The Trouble Run

7

Li Jie's ears popped in outrage. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced all the air from his lungs in an effort to minimize the damage from decompression. The initial rushing sound of air leaving his suit was followed by silence, then by a faint hiss that became progressively louder. The emergency close had worked. The lock was filling with air.

He opened his eyes and took a tentative breath of the still-very-thin atmosphere, then gave a small inward sigh of relief. There wasn't time for more—he didn't want to be in the lock when shipboard defense arrived.

Before he left, however, he needed to make sure the remaining kill-bot couldn't easily close on him from behind. He studied the exterior hatch for a moment, then used the beamer on low to weld it solidly to the frame. That wouldn't stop the bot, but it might slow it down a bit.

He reset the beamer to high, cracked the inner hatch, and listened. Nothing...nothing...then, voices—talking excitedly, getting louder. Li Jie was through the hatchway, weapon ready, just as he heard the clank of metal on the outer hatch behind him.

He had no clue about the internal layout of the ship, and only a vague idea of where along the axis he had entered. He couldn't predict which functions might be handled in this part of the cutter, or which systems might be nearby. He just knew that to avoid discovery, he needed to be somewhere else as quickly as possible. He heard the voices clearly now. Members of the crew would be in the passageway any second.

Li Jie moved in the opposite direction, pulling himself along in free fall using handholds on the bulkheads. He reached a juncture, spun around his center of mass, pushed off a bulkhead with his foot, and glided smoothly down a connecting passageway. The voices behind him faded somewhat, then rose in a babble. Apparently, the crew had discovered his handiwork in the lock.

His path brought him to the ship's core—a central shaft running the length of the cutter, allowing access to any part of the vessel.

He pulled himself into the shaft and employed the ubiquitous hand-holds to move to a nearby hatch. It wasn't locked. He opened it, slipping through into a short passageway.

There was a hatch straight ahead, and one to either side. The one on his left was ajar, which was unusual. Hatches were usually kept sealed in case of decompression. An open hatch could endanger everyone in the compartment beyond.

Bracing his feet on the frame of the hatchway, he seized the hatch with his left hand and shoved with his legs.

This, of course, carried him back as the hatch swung open, inertia stretching his body across the passageway. Using his grip on the hatch to reverse his momentum, he brought his legs up, entering the compartment feet first, the beamer directed between his knees.

Hampers and bags secured to the bulkheads told him he had found the ship's laundry. At first he thought the room was otherwise empty, but a small movement of one of the larger bags caught his eye.

His feet struck the clothes hampers on the far bulkhead. Grabbing an anchor ring with his left hand, he brought the beamer to bear on the bag that had drawn his attention.

"Come out or die in there. Your choice."

At first, nothing. Then the bag moved again. A man's head poked out. The eyes went wide at the sight of the leveled beamer.

"Hey—hold up! I got nothing in here." The man's Mandarin was poor, but understandable. He extracted himself from the bag, but gripped it with his knees, hands in full view.

"Honest," he said. "They just announced you was forcing your way in. Everyone was supposed to secure quarters, but mine are too far forward. I dodged in here to hide. Of course you had to come this way." He looked glum.

"Why was the hatch cracked?" asked Li Jie.

"Must...must have forgotten to pull it all the way closed when I came in," stammered the other. "I was just trying to find a place to hide."

Li Jie appraised his captive. It was plausible--but it bothered him. And what to do now? He wasn't a cold-blooded killer, despite his actions outside the ship. He glanced around the room, eyes lighting on the large clothes-dryer to one side of the compartment.

"All right, you were looking for a place to hide." He motioned to the dryer with the muzzle of his beamer.

The man stared at him for a second, fixated on the impatient motion of the muzzle. He licked his lips, swallowed once, then moved across the compartment to open the door of the unit.

He didn't seem at all excited about the idea, but he pulled himself inside and folded his body into a fetal position.

The dryer was fairly roomy, but it wasn't built to accommodate a human. The man would be very uncomfortable—but he would be out of the way.

Li Jie shut the door, glanced at his captive through the small window, then raised his beamer, set it to low again, and began welding the door into place.

The reflection in the glass saved his life—a momentary glimpse of another crew member gliding silently through the air behind him, laser cutter in-hand, ready to slice through both the combat suit and the man inside.

Li Jie spun, finger never leaving the beamer's firing stud, creating a swath of scorched metal, burnt plastic, and flaming clothes as he swung the weapon in an arc that intercepted his assailant at chest-height. On low, it didn't cut the other man in two—what it did was worse. It seared flesh, exposed bone, and burned into the tissue of the right lung. Howling and spasming in pain, the crew member released the laser cutter, rotating backward end-over-end as he went into shock.

Li Jie managed to keep himself from retching. He didn't look at the semi-conscious form he shoved aside as he moved to the hatch of the compartment, then sealed himself and the other two inside.

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