Into the Black Hole

Chapter 43: DEW

"Ailee! Let's go!" demands Duarte.

I hesitate, captivated by the orange, dancing flames. Smoke burns my lungs. Thomson, you moron.

"Don't even think about it!" Duarte threatens. "I'll come after you, and we'll both fry."

Clenching my fists, I turn away from the fire and sprint to where Duarte, Eshe, and Timour are waiting. I won't risk their lives for someone who's most likely dead.

As we continue through doors and halls to the stern of Titan, Eshe asks, "Will we be able to enter the dropship?"

"Thomson gave me access," I say.

"The redhead?" questions Duarte.

"Yes," Timour and I respond in sync.

"I didn't know you had pirate friends in such high places," Duarte mutters. "First the woman, now the redhead."

I want to say that I think all Cosmics are high—as in, on drugs—but that wouldn't be fair. So instead, I state, "They're good people."

"They're still pirates."

My body starts to feel weird, like I'm on a roller coaster going downhill. Our running falters, and I have the urge to throw up, which allows me to figure it out—Titan is halting its rotation, plunging us into zero G. They're attempting to slow us. Unlike Plato and DeLarge, Titan isn't a battleship, and many items aren't tied down or magnetic. So when the ship stops spinning, a bunch of shit flies into the air, including us.

Duarte and Eshe respond quickly, clapping their heels together to activate their magnetic boots and connect to the floor. Eshe catches me while Duarte grabs Timour, and the Liansan bites his lip in pain from the points of contact. Noticing ridges in the upper right corner of the hallway, I point to them and say, "Keepers, look! Throw us to the handholds." Duarte and Eshe comply, and Timour and I float through the air until we reach the emergency handholds, using those structures to propel ourselves and continue our getaway. Duarte and Eshe "skate" across the floors—must be special Martian tech, because I've never seen magnetic boots do that before.

Eventually, we find the dropship, entering it through an airlock. But when I open my portal to undock the dropship, the screen turns black, and red letters flash:

PORTAL REMOTELY DEACTIVATED

Contact your provider if you think there has been a mistake.

"Are you kidding me?" I exclaim. "He deactivated my portal."

"Who?" Eshe asks.

"Huxley."

"Who?"

"Boss." Does this mean he's still alive? I was hoping he cooked in that fire.

"You're an engineer. Can't you bypass the ignition?"

"What? Like hot-wire a spaceship? This one runs on electricity; there's nothing to hot-wire." I ponder for a moment. "Theoretically, I could hack the control bus, but I don't know how long that will take."

"Marshal Renner has a better proposition," Duarte says, referring to his father.

We clamber out of the dropship and seal the door between it and the airlock. After that, Duarte uses the screen in the airlock to release the dropship from Titan, and a large, Martian stealth ship draws up next to us. Marshal Renner is commanding that ship. Claws on his stealth ship hook onto the dropship, flinging it into the vacuum of space. By the time this process is complete, the eight other IF-MSF astronauts locate and join us in the airlock, guided by Eshe.