SOMA (LGBT-scifi-romance)

Chapter Sixteen: Chase

Sector 09: Cita Canis

Jan. 25, 462 AC

Soma floated to the cargo bay, and strapped himself to the foot of Gemini's bed with the towline around his waist. The hilt of the tesla rested against his thigh. "I'm ready," he rasped, looking up to the cockpit.

Mercury pushed the ship harder, and they shot towards the fish. Momentum lurched. Beside him, Gemini didn't wake as they plummeted. Nitrogen winds shrieked by, and Soma watched in horror as the massive creature lifted its blind head to them.

The first coil impacted their right side. Soma choked, thrown against his towline. The red medi-kit split open. Jars flew. The rear end of their ship hit another serpentine loop and they tipped forward. Screaming, Soma shot out his arms to brace himself. His world spun.

Mercury laughed as they crashed through the tangled sky fish. Coils curled up the left side of the ship, leaving slimy scuds against the window. Their ship pulled sharply right to dislodge the stranglehold.

The cargo hatch opened like a yawn. Soma's coat flapped. Vials and the cigar stub tumbled by. Bandages unraveled into space. Slime and scales loomed over the hatch.

Soma tried to aim. The tesla tip wavered, emitting warm electricity and the chirp of a homing computer. "Stay calm," Mercury instructed. "Breathe out. Squeeze the trigger gently. Shoot twice to improve your accuracy. Three shots to kill." Soma nodded, rubbing his palms on his dirty pant leggings. He forced his eyes open until they stung and pulled the trigger.

In movies, guns gave off bright orange or blue beams of energy. Some even exploded in brilliant fireworks. Not in real life. Soma smelled the charge, felt the shock in his hair and fingers. He heard snapping static. But he saw nothing except the sky fish's massive blind head, recoiling at the shock.

Soma pulled the trigger again. His shot had the effectiveness of a rubber band. The offended sky fish reared back, twisting itself into a knot, briefly resembling a pulsing blue comet. And then, so suddenly it stole Soma's breath, the fish twisted loose and streaked towards them.

"How many clicks?" Mercury asked.

"What?" Soma gasped.

"How fast is it?" Mercury repeated, annoyed.

"Really, really—ah!" The fish's maw was red and slick. Soma scrambled back, shielding Gemini with his injured arm and pulling the trigger wildly on the other. The gun display flashed red, unable to find its target, and charges fizzed harmlessly at the nozzle. The ship sped up, and the sky fish missed the open hatch by a hand's span. Soma shot, and the fish's round orifice wrinkled at the electric charge. "Go, go!"

"Bah," Mercury spat. "Mach fish. Push your skinny to your right. Hard as you can."

Keeping his right arm cradled, Soma rocked heavily against his right wall, dipping the ship. With that momentum, Mercury twisted the vessel around, impossibly quickly, and dislodged their pursuer in the rapid turn. The towline dug painfully into Soma's bruised side. They barreled back towards the fish-chewed rock.

"Keep shooting," Mercury said evenly. "Keep its attention on us."

Attention wasn't a problem. The fish undulated after them. One coil swung forward. The wet maw latched against the cargo hatch. Ringed teeth dented into metal. Soma could smell the acid in its breath.

"Mercury!" Soma twisted in his harness and reached for Gem. "We can't outrun it!"

The ship made another stomach-lurching turn, ripping the pockmarked metal from the fish. They swung over a ridged lunaroid, gaining precious seconds, before the fish threw the huge rock off its course and caught up. Even then, Mercury's voice was slow and lazy. "No, but we turn faster. It's a classic wolf and rabbit scenario." Amusement laced her words. "Y'know, if rabbits had guns. Soma, do you trust me?"

"Yes." Soma clung to his towline.

Mercury slowed. The Behemoth wound its long body around their vessel and clamping its many-toothed orifice on the belly of the ship. Its tail tangled in the propulsion jets. Metal dented. Its mucus saliva sizzled. Mercury's voice was close, urgent. "I need you to scream, boy. As loudly as you can."

Soma squeezed his eyes tightly shut and screamed.

Miraculously, the fish loosened its grip. Mercury peered out and then navigated them through electric-blue coils. The fish let them go, retreating to the nearest floating rock and knotting bows across the crevices.

The cargo hatch whined close—one of the panels was ripped off during the chase.

"It gave up," Soma said, amazed. He rubbed his sore fingers. "Why?"

Mercury smirked, smug as a cat. She put her feet up against the controls and leaned back in the seat. "It was ordered to follow you, not harm you. Most skyfish are bred not to harm humans. Syns have no such luck. Now, we made good distance. Let's see whether it still follows us, or if it goes to find that tracker."

Behind them, the Behemoth-class sky fish meandered in the opposite direction, sniffing for the little square device they'd tossed. Soma's voice was hushed as the last blue coil vanished into the dark. "I didn't know vessels could move like that."

Mercury grinned. "Jealous?"

"Can you teach me to fly?" Soma asked, wide-eyed, rifle still in his lap. "Oh, your tesla!"

"Keep it," Mercury said. "It's yours. More effective than that screwdriver in your pocket. You'll need to defend yourself from now on."

If Soma had been more clear-headed, this might've worried him, but he was too flushed by adrenaline and the casual gift. Everything about Mercury was casual—from the touches to the way she talked. He didn't think he'd ever met anyone like Mercury before. "You... really are Leanne's champion?" he asked tentatively. "I've heard so many stories about you, how you protected synthetics, how you shot and nearly killed the Man of Means. You risked your life when they captured Leanne the first time."

"Guilty." Mercury flashed him a metallic grin.

In a rush, Soma's childhood fantasies rushed through him. Here was someone he'd admired all his life. Someone who performed miracles, who struck fear into human hearts. So what if Mercury was nothing like his daydreams? "Brilliant," he whispered.

They passed through pebbled debris, through a spider's webbing of nanocables, to where a faint sheen of atmospheric condensation gathered against the colony barrier. Soma gaped as their destination emerged through the dust.

Hovering there against the barrier was a massive rock of black iron, larger than Sentinel Tower and perforated with meteor collisions. Light spilled from holes in the rock, from a main hollowed room and a series of tunnels. The entire place was nestled in the debris belt, invisible to probing sensors.

"Clutchstone," Mercury said proudly, "a junkyard haven for stray syns and pets with teeth. Home, so-to-speak."

Slowly they pulled up next to the gaping mouth of the iron lunaroid, next to a plain blue cargo ship and a rusted two-seater. Mercury slid her thumb down the dashboard to cool the engine. Soma swallowed his questions and gathered his coat and stills. They emerged from the broken hatch and into Clutchstone, Gem's cot in tow.

Sounds drowned out his thoughts. A crowd of synthetics filled the main hollow. They whooped and clapped their wrist coms against the iron pillars. "Mercury!" they chanted. "Mercury!"

"You must be just as popular as Leanne," Soma said, awestruck.

Mercury tossed her gray snake braids and clicked her tongue amidst the revelry. "Please," she said. "Welcome to the resistance, squirt."