Ilana leaned over the sink and rinsed out her mouth.
The shuttle bathroom was spacious and pristine, with individual wash closets that self-cleaned after each user and sounded way fancier than a restroom had any right to be.
The bathroom also happened to be the only place in the shuttle cabin without windows.
Every time she looked out into space, her stomach staged a riot. The endless crushing void rocked her core with a visceral dread she had not expected.
She could barely hear the hum of the engine from her cocoon in the bathroom, just the occasional distant knock against the ship’s hull. Space debris had been a problem for centuries, despite cleanup efforts. There was simply too much orbital traffic to keep up.
Ilana tried to think of all the things she’d loved about space, everything that had made her come out here. She almost – almost – considered whether she’d made a mistake. Her mother’s chiding voice came foremost to her mind. Why had she come out here anyway? Why couldn’t she just be happy with everything she already had on Earth? She shook herself out of her spiraling thoughts and focused on the matters at hand.
First, work through her reptile brain’s existential crisis.
Second, figure out how to walk properly in artificial G.
And third, flirt with the hot Spacer she’d just met before the shuttle docked.
Ilana had met Spacers before, mostly as tourists enticed to her hometown by the splendor of the undomed Appalachian wilderness. She’d even gotten to know some of them intimately as they’d passed through. Lookout Mountain was a popular provincial destination close to Cape Canaveral, with a party scene to boot.
She preferred out-of-towners as they had no chance of growing roots. Ilana tried to remember if she’d referred to any of the Spacers she’d met as an “alien.” She hoped not, but considering how often she’d heard the Earthers around her using the word, it had slipped easily from her tongue. If she had said it to anyone, no one had corrected her over it.
She was thankful this person had. Considering she was starting a new life in space, he’d saved her from sticking her foot in her mouth any worse than she just did.
Ilana straightened and gathered herself. At least her stomach had nothing left to expel.
As she stood to leave, she caught the unmistakable scent of fire. Dirty fire, mixed with the spice of whatever it had just consumed. She coughed at the irritation in her throat.
Her body reacted before her conscious mind, spurred automatically by years of training. She activated her personal shield and emerged out of the stall to the bathroom lounge, where the scent grew faint. She tried the other bathroom stalls and traced the source of the smell to a small vent in the large corner unit. Why hadn’t any fire alarms alerted the crew?
She didn’t have much experience with fire in space but figured an unintentional blaze couldn’t be good. From what she’d read, space systems were supposed to snuff out fires before they got to the point that you could smell them.
Ilana activated her personal S.O.S. and exited the bathroom, making a beeline to the emergency exit at the end of the hall. She didn’t get far before she nearly collided with a tall and strikingly blond shuttle attendant dressed in navy livery.
“I think I smell a fire,” she started.
The attendant sprayed a mist of dense vapor into her face and she recoiled.
She blinked as the vapor met her personal shield and dissolved.
The attendant looked just as surprised as she was – there was usually no reason for a civilian to carry a personal shield, much less activate it in the course of day-to-day life. Ilana took the opportunity to kick him between the legs as hard as she possibly could.
He crunched over against the wall and she hesitated. He made to gather himself, his arm outstretched towards her. She saw an opportunity and took it, swinging for his face.
She’d forgotten that her new suit amplified her actions and strength. She hit him so hard that she lost her balance and he crumpled to the floor.
“Activate all emergency features,” she said to her com, panting against the wall. She elbowed the fire alarm next to the emergency door, easily breaking the case. The cabin lights pulsed and an insistent chime rang through the corridor, followed by a message to evacuate. She grabbed the small bottle of fire extinguisher and pushed ahead.
Her body was a live wire charged with heart-pounding energy. A fire emergency she could handle, even in space. But violence was something else entirely. She doubted the attendant’s actions were benign but her own swift and decisive reprisal shocked her.
So she focused on the task at hand instead of thinking about it.
She tried the emergency door. It was locked.
Ilana had bought her new suit as a splurge for finally getting a space contract. She hadn’t been able to help herself – she’d gone in on the most dialed-up model she could find. She was glad now as she shouldered through the door.
She burst into a stairwell filled with smoke and skipped down the steps to what looked like a utility deck. Her personal shield filtered the air around her. From what she could make out, flames erupted from the side of an emergency shuttle parked just ahead.
She aimed the fire extinguisher and pulled the trigger. The small bottle released an impressive load of particle foam that clung and grew to smother the flames.
Ilana was so caught up in the pounding of her ears that she didn’t hear the attendant until he came up behind her. Her personal shield blocked him at first. She stumbled away but he bore down with superhuman strength until his grasp dug into her arm.
He slammed her against the side of the emergency shuttle, the brutal blow reverberating through her shield and inside her skull. The fire extinguisher flew out of her hands and disappeared into the smoke. Her rattled senses struggled to catch up as he reached for her throat. She thrashed but he persisted, his grip closing in as he forced through her shield.
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