Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue

Walter supposed they could be blasting wires. He’d seen explosives that worked like this. Was the plan to blow through three feet of Palan stone? If so, she was going to be pretty upset when she saw how small the boy’s cell was. And what will be left of him inside?

The loading ramp opened a crack, letting in a sliver of morning light and a loud hiss of wind. He leaned against the tether and tightened his grip on the cold metal.

He’d help rescue her friend, Walter decided, or at least make it appear he’d tried. Besides, he’d have plenty of opportunities to get the human boy out of the way.

Later.

Molly lowered the cargo ramp from the cockpit and turned on the floodlights to illuminate the side of the canyon. Once the ramp extended fully, she pulled the ship up, pivoting it around until the open bay lined up with the solitary, barred window. She shot a brief glance over her shoulder and saw Walter extending the long boom through the opening.

She performed more calculations in her head, thinking about the thickness of the wall in her own cell and how much mass was likely in the rock. She kept dialing the hyperdrive down, far past its lower limits. Safety overrides flashed red and chimed at her relentlessly as the howling wind coursed through the ship. Molly’s hair had grown long enough for the ends to flick into her eyes, but she couldn’t take her hands off the flight controls and the maneuvering jets to do anything about it.

This was her least sane plan. The one that toyed with the laws of physics.

She could only get within five meters or so of the canyon wall, even with Parsona’s wings retracted in their zero-G position. Harsh gusts swirled and buffeted the ship from every direction. Holding her steady while simultaneously performing rough hyperdrive calculations was a challenge of dexterity and clear-thinking unlike anything the Navy had ever thrown at her. Deep in the recesses of her female ego, Molly wondered how many men would be able to pull this off, much less dream it up.

Then again, it was precisely this sort of stunt that won her demerits at the Academy and eventually got her expelled.

She had the cargo security cam pulled up on the dash’s vid screen. It was one more thing demanding her attention. On it, she could see Walter struggling with the long aluminum frame, yelling at her over the howling wind, complaining that the contraption was too heavy.

It shouldn’t be , she thought.

“OKAY!” he hollered. “Ready!”

Molly silently urged Cole to the other side of his cell. She reached over quickly to turn down the hyperdrive a little more, just in case, then checked the security cam again.

The device wasn’t in place. Walter was holding one of the tips in the center of the cell window.

Damn. She’d explained it a dozen times. No way was she going to pull away and go over it again; they were running out of time. She kept her eyes on the video screen and fought to hold the ship steady in the howling wind. Both of her hands twitched with every gust, counteracting each blast of air with an opposite one from the maneuvering jets. Flying while looking at the screen felt like combing her hair in the mirror for the first time. She moved the wrong way, corrected, tried to get the hang of it.

They only had one shot. Molly boosted the ship up a meter or so to compensate for Walter. She also brought the ship closer to the cliff wall, pressing the device in place herself.

The jump coordinates were already plugged in—she’d chosen to move the mass thirty meters straight up. She let go of the maneuvering jets and punched the hyperdrive as fast as she could.

With a loud ZAP and a yelp from Walter, the drive fired, trying to move the ship through hyperspace and up thirty meters. But instead of sending these instructions to the four anchor points throughout the ship, they travelled down the less-resistant wire Molly had added. What they found at the tips was solid rock, and not knowing any different—mass was mass—they moved the specified amount to the programmed coordinates.

The window and one side of Cole’s cell vanished, entering hyperspace. Thirty meters up, the material would find no place to return and disappear forever.

On the vid screen, Molly checked the hole she’d made. The size was right and had punched all the way through. She held her breath and moved the searchlight over. Something moved.

Cole .

A mix of dread and relief swelled up inside. He was alive, but what kind of hole had they been keeping him in? The cell was much smaller than the chunk of rock she’d removed. She watched him scoot forward and lower himself to the ledge formed by the evacuated square of stone. She could also see something else on the camera screen: something moving beyond him.

She shut down the hyperdrive to transform the magic wand into a lifeline. “Walter!” she yelled over her shoulder. “Get the pole back up there!” He had let it sag after the zap. Cole stood in the square hole, the incredible thickness of the gaping wall creating a nice perch. He looked over his shoulder at whoever was crawling in after him, then turned to look back at the ship.

“Grab the cross!” Molly yelled at the screen, as if Cole could hear her over the roar of the thrusters. She focused on Walter as he wrestled with the wind for control of the aluminum pole. Molly urged both of them along, wishing she could do more as Walter turned to the security camera and yelled something, shaking his head. His metallic face contorted into a mad grimace from the effort—a sneer of sorts.

Molly felt powerless. The autopilot would never be able to hold them in this wind. She tried to pull up a little to again position the long rod herself, but it sagged too much and hung too far away. She watched the screen in frustration. Beyond Cole, she could see someone squeezing into the hole after him—large hands reaching out.

Cole threw a fist into the darkness and then spun back toward the ship. He was arching his back, trying to keep out of someone’s clutches. He teetered forward, his eyes peering through the cargo bay. It seemed as if he was looking through the security camera and right at Molly as he leaned forward, falling.

And then he jumped.

Molly gasped as Cole vanished beneath Parsona . Her hands twitched, her concentration broken. The tip of one wing made contact with the rock, sending a shudder through the ship. Molly pulled away and heard another loud bang of metal.

It was the chain welded to the workbench pulling tight. Walter jumped away from the lifeline, his hands up in the air, the aluminum pole gone. Molly pulled further away from the cliff, freeing up a hand to switch to the belly cam. There he was, swinging across the vid screen and out of sight, his arms locked around the aluminum cross.

You crazy jerk , she thought.

Molly pulled across the canyon, back to the landing platform outside the hangar bay. The original plan had been to reload at the lip of the cliff, but that seemed too far away. She needed to get him inside the ship before her chest burst open.

It wasn’t until she brought Cole over the landing platform that she could breathe again. She lowered him slowly, saw him drop from a meter up, and waited for him to stagger out of the way. She set Parsona down gently, but the landing gear didn’t even have time to compress fully before she heard him stomping up the loading ramp. She looked over her shoulder to confirm everyone was onboard; Cole staggered into the cargo bay, nearly collapsing.

Fighting the urge to rush to him, Molly concentrated instead on getting off that cursed planet; there was no telling what kind of pursuit they could expect from pirates or the Navy. She keyed the cargo door shut and nosed back into the dawn-streaked canyon.