The Lost Ship of the Tucker Rebellion - Marie Sexton Page 0,1

fast as he dared, glancing down past his boots every second or two until he saw what she’d already warned him about.

A cluster of red lights swarming up the body of the ship toward him.

“Use your cutting torch as a decoy.”

“The battery died an hour ago.”

“Then get back to the ship!” Marit said.

“No time.” He pictured himself being caught by the tracers in the empty space between the salvage and the Jiminy. “I’ll be a sitting duck out there.”

He imagined Laramie laughing at that. What the hell does that even mean? Ducks don’t sit, do they? I thought they swam.

Denver may not have known the origin of the phrase, but he knew it meant he was royally screwed. The voracious little lights were more menacing than they looked. They were tiny, heat-seeking explosives, left behind by the Li’Vin to finish off what was left of the Arulai.

And now they’d finish him off if he didn’t get his ass in gear.

Marit’s labored breath in his ear matched his own as he raced forward, scanning for something that might hide him from the tracers.

“Turn on your cooling system,” Marit said.

“It’s too late for that. It’d take several minutes to bring my temperature back down to normal.” He didn’t have the battery power for it, either, and knowing his luck, it wouldn’t have helped anyway. Some people claimed it was enough to fool the tracers, but he had his doubts. He’d still be warmer than anything else in the area.

“Faster,” Marit said.

“I know.” His faceplate was so foggy, he could barely see where he was going.

“Denver.”

“I know!”

And then his fingers caught on a smooth pocket of metal. A handle.

A door!

He stopped, gasping, trying to calm his breathing so he’d be able to see. Looking down between his feet, he could barely see the red glow as the tracers closed in on him.

He had thirty seconds left, tops.

He yanked on the handle. It wasn’t an airlock. It might be nothing more than another control panel, but there was a chance it was a small storage compartment. With any luck, it’d be big enough for him to squeeze into and close the door. The tracers would cluster outside, waiting for him to emerge, which he’d have to do soon if he didn’t want to suffocate, but it’d buy them a few minutes to think. To maybe come up with some kind of plan.

“Denver!”

He yanked the handle again, as hard as he could. The door flew open, revealing a circuitry board.

Not a compartment at all, let alone one big enough to hide him.

“Oh, god.” Marit was crying now, but trying not to, and Denver did the only thing he could think to do.

He flattened himself against the hull and prayed.

Not to god, exactly. He couldn’t have said exactly who he thought would hear. It was just one of those wild pleas thrown out the universe. The kind of desperate bargains people tried to make as they knelt before the toilet after an all-nighter, or as they gambled their last credit on a spin of the roulette wheel.

Or as a swarm of tracers descended on their defenseless, useless bodies in the emptiness of space.

He closed his eyes, wondering if it would hurt. Wondering if he’d have time to feel pain, or if it’d be over in a flash. Wondering which would kill him first—the explosion, or the loss of oxygen as his suit ruptured.

Wondering if Laramie would ever forgive him for leaving him behind.

Wondering…

Wondering where the hell the damn things were. They were taking a long enough time to finish him off.

“Oh my god,” Marit said again.

Not panicked, as she had been more seconds before. Now she sounded amazed.

“Am I dead?” he asked, his eyes still closed.

“Denver, look!”

He opened his eyes.

No red lights below his boots.

No red lights floating over his gloved hands, where he clung to the hull.

He looked up.

There they were, still in a cluster, moving away from him.

They’d climbed right over him and kept on going.

“What the—” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

He sat there, his breathing slowly returning to normal, torn between wanting to follow, wanting to see where they were going, and the fear that they’d sense his movement and turn back.

The tracers continued moving, straight off the side of the ship into space, heading for one particular splotch against the darkness.

“There’s something else out there,” Marit said. “Any idea what it is?”

It was hard to make out anything through the fog covering his faceplate. “I can’t tell.” He punched the button that would