Cold Between Stars Read online

  Only two more decks to go and I was on Stasis.

  There’s another voice at the back of my head, knocking on my skull, trying to worm its way into my marrow.

  Sister.

  No. I push it away, wall up my psyche and concentrate on the rush of lights and shadow, the hum of the palette on the mag lines. Concentrate on the cold, hard lump of fear behind my heart and try to convince myself that it’s going to be okay, that we’re not going to be lost in the void. Like Aeotu.

  Sister.

  The palette slams to a stop, throwing me across the slab of steelcrete and against the guard rail at the front. I have time to gasp, to grab a new handhold before we plummet. It’s seconds but it seems like hours that I’m flying through the air, feet over my head, hands cramping around the guard rail, sweat slicking the inside of my gloves, muscles screaming as gravity tries to rip my arms from their sockets.

  Then more pain, new pain, slamming into the palette, curling in on myself at the last second, my shoulder crunching against steelcrete, fire consuming my back, my arm, my fingers, even as I flail for the rail, only one hand working.

  I’ve barely got a finger on it before the palette roars sideways.

  I’m slammed into another guard rail, and now that fist in my back is a dagger in my chest and an alarm screaming on my HUD.

  But there’s no time. No time.

  Only three words float through my brain, each one worse than the last.

  Stasis.

  Separation.

  Sister.

  A final shuddering halt, as bone jarring as the last. I want to curl into a ball, but those three words keep me going.

  The map flashes on my HUD, almost hidden under the med warnings.

  The speedway has dumped me on Med/Command, at a small freight dock. One more deck to Stasis. One more deck. I can do that. I slide off the palette, stumble to the controls and try to ignore the dagger digging into my chest with every breath.

  The door opens. There’s a drone waiting for me, hovering at head height, Core’s gold face projected before it.

  ‘Core?’

  Nothing. The AI is frozen.

  I shuffle forward, reach out, gloved fingers passing through Core’s nose.

  The holo shudders, begins to speak and I know from the way her gaze skims over my head, that it’s a recording. If Core had been there, she’d have looked me in the eye.

  ‘Kuma, separation systems compromised. Manual engagement required. Instructions in drone.’

  The drone leads me to a hole in the deck. A literal hole, the edges ragged and crumbling, fug clinging to the steelcrete. Most of the fug is inert, the once grey-green strands now just a dull grey, but some of it still moves, and its colour has changed as well, to a bright red that makes something deep down in the pit of my being want to scream and hide.

  I swallow. Core said the fug was repairing the Citlali now, not eating it, and there are more important things to worry about.

  Power sparks in the thick section of deck and shimmers in the waterfall of biogel from broken conduits. Beyond is Stasis.

  I can’t see it, but I know it’s there. Unless the fug ate through the floor below.

  The drone hovers over the hole.

  ‘Down.’ It uses Core’s voice and face, but it’s not Core, its tone flat, its expression wooden. ‘Down,’ it says again, the face morphing into an arrow plunging into the darkness.

  Just in case I didn’t know where down was, I guess.

  ‘Gravity’s still on.’ Jumping down that hole’s going to hurt.

  ‘Down.’ The drone hovers closer. ‘Down.’

  The fact that falling a few metres in full gravity is going to break more of my bones doesn’t seem to bother it.

  Okay. I grab the drone, hugging it to my chest, step off the deck and let gravity take hold. Pain slams through my chest as the drone’s antigravs whine and the thing shakes, throwing itself left and right and into my ribs.

  I grit my teeth and hold tighter.

  The drone thrashes, my grip loosens, slips and—

  The deck slams into my feet, not hard enough to break bones but enough to force a groan from my lips as the vibration ricochets through my ribs.

  My vision blurs, or maybe that’s the drone darting out of reach.

  I take a moment to push the pain aside then I’m on my feet and following the drone again. Pain swamps my side, turns my pace into a shuffle, narrows my vision.

  ‘How much farther?’ My voice is hoarse, the words difficult to get out.

  The drone doesn’t answer.

  I want to stop, to catch a breath that’s suddenly coming too short, but I have to keep going, have to keep going.

  Something skittles up my leg.

  I yell, jump sideways and try to keep my feet as pain balloons, swamps my vision, takes my breath.

  A golden fuzz shivers through my shoulder, dulls the pain.

  Breathing comes easier, my vision clears.

  ‘Dude.’

  He chitters, the not-sound warming my skin, chasing away the fear that’s been with me since the Atrium.

  The drone flashes, lighting up the hallway, and in that brief flash I can’t ignore the holes, the pockmarks and cracks that lace the bulkheads. There’s fug there too, most of it dull and grey but some, some of it writhes in between the breaches in thick pulsing webs of blood, almost as if it’s trying to stitch the damaged steelcrete together.

  Maybe it’s a trick of the shadows, or the pain gnawing at my chest, but for a moment I swear it’s watching me, those red strands reaching out, whispering in my ear.

  Sister.

  I yank my mind away, close it off, wall it up and think of something, anything else.

  It’s not hard.

  I need to get to the separation controls, need to save the crew, save Grea, and yet…

  My eyes snag on the bulkheads, the holes in the steelcrete. Through them my HUD picks out the hum of stasis pods, the pulse of blood in veins. If Stasis separates, those people will only have the thin skin of emergency shields to protect them, and when the power dies, so will they.

  ‘Core. Core, we can’t do this. The units are compromised.’

  Static on the comms and the drone shooting ahead of me.

  I hobble after it, ignoring the dagger stabbing me in the side with every shuffle, concentrating only on the drone and the new, desperate knowledge that I need to stop this, to warn Core. It’s almost enough to block the whisper at the back of my skull.

  I don’t know where the drone’s leading me. The emergency separation controls are at the centre of the deck, two rings out from Core, and we’re heading outwards. Maybe the fug ate those controls, maybe there are secondary ones in the outer rings. Maybe Core saw the damage and is… is what? Getting me to repair the bulkheads before the alien ship swallows us whole?

  Come on, Kuma, you’re not that stupid. There are no secondary controls. Even you know that. So why the lie?

  The drone’s stopped in front of a stasis unit. There’s no name on the hatch, only a number and the tag “SOS” stencilled in orange. It opens and inside it’s like all the other units, four stasis pods side-by-side, the unmissable “EMERGENCY SUPPLIES” on the rear bulkhead, except the pods are empty.

  I’m back-peddling as fast as the pain in my chest will let me, ‘cause I know what’s happening now, know Core lied because otherwise, otherwise I would have… What? Fought an alien spaceship? Grabbed a multitool and started welding bulkheads while my ribs slowly punched a hole in my lung? Would have saved the day with nothing but my bare hands and a faithful critter at my side?

  My breath’s coming hard, fogging up the HUD and my heart’s pounding.

  No. No. It doesn’t end like this.

  The drone flickers and now it’s wearing a hasty copy of Core’s face, its expression wooden, eyes staring somewhere over my shoulder.

  ‘All stasis units compromised. Unable to complete full separation.’

  And now I’m hobbling
forward, making up all the distance I put between us. ‘We can fix it. I can get a repair kit and the critters—’

  ‘Engine containment has been breached. Emergency shielding will fail.’

  Engine containment. My mind flickers back to the miniature sun glimpsed through a hole in Engineering. Picture the blue energy field around it growing dim then dying. I don’t know what happens next but I can imagine it, a wave of light and heat turning my atoms to dust.

  The holo shudders and suddenly it’s Core staring at me, the lines of her face shifting, turning the concern and urgency of her expression into something that’s almost real, as the AI takes over from the hasty fragment left in the drone’s circuits.

  I lunge toward her. There’s a thought worming its way to the forefront of my head, an idea that if I can grab her, touch her, I can reach through the drone and make the AI understand.

  Understand what, I don’t know. It’s a fuzzy, urgent, terrified emotion permeating every fibre of my being. But I know, know I can save us, if only—

  Core/drone zips out of reach and I have to catch myself on the open hatch before I fall through it.

  I turn.

  And that’s when the fug pounces.

  Dude leaps from my shoulder, fangs and tiny claws bared, a split-second before the drone slams into my chest.

  I’m flying backwards, heel catching on the stasis unit’s seal as Dude meets the red fug head-on.

  And then the air’s exploding out of my chest and the drone’s shooting back up, arrowing for the hatch.

  Urgency helps refill my lungs, fight past the pain and panic, roll to my feet.

  The hatch is closing.

  The drone’s on the other side, probes in the control panel, and there’s Core’s voice. ‘Stasis separation in fifteen seconds.’

  ‘What? Wait. No!’

  ‘Goodbye, Kuma.’

  ‘No. Dude!’

  The hatch closes.

  I slam into it, already scrambling for the controls. No. No. No. I wasn’t leaving him to the vacuum.

  The control pad dies. Just. Dies.

  Okay. Don’t panic. The emergency lever—

  CLUNK.

  The sound reverberates through the bulkhead, everything in me stills. No. Not yet.

  SHUSSSH.

  That one’s barely even a sound, it’s a feeling, a sensation shivering up my spine, swallowing me in dread.

  ‘No.’ I’m on my knees, pushing the emergency panel out. There’s still time, there has to be time. The panel comes away and there’s the lever and—

  SSNUCK.

  The lever’s gone, sucked into the hatch at the same time the stasis unit shudders, the gravity goes and—

  “DANGER. VACUUM.”

  The words are too big to miss, letters as big as my head popping into existence over the door.

  I punch the hatch, kick it, slam my hands into the steelcrete but… nothing. Even the biogel feels dead. Hard. Cold.

  No. No no no no no.

  I grab hold of the panel, pound on the door and try to ignore the fact that I’m floating half a metre off the deck.

  ‘Core! Open up! Core!’

  The power goes, the holos and lights with it.

  I scream, the sound echoing in my helmet, high and sharp, matching the pain in my chest. The fire of the rib pressing on my lung, mixing with the claws wrenching my heart in two, shredding the muscle, ripping it apart until there’s nothing left but me.

  Just me.

  Alone in the dark…

  …Sister.

  THE STORY CONTINUES

  Coming December 2020

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  DID YOU ENJOY COLD BETWEEN STARS?

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  Your reviews, even just a star rating, help other awesome readers find my books, and let us know what it is about them you like. Not only does this give us the warm fuzzies, you’re helping us write more of what you love.

  Why not leave a review today?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Physics makes Belinda’s brain hurt, while quadratics cause her eyes to cross and any mention of probability equations will have her running for the door. Nonetheless, she loves watching documentaries about the natural world, biology, space, history and technology.

  She’s also a sucker for a fast horse, a faster computer and superhero movies. When she’s not doing the horse, computer or superhero thing, Belinda writes science fiction (emphasis on the fiction), where she loves to write about butt-kicking girls (and guys!) who blow stuff up.

  You can keep in touch with Belinda, or just pick her brains about sci-fi via her website, Facebook or by sending her an email (she loves email).

  www.belindacrawford.com

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing and publishing a book is a lot like packing up a house; you write and you write and you edit and you format, and you think you’re almost done, and then you remember the Acknowledgments.

  The. Acknowledgements. The last little bit before I can kick this thing out into the world.

  The worst bit about acknowledgements is trying not to write the same thing you did last time, I mean, there are only so many ways you can say ‘it takes a lot of people to publish and book, and I would like to thank...’. That’s what they’re all about, after all, saying thank you to the people who:

  put up with you storming around the kitchen when you don’t know what to write next (thanks Mum)

  listen to you rabbit on, yet again, about how you have no idea how to get Kuma to the Med deck (thanks Tracy)

  read the manuscript and pick up all the niggly plot holes before it goes to the editor (thanks Tracy, Iffet and Roger)

  edit the damn thing (thanks Amanda J Spedding)

  inspired you to try writing a novel without plotting it first (this one’s all you Devon Madson).

  And then there are the Kickstarter Heroes, a small group of people who supported the special edition of Cold Between Stars* before it was even finished. These Heroes have a special place in my heart, because they make many wonderful things (like special illustrated editions) possible, they are: Amelia Soon, Iffet, Gaby van Halteren and Ruth Molenaar. Thanks guys, you’re legends.

  *Yes, there’s a special edition, it has illustrations and if it’s not already in your hot little hands, check it out on my website.

  ALSO BY BELINDA CRAWFORD

  Have you read them all?

  In THE HERO REBELLION series

  HERO

  Hero Regan hears voices. Insulated from the outside world, her only solace is Fink, a six-hundred-kilogram, genetically engineered ruc-pard. They share lives, thoughts, triple-chocolate marshmallow ice-cream and the burning desire for freedom. Their chance comes when Hero discovers she’s part of a master plan set into motion by the first colonists, a plan she must either help or foil if she’s to attain the freedom she craves

  Buy it now.

  RACE

  A Hero Rebellion
novella! Hero Regan’s got a race to win. Between the traps and the other racers, winning a Twilight race isn’t as easy as it sounds, and now with the police on her tail and something funky happening with her telepathy, the finish line may be out of reach.

  Buy it now.

  RIVEN

  Hero’s life should be perfect except her best friend is keeping secrets, Fink—her six hundred kilogram, genetically engineered companion—is constantly angry, and there’s something wrong with her brain. Like, really, really wrong.

  It all wouldn’t be so bad, except she has secrets to keep too—the kind that may just be unforgivable—and the Librarian once again needs her help to save the world, whether she wants to or not.

  Buy it now.

  REGAN

  Hero Regan is a fugitive, running from family and foes alike. She’s on a mission to save Fink’s life, and no one, not a former best friend, an AI or Fink himself is going to stand in her way.

  Buy it now.

  In THE ECHO trilogy

  DARK BETWEEN OCEANS (Coming late 2020)

  ECHO BETWEEN WORLDS (release TBA)

  Published by Hendrix & Faust, Publishers in 2020

  Text copyright © Belinda Crawford 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.