The airlock opens in silence between us.
“Go on then. None would know,” I say.
“Tempting. But Republic Intelligence says you’re the link to a weapons lab. Ain’t seen a thing that’d make me agree, but it ain’t my duty to agree, savvy? Now let’s work. And by the way, no one gets to choose their own callsign.”
“What was yours?”
“Badassmotherfucker.”
With a short burst from his gustpack, Fel backflips into the void. I follow, a foot shorter, twenty kilos lighter, and nine years less veteran in the realm of unforgiving cold, rock, and shadow that is the asteroid belt.
Using one burst from my pack to clear the airlock, and a second to angle up, and a third to coast parallel to the asteroid’s terrain, I match Fel’s velocity. “Clean your lines,” he says. “You’re drifting.” I course correct. “Reduce your velocity.” I reduce a half percent, growing annoyed.
His metal feet greet the surface of the asteroid, and he rebounds into a loping gait. I mimic with less grace. “Your trajectory’s filthy, Piggy. Dampen your kin imp by three per.”
He’s right, of course. My gait was taking me higher and higher, out of sync with his route, which would expose me to sniper fire if the asteroid wasn’t abandoned like all the others we’ve searched these last months. I adjust. “Better. The anomaly is three clicks out. Shadow me, and train your sensors six to twelve.”
“Check.”
“Pilot, what’s your read?”
Xaria’s voice is smooth and one note. “Skies clear. Omega scan inconclusive. Anomaly is metallic. Material unknown.”
“Begin orbital dep recon. One eye on ground, one on sky. Just because we don’t see the Moonies on scanners don’t mean they aren’t in the neighborhood.”
Sightings of Rim hunting squadrons are growing more common even as sightings of Republic squadrons grow rarer. Flying dark, we don’t get reports from Mars. Even without them, if the war in the Core is going like the war in this sector of the Rim, we know we’re on borrowed time. Rumor has it even the Obsidians are joining in on picking the Republic’s corpse. I wonder if the raids three sectors over are from Fá, if Volga is only a few million clicks away.
Fel moves with appropriate urgency and I struggle to keep up.
To the sound of our own breath, we lope over the dead landscape. Nothing but cratered rock and shadows move beneath.
I follow Fel’s line and land lightly on the edge of a huge crater where our scans picked up the anomaly. I search for a reaction from the parasite. Nothing.
“Drones out,” Fel orders. The four drones detach from his left shoulder and disappear into a crater. Mine join. Within thirty seconds, my third drone finds a human design, flags it, and begins analysis. A gun turret, depowered with a hardline running into the stone. “Ancient model,” Fel says as we inspect it. “Power source. Won’t be far.”
“This ain’t it,” I say.
“Parasite talking to you again?”
“No.”
“Less talking and more sniffing then. Drones detect durosteel below.”
I follow Fel down into the crater where we find a metal plate thirty meters by twenty embedded in the rock. Searching around the perimeter of the metal plate, Fel finds a manual control panel. His metal hands peel its lock away like it’s tissue. I clear off the door as it retracts.
“Pilot, we’ve found an aperture. Likely a pirate nest. Deserted by the age of it. Continue orbital survey.”
Fel swivels forward his Rim-style rifle from its back holster, and drops into the darkness. I pull my smaller rifle and follow, down, down into the depths.
“Yut. Pirates,” Fel mutters in defeat before I land in what once was a mid-sized hangar, judging by what our helmet lights can illuminate. An old corvette larger than the Snowball lies abandoned in the center of the room. “Pilot, looks like this is a dead end. But since we’re here, we’ll stick to protocol. Full search. Piggy, you’re east. I’m west.”
It’s not the first pirate refuge we’ve found, but it is the oldest. Its halls are pitch black. My helm provides the only light. Rifle up, I turn a corner and a shape lunges at me. I slam down to a knee and fire three times like Fel taught me. I report contact and search the hallway for more. None appear, and with my heart in my throat I inspect my kill.
It’s just bones. A skeleton, now shattered. I laugh at myself. “Cancel contact,” I say, embarrassed. “Just a skeleton.” No one replies. “Fel?”
Static hisses.
“Fel? Copy? Shit.” I glance behind me. Our coms are military grade. Shouldn’t be enough interference from the walls to block the signal. I hail the ship. Nothing. Knowing I’ll get bitched apart and stuck on latrine duty if I don’t complete my recon, I press on despite the hammering of my heart. I find sleeping quarters filled with floating personal effects, a storage room with medical equipment, and a mess hall with skeletons. I sweep my rifle counter-clockwise through the room. Nothing moves except the skeletons. There must be nearly fifty clothed in tattered jumpsuits. They float in a tangled dance over tables bolted to the floor. I creep toward one and shine my light into his eyeholes.
A hand grips my shoulder from behind. I jump and wheel only to have my rifle muzzle knocked upward. It’s Fel. I breathe easier. “Sonofawhore, you scared the piss out of me.”
He gives me a coms dead signal then motions to join helmets so we can hear. His voice is muffled. “Coms are down to the Snowball. Probably interference from their reactor. Just bodies back my way.”
“How’d they die?”
Careful, he pulls one of the skeletons closer with his rifle and points to a green tinge on the bones. “Green Death,” he says. “Antique bioweapon. Vacuum resistant. Wiped out dozens of colonies and mines two hundred years back. Just a drop of the virus is grounds for instant quarantine. Yawning is less contagious, literally. Let’s get the Hades out of here.”
No argument from me. He tries hailing the Snowball a few more times before deciding we’ll have to do it on the surface. We make our way back to the hangar and together float upward, out the way we came. I feel better on the solid ground of the surface, and our short-range coms start to work again. Still, we can’t contact the Snowball. “This ’roid’s a sponge for electromagnetism. Must be dense with metals.” He pauses, and I sense the concern in his voice. “Strange. Should have shown up on scans. If a Silver found this place, he’d be a mining king in three years.”
“Except for the Green Death.”
“Good point.”
He reaches the lip of the crater first and stops, staring at something. I hurry and join him. Then I see what he’s looking at.
The Snowball spins on the horizon, lights flickering. “Pilot, do you read me? Pilot, do we have enemy—”
“Oh…” I murmur as black warships curl around the asteroid. Light lances from one and the Snowball simply divides in half. Her two pieces spin in opposite directions and crash soundlessly into the asteroid. The aft rebounds off, disappears into a crater, rebounds again to hit the lip of the crater, and then twirls lazily away toward space. The fore impacts and sticks into the rock a few hundred paces from us. Fel pushes me down.