Gabriel had never imagined he’d know what it felt like to cave in another person’s head. But when he saw the attendant overpowering the woman he’d just met, he grabbed the nearest blunt object he could find – an oxygen tank – and felled the aggressor to the ground.
A blow to the head was the most efficient way to incapacitate someone, he figured. Except he might have been too efficient from the surge of adrenaline.
The sound was the most striking part, how the hit had echoed. Like a bell.
Gabriel dropped the tank, which clanged against the floor. He rushed to the woman’s side as she fell to her knees. “Are you all right?”
She nodded but her face was pale. “Thank you.”
He coughed at the thickening smoke and the woman climbed to her feet.
“You got a personal shield?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
He shook his head.
“We need to get out of here.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” he managed, his entire face stinging with each breath.
“Do you see a fire extinguisher anywhere?”
Enough flames had escaped the clutches of the extinguisher foam to ignite up through the Lunar ship’s ceiling and vents. But this was not an old ship – the fire should’ve been contained by the emergency system had it been functioning properly.
The woman tried the door of the emergency shuttle. Locked.
“We could try finding another emergency shuttle but most of them have probably deployed by now.” The thought of being unable to evacuate knotted Gabriel’s gut with dread. He glanced at the attendant’s body on the floor then back at her. “Care to lend me a hand?”
She raised an eyebrow but followed his lead. They each grabbed an arm and hauled up the attendant’s body, the woman undeniably taking most of the weight despite his best efforts. As they neared the shuttle door, he placed the man’s hand on the authorization panel, hoping that the body was still warm enough to register.
The door slid open and an unconscious person tumbled out from the other side.
“Hey!” A second attendant burst in from the opposite side of the deck. Two more ran in from behind them, all of them slender and tall, dressed in blue livery. They yelled to each other in a language Gabriel’s auto-translate did not recognize.
“We’ve got more friends,” Gabriel said as they stumbled into the shuttle. The woman let him take the attendant’s full weight as she dragged the person back inside the narrow cabin.
“Quick! Shut the door!” she yelled.
He lurched forward and managed to aim the limp attendant’s hand on the dashboard authorization panel. “Close and lock the door! Initiate emergency launch now!”
The shuttle door closed in time for their pursuers to slam into the other side, pounding on the panel. But the craft didn’t budge.
The woman sat the slight person onto one of only two seats and buckled them in when their eyes fluttered open, brilliant emerald green in their pale face.
“You’re safe now,” the woman said. “We’re evacuating.”
“Fucking finally,” they muttered before drifting unconscious again.
The woman blinked and exchanged a glance with Gabriel. She looked uneasily over the cabin. “Is this thing even safe to fly in a vacuum with all the fire damage?”
“We should be alright.” Gabriel hoped so, at least. “Fire foam is made to form a seal in case a fire eats through a hull.”
He followed her gaze over the charred back corner of the shuttle, where an open electrical panel appeared to be the origin of the fire. “Let’s hope I covered it all, then.”
Gabriel expanded the control panel over the dash while the pounding at the door intensified with insistent shouting. “I don’t think this is actually an emergency shuttle.”
“So… do you know how to fly whatever this is?”
“Perhaps.” As a Spacer, he should probably know how to navigate a small ship of this caliber. But he always traveled on auto. Getting from point A to point B was usually an excuse to get caught up on his reading outside of the lab.
A loud slam reverberated through the shuttle as the attendants tried to break through the door panel. Were they using the oxygen tank as a battering ram?
“Switch navigation to manual.” A wheel emerged from the dashboard and Gabriel took the controls with both hands, pushing forward. They lifted and almost rammed into the back wall, sending the attendants scattering to the edges of the deck. “Oops.”
He jerked back and the woman groped at his chair to keep standing. “Steady, now. Easy. Pull back gently. Now lean and turn the wheel with you the way you want to go.”
They dove toward the floor and he corrected abruptly. Sweat dripped down his brow. “Maybe you should be doing this.”
“No way. I’ve flown weather drones on Earth but I was on the ground the whole time.”
“That’s more than I can say.” He got out of his seat. “Come on.”
“Uh, okay.” Despite her hesitation, she sat with a confident grip on the controls. Sure enough, they drifted smoothly into position facing the space door at the end of the deck. “Got any idea how to open those?”
Gabriel exhaled and marveled at her. The holograph cast her profile in soft colorful lighting. With purpose, she’d transformed before his eyes. She’d been laid low upon their initial meeting. Now she was magnificent.
He found the controls to the outside doors. They opened, the deck’s atmosphere holding. One look into the void, and the woman froze.
“Oh, Gaia.” She swallowed and shut her eyes.
He reached over and put his hand over hers. “Hey.”
She opened her eyes to meet his.
“I don’t know you at all, but I know you’ve got this.”
As soon as the doors opened all the way, they began to close – the attendants on deck must have overridden the controls.
“Go,” he urged, bracing himself. But they were going too slow, their chances of escape diminishing rapidly. They weren’t going to make it.
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