At the Edge of the Cosmos: SciFi Contest Entries 2022

There's Always Plan-C

Contest: The Great Escape, July 2022
Host: @antiheroesgalore
Prompt: Always have an escape plan.
Word count: 1,981
Content warnings: Coarse language; mild gun violence.

* * *

Fifteen seconds.

That's how long Peregrine would have after being sucked out into the cold vacuum of space. Anything longer and she'd lose consciousness. Then, presumably, die.

But, she and her partner, Panda, had this all planned out. Peregrine only needed ten of those fifteen precious seconds.

She stood towards the back of the large metal office, slightly away from the two other black-suited goons and Billy Bass - the wideset, stocky kingpin whom she had just robbed. Peregrine too wore a black suit, which had quite a wonderful crimson trim and a good bit of stretch for those emergency exercise moments. Hidden beneath it was her compact Bianchi 550 low-velocity space pistol, a magnetic grapple gun, and a muesli bar (unrelated to the crime). No one here knew she was the thief.

Alas, in a few moments, they'd learn everything.

"Get that fucking video playing!" screamed Billy, spittle flying from his mouth like a tiny, wet meteor shower. The kingpin had no patience for IT support. He knew he'd been robbed. He knew the system had been accessed. He knew he had it on camera. They were pulling it up on his office computer screen now.

But it's OK. There was always an escape plan.

In one pocket, Peregrine (not her real name, of course) had a sleek squaredrive, onto which she'd transferred a treasure trove of political blackmail material that Billy had been using to get rather a lot of leniency from the Solar Federation police. In her other pocket, she had a bomb detonator.

Her finger slipped to the detonator.

She and Panda had one job: transfer all of the data onto the squaredrive, erase it in the original system, and return to the Sol System. Rendezvous was a station above Mars. Peregrine would never see her handler's face, but they would wipe her criminal record in return for the job. Finally, she could ditch this god-awful codename and start afresh. Go legitimate. Somewhere with a breeze. She hoped Panda would join her. They'd been working together for years.

She bit her lip.

Her thumb flipped the cap off the detonator.

"Fast forward you idiot! The alert went off at two twenty-five. Two twenty-five! Christ it's like you've got skull all the way to the middle."

Unbeknownst to Billy Bass, Peregrine and Panda had placed a special charge on the outside of this office. When she blew it, standing closest to the wall, she'd be sucked straight out into the frigid vacuum over Skadi - a rocky little piece of shit moon floating above Epsilon I - where she'd whip out her grappler, fire it into the open airlock of her ship, the Tick, zoom into the airlock, slam into the wall, and black out. But, Panda would seal the door, pressurise the airlock, and she'd be back on her woozy feet within twenty or so seconds.

They'd trained for this.

She could do it with her eyes closed.

Which was just as well, because she'd probably go blind for a bit after firing the grappler.

"There, there! Who's that? Zoom in!"

Go time.

"Wait," said Billy, craning towards the square monitor. "That's ... why you cheeky little fu-"

She hit the button.

The blast came quick and fast, almost knocking her from her feet and showering the room in smoke. A shard of metal sliced across Peregrine's shoulder as the suction started - explosive decompression, all air in the room being violently ripped into space. As planned, Peregrine went first, her breath exploding from her lungs and her body yanked backwards.