THE BELTERS’ WAR

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright 2010

 

CHAPTER 6

 

Kit landed in a ball and rolled to the left a split-second before a laser beam blasted a crater where her helmet had been.  She flattened out in the lee of the bunkhouse, spinning as she rose to snap a shot at the burro boat even as it was turning to bring its cannon to bear on her.  She sprang aside a split second before it fired, then caromed off the blocks of the bunkhouse and rolled to the side as the wrist-thick ruby beam melted the slabs of the igloo behind her.  She leaped, arrowing straight toward a six-foot outcrop of ice that would be a good shield, but very much aware that sailing through vacuum in a straight line was fairly begging for a beam in the chest.  She holstered her laser and pulled herself into a ball, making the target smaller. 

Behind her, rays webbed the darkness, green crossing red.  Someone shouted in anger and pain, someone else screamed, and she could only hope it was no one she knew.

Then the outcrop loomed up and Kit bounced off it, down to the surface of the asteroid again, grabbing handholds of rock and anchoring herself with one foot as she turned, drawing her laser, and started shooting back.  A ruby beam scored the ice a foot from her helmet and traveled toward her as the shooter held the firing stud in, sweeping the beam back and forth.  “Fool!” she shouted, for she could see straight back along the beam to the shooter hiding behind an ice ball.  She fired at the lump of ice and held her own trigger down as the ice melted.  The shooter sprang away like a cannon ball from a muzzle—Ike Parr, from the leapord spots on his helmet—and Kit sprang, launching herself after him.

This was the scariest part of space, with no tether, no rocket, and no gravity to pull her back down to a surface, any surface.  Fortunately it was only ten yards away, not long enough for anyone to take good aim at her, but a couple of reflex shots sprang past her before she struck the iceball and pulled herself in small again.

Rocket exhaust streaked out to her left, a trail of ice crystals, and she unwound long enough to loose a shot at it.  Her emerald beam drew a line from the saddle to the middle of the hydrogen tank and the rider fell off a second before the sled burst into flames.  Kit shouted victory just before a blood-red beam exploded a small crater right by her head.  She unwound with a spring, launching herself back toward the igloo before she curled into a ball again in time to avoid two scarlet lances from different directions.

She bounced off the bunkhouse wall and landed right next to her sled.  She mounted, kicked the latch loose, and hit the ignition.  The rocket roared, jetting out as exhaust plumed.  Three ruby lances bracketed her, but she twisted her sled, tumbling at random until she was two hundred meters away from First Base.  Anyone who could hit her at that distance would be a really good shot.  She straightened out and oriented on the bright dot that was Port Alice, pushing the fuel feed up to maximum.

Pain seared her forearm and she screamed with anger, looking down at the sleeve of her space suit.  A plume of air jetted out of a hole as thick as her thumb, turning to crystals as it hit the sub-freezing vacuum of space.  Her vision reddened as rage took her, but even through her fury, she realized she had the perfect chance to escape.  The plume of frozen air was dwindling as the automatic repair system plugged the hole, but Pepper’s drovers might not think of that—they might think only of her air leaking out.  She flopped down over the handles of her sled as though she were dead.  The vehicle coasted on, but slowly began to curve toward her left.  Sure enough, there were no more shots, but there was talk in her earphones:

“Drill her again.  Why take chances?”
            “What chances?  Even if she’s still alive, she’ll drift until she dies.”

“What if she wakes up?”

“What’ll she breathe?  Vacuum?  Her air tank has to be near empty, the way it was jetting out of that puncture.”

The radio link brought her a wordless roar of rage—Charlie’s voice, and it warmed her heart.

Pepper laughed.  “Shout all you want, Charlie.  We’ve got your sleds, and there’s nothing you can do.”

“Except kill you some day, you sidewinder!”

“We oughta go back and drill them all,” one of the strange voices said.

“See now, that’s why I’m proctor and you’re not,” Pepper said.  “Kill too many of ‘em, and all the people around Port Alice will turn against us.  I don’t mean to be caught in a war where you never know who’s for you and who’s against you. Been there once.  Don’t want to be there again.”

“Better kill me while you can, Pepper,” Charlie’s voice said, cold with anger.  “You’ve murdered my boss and my drover.  I’ll kill you if I get the chance.”

“You won’t,” Pepper said easily.  “I’ve got plenty of witnesses to say I left you one sled.  It ain’t gonna be my fault if you starve to death with all your crew.”

“Why take chances?” asked another strange voice.  “Kill ‘em and be done with it!”

“They’re dead already,” Pepper assured him.  “It’ll just take a while before they make it, you know, official.”

“They got food.”

“They’ll run out of air way before then,” Pepper said, “and they ain’t got no boat to make more for them, do they?  No, we’ll go our way and leave ‘em to theirs.”

“We’ll live.”  Charlie’s voice was ice.  “We’ll live and execute you all.”

“Nice trick,” Pepper said.  “Let me know how you do it.  Come on, all hands out of here.”

Slumped over the handlebars of her idling sled two hundred meters away, Kit watched the bright fireflies that were Pepper and his gang darting away from First Base.  She agreed with Charlie—she would survive somehow and come back to kill them, Pepper and every last one of Flanagan’s drovers.  She pushed herself upright and had to grab for the handlebars as her head spun—she’d lost too much blood already.  Glancing down at the hole in her sleeve, she saw a dark red ball—blood that had leaked out and frozen before the automatic system had repaired itself.  Maybe it would be cold enough to keep any more blood from flowing.  She glanced at the oxygen gauge in her head’s-up display and saw there was no way her air supply would last until she landed at Port Alice.

            Only one thing to do, the thing every drover dreaded, because it was so likely to prove deadly.  On the bright side, if you did die, the only way you’d know would be when Saint Peter chewed you out for being a blamed arrogant fool before he let you into the Pearly Gates.  She pointed the sled toward Port Alice and hit the fuel supply hard.  The sled roared off into the night—and just as quickly, she throttled back, setting her speed at minimum.  It was enough to keep the sled on course, but also more likely to still have some fuel by the time it neared home.  She was a cannon ball now, sailing on a trajectory with Port Alice as her target, and could only hope she’d hit it.

            Which she couldn’t count on at all, of course—the distances were just too great, and a tiny mistake in aim would result in the sled missing the asteroid by kilometers.  Her only hopes were Navy pickets, out to watch the traffic, or bored Rangers with no lawbreakers handy, and looking for some action that wouldn’t get them in trouble.

            She turned her head inside her helmet far enough to reach the tube that held one single emergency pill.  She sucked it in, swallowed it down, and chased it with a few gulps of water from another tube.  That done, she checked her belts to make sure she was firmly fastened to her sled—and began to feel muzzy-headed. She honed her aim toward Port Alice.

Of course she was headed toward the asteroid—why wouldn’t she be?  She couldn’t remember, though it did occur to her to hit the toggle that would turn on her Mayday beacon—but somehow, it was very difficult to turn her head enough to hit it with her tongue.  Her head seemed to be very heavy, and she couldn’t think why.  There was something important she had to do, but she didn’t want to, she was so tired and so sleepy.  Amazed by her weariness, she closed her eyes and let herself drift into the warm and welcoming darkness.

 Her heartbeat and breathing slowed and became so shallow that, just before the darkness closed in, a vagrant thought chased through her mind—that her air just might last to Port Alice, if anybody noticed her drifting by.

 

*           *           *

 

There was darkness for a while, then a faint light, growing stronger, until she realized it was the light of the stars that glared in her eyes.

            “She’s coming around,” a voice said, and it wasn’t a star glaring in her eyes, but the blue-white of human-made light.  Kit’s eyelids fluttered, heavy, so very heavy, and her stomach heaved, trying to make her throw up, and it would be so nice to go ahead and do it, nice to sink into sleep again, but no, there was something she had to do first, if she could just remember what it was…

            First Base.  Her friends.  She forced her eyes open wider, saw white walls around her.  Nearby, something beeped.  Puzzled, she blinked, and the beeping speeded up.

            “She’s conscious.”  A head with a white cap leaned into her line of sight—blurry, but she could make out the red cross on the front.  She had made it, the doctors had her, but she couldn’t feel happy about it, not while her friends might be dying.  “First Base,” she croaked.  “Drovers…”

            “Your friends on the Spindrift asteroid.” The doctor nodded her head.  “Yes, we know.  The Rangers picked you up on their screens and went out to bring you in.  They projected your course backward and went out to First Base to see what was going on.  They found your friends alive and feisty, ready for a fight, but they calmed down soon enough when the Rangers told them you had sent them.  They’re in the Spindrift store now.”

            Until the proctor steals it for Flanagan, Kit thought.  With no real need to worry, though, the adrenaline ebbed and her eyes closed of themselves.

            “That’s right, you go back to sleep now.”  The doctor’s voice was soothing.  “You need rest more than anything.  A few days’ sleep, and you’ll be as sure as gravity.”

            Kit didn’t quite hear the end of the sentence.

When she woke up again, her instant thought was: The pill had worked.  She was alive.  Someone had found her sled and pulled her in.

Who?

Suddenly she had a burning need to find out.  She swung her legs over the side of the bed—and an alarm shrilled as automatic needles slipped themselves out of the inside of her elbow and away from her nose.  She cursed as two nurses dashed in.  “No, no, honey, you have to stay in bed.”

“Can’t,” Kit said.  “Gottta find…”

“Not yet, young lady!”  The older nurse had a face like a meteorite.  “You get back in that bed before you undo all the good work Dr. Lochlaver did!”

“Got to know.”  Kit struggled against their hands, still trying to get up.  “Got to find out…”

“And I’ll tell you everything you want,” said a familiar voice, “if you’ll just get back into bed and finish healing.  We need you in one piece, Kit, not sick and bleeding.” 

Kit looked up in surprise, then grinned.  “Charlie!”

The young man returned the grin and slapped her hand.  “You really came through for us, Kit.  We were only stranded for two days before the Rangers you sent came looking for us.”

“I—I didn’t send them…”

“Yes you did, just by being alive heading toward Port Alice, so they could project your course back to First Base.  How else would they have known?”

“I do kinda remember saying something…”

“You said plenty,” Charlie assured her.  “So did we, told the Rangers that Pepper and his gang had tried to kill us, then marooned us—but Judge Clovis said there wasn’t enough evidence.”

Kit was scandalized.  If the video from the burro-boat wasn’t enough evidence, what was?

“Now get well,” Charlie said.  “We need your laser.”

“What… what about my arm?” Kit asked.  “The doctor won’t tell me.”

Charlie’s look darkened.  “Not good, Kit.”

She felt a chill.

“You’ll be able to use it,” Charlie said. “Oh, you’ll be able to work.  You just won’t be able to shoot as well as you used to.”

Blood roared in Kit’s ears, drowning out whatever else Charlie was saying.  Shooting was her life.  How could she carve logos in asteroids without that shooting hand?  How could she fight off Pepper’s drovers?

By using her left hand—nothing wrong with it, nothing at all.  She’d have to train it, have to practice, but she resolved that she would become just as fast, just as accurate, with her left hand as she’d ever been with her right.

The roaring faded enough for Charlie’s voice to come through.  “…hold off until the doc lets you out of here.”

“Hold off what?  Why?”

The answer had to wait.  With glad cries, her crewmates burst in and descended on her.

Dazed, Kit received hugs and returned them.  They really cared.

“We’re holding a party, Kit,” Agatha said into her ear, voice low so the nurses wouldn’t hear.  “A laser party.  If the law won’t punish Pepper, we will.  We’re taking him out.”

“What?  When?”

“When you’re well.’

“Wouldn’t want you to miss it,” Skurly said.

“Get well quick.” Jessie smiled, but her eyes were moist.

There was more—they kept talking and joking until the nurse came in and told them the patient was tired and needed to rest.  They left with cheery good-byes, for the entire world as though they’d only been talking about rumors and other gossip.  When the door had closed behind them, Kit asked the nurse, “Will my arm heal?”

“Heal, yes,” the nurse said.  “Anything beyond that, you’ll have to ask the doctor.  Get some sleep now, honey.  Let that healing happen.”

She left, but Kit lay rigid, staring up into the darkness, wondering what was the nurse’s “anything beyond that” meant?

 

*           *           *

 

‘Beyond that,’ it turned out, was motor coordination.  Kit could lift her arm, turn it over, even bend at the elbow and touch her shoulder—but she couldn’t pick up her drinking glass.  The doctor prudently emptied the water out before she let Kit try.  On the third attempt, Kit managed to get it halfway to her mouth before she dropped it.

“You’ll get better,” the doctor promised.  “We’ll set you up with physical therapy, and if you practice every day, you’ll be able to pick up any large object, like, say, a hammer or a jar.”

“Large object?”  Kit felt relief; a work laser was larger than a drinking glass.  Just to be sure, though, she asked, “Not small ones?”

“You won’t be able to thread a needle,” the doctor said with a sad smile.

Kit felt a chill.  “How about the firing stud on a laser pistol?”

“Probably not,” the doctor said, “and you might not be able to hold steady aim.  You should try, though.  Never can tell what you can achieve with practice.”

Kit vowed to herself that she would be able to shoot again.  Besides, she still had her left hand.

            They let her out of the hospital with stern warnings not to use her right hand for anything strenuous.  Kit promised; her left hand would have to do.  Agatha and Jessie met her coming out; Agatha gave her a hug and a kiss, using it for cover to whisper in her ear, “Charlie says to meet him tomorrow morning at the sled rack across form Flanagan’s store.”

            Kit stared over her shoulder at Jessie, surprised, then returned the hug.  She knew better than to ask why.

 

*           *           *

 

            The next morning, Charlie stationed them each carefully.  “Skurly, take the bridge over the culvert.  Jessie, hang around in the Altrus’s doorway.  Agatha, take the sled rack.”

“Where do I go?” Kit asked.

“Inside the hotel restaurant,” Charlie said.  “Pepper'll come straight from his habitat to his breakfast, same as he does every morning.  If we don’t kill him right off, he’ll come for the diner.  You shoot from there.”

“Sitting duck,” Kit said, but didn’t add that she was bound and determined to be the killer.  Her right hand could steady the laser in her left.

“Nobody fire 'till I do,” Charlie said, “but when you see my ray, blast the murdering scum.  Stations, now.”

It took less than a minute for each of them to find their assigned cover.  Then they waited.  Kit ordered coffee to have a reason for loitering, and copped the table near the door, where she could watch and wait.  There weren’t many customers at the beginning of the day-cycle.

Daylight waxed and waned four times—“day” for Port Alice lasted about fifteen minutes.  Then Pepper drifted out of his hab, the bright red wreath of chili peppers painted around his helmet fairly glowing in the distant light of the sun.  He caught the steering pole by the door, swung around and shoved off like a javelin toward the diner.

Straight toward Kit.

 

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