Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions

He tried not to think of that. It was too late to go back. He peered ahead at the spray from the other skimmer, standing out on the featureless landscape. It rose in a watery bloom and shivered against the ash-white sky, easy to pick out. Cole pushed forward on the control stick and raced off after it, two walls of water forming on either side of him as he gained speed.

As his craft moved up to the surface of the muddy water, the back end of his skimmer swayed side to side. Cole fought to keep it under control. The steering was much more sensitive to overcorrection than a Firehawk’s. The vehicle’s foils seemed to carve through the water like skis: biting, sliding, and weaving. Each movement begged for a countering one, and it took several moments before he figured out the timing, how to go with the flow rather than fight it. He found large, smooth motions worked better than the fast-twitch variety suited for spacecraft. As he gained some semblance of control, Cole looked up and saw he’d fallen off course. He veered to the side, lining up with the speeding skimmer in the distance. With the accelerator pinned, he chased off after it, steadily gaining.

As he got closer, he saw why he was able to catch up: trailing off the fleeing craft was a tight plume of gray smoke, his furious wrench toss obviously having hit something important. Cole activated the windshield wipers. Even though he traveled the same direction as the rain, his skimmer was going much faster, so the sideways droplets smacked the canopy as surely as if they were falling straight down.

Cole hardly breathed as he powered down the smooth wake created by the other skimmer. He pulled within a dozen meters, and still the wounded craft ahead maintained its unwavering course. Cole glanced over his shoulder at his own limited visibility. A wall of kicked-up water loomed to either side and a haze of spray occluded what little glass lay behind him. The vehicles were fast, but driven in near blindness. Only a narrow chute of visibility lay ahead, and even that was filled with nonstop rain.

Cole looked to the dash. An array of sensors, chart plotters, and readouts reminded him of the hyperskimmer’s primary function: to find body heat and pull people out of the snow. For all he knew, the things drove like a dream on the ice-covered portions of hyperspace for which they’d been designed. He matched the speed of the craft ahead and scanned the dash once more, wondering if there was anything he could use to stop them—perhaps a radio to alert HQ—but none of the controls were labeled, and he’d only seen a few used during his trip to see the Seer.

The Seer!

Cole looked over the switches again, finding the one he recognized. He focused on the tail of the other skimmer and powered his own craft forward, deep into the plume of gray smoke and the shower of watery spray. Piloting with one hand, Cole kept his other one poised on the switch while he visualized the maneuver. He took a few deep breaths before pulling to within a mere meter of the racing craft, the world outside disappearing in a wall of kicked-up and solid white foam. He had a brief moment of terror that the pilot ahead might suddenly slow down, but shook such thoughts aside.

Cole whipped out of the craft’s wake, moving into clear air and uncut water. He gave the skimmer everything it had, his shoulders pressing back into his chair as he jolted forward. Pulling up beside the other craft, Cole looked to the side, but saw nothing through the wall of water kicked up from the forward foil. He swerved that direction anyway, his finger on the switch tense with anticipation. As soon as he heard the crunch of metal-on-metal, he hit the button, sending the docking arms out through the wall of water. He heard another crunch as the grippers found something solid to bite into.

Cole pulled back on his throttle, powering his own skimmer down and hoping to bring the other craft to a halt. The locked ships veered to one side as the other craft, clearly wounded, tried to keep running. Cole corrected for the drag as the neighboring engine whined loudly in complaint. He could practically feel the vibrations as the other pilot attempted to flee, but the weight and power of his craft were far too much for it.

As their speed fell, the two ships sank deeper into the water, and the wall of spray between them fell like a dropped sheet. Cole peered through his canopy, expecting to see a shocked expression on the passenger’s face—a look of resigned defeat.

What he found instead, as the hydrofoils ceased kicking up so much spray, was an open canopy next to his own. One of the saboteurs knelt in his seat, leaning out over the side of his skimmer toward Cole. He had his hands up, as if holding something, but they looked perfectly empty.

It wasn’t until the man swung his arms down in a perfect angle two that Cole realized what he was holding.

After Molly helped Saunders recover from his collapse in the cargo bay, she watched him return to his inner circle to think about what she had divulged. She spent her time likewise, resting in her cabin and dwelling on the possibility that Lucin had been more than just a turncoat to her. Had he been a Bern as well? If so, what did that explain? When he said he meant to end the war, had he ever stated what side he imagined as the victor? Or even which war he meant?

She listened to the washer in the bathroom thud rhythmically as it attempted to get the blood out of a dozen flightsuits. It sounded like her ship had grown a pulse. It even had the double beat of one: thud-thud. Thud-thud.

If Lucin had been a traitor to them all, what a wonderful post for him to have infiltrated. He always said the Naval Academies on either side were the true front lines for any war, lines the enemy could never attack. But what didn’t make sense was how effective he was at producing capable fighters. Or how he never tried to stoke up anti-Drenard rage the way Saunders had. More disguises, perhaps?

Molly tried to put a stop to the cycle of her thoughts. The questions went round and round, tormenting her, never making any sense. She forced herself to sit up, fearing her attempt at rest was simply winding her up more tightly. Instead, she went outside to find Saunders, to see if he was doing any better than she at coming to grips with these slippery issues.

She found him by one of the many small campfires flickering beyond the tangle of wiry, Lokian trees. His group seemed to be in the middle of an animated conversation as she approached, but they quickly fell silent as she stepped into the fire’s wavering pool of light. Saunders rose from the blanket to meet her. He squeezed her shoulder and pulled her away from the cluster of staff members.

“How’re you feeling?” she whispered.

Saunders shook his head. “I’m dancing a fine line, I think. It’s… just too much all at once.” He stopped and patted his flightsuit. Another of the survivors had given him a rare clean one, but it didn’t quite fit. The zipper remained open almost to his waist, revealing a sweat-stained undershirt beneath. “Before I forget—” Saunders pulled out a credit chip and passed it to Molly. “It draws from a Navy account. Use it for the supplies tomorrow and put a deposit on some place for us to stay.”

Molly took the chip and slid it into a pocket, zipping it up afterwards. “You sure you don’t want to come with us?” she asked. “It would be nice to have you there to throw your weight around.”

Saunders looked down at himself, then peered up at Molly, the barest of smirks visible in the wan light of the campfires.

“I totally didn’t mean it like that,” she said.

Saunders laughed, or tried to. The strain and tiredness in him were more evident as he fought to hide them. “Sure you didn’t,” he said. “And I don’t think you need my help to pick up some food and water. You’ve got plenty of capable hands. I’d rather be with my crew.”