Stolen Flyght – Chapter 23

Whatever the military did to the ship, they took a lot, including most of the tech. Carlos swears up and down, his face grim. He rarely swears. Nanci, our new AI, doesn’t answer when we board. She must be disabled or erased. The cargo bay is stripped bare, all of our animals gone. Lights are missing, and trash is strewn about the floors. What a fucking mess.

Jinzo and Carlos carry Gloria to the couch in the common room and strap her in there. She’s shaking and crying, so I take her hand in mine and squeeze briefly before moving on. I run to Gus’s room and rummage around in his storage area until I find some heavy-duty painkillers and a shot of antibiotics. I run back to Gloria, give her everything, and she passes out. I have to press my mask to hers so I can see in and figure out if she’s still alive. She is.

I stop on the stairs back to the quarters when the lights flicker on, and the engine whirs to life.

“We’ve got power!” Jinzo calls from the engine room. “There’s not much fuel left!”

“Limited comms!” Carlos calls out.

I move my legs and hit my room at a sprint. My belongings are everywhere. The motherfuckers tossed the room from top to bottom, possibly only to make a mess because a lot of my stuff is still here. But there’s no time to despair. I take off my mask and pull the emblems I took from the doomed jump ring room out of my bra. I shove them into a bag, and then I layer on clothes, one after another, as quickly as I can. Three layers of pants. Four layers of shirts, plus the sweatshirt from Gus. I breathe from the mask a few deep breaths to catch myself up. Three layers of socks and a pair of boots. I find my knit hat on my bed, and then I see them.

My Bomba-Farias. They’re still here.

I lick my lips as I slowly reach out for them. That handmade leather, the gorgeous color, those heels — God, I love these shoes. Once they’re in my hands, though, I wonder if I should rescue them. All of my troubles started when I decided to buy these. They are a sign of my vanity and the person I used to be.

But damn. They’re so pretty.

Fuck it. I add them to my bag. Sue me, I’m keeping them.

Since I’m grabbing totally superfluous shoes, I also grab the bracelet Mat gave me. It’s stupid, but I pick it up and shove it in my pocket.

I snag a bunch of extra clothes, anything big on me, and stuff them into a bag.

The Amagi rocks. I hold on to my door jamb as I fling myself back into the hallway.

Next stop is Jinzo’s room, and I do the same there. I locate clothes and stuff them in a bag, as many as I can find. He has so few personal items, but I grab every one of them.

The ship’s internal speakers crackle. “Stabilizers are blown. Hold on. It’s going to be a bumpy ride,” Skylar says. I can hear the tension in her voice. She’s never flown in an atmosphere without an AI, so this is bound to be more than bumpy.

I run to Skylar’s room next, and I find Lia there, looking like she gained twenty kilos overnight.

She laughs. “Looks like we had the same idea.” She’s stuffing Skylar’s things into a bag too.

“How’s Eamon?” I scream over the roar of the engine. We’re both flung to the side as the ship banks hard. Squealing metal on metal echoes through the halls.

“Come on!” I hear Skylar yell from the bridge.

“We need more power!” Nina cries out.

“That’s all we have!” Jinzo calls back.

The Amagi jerks. Lia and I crash into each other and roll along the floor of Skylar’s cabin as the ship picks up speed.

“We’re out,” Carlos says over the comms. “I’ve sent a distress signal. No response. No emergency beacons. Simon’s ship is… It’s back in orbit. Shit. The channels are completely booked…. Oh, my God.”

“Vivian! Get up here!” Skylar’s bellow sends a chill through me.

“Go,” Lia insists.

“Get all the meds from Gus’s room, then go to the galley and raid the pantry. If they left any food, grab it.”

Lia and I break off, each going in opposite directions. I need to brace myself and climb up to the bridge from Skylar’s room, hand over hand up the railing, each foot weighing a ton. But as I ascend the stairs, the flight evens out, and Skylar reports, “Okay, we’re above it.”

Nina is in my chair on the bridge, and Skylar’s white knuckles clutch the manual controls. I gasp as I see what’s become of the navigation and life support consoles. They are empty holes where readouts should be. But the real view, the one that inspired Carlos to swear, is the base out the window.

Or, not the base, but the giant, black, smoking hole in the ground.

“Oh, shit.” My stomach bottoms out as I think about how many people may have perished in this disaster. I’m a mass murderer.

“It’s not as bad as it looks.” Nina is pressing a headset against her ear, listening to the emergency channels. “Once the fire reached the surface, it started burning out quickly because of the lack of oxygen. The military emergency bands are reporting low casualties, mostly injuries. The androids saved almost everyone.”

I blow out a shaky, relieved breath.

“The entire station is toast, though. The fire we started became so hot it was unstoppable.”

“Well, I suppose that erases some evidence that we were there?”

Nina nods. “And Carlos told me he erased much of the surveillance database before he left. Even if they figure out we were there, they won’t be able to prove it.”

The base explodes in a giant fireball again, and debris rains down on the Amagi.

“We need to get farther away from this.” I come to stand behind Skylar’s chair. “What’s our best bet?”

“We should head to the mountains.” Nina gestures to the rocky terrain out the window.

Skylar’s jaw is set, and she has to strain to talk. “Where in these mountains? Anywhere?” She turns the Amagi around, and the mountains sweep across the front window. The ship jerks, and she squeaks as she rights it. “Fucking shit. I’m not sure I can even aim for any specific place! I am going to kill every last dickhole that destroyed my ship.”

Nina glances at Skylar. “If we set down over there, to the right,” she says, pointing, “then we’re only five clicks from the original military base that was built here. We’ll be sitting ducks.”

“So, left then!” Skylar swings the Amagi around.

Nina takes out her datapad and shows me a map similar to what I saw back in Renata’s conference room in the Athens Industries headquarters. Right. There are three military bases on Neve, and civilians have built one base as well. The original military base is on the other side of the mountain range. They’ll be dispatching people to come help within the next few hours. We won’t have much time to sit around and wait for our rescue.

Will our evacuation team come before the military does?

Once we set the Amagi down, we won’t be able to hide her. We will be sitting ducks.

Skylar’s eyes find mine, and she’s begging me to make a decision.

“How much time do we have left on these masks?” I ask Nina.

“Twelve hours? Maybe a little less.”

That seals the deal.

“The Amagi can’t make it to orbit, and I’d rather be found and put in prison than die a slow, cold, suffocating death. Set us down near the mountains wherever you can.”

Skylar nods and keeps her eyes on the horizon out the window. She’s flying by sight and instinct alone. I smile at my cousin even if she can’t see it. She’s an amazing woman.

“You’ve got this, Sky. Trust your gut.”

She nods once and locks her eyes on the horizon.

“We’ll hike and get at least a half kilometer away from the Amagi. Find shelter in the foothills.”

“You want to leave the only shelter we have?” Nina’s voice rises.

I fling my hand out towards the mountains outside the window.

“You just said we’ll be sitting ducks. There’s nothing here for us. We’re out of fuel, and the Amagi will become a coffin if we stay here.” I sigh, trying to grab onto my runaway emotions. “There’s snow here and mountains and frozen riverbeds. There must be caves along the ridges we can shelter in.”

“Yes. There are places there to hide.” She nods. “We’ve done survival training here.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

I can’t tell if the anger behind Nina’s eyes is because I’ve slipped back into my role as captain or because of the situation we’re in.

“Fine,” she huffs, turning back to the stripped instruments. “But you won’t like it there. We’d be more comfortable on the Amagi.”

She knows I’m right. She just doesn’t want to be overridden.

I leave the bridge and join Carlos in his den. Sliding into the open seat next to him, I buckle myself in and prepare for landing. The den has been taken apart and looted. We don’t have an AI anymore because the AI’s equipment is all gone. Tears prick my eyes behind my mask. I spent a lot of precious credits on the AI, and now it’s been stolen.

So much of my life has been stolen right out from under me.

I sniff up, and Carlos reaches over to put his hand on top of mine. I squeeze his fingers.

“It’s not a total loss, Captain. I can fix anything.”

“I believe that.” I say it with the last of the strength I have.

I close my eyes and count to ten. This day cannot be over fast enough.

Skylar shouts over the comms, “Brace for impact.”

I tense my muscles and hold on tight as the Amagi slams into the ground and comes sliding to a stop. The hull screeches and falls into silence.

“Carlos, go grab everything you need from your room. Lots of layers. It’s fucking freezing out there.”

I walk through the Amagi and thank my lucky stars that I could see it again before the inevitable. Because I’m sure now the military will eventually take it for good, and we’ll never see it again. I stop by Ken’s and Gus’s rooms to pick up items I think they’ll want. Then I head to the auxiliary cargo bay.

As I suspected, the military took everything they could from the room. My entire setup is gone, including the wires Jinzo installed his first week on the ship when our relationship was brand new. Standing in the spot where my table-desk was, I remember the long, sleepless nights I spent here, cataloging plants and coming up with ideas on how to process them. Aw man. The Happiest of Hot Sauces is one of my best sellers and something I actually made money off of. People loved it. I loved it.

What a fucking waste.

I join everyone in the common room. Gloria is breathing through her pain, her face streaked with tears. I hover over her.

“We need to put some blankets over you because we’re going outside. I’m sorry if it hurts. We can numb your leg with snow, just as long as we don’t give you frostbite.”

“G-g-g-g-good idea.” Her face bounces up and down in her mask, and her teeth chatter.

“We called for the emergency evac,” Carlos says, laying his hand on her upper arm. “I’m thinking six hours at most.”

“That w-w-w-was the p-plan.”

Everyone layers on the clothes we have. Nina and Eamon borrow from Jinzo and me. Eamon has a gash on his upper arm that’s bound up in cloth but not bleeding. He fared much better than Gloria.

With some help from Carlos, Jinzo, and Nina, we reinforce the stretcher for Gloria and carry her to the cargo bay. The cargo bay door is damaged, so we have to leave the ship through the port-side airlock. And with everyone carrying bags (Jinzo has two), we are cumbersome and awkward getting to the outside.

Neve is worse than I thought. The barren prairie covered with snow stretches away from the mountains behind us. Wind whips along, carrying ice crystals that pelt my exposed skin and send my teeth chattering. The sun is setting, and the sky dazzles with shades of fiery red, scorched orange, and inky purple.

Jinzo opens his bag and pulls out a pair of digital binoculars. “I had these stashed in the sanitation closet with some MREs and a few other things.” He hands the binoculars to Nina. “It never hurts to be prepared.”

Nina takes a few deep breaths, pulls up her mask, and peers into the distance. She points to a spot at the foot of the nearest mountain. “We’ll find shelter there.” She brings her mask down. “Like I said, I’ve done survival drills here. But that also means other people have been there too.”

“We’ll have to take our chances.” I grab a handle of Gloria’s stretcher.

Everyone grabs a handle except for Skylar. We leave her to the rear, taking her last look at the Amagi. Maybe for the last time.