Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue

verdant color that triggered something emotional in the primitive parts of Molly’s and Cole’s brains.

They both gasped at the sight of the large planet as it rose into view, almost as if their lungs could suck in all that oxygen from across the vacuum of space. No clouds obscured the land, an oddity neither of them noticed at first. Instead of vast oceans: thousands, possibly millions of tiny lakes dotted the orb. It was one thing to read the dry Naval reports during the planning of this operation—something else entirely to see it with their own eyes.

This was why at least one poet should be assigned to every survey vessel, Molly thought, just to do images like this justice.

“So pretty,” she said aloud.

“Stay focused,” Cole told her, but it sounded like it could’ve been a reminder to himself. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of the green world, either, or the thin halo of pale-blue atmosphere clinging to it.

A red indicator popped up on one of Cole’s readouts, breaking the spell.

“Mechanical activity on the Orbital Station. Looks like thruster signatures.”

Molly pulled it up as well.

“It’s just maintaining its orbit. That’s not a good Lagrange point. Moon’s too small, so it’s gonna have to boost itself periodically.”

“After all these years?” he shook his head. “Something’s not right. I’ve never known the Navy to build anything that didn’t need a weekly greasing. Wait. Thruster’s off now. Okay, maybe you’re right. That orbit can’t be stable, anyway. Too much mass in the OS and not enough in the moon. And yet, all these years later it’s orbiting the planet in lockstep—”

“And at a lower orbit,” Molly added.

“You think this is good news or bad news, Cap?”

“I’d say good. There’s no ship activity in the area. The thing’s probably just functioning on its own. That means we have a good chance of fueling up the hyperdrive.” Molly looked over at Cole and noted his furrowed brow. “You thinking we should pull back?”

“No. You’re probably right. But can you get us around the moonlet and behind the station? That planet is so pretty I might ask you to take us down for a look.”

“Absolutely,” Molly said, gripping the flight controls and nudging them forward.

But she wasn’t the only one trying to control the ship.

16

The first sign of trouble was the flickering of the nav screen. Cole rapped the top of the dash with his fist in the primitive problem-solving reflex common to males. The screen returned to normal.

“Better,” he said.

Molly rolled her eyes at the unfortunate result this would have at strengthening a silly habit. She didn’t think any more of the glitch as they approached the station.

When they closed to within a thousand meters, Molly prepped for docking maneuvers. The universal coupling on the outside of Parsona’s hull needed to be lined up with the one on the Orbital Station’s maintenance bay. The airlock on the GN-290 was high up the starboard side to prevent the wings from getting in the way, so Molly rolled Parsona over and began her approach. Hopefully, they’d be able to open the hangar doors manually from inside the station to make loading salvaged goods even easier.

Molly focused the external camera on the Orbital Station. Distances were displayed on a nearby readout, but she felt uncomfortable doing this for the first time without a spotter.

“Would you mind going to the airlock and calling out distances?” she asked Cole.

He nodded and moved to unbuckle himself from the nav seat—but the ship lurched forward, pressing him back into his chair. “Hey!” he complained.

“I’m not doing that!” Molly hammered the emergency stop, attempting to kill the thrusters. “Uh, we might have a problem here.” She watched the main thrusters ramp up to full RPMs, while the accelerator between the flight chairs remained in neutral.

Parsona was going haywire.

“I’m going to the engine room,” she said. “You take over here.”

Cole nodded as she unbuckled herself. Only then did she realize how tricky this was going to be. Parsona’s forward thrust was pushing her toward the back of the ship. That was where she wanted to go, but not quite so fast. She glanced at the hand-holds recessed into the ceiling and floor. They were too small, meant for emergencies that resulted in zero gravity, not excess gravity.

The longer she hesitated, the worse it would get. Molly turned sideways in her chair, her right shoulder pressing back into the seat. She glanced at Cole and then around to the rear of the ship. No way could she survive a fall that far. Her flightsuit would protect her up to a few dozen Gs as long as it was plugged in, but as soon as she left—she’d be on her own. And what would she do even if she made it to the engine room? If the secondary emergency stop didn’t respond, could she shut down the fuel lines running back to the thrusters?

Molly placed one hand on the control pedestal and started pressing herself out of the chair. A glance at the controls sparked an old memory. The remote docking panel. Her father had rarely used it around her—they lived on a frontier planet where starships just landed in fields—but she could remember one tricky locking maneuver where he’d stood by the airlock, using the panel as he guided the ship in visually. She looked around to see if she could even recognize it.

One of the rectangular panels next to her seat had a small set of maneuvering controls with two metal handles curving out on either side. Molly pulled on them and the entire unit popped out of its housing. Just to be sure, she tried thumbing its own emergency kill switch. Nothing happened.

She wrestled the panel, already heavy from the excess Gs, across her body. A thick trunk of electrical and hydraulic lines spooled out after. The device was frowned upon by veteran pilots as a psychological crutch, but Molly hoped it could serve her as a literal lifeline to the engine room far below.

She tried to let the unit fall back through the cargo bay slowly, but her gloves didn’t have enough grip. The trunk slid through her hands; she squeezed as hard as she could. Walter made a loud hissing noise as the object flew by his chair, matching the sound of the rubber zipping through her flight gloves.

When it reached the end, the cord lashed harshly across Molly’s chest, pinning her back into the chair. That was dumb, she thought, wriggling out from underneath the taut cable. She popped off her flight gloves and flexed her hands a bit.

“What are you doing?!” asked Cole.

Molly didn’t have time to explain. “Keep trying the kill switch while I’m gone. Radio me if something changes.” She crouched on the back of her seat. “Down” was toward the rear of the ship, the floor a vertical wall. She teetered, perched on a cushioned ledge, and peered over the thirty-meter drop. At the end of that fall the closed metal door leading to the lazarette looked tiny, yet menacing. This was starting to feel like a very bad idea.

Molly swung her feet out and gripped the bundled cords. She had to act now. The longer she waited, the heavier she’d get.

Wrapping her knees around the trunk of lines, she estimated they were pulling around three Gs already. Her body felt as if it weighed over 150 kilos. Her muscles, unfortunately, were the same ones acclimated to working out in a single gravity. She was asking a lot of them.

She slid down the first meter before locking in a solid grip. When she looked up to secure her hands better, she saw Cole gaping at her from above. Beyond him she could see the green planet dappled with blue spots. It was getting bigger.

Molly turned away from the sight and began working her way down, out of the cockpit and into the cargo bay below. When she became level with Walter, the boy let out another hiss of alarm. It looked like he was trying to say something, but Molly’s visor was down and her head throbbed from the effort. Her arms screamed as well, already