.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She turned and eyed the clavicle of the crew member behind her. Three stories above his collarbone, he had sullen brown eyes and his breath smelled like garlic. The crew member behind him had fiery brown eyes and fists clenched. No name tags. Garlic-breath had two bars, a Second Officer. Fists-clenched had one horizontal bar, a deckhand. She turned back to the Captain. The crew member behind him had two bars and a machine symbol, a Third Engineer.

She said, “I need to confine the crew to quarters.”

The deckhand behind her said, “You give us back our ship.”

To the Captain, she said, “It’s for your crew’s safety. Never know how these things will go.”

The deckhand raised his voice. “We know how this goes. You steal and then you arrest us anyway.”

“He could be right,” she said. The Captain towered over her, and she had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. “I may need to impound this ship. If there are any problems.”

“How much it cost so we not have problems?”

“You can’t afford me. Three fugitives is what I am here for, Captain Ward. Stay out of my way. Confine your crew to their quarters.”

“I stay on bridge to monitor ship.”

She studied the crew dominating over her left shoulder. Garlic-breath, the Second Officer was three steps away, no distance at all in a close quarters fight. One step behind him, the deckhand’s every face and arm muscle clenched, ready to jump her as soon as he had the chance. Maybe her suit hydraulics were a match for Captain Ward and his giant beanstalks. Maybe not. Her best play, have Jin halt gravity. If nobody weighed anything, it would even the odds.

Turning to the Captain, she said, “I should charge all of you. Concealing a person from arrest. Willfully harboring or hiding a prisoner. Assisting or instigating escape. These are Federal charges that carry—”

“You have no jurisdiction here.” The deckhand took a step towards her, but the Second Officer put up one very long arm to bar him.

She opened comms to Jin and put him on speaker. “Jin, you’re wide. Picture.”

Without missing a beat, Jin responded, “Plenty of fuel to kick this rust bucket back to the colony.” Vega’s thrusters growled alive, and the ship jerked.

The Captain raised his hand. “Enough. We cooperate.”

The deckhand shouted and then tried to squirt past the Second Officer. She turned, unholstering her pistol. The Second Officer lifted his left arm, forming a loop, and then snared the deckhand’s neck in a headlock. She caught the sweat on the Second Officer’s hairy knuckles as his hand swept past her face and boxed the deckhand’s ear. Then he cocked his elbow, tensing his back and shoulder muscles under his khakis like a master archer, and discharged his fist in a sickening blow to the deckhand’s face.

Her finger was on the trigger, but she resisted shooting as the Second Officer twisted at the waist and tossed his quarry against the wall. They wrestled, blood spattering, rolling on the wall, clicking and clacking against the open pipes and ducts, until the deckhand’s temple crashed against a conduit the size of a fist and she heard the nauseating crack of bones. The deckhand went limp.

Bloody snot poured from the deckhand’s nose and down the front of his khaki uniform. She counted the red bubbles expanding and popping on his upper lip. He was breathing. Unconscious, but breathing.

Not an eyelash fluttered on the Captain’s face during the fight. He was stoic, as if this happened every day. Even though the deckhand was unconscious, the Second Officer kept pummeling, pinning the deckhand against the metal maze and landing punches that sounded like he was beating a sack of flour.

The Captain waved his hands and ended the brawl. “Enough. Get him to his quarters. All of you get to quarters.”

The crew dispersed. The Second Officer dragged the deckhand down the passage. Blood dripped with every step. She tasked the Chameleon drone to monitor the crew as they returned to their quarters.

The Captain said, “When do I get my ship back?”

To Jin, she said, “Jin, belay my request.” Vega wrenched and creaked, and then its engine rumble died. To the Captain, she said, “When my fugitives are secure.”

“Container three-ninety-three. Every day costs me millions so you go quickly now.”

“Your crew’s doors will be locked.”

“Acceptable. They are young and can be impulsive. I stay with bridge.”

She nodded. The Captain turned to walk down the passage. To Jin, she said, “Did you catch that?”

“I will secure quarters. The bridge too?”

Why did the Captain want to be on the bridge? There was nothing to monitor or control.

She removed her right spacesuit glove and maglocked it to her suit. Black grit rubbed off from the corridor’s silvery tangle of pipes. The floor was grimy, too. Except for the clunky footfalls of the Captain’s retreat, the passage was silent. There was no housekeeping drone buzzing and clacking its way towards the bloody spatter. There were also no telltale mirrored bubbles for interior cameras.

“Do we have eyes on the bridge?” She didn’t want to waste a Chameleon drone. She only had three. Maybe she was overthinking it. Captains liked to be on the bridge. It made them feel like they were in control, even when they weren’t. Still, her knee had been aching since she left Tesseract.

“Negative.”

“Keep the bridge unlocked. In case I need to get in there in a hurry.”