ATLAS 2 (ATLAS Series Book 2) (49 page)

I fired off some subsequent shots for good measure, and the enemy pilot applied more thrust. If he kept that up, he’d find himself in a decaying orbit around the gas giant. Without booster rockets, he’d never get out again.

I followed the enemy mech for a ways, waiting for the pilot to eject. Ready to gun him down.

“Warning: approaching inescapable gravity well,” Hopper’s AI intoned.

The enemy pilot didn’t eject.

His mech passed the point of no return.

I pulled up before I, too, became irrevocably trapped in the massive gravity well.

It was done.

I unleashed several long bursts of thrust, returning to the higher, safer orbit of the ring belt. Then I made my way toward Lana and Hijak. I was running low on jumpjet fuel at this point, and used my thrust sparingly.

Now that the life-or-death dance of battle had ended, the pain in my shoulder returned full-bore. I shrugged it off. There was no atmosphere present in the cockpit, and I really should have repaired my suit to reduce the swelling in my shoulder, but there wasn’t time.

My friends needed me.

According to my HUD map, Hijak still faced one enemy opponent, in a battle just as desperate as mine had been. His dot was bright green and zigzagging. Lana had taken out her own single opponent, but her dot was darker, stationary.

I pulled up her vitals. They were fluctuating.

“Lana, do you copy? Lana?”

No answer.

I considered making a beeline toward her but decided against it.

I had to help Hijak, if I could.

Lana would just have to wait.

I hadn’t been sure whose life I’d choose to save when the time came.

But I was sure now.

My platoon brother had top priority.

“I’m coming, Hijak,” I said.

When I was halfway to Hijak’s position, the red dot representing his target abruptly winked out.

“Hijak, you all right? I’m almost there.”

“Bit late, Rage,” he said, his voice coming in a painful wheeze. “Nothing to see here. Better . . . better check on Lana.”

On my HUD, I saw the green dot representing his mech proceed toward Lana. We were about equidistant from her now, and would reach her at roughly the same time.

“Tell me you’re okay, Hijak.” I glanced at his vitals on my HUD. They seemed weak, but not critical.

“I took . . . a few good hits.” Hijak sounded groggy. “I’ll live. You?”

“Got it good in the shoulder, but otherwise I’m fine.” I checked Lana’s vitals again. She was alive. Barely.

I loosed a long, desperate burst of thrust, but I was already close to the maximum momentum I could attain out here. “Did you see what happened to Lana?”

“She ate four rockets.”

That meant she probably had more than a few shrapnel wounds. And maybe she’d lost suit pressure.

Not good. Not good at all.

“It’s my fault,” I sent. I felt overwhelmed by guilt.

“It’s no one’s fault, Rage. We did our best. We were outnumbered five to three. It’s lucky she lasted as long as she did.”

I know his words were only meant to help me, but they didn’t. “I should’ve ordered the mechs to come with us, back in the hangar bay.”

“And I should have reminded you,” Hijak sent.

We found her mech, Ox, floating lifelessly amid the rocks. There were dents all along the outer hull, with sections fused together or melted away entirely. Ox’s left leg was missing, and its right arm was bent far back, almost torn off.

I opened my cockpit and left Hopper, closing the distance to Ox in my jumpsuit.

I grabbed her mech, and pulled myself around to the front.

“Lana,” I transmitted. “If you can read me, open your cockpit. Lana?”

I knocked on the hull with my glove.

“Lana, I’m going to need you to—”

Her cockpit unlatched, and opened a crack.

“I’m coming in, Lana. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Without gravity, the unlocked hatch didn’t fall open on its own. However, no matter how hard I struggled with it, I couldn’t pry the hatch open—the edges were too dented.

“Hijak, a little help here, bro.”

Hijak came over in his mech. He put one knee on Ox’s hip, gripped the hatch with his hand, and pulled.

He tore the metal right off. “Whoops.”

I went inside the cockpit.

The cocoon had released Lana, and she floated lifelessly within. She had multiple pieces of shrapnel embedded in her suit. Her faceplate was cracked, but intact. She still had internal suit pressure, as far as I could tell.

“Lana?” I held her in my arms, so that she wouldn’t float off into space.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Rade Galaal.”

“Tell me where it hurts.”

“Everywhere.”

“You’re going to make it,” I told her.

She smiled wanly. “Liar.”

“Please, Lana, hang in there. We need you. You have important knowledge of the enemy. You can’t die.”

Her smile faded, and her eyes became distant. “You don’t need me alive. All you need is my embedded ID. Everything . . . everything you need to know is in there. My password is ‘soaring eagle 9000-2.
’
 ”

Those words tore me up inside. “We
do
need you alive. You’re going to live, goddammit. I don’t care about your embedded ID. To hell with it. I care about you. We’re going to get through this, Lana. We’re going to make it. You can’t die, not after everything you’ve been through. You’re a survivor. No one endures what you’ve endured, only to die now. It doesn’t make sense. The universe won’t allow it. Your will is too strong.”

“A pleasant thought,” she said. “If entirely untrue.”

“I’m going to remove some of the shrapnel, all right? Then attach some SealWraps, and see if I can close your major wounds. Which one hurts the most?”

“They
all
hurt,” she said.

I reached into the left cargo pocket of my jumpsuit, and retrieved my suitrep kit.

“No,” Lana said, shoving my hand away. “It’s too late.”

“Lana—”

“Please.” She gazed imploringly into my helmet. “Let me die in peace. Without false hope. Don’t say I’m going to live, when you know I won’t. Don’t say you can help me, when you know you can’t. I want to die, remembering all I loved about this life, rather than dismissing those thoughts because of some false hope that I might awaken from the coming eternal sleep.” She placed her gloved fingers around mine and squeezed. “Don’t grieve. Remember me in the deepest, darkest hours, when you think you can’t go on. Remember me in the storm.”

I stared at her, stunned. “Who taught you those words?”

She smiled sadly. “You did.” Her gloved fingers tightened around my own. “Forgive me. For all I have done to you.”

My eyes were stinging. “You haven’t done a thing to me.”

“I have. And I’m forever sorry for it. I deserve this, for what I’ve done. I should’ve resisted my possessor, somehow. I should’ve been stronger. I’m sorry, Rade Galaal.”

I squeezed her hand back. “You couldn’t have resisted an enemy like that, Lana. None of us could.”

“I was wrong, you know. About the UC. I thought you were all bigots. I—”

And then she was gone. Her eyes just stared straight ahead. Her mouth remained open.

If I’d approached her first instead of Hijak, maybe she might’ve stood a chance. If I’d—

No. I wasn’t going to second-guess myself. Not in this.

Still, I wished . . . I really wished . . .

I closed my eyes.

I always lost everyone I ever cared about.

I heard the comm activate, and I waited for Hijak to say something. Instead, all I heard was violent coughing.

Feeling a sudden rising panic, I turned toward him. “Hijak, what’s wrong?”

More coughing.

That’s when I noticed the thin, dark gash in the cockpit of his mech, just beneath the arm. The mark of an energy ax impact.

“Nothing’s wrong, bro,” Hijak said. “Well, unless you count the small fact that I’m dying.”

“No. Not you too.” I ordered Hopper to guard Lana’s body, then I jetted over to Hijak’s mech. “Open her up.”

“No point,” he answered.

“Open it! Now!”

He popped his cockpit hatch.

I opened the hatch just as his inner cocoon released him.

Hijak looked up, and forced a smile. The entire lower half of his face mask was covered in blood. He coughed again, sending fresh crimson splatters onto the lens.

I saw the jumpsuit patch he’d applied under his armpit. “What happened?”

“Damn thing plunged its energy ax into my ATLAS,” he said, between coughs. “Went right through the cockpit. I jetted away, but not before the tip got me. Good thing my arm was raised high up, or I would’ve lost the limb. Still, the ax pierced my right lung pretty bad. Seems I have a knack for attracting mortal wounds. I’m getting good at it. I’ll make the doc proud.”

“I’m going to apply a bandage.”

“Bad idea,” Hijak managed. “It’s a chest-sucking wound. Lung . . . filled with blood.”

Damn it.

I didn’t have my medbag, which contained a special type of occlusive seal with a one-way flutter valve specifically designed to let the air and blood escape. The suitrep kit contained jumpsuit patches, a few bandages, one IV, a SealWrap, some clotting agents, all-purpose tape, a bag of plasma volume expander . . . nothing I could really use to create a chest seal.

I saw his vitals darken on my aReal, and I had a sickly feeling in my stomach, the kind I got when one of my platoon mates died.

A feeling I’d just experienced with Lana.

I was going to lose Hijak and there was nothing I could do about it. Not while I was out here, alone, billions of klicks from civilization.

Like I said, I always lost everyone who got close to me.

It seemed to be some universal rule.

Why did the universe hate me so?

“Rage.” Hijak pawed at my face mask, like he was suddenly desperate to tell me something. “Rage.”

“Save your breath, Hijak.” Was he going to die now? At this very moment?

“Have to . . . say this.” Hijak coughed more blood into his face mask. “You want to leave the Navy? Because you don’t have heart anymore? You’re wrong. You have heart. More than anyone I’ve ever known. I’ve seen you fight, Rage. You have this uncanny ability to read and anticipate the flow of battle. Like you were born to fight. And you never give up. No matter how badly the odds are stacked against you. That’s heart, brother. That’s true courage. It’s why you can’t leave the Navy. The MOTHs need people like you.
Humanity
needs people like you. Promise me you’ll stay.” He gripped my gloved hand, and squeezed hard. “Promise.”

I stared into his eyes. “I . . . I’ll stay, Hijak. I swear I will.”

And so I floated there in the void of space, holding Hijak’s hand as he slowly choked to death on his own blood.

I’d gone back for him, on the enemy ship. I’d refused to leave him behind.

But it was all for nothing.

All of it.

I couldn’t save him.

I was done.

Hijak said I never gave up? He was wrong.

Because I put my head down and gave up right then.

No one was coming for us.

I knew that in my heart.

No one except the enemy.

And Hijak was going to die.

For some reason, as the two of us lay drifting in the ring belt, my mind kept returning to the contents of the suitrep kit.
You missed something
, a distant part of my mind told me.

I dismissed that voice in scorn.

You didn’t miss anything. You’ve failed Lana. And you’ve failed your brother, Hijak.

But that distant voice kept coming back, stronger and stronger, no matter how many times I told it to go away. It read out the contents of the kit in my head:

Jumpsuit patches, bandages, an IV, a SealWrap, clotting agents, all-purpose tape, a bag of plasma volume expander . . .

Wait a second.

A bag of plasma volume expander.

I hurriedly fetched the kit from Hijak’s cargo pocket.

“What are you doing?” Hijak said weakly.

“Quiet.”

I secured a SealWrap to my wrist, choosing the glove with the working laser. Then I grabbed a bag of plasma volume expander and cut it open with Hijak’s utility knife. The contents vaporized and desublimated, forming a cloud of very fine crystals. The discharge was beautiful, but I didn’t have time to admire it.

The deflated plastic bag formed a square in my hands. I applied tape to three sides, parallel to the borders, so that half the adhesive protruded over the edges. I folded the bag in two, keeping the sticky portions of the tape facing outward, and I wedged it between the ring finger and pinkie of my glove, within the SealWrap.

I lifted Hijak’s arm assembly.

Incredibly, he shoved it right back down again.

“Raise your arm,” I told him sternly.

“No.”

“Goddammit, Hijak. Stop behaving like a caterpillar. You have to let me try.”

“No I don’t. Maybe I want this. Maybe I deserve it for what I’ve done. Betraying my team. Betraying my country.”

“You betrayed no one, Hijak. Now lift your arm before I kick your ass. You’re a MOTH. You never give up. Or is your weak Chinese half finally asserting itself?” Ordinarily I’d never say something like that, but I wanted to get a rise out of him. I wanted him to fight.

It worked, because he lifted his arm, glaring at me the whole time from beneath his helmet.

I secured the SealWrap to his suit, atop the patch he’d applied beneath his armpit. Then I cut through the fabric of both the patch and the jumpsuit, using the surgical laser in the index finger of my glove. The SealWrap puffed out as the inner atmosphere of the suit expanded to fill it.

I slid aside the circular fabric I’d cut away. The blood from the chest wound trickled outward because of the lack of gravity. I had to work quickly before that blood hampered my efforts.

I placed the empty plastic bag directly over his injury and applied pressure, securing the three taped sides to his bare flesh. Because the blood had been floating directly outward, there wasn’t too much plasmatic fluid around the edges of the wound, so the tape held.