A Bonfire Of Worlds by Steven Mohan Jr

Author:Steven Mohan Jr [Mohan Jr, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-10-14T09:45:52+00:00

Derelict Orbital Station in High Orbit

Luyten 68-28, Exact Coordinates Unknown

Prefecture X

22 July 3140

Tucker drifted down the darkened passageway, his helmet light sending shadows skittering like spiders across the bulkheads. "There are no bodies here," he said nervously.

"Just yours and mine," said Alexi. Her voice sounded different over the radio.

"Well, that's good luck," Tucker muttered. He felt the comforting weight of his slug thrower in his right leg pouch. He knew it was irrational to fear mummified corpses drifting through a dark and silent world. Still he was glad he had the gun.

Alexi snorted. "There was no luck involved. The mess decks are right below the access hatch —I put them in there."

"You put them in with the food?"

"Don't worry, Tucker. They've been dead for fifty, sixty years. I don't they'll take any of your sweetened bean sprout paste."

Tucker made a gagging noise. "Alexi! That stuff's hard enough to eat as it is."

She laughed. "Sorry. Look, this is a fifteen-minute procedure. We'll dump your program into the buffer, manually align the antenna, set the timer, and then we're done. We can curl up in aux control with bean sprout paste until the cavalry gets here."

"I hope the cavalry brings cheeseburgers," Tucker muttered.

Alexi snorted.

They reached the access hatch. This part of the station was depressurized, so they wouldn't have to bother with an airlock.

"Here, I'll go first," she said.

"I'll do it," said Tucker, a little stung that she'd been laughing at him.

"All right, all right. Just make sure you anchor as soon as you get topside. Don't drift away on me."

"I know," said Tucker indignantly.

The hatch was set into the bulkhead at waist level. He unbolted it and set it aside, letting it drift slowly through the passageway. Then he stuck his head through the hole. There was a moment of disorientation as "sideways" suddenly became "up." Of course there was really no such thing as either "sideways" or "up", but tell that to a hominid brain designed for life on Terra.

He climbed out onto the station's surface. The deck plating was puckered and warped, whole sections peeled back by the force of a terrible battle waged before Tucker was born.

He picked out the antenna, twenty meters away along the main axis of the station. He started walking, careful to always keep one boot locked down.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flicker of motion. Alexi? He glanced back to check. No, she was behind him, half-kneeling as she unpacked the tools they'd need.

Nerves, Tucker. There's a million particles of debris orbiting the station, caught in its microgravity. That's all you saw. He resumed walking. Step-Lock. Unlock-Step. But he unzipped his pocket and slid the slug thrower out. The one he'd taken from the adept who brought him the radioactive junk.

The one he'd killed with.

He moved more carefully from feature to feature, crouching behind a mangled upwelling of metal here and wondering how much cover that crater would provide there.

Tucker snorted. Like Blakist ghosts would give a damn about cover.

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