The Dark Between The Stars

NINETY-EIGHT
ORLI COVITZ

As Tom Rom’s ship rushed toward her, at first Orli didn’t understand. She activated the Proud Mary’s comm again. “Look, maybe I wasn’t clear. I’m the only person on this ship, and I think I’m infected with a deadly alien microorganism. You cannot come aboard.” Nearby, the glowing debris cloud from the Onthos city continued to expand.

DD said, “Should we transmit copies of the records to him, so that a second person has all the data about the Onthos and clan Reeves.”

“Not yet. There’s something odd about this guy.”

Tom Rom’s face came back on the screen. His expression hadn’t changed; his eyes were just as intent. “I repeat, stand down and prepare to be boarded.”

Now Orli was losing patience. “And I repeat—this ship is quarantined! Do you have static in your ears?”

Tom Rom opened fire.

In the copilot’s seat, DD reacted with speedy compy reflexes and punched in a course-adjustment burst that sent the Proud Mary into a corkscrew spin. The lurch threw Orli out of her padded chair, and she barely managed to catch one of the arms before being thrown face-first into the control panel.

The stranger had specifically targeted their engines, trying to cripple the ship, but his low-powered jazer blasts skimmed past. Only one beam grazed the hull, causing no damage.

Orli scrambled to pull herself upright. “DD, get us out of here!”

The compy accelerated the Proud Mary away from the expanding debris cloud of the Onthos city. She feared that the Friendly compy would ask too many questions—Which course, Orli? What acceleration would you prefer, Orli? Do we have a final destination, Orli?—but the compy simply did his work. The acceleration threw her to the deck.

“Good work, DD,” she muttered under her breath as she hauled herself back onto the seat. She hammered the comm controls, yelling at Tom Rom. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Attempting to acquire a valuable sample. I can extract the virus from your dead tissue, if necessary, but I would prefer you make this simpler.” He opened fire again.

The Proud Mary did not have military-grade shields, but they offered enough protection to absorb most of the blast. Her ship shuddered and jerked. She took the piloting controls from DD and began a looping, zigzagging course away, but Tom Rom’s ship stayed close behind them.

Orli gritted her teeth. “Is he insane?”

“I cannot make an assessment of that, Orli,” DD said. “His weapons did not cause significant damage, but our shields are weakened.”

She flicked her glance around the cockpit, still getting to know the ship. “I didn’t expect to take us into battle. Do we have any weapons?”

“There is a hand jazer in the captain’s locker. Don’t you remember? You carried it when we first entered the Onthos city.”

“That’s not going to do me much good in a battle like this. I meant ship’s weapons.”

She scanned space around them. The derelict city was far from any inhabited planet, since the Onthos had not wanted to be found. Deeper into the system, there was an asteroid field she could hide in, but Tom Rom would run her down long before she reached it. The only thing out here was the alien city itself, which was nothing more than an expanding cloud of debris that still throbbed with dissipating thermal energy.

It would have to do.

Orli continued to fly an evasive course, but Tom Rom closed the gap between them. His engines were better, his shields were better—and his weapons were definitely better. He continued to fire at her with carefully modulated low-power bursts. If he accidentally hit the wrong mark, maybe he would blow up the Proud Mary instead of crippling the ship. That wouldn’t be Orli’s first choice, but at least it would keep him from getting his hands on the plague…

“DD, we have spare fuel canisters don’t we?”

“Yes. Captain Kett insisted that we be prepared for emergencies.”

“This definitely qualifies as an emergency. We have to lose him. Go into the back compartment, take out one of the ekti canisters, and rig it for detonation. We should have small triggers in the spare-parts locker.”

The little compy left the piloting deck, though he seemed hesitant. “My training is not necessarily appropriate for this activity.”

“The ship’s database should have all the information you need.”

“I will do my best.”

“You’ll do fine, DD. Just get it ready, and I’ll do the blowing-up part. Meanwhile, I’ll keep this nutcase occupied.”

“Perhaps he will see reason if you explain the situation to him,” DD said.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath—I’m just stalling for time so you can rig the canister.” Orli opened a channel, and he appeared on the screen. “Look, Mr. Rom, let me make a bargain with you. I can give you the complete history of an alien race, the architecture of that space city, the full records of clan Reeves, full documentation of the disease and its progress.”

Even as Tom Rom raced after them, his expression remained placid. He didn’t look angry, didn’t smile. “Very well, I will accept those records as adjunct information. Transmit them. They may be useful in the overall characterization of the disease—but my employer has very specific needs. I am required to take a blood and tissue sample.”

Orli saw red at the fringes of her vision. “And you’re not listening to me. Every person aboard that station died of the plague—one hundred percent mortality rate! It has to end here. I can’t let anyone else be exposed.”

Tom Rom seemed unimpressed. “I have adequate quarantine measures. The organism will remain safely contained. There is no need for concern.”

She muted the comm when DD returned to the pilot deck. “It’s prepared, Orli. What is our next step?”

“We’ll jettison the canister and detonate it. Can you rig the signal through my station?”

“I have already done so, Orli.”

“This may be our last chance.”

The compy moved to the rear of the Proud Mary and inserted the ekti canister into the disposal bay.

Orli reopened contact with her pursuer. “I don’t know what kind of sick hobbies your boss has, but you don’t get a sample of this disease.” She leaned closer to the screen, hoping to impress her determination upon Tom Rom. “Look, this plague is going to kill me, and it’ll be a long and horrible end. I saw the bodies of the other victims. Between you and me, I’d rather just self-destruct here—quick, clean, a final flash of glory.”

Tom Rom seemed surprised by that. “You don’t appear to show any symptoms. You can’t be so eager to die.”

“Who said I was eager? But I’m looking at the big picture.”

“You are bluffing,” Tom Rom said.

On the screen, DD signaled that he was ready. Orli’s hand raced across the control panel. “Am I?”

She jettisoned the ekti canister, and two seconds later she pressed the detonation signal. The fuel tank exploded in a bright flash, sufficient to blind Tom Rom’s sensors, to startle him… and maybe, she hoped, confuse him. She only needed a few seconds.

Orli instantly changed course, not caring how much fuel she burned. She shot off at maximum acceleration along the course she had already laid. The Proud Mary plunged down like a launched projectile. Orli shut off all her engines, all lights, every external power source.

Her ship hurtled along in dark silence under its own momentum, leaving Tom Rom’s vessel behind. With his sensors blinded, he wouldn’t be able to see where she had gone.

The Proud Mary slipped into the expanding, simmering debris cloud. Her pursuer would never find them in the glowing thunderstorm of wreckage and radiation.

DD returned to the pilot deck. “Did it work, Orli?”

“Well enough—I think.” Her pulse was racing, and she felt feverish. Before she could catch herself, she vomited on the deck. Maybe it was just the tension, a response to the terror, the adrenaline rush.

But probably not.

She wiped her mouth while DD hurried to find a cleanup kit for the mess on the deck.

“Now we sit here and wait for him to go away,” Orli said. “This isn’t exactly how I had hoped to spend my last days.”