Catherine Asaro - Nebula Awards Showcase 2013

Thankfully, after what Great-Gemma had done to them long ago, the pirates wouldn’t touch Sauerkraut Station. But Momma wondered how long that age-old story would keep the pirates at bay—especially now that things were getting desperate.

Meanwhile, Lizzie bargained hard on the rare occasions she found a merchant with a case of Baxitrin or Rosleep. She got it for what passed for a good price these days. Lizzie hated sending poverty-stricken soldiers off with untreated wounds, but Lizzie found it was easier to set a price and refuse anyone who couldn’t pay. When Lizzie chose who to subsidize that week, it made her responsible for the dead.

Food was scarce, too. The Web soldiers told rumors of other refill stations staffed by skeletal families, reduced to trading away fissionable materials in exchange for a case of protein bars. Lizzie tended to the vegetables in the hydroponics chambers with extra-special care, grateful for Momma’s planning.

Occasionally, Lizzie stun-tagged hungry soldiers who pried at the food chamber locks—mostly Gineer scoundrels, as she’d expected. She lectured the Web troopers, though, sending them back thoroughly ashamed.

Fortunately, there were fewer ships. The war seemed to be spreading out. But the soldiers were getting meaner.

In the beginning, they’d all been fresh-faced and kind, talking about home with a wistful attitude; these new soldiers’ faces were hidden under grizzled beards and puckered scars. All they talked about was war.

The Gineer soldiers shouted at her because this God-damned dry waste of a station had no alcohol to buy. The Web yelled because where had the Angel of Sauerkraut Station been when Ghalyela took a bullet to the head?

Lizzie tried to be nice, but “nice” just seemed to slide right off of them. They’d lost something vital out there.

Both sides threatened her when Lizzie tried to explain that they had to pay for the Baxitrin. The Web grumbled, but the veterans were quick to explain that this was the Angel of Sauerkraut Station; Lizzie had done work for free, back when she could. They pulled their friends away with an apology.

The Gineer soldiers, however, had only known her as Doc’s assistant. And Doc Ventrager’s cruelty had become legendary.

“I can give you a six percent discount,” she always explained, looking as wide-eyed and kid-startled as she could. “But there’s just not enough to go around. You understand, don’t you?”

That worked until a soldier with a head wound took a swing at her.

Fortunately, Momma taught her how to use a stun gun back when she was six. Lizzie pressed her back against the wall as the other eight wounded soldiers looked dully at the twitching man on the ground, then looked at Lizzie as she frantically tried to reload her stunner—

Finally they laughed, a scornful mirthless cough of a thing.

“Punked by a kid ,” they chuckled, helping their friend up. “No wonder this asshole needs medical attention.”

They joked about how maybe Freddie could get beaten up by a teddy bear for an encore. But not a one of them seemed to think there was anything wrong with trying to beat up Lizzie.

Shaken, Lizzie worked on that whole troop for free, handing out precious supplies like they were sauerkraut.

She’d apologized to Momma for using up so much medicine at a net loss. Momma just hugged her. Lizzie froze with the newness of it all; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d smelled Momma’s hair.

“It’s getting bad,” Momma agreed. “If I could, I’d install a deadman’s switch to dump knockout gas into the chambers to keep you safe, but…”

“Nobody has any,” Lizzie finished.

“It could be worse,” Momma said, putting the best face on it. “Imagine what would have happened if Doc Ventrager had stayed.”

Still, Lizzie alternately hated herself for being paranoid, then hated the station for requiring paranoia. Lizzie counted the people in the hallways now, moved quickly from room to room so she’d never be too outnumbered; she squeezed her taser’s rubberized grip until the bare metal poked through. She sighed with relief every time they got the latest batch of ships out beyond the Oort cloud.

She was trying to catch up on sleep before the next patrol ship of soldiers arrived, when she woke to a sizzling pop . Her hair rippled; a soft current buzzed through her. The vent next to her bed puffed stale ozone and wheezed to a halt.

When she opened her eyes, there was nothing to see. Did that current blind me ?

Then she heard the awful silence, a void so utterly complete it took a moment to put a name to it:

The motors had stopped.

There were no creaks from the gyros, no hiss of water through the pipes, no hum from the meteoroid shields. It was the sound of space, a horrid nothing, dead and empty in a place that should have a million parts moving to keep her alive.

“Momma?” She tried to yell, but her mouth had gone dry.

Lizzie fumbled at the latches of her emergency supply case to get a flashlight, banging her knees. This is a mechanical failure , she told herself; we’ll get this fixed, and everything will be fine . Except there was no light reflected down the hallways. The walls were shiny metal, each room normally ablaze with control panels and LEDs; she saw not a glimmer.

She clicked the flashlight on. The LED stayed dark.

“ Momma! ” This time, it was a shriek.

“Circuit-friers!” came Gemma’s voice, echoing from down the hall. “Gotta be pirates—goddammit, nobody’s supposed to use those on civilian targets!”

“Our systems are toast, Lizzie,” Momma yelled from the control tower. “Even the self-destruct’s dead. I’m going for the box.”

“What box?” Gemma asked, her voice sharp. “Oh—no, love, too soon. Don’t show your hand before we hear what they have to say.”

Lizzie swallowed back bile. She reached out and wandered forward, hoping to hug Gemma, but without light the echoes in the hallways went every which way.

There was the dull clank of hull bashing hull. Lizzie was flung into the opposite wall. That wasn’t a gentle docking, when computers guided you in with micromovements; this was manual dock, a hard impact that crushed airlock collars and risked depressurization. The central gyros creaked in protest.

Lizzie tried to make her way to the conn tower, but everything was jumping around in the dark. She followed the walls as best she could, but the distances seemed infinitely large. All the while Gemma yelled stay calm, we can talk…

More clanking. A hiss. She wasn’t by the conn tower, she’d blundered to the airlock. She turned and ran, but a set of white-hot flashlight beams skittered along the walls, targeting her. Something exploded against the wall, sending slivers of shrapnel into her legs—

“It’s a kid!” someone yelled. “No fire! No fire!”

Someone grabbed her shoulders, wrenched her arms behind her back. Just before they pulled the hood over her head, she saw the camo-green uniform of a Web soldier.

The Web searched the halls with IR detectors, looking for other guests. Gemma, Momma, and Lizzie sat in the cafeteria with their hands crossed primly on their laps, pointedly not looking at the soldiers who aimed needle-jets at their hearts.

When the soldiers smashed the locks off the kitchen cabinets, it hurt Lizzie like a blow; she’d installed those locks. Momma winced, too. Lizzie wanted to protest as the gaunt soldiers reached in with skeletal hands and chomped the raw cabbages with glee, but she didn’t dare. In the harsh glare of the portable spotlights, the soldiers assigned to guard them looked envious and angry; they couldn’t keep their eyes off of the dancing shadows in the next room, where food was being wolfed down. And when they looked at Lizzie and Gemma and Momma, who were skinny but not emaciated like they were, their dark brows narrowed.