The Dark Between The Stars

ONE HUNDRED AND TEN
ORLI COVITZ

Orli’s will to survive had nothing to do with logic. The Onthos plague raged through her body, and new dark blotches appeared on her skin. Her fever remained high, and she felt as if a halo of mist surrounded her, closing in on her peripheral vision so that she saw only a clear central tunnel with blurred edges. She was nauseated most of the time. Her hands shook so badly that she could barely operate the Proud Mary’s controls.

But now the ship rested at the base of a large crater in a tumbling asteroid.

Orli knew she couldn’t possibly have more than a few days left. She also knew that Tom Rom was probably still hunting for her. She began to doubt she would ever find a chance to transmit the vital historical and biological records that she kept.

Given that, logically, she should just self-destruct the ship right now, erase all trace of herself and the disease—and DD. But Orli was a fighter, and she was still alive. She couldn’t bear the thought of her loved ones spending the rest of their lives wondering what had happened to her—Rlinda Kett, even Matthew (although he was a turd, she had to find a way to send word). Not to mention the treasure trove of scientific data about the Onthos and about the plague itself. It might give researchers some starting point if the disease ever appeared again.

And… she wanted to live.

“One step at a time,” she said. “We don’t have many options, DD, but we’re not going anywhere unless we get our engines repaired.” She turned to the Friendly compy. “You downloaded all that information about repairing starship engines. Time to put it to use. Get the toolkit and go outside to work on the external damage.”

The isolated crater had high walls, and the Proud Mary should be stable and undetectable, at least long enough for DD to finish. For the past day Orli had been too tired and weak to do anything but rest, hide, and wait. But her condition was growing worse, and she knew that if she didn’t do something now, she would lose her last chance.

Carrying the toolkit, the compy looked like an undersized but eager repairman. He went to the airlock hatch. “I have the complete maintenance record for the Proud Mary. I hope I don’t let you down, Orli.”

“You’ll do fine, DD.”

After he cycled through the airlock chamber, Orli remained in the padded pilot’s chair that had seen so many years of use. The worn chair enfolded her like a comfortable blanket. She lost track of time… and was startled when DD reentered through the airlock. On the chronometer, she saw that the better part of an hour had passed.

“The damage is extensive, Orli. According to our inventory, I have the spare parts I need to make the Proud Mary function, but I will have to disassemble the outer casing and remove part of the hull. It will take me several hours. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have me stay here to keep you company?”

“I’d love your company, DD, but you’re the only one who can fix the engines.”

“Yes, I am.” He fetched the requisite components, then cycled back through the airlock.

Orli struggled with the pain inside her. When she was a little girl, she and her father had lived from hand to mouth, chasing one get-rich-quick scheme after another. She had survived a Klikiss invasion and black robot massacres, and in the years afterward she’d made a good name for herself, built a business rescuing unwanted compies, married a man who should have been perfect for her. But life was messy and had taken her in unexpected directions. Rlinda Kett had given her a chance to start fresh, but in spite of all that, Orli was going to die alone in a crater on an unnamed asteroid in an uncatalogued system.

No, not alone. She still had DD.

Orli dozed again, and she awoke, confused. Her body felt cramped and achy, and she realized that DD’s voice had roused her, but the cockpit remained empty. The Proud Mary was quiet and dim, conserving energy.

DD’s urgent voice burst across the comm speakers. “Orli! He found us. His ship landed nearby, but our engines are dismantled, and we can’t escape!”

As if swimming through a soup of black static, Orli forced herself into awareness. She felt dizzy. Her head pounded. “What do you mean he—”

Through the windowport she saw Tom Rom’s ship on the crater floor not far away. A tall figure in a silvery environment suit already strode toward her ship. In the asteroid’s low gravity, he seemed to dance, light-footed as he crossed the distance in large bounds.

“Orli, he’s almost to the hatch! I transmitted a stern warning for him to stay away, but he doesn’t respond.”

Orli doubted stern warnings would have any effect.

She felt so groggy, so helpless, and when she shook her head the throbbing only grew more intense. Given the option, she would have detonated the Proud Mary now, but the ship wasn’t designed with a series of scuttling charges. “DD, you have to stop him. Do anything you can. Anything. You know what’ll happen if he gets what he wants.”

“I will try, Orli.” The compy sounded panicked. “Margaret and Louis Colicos gave me the same instructions when the Klikiss robots were attacking… but I failed there.”

“So now you’ve had practice. Don’t fail this time.”

The Friendly compy was only four feet tall, and he was not a combat model. He had no weapons, except perhaps his repair tools, but strict compy programming would preclude him from harming a human. He could not attack Tom Rom.

Orli forced herself out of the pilot’s seat, swayed, and fought back the dark unconsciousness fluttering around her. If her ship had possessed weapons, she could have opened fire on the other landed vessel, maybe vaporized the spacesuited figure, but she didn’t have that option.

Outside the windowport, DD stepped in front of the man, looking small and nonthreatening, but very brave. He refused to move. Tom Rom grabbed the compy, lifted him, and simply tossed him like a lightweight ball all the way across the crater. DD flailed as he flew, tumbling, until he hit the steep far wall.

A few moments later Orli heard the Proud Mary’s outer airlock activating.

DD’s voice came over the comm. “I tried to stop him, Orli. I am hurrying back to you as fast as I can.”

The ship’s outer airlock hatch sealed, and the chamber began to fill with air.

Orli applied a voice-command lock that scrambled the controls, hoping that would prevent Tom Rom from entering the main cabin. She staggered back to the captain’s locker and rummaged around. Everything was in disarray, the contents tossed about during her evasive maneuvers. Toward the bottom of the paraphernalia, she found the small hand jazer.

The airlock controls hummed with the frenetic flashing of lights. Tom Rom was scrambling them somehow.

As the heavy door slid open, Orli faced him with the weapon, trying to hold it steady, but the discharge tip wavered in a jagged pattern. She set the intensity to Stun. As Tom Rom’s suited form stepped out of the airlock, she fired.

The jazer blast crackled around his silvery suit. He paused, then continued forward. She fired twice more, but his suit insulated him. Orli increased the intensity to Kill level—which still didn’t stop him.

“Stay away!” she cried.

Tom Rom reached her, and she fired one more ineffective shot, even though he was less than a meter away. He grasped the hand jazer and wrenched it from her grip. Orli was too weak and shaky to resist.

He took the weapon in his gloved hand, glanced at it, and adjusted the setting back down to Stun. He turned the hand jazer on Orli. She had nearly depleted the power pack, but even the minimal Stun blast was enough to send her toppling backward into blackness…

She didn’t remain unconscious for long—but it was long enough. When she struggled back to wakefulness, Tom Rom was already wrapping up his work. Her arm was sore and bleeding. From the inside of her right elbow, he had withdrawn several glass vials of her infected blood. Still in his protective suit, he packed the vials away and sealed them into an insulated pouch at his waist.

She struggled to focus her thoughts, touched her bleeding arm. She meant to scream at him, but her words came out only as a hoarse gasp. “You bastard. You know how deadly that plague is. Why are you doing this?” She felt a sick horror. “Are you a terrorist? Are you going to turn this loose on whole populations?”

He turned the curved front of his helmet toward her. Through the reflective coating, she could see only a ghost of his features. His brow furrowed. “No. I don’t intend to release the plague at all. We will use every possible decontamination and quarantine procedure. Rest assured, it is completely safe. There was no need for you to be so concerned.”

“Then why?” Orli said.

“Because my employer is interested in it as part of her collection.”

For a moment Orli thought he was going to thank her or wish her well, but he made no such insipid statements. Now that he’d gotten what he wanted, Tom Rom had no further use for her. He went to the airlock and cycled back through.