Free Stories 2016 Page 3

"Okay, here we go," Shay announced. "Three, two, one, release!"

  Brody opened the twin claws, releasing his EMU from the sled. Just as he'd suspected, nothing happened. "C&C, Red Five. No joy. Nothing is—" He stopped, staring at the sled.

  It was moving away from him! Had they fired the maneuvering thrusters on the station? No, they couldn't move the structure that fast, could they? As he watched, the tether and sled moved further away and seemed to begin a slow drift upward. He realized that in a few moments he would be racing ahead of it, in pursuit of Dan Colton.

  "You were saying, Red Five?"

  Brody grinned. "I'm on my way. Science or magic, I'm on my way!"

  His grin faded. No one knew yet if this mission was a rescue—or body recovery.

  #

  Cole took a long, last look at SPS-3. They had done good work. Ahead of schedule, for once. He had a good team. He knew they would do him proud. Goodbye, Jen. Take care of Merry, he thought. With the image of his family fixed in his mind, he reached for his helmet release—

  —and stopped. A barely moving dot had appeared below the station, a new star drifting against the black background of space.

  "What the hell?" he said aloud. Its movement was so slow it was barely discernible. If he hadn't spent so much time staring at the station over the last few hours, he probably wouldn't have noticed it at all. Slowly, he lowered his hand from the release.

  He watched the strange sight until the light began to dim around him. Another sunset was sweeping over him as he fell into darkness at nearly thirty thousand kilometers an hour, but the mysterious dot had already moved below the station, which meant it was getting closer to him. Cole continued to stare at the SPS, illuminated, it seemed, by every exterior light. He had lost sight of the dot, but had a feeling when he raced back into sunlight, his mood was going to get a whole lot better.

  #

  By the time daylight exploded on him again, Cole was shivering and having trouble breathing. He could again see the bright dot, close now, but well below him.. He rotated to face the sun. Within minutes, the heat soaked into his skin, but each breath was getting harder, more labored.

  Warmer now, Cole reoriented the EMU until he spotted the object. It had moved beneath him, then ahead, and was slowly climbing toward him. Finally, he recognized it: an EMU! But that wasn't possible. Oxygen deprivation?

  No. Cole was cold, exhausted, running low on air, but he damn well wasn’t hallucinating.

  Within minutes, the EMU slowed and approached him. Cole saw backlit plumes of vapor erupt from its jets as it slowed. A double unit. A double EMU with an additional prop-pack attached. And a single person strapped in it. Someone waving!

  Cole tried to wave back, but his arms felt sluggish. He realized his pulse rate had increased, his respiration now shallower and faster. Oh God, not now. His adrenaline surge faded, blackness tugged at him. The EMU was close now, maybe fifty meters away. Whoever was flying it wasn't very good, he noticed idly. It drifted directly in front of him, not stopping, the wrong jets firing. Staring through a gray tunnel, Cole tweaked the rotational hand controller, turned his EMU a bit, then pressed a button on his EMU's arm. The spring-loaded electromagnetic grapple ejected from under his seat, heading straight for the double EMU ahead of him.

  "Nice of him to come visit," Cole thought as he slipped into unconsciousness. "I hope I didn't kill him."

  #

  "C'mon, Cole! Can you hear me?"

  Someone was shouting down a fur-lined well to him. "Leeme 'lone," he muttered.

  "Cole! Dammit, wake up!"

  Warm air filled Dan Colton's lungs. His eyes fluttered open. He saw a bizarre, deformed spaceman in front of him, then realized it was his own reflection in someone's helmet. A couple of deep breaths cleared his mind.

  "Where am I?" he asked.

  "Thank God!"

  "Who? What?" The voice was familiar. "Brody?"

  "Yeah, Cole. C'mon, unbuckle and get over here. I already got your umbilical attached. God, that was hard to do by myself!"

  Cole’s training took over. He unstrapped himself and pushed off, landing in the open seat of the double EMU, now only a meter away. Fresh, warm air flowed into his suit through the umbilical. What a great name for that device, he realized. "What happened? I thought I was dead."

  "Well, I almost was: you tried to kill me with that grappler! I was able to turn fast enough so it hit the frame instead of me. The auto-retract pulled us together. I guess that was a good thing; I wasn't doing so good at closing."

  Cole managed a laugh. Before he strapped in, he reached over to his EMU and disengaged the grapple, uncoupling the two machines. They separated from Cole's EMU. As they moved away, he saw the back of it, now an unrecognizable mass of wreckage.

  "Jesus Christ, what hit you? I can't believe you're still alive!" He laughed. "Only Dan Colton could take an orbital impact and live to tell the tale."

  Cole stared transfixed at the disaster. Even the tiniest, most insignificant difference in the object’s trajectory and it would have missed him entirely—or blown off his head. He tore his gaze from the EMU before he vomited. Some legend.

  The background hiss in Cole's headset suddenly got louder as Brody switched the comm loops to high-gain. "C&C, this is Rescue One. I have a passenger on board who'd like to say 'Hi!'"

  Distant cheers erupted in Cole's headset. He waited for them to subside. "Uh, C&C, Red One here. I—" There's no crying in space. "I'm all right. Thanks."

  "Glad to have you back," came Lucas Gage's voice. "Hold tight and we'll be there shortly."

  Cole looked over at Brody. He could see the kid's face through his faceplate and wondered what the hell he was grinning about. "What did Gage mean, they'll be—"

  "Look!" Brody pointed a finger toward the SPS.

  At first, Cole noticed nothing unusual. Then—

  "What the hell?" he said aloud. It looked like a living thread, very slowly undulating above the station, like a single strand of spider's web released into the still air.

  The tether? Had the upper tether snapped? He watched, fascinated. Its movement was so slow it was barely discernible. Cole squinted. Was the station—moving?

  "I'm dead, aren't I?" Cole asked. "Or hallucinating."

  "Oh, just wait," Brody said. "It gets weirder. Hey Cole, do you believe in magic?"

  SPS-3 was definitely moving relative to the stars behind it. The problem was, it seemed to be moving away! He fought down another rush of panic. Forget everything you know about how things move, they had told him in training, a thought that had been reinforced countless times on orbit. Sure enough, the station soon began dropping, then growing, getting brighter.

  As the station approached, well below and behind them, Brody briefed him on what had been going on the last several hours, giving particular attention to Shay's transformation from quiet rookie to the rescue team's leader. Brody was right—it did sound like magic. But Cole didn't care. He had oxygen, heat, and—most importantly—he wasn't alone any more.

  They swept into darkness again, but this time, with warm air swimming through his suit and a friend's shoulder pressed against his, Cole didn't mind. In fact he enjoyed getting to know Brody better, and getting reacquainted with the stars and cities that punctuated the darkness with light. He pointed out places Brody had never heard of, and began to hear a familiar tone in the young man’s voice:

  Wonder.

  When daylight blossomed over them again, the station was almost directly below them, far closer now and following much the same trajectory Brody had. Within minutes SPS-3 moved ahead, climbing toward them.

  "How are they going to stop?" he asked.

  "More magic," Brody said.

  "It's science!" someone called through the headset. The voice was familiar, though stronger, different somehow.

  "Shay? Is that you?"

  "It's me, Cole. Hang in there a bit longer, big guy!"

  It was Shay's voice, he thought, but it sure didn't sound lik
e her. Earlier, he had mentally tagged her with the nickname "Shy." Maybe he needed to rethink that.

  About the time the SPS reached their altitude, maybe a kilometer ahead, he saw the lower tether go slack. It, too, had been released. The station was still approaching them, though much slower now. Cole stared at it, aware his mouth was open. He tried to think of something appropriate to say, something "legendary," and finally settled on, "So, what took you guys so long?"

  Cole's helmet rang with laughter. Sweet human laughter. Until this day, Cole had never appreciated how silent space could be. He stared down at the lower cache, far below and already drifting away from them. "Corporate won't be happy to lose those," he observed.

  "They aren't losing them," Brody replied. "Shay says they're tasking two orbital maneuvering tugs to recover them and stow them ahead of the station. We'll use the tugs instead of the tethers from now on. But it'll take a few weeks. Maybe we all get a vacation for awhile!"

  No argument from me, Cole thought, with visions of Jen, Merry, and a wide white beach in his mind.

  "We should be within range of your EMU lidar now," Shay's voice informed them. "Feel free to come on in. I've cleared all the runways for you."

  "Copy that," Cole said, grinning. He looked over at Brody. "You think you can take us in?"

  The kid's smile gleamed through his tinted visor. "You bet. That's why they sent me, you know: my ace piloting skills."

  More laughter from his headset. "Actually, it's because Ace there is the least massive person trained in EMU ops," Shay said, "and we needed all the performance we could get."

  Ace, thought Cole. And thus a nickname is born.

  The background noise dropped; Brody had switched back to internal comm so they could talk in private. "Shay's the one who really saved you, Cole. You wouldn't believe how fast her mind works: radar data, orbital maneuvers, all that tether stuff. She's gonna be a real star, you watch. She's like a genius or something! Or maybe a genie."

  Cole smiled at the admiration in Brody's voice. "Star, huh? You know, I like the sound of that. And she's pretty cute, don't you think?"

  Brody's grin widened. "Yeah, I'd noticed that."

  Cole felt the gentle push of the thrusters as Brody maneuvered them back to the station. He double-checked each move the kid made, feeling more like a driving instructor than a construction foreman, but when they finally arrived he had to admit the kid had done a pretty decent job. They berthed next to the air lock, unstrapped, and entered. Cole dogged the hatch closed and let his grip linger on the hard titanium of the handle. It felt good.

  "Pressurizing," Brody said. Moments later, they removed their helmets and stripped out of their pressure suits. Cole took a deep breath, relishing the metallic scent of SPS-3. Before opening the inner hatch, Brody reached out and shook Cole's hand, which felt even better. "Good to have you back, Cole."

  Cole grinned at Brody, whose blond hair was now plastered against his scalp with sweat, but didn't have time to respond. Someone opened the inner hatch and before he knew what was happening arms were pulling them into the EVA prep module. Cheers erupted around him. Legs Stanworth kissed him on the mouth and moments later Smitty grabbed him and nearly did the same. Every worker on the station was packed into the module to welcome him back. After the emptiness of the last few hours, he felt dizzy, claustrophobic, overwhelmed. And he cherished it.

  Eventually, he found himself in front of Lucas Gage, who just grinned at him and shook his hand. "You know, we don't pay overtime for joyrides," he said.

  Cole laughed. "As long as you don't dock my pay for the EMU, I'm good." Over Gage's shoulder, he saw Legs and Smitty laughing and hugging a petite, attractive black girl. "Be right back," he said.

  As he drifted over, Smitty and Legs saw him coming and moved away to give him some privacy. He stared into Shay Rivard's big brown eyes. They began to shimmer with tears.

  "Hello, Star," he said, and could tell she was blushing under that lovely caramel skin. Shay threw her arms around his neck and pressed her face to his shoulder. He felt her slight form sobbing against him, releasing the hours of pent-up tension. I guess there is crying in space, after all, he thought.

  Holding her to him, feeling the living warmth of her body against his, Cole looked out the viewport behind her. The tip of Florida was barely visible to the north, dawn just creeping over it. Beyond that horizon somewhere, Jen and Merry were sleeping, dreaming about him even now, perhaps, and the day he would come back to them.

  "Welcome home, Cole," Shay whispered.

  Home? No, this wasn't his home. But it was close enough, for now.

  Training and Truth

  by Ryk E. Spoor

  Chapter 1.

  This was a stupid, stupid idea.

  Xavier glanced back. Of course, they're behind me too.

  The oldest member of the gang was maybe two or three years older than Xavier; the youngest, maybe fourteen, a year younger. But there were at least fifteen or twenty of them, and only one of him.

  "So is this where I say I don't want any trouble, and one of you says 'too bad'?" he said. There was a dumpster to one side. If I can at least get over there, the wall and the dumpster cover my sides. Of course, then I'm cornered and I'll have to beat all of them, or enough so they decide it's not worth it.

  But I've got to do it. Otherwise that…monster . . . will have won.

  "You're trying to be funny. If you just dump everything you've got—and it's enough—maybe we'll all laugh, and you won't have trouble," the obvious leader—a six foot three, heavily muscled boy with pale skin, tattoos, and brown hair down to his shoulders—said.

  For a minute he thought about it. They probably won't take my ID, I don't have credit cards. But without the money, how can I get to California? How can I find out what happened?

  But the chuckles around the slowly-tightening circle told him that "maybe" was an awfully frail hope for escape. If I get out of this, I'm going back, finding that bastard who told me about this shortcut, and kicking his balls right up into his oversized funny hat.

  He was in the corner now, hard blue-painted steel on one side, bricks on the other. He unsnapped the strap, let his backpack fall. For a moment the others stopped, probably thinking he'd decided to give them everything they were asking for.

  Well, I'll do my best to give them what they're asking for.

  He dropped into a simple front stance and waited. A ripple of laughter went around the group. But the simple pose reminded him of that day, of the last hours he remembered being happy . . .

  ***

  I can't wait to tell Mike! Xavier thought as he leapt easily off the bus and jogged towards his house. The glittering, heavy golden medal bounced off his chest with each step, and he knew he was showing off, knew that the sparkle off the medal in the late-evening summer sun would draw every eye.

  "Mom, Michelle, I'm home!"

  His older sister turned, then gave a little scream. "Oh my god, Mom, Xavier's got the gold!"

  "Oh, my goodness! Hold on, don't move!" His mother, gold-haired like his older brother Michael, appeared, camera in hand. "Let me get a picture." She took even more photos than Xavier felt were entirely necessary—he could smell the roast chicken that was obviously waiting for his attention. Then she stood back and just looked at him for a long moment; he could see a shimmer of not-quite-shed tears in her green eyes. "Your father would be so proud."

  As usual, he didn’t quite know what to say to that. Dad disappeared when I was, what, two? Don't even know what happened to him, some people say he ran off with another woman.

  But Mom always talks about him as though he were just about perfect. Finally they were heading to the dining room! And she always ends up comparing me to him because I look a lot like him . . .

  He glanced reflexively at the picture—one of only two photos of his father he knew of—on the wall. It did look much like him, sharp angles, a hawklike aspect to the face, and most of all the large, uniquely gray eyes, eyes tha
t seemed to follow you from the picture. Never did like that one much.

  But after dinner was the best part of the day. He went upstairs to his room and picked up the phone, dialed the number his brother had given him. Can't wait to tell him . . .

  But this time there was an answering machine, telling anyone trying to contact M. T. Ross to call a different number.

  That wasn't terribly unusual—as a freelance photographer and sometimes investigative reporter, Mike sometimes had to move quickly. And he did sound a little tense, something he was looking into sounded kind of bad . . .

  Still, it didn't worry him as he hung up and started dialing the new number. Mike was as good a fighter as Xavier was, and bigger, tougher, and a lot more experienced. He'd been in war zones, walked through countries in revolution, taken pictures of erupting volcanoes from inside the crater, followed police on major drug busts, interviewed gang members, and walked a mile to the nearest hospital after being knifed in the back by someone from a different gang.

  The phone on the other end barely rang before it was picked up. "Xavy?"

  "Mike! Stop using that name!" It was an almost standard greeting—his childish nickname was annoying, but Mike refused to stop using it.

  "Not a chance." Xavier could hear waves in the background. "You and Mom and Sis okay?"

  The question wasn't unusual, but…Mike sounded funny. Too serious. "Sure. I have something to tell you."

  "I've got something to tell you too," Mike said, and this time he was sure. Mike sounded dead serious, and tired. "But you first."

  He shrugged off the phantom concern. "I got the gold in the tournament!"

  For a moment the dark tone was gone. "Way to go, bro! I'll bet Shihan was happy!"

  "He looked almost happier than I was, I think," he said, grinning again as he remembered Shihan Butler's ecstatic grin. "The team got four golds, six silvers, and six bronzes overall, but I was in the top rank, black belt, and the Japanese were brutal this year."

  "But you still took 'em all down. That's my little brother. Congratulations." He was silent for a moment. "Look, Xavier—I don’t want to worry Mom."