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Slingshot Station hummed like a beehive, but instead of honey, it produced grease and a bad odor. A giant billboard that read Welc me to Slingsh t St tion hung over the main passageway. It could fall at any moment. It probably clung fast on account of the half-gravity. The people’s bustle through the station was erratic and unpredictable. It was filthy, more than Eustis had expected.
The dim lighting left his hungry eyes struggling to capture the glorious vision he had reckoned on for his first foray into space. In all of the interplanetary advertisements, the stations looked clean and inviting, but here the hive didn’t fit the hype. The noise and congestion were enough to send Eustis to the exit, except that there was none. Being a hunted man, he could only move forward.
He tried to keep up with Enzo as they weaved through tunnels that periodically opened into glass domes and black nothingness beyond. Despite the ease of movement at his partial weightlessness, he was breathing hard. He paused to catch his breath, something that seemed nearly impossible. Smudge-covered people skittered around him listlessly, with their eyes ever on the ground. The majority of the pedestrians wore air masks over their noses and mouths. Low-hanging lights flickered with spastic rhythms giving him a sickening twist in his stomach.
“Hey, you with the bag!” The voice sounded like it was made of air and dust. Eustis spun and adjusted his duffle bag’s shoulder strap. A pedestrian jostled into him and grunted a curse. Eustis scanned for the source of the voice. A man was crumpled against the corridor’s bulkhead. Out of his age-puckered mouth came barking jabber. “Yeah, you. Come here.”
Eustis glanced along the path Enzo had taken. He was out of sight in the thronging crowd. He looked back at the sagging bag of skin that was wadded up at the edge of the walkway and moved cautiously toward him.
“Hello, my name is Eustis.” The broken man looked up at him with surprise.
“You got a breath you could spare?”
“What?” Eustis said as he knelt a few paces away from the man. Foot traffic continued to radiate past in the clogged passageway.
“Come on? You can spare a little wisp for an old man?”
“I—uh—” Eustis set the duffle bag down next to him. “I’m kind of new here. I don’t know what you’re asking me. I’m happy to help if I can.”
“A breath,” the man said, closing his eyes and smacking his mouth between the words. “Just a little air.”
“Oh,” Eustis said, still trying to catch his own breath. “Are you having trouble breathing?”
“They used to keep it at full pressure out here, but now—” the man gulped on the thin air. “Those cheap, mouth-breathing goons cut communal air ration to half. GovCorp’s killing us all. Some slow. Some fast.”
“What’s your name, friend?” Eustis asked. The words apparently surprised the man because his eyebrows rose, making more wrinkles around their edges.
“Ted.”
“Ted, I think I have something that could help.” Eustis opened the mouth of his duffle and dug through the contents. “Yes, here it is.” He pulled out a small emergency air bottle with a face mask attached. The tiny thing wouldn’t last long, but the man clearly needed it more than him. Ted’s face became momentarily bright when he spotted the little air tank. His hands went out greedily.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Eustis said. Ted glanced at Eustis skeptically. “I’ll give you this air, but while you use it, I’d like to tell you about the most important person who ever lived. Would that be ok with you?” The man nodded, not taking his attention off the bottle.
Ted’s sad eyes watched Eustis’ face as he talked. With the mask pressed against his wrinkled lips, he breathed with vigor as Eustis gave his practiced presentation. He had been talking for three or four minutes when the final gasp of air hissed from the bottle. Ted let the bottle’s mask away from his face.
“So, what do you think, Ted?” Eustis said. “Do you believe what I’ve told you?”
Ted was about to respond, but before he could speak an abrasive voice sliced across the conversation and severed the serene moment.
“Hey!” the echoing noise bounced down the corridor. “No!” Eustis recoiled at the sound. He looked lengthwise down the passageway and spotted a robust figure lumbering toward him.
His black boots had an illuminated GovCorp logo emblazoned on the toe, a toe that looked ready to kick. Attached to the boots was a uniformed officer with his battering stick drawn. He had glowing stripes that ran up the length of his pants and jacket, blinking red and blue. His face was turned down, and his forward-leaning approach promised trouble.
“Don’t feed the wildlife!” the officer shouted.
“I’m sorry, he can’t breathe. He just needs some air.”
The broad man pointed his batterized baton in Eustis’ face and pulled the trigger. A warning spark arced like a spurt of angry lightning out of the tip. Eustis jumped back. “Soliciting is against the law, as is supporting vagrancy. Did he solicit you? Did you give him anything?”
“He needs some air. I was just going to give him a—”
“You can’t do that.” The officer bellowed. “Ted here is a no-script. Isn’t that right, Ted?” The officer clicked his lightning stick at the poor man. His face danced with the shocking light as a sickening grin stretched across his face. Ted’s lurching wince suggested he was familiar with the feeling of that baton. Eustis looked at the officer’s name badge.
“Officer Bragg, I’m new here,” Eustis said. “I wasn’t trying to break the law. I was just trying to help.”
“Let me make this simple. He’s got no O2 subscription. Every breath he breathes is on loan from GovCorp, and his payment is way past due. If he begs a breath off you, it’s criminal vagrancy. If you give him a breath, it’s aiding criminal vagrancy.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Eustis tried. Before he could get another word out, Bragg brandished his baton and let the sparks cut across Eustis’ words.
“I don’t make the rules,” Bragg said. “I just shock the soot out of anyone that breaks them.” He sparked his baton once more.
Eustis stared hard for a few seconds before he stepped back and faded into the traffic of the corridor. Bodies passed between him and the man huddled beneath his oppressor. Bragg feigned a lunge at poor Ted, to which the old man leaned over in an attempt to escape the inevitable blow. The officer laughed and spun away from the vagrant, looking like he might leave. Ted sat upright only to find that Bragg wasn’t done. The monster took a wide stance so Ted could not escape this time and spat lightning into Ted’s tender stomach. He doubled over in a seizing convulsion.
Eustis’ heart was thumping against his ribs, and his breaths were flowing in shallow, shattered gasps. People huffed through their air masks at the inconvenience of moving around him. He slid the duffle strap from his shoulder and let it drop to the ground. He balled his hands into fists. His muscles tightened, and his vision narrowed.
“Hey, what are you doing?” A hand caught Eustis on the shoulder. When Eustis spun to look down at Enzo, his eyes were wide, and his nostrils flared. “Whoa, are you ok?” Without saying anything, Eustis looked in the direction of Ted and Officer Bragg. Enzo followed his look and then stepped in front of Eustis, effectively cutting off his plan of attack. Ted let out another scream of pain as Bragg’s electric jab found its mark.
“Don’t even think about it,” Enzo said. “Tangle with a GovCorp goon, and you’ll be space dust.”
“But he’s killing that guy.”
“It’s just a no-script,” Enzo said.
“No one deserves that,” Eustis pointed and leaned around the kid. “Don’t you see what’s wrong with this situation?”
“It’s not about right or wrong,” Enzo said. “It’s just the way it is up here. Don’t have to like it. Take one step toward that Govy-goon, and I go to the ship without you. Captain burns hard out of this port. Whatever you’re trying to do dies here.”
Enzo knelt down and gripped the handle of Eustis’ duffle bag. He stood and held it out for Eustis to take. “It’s your choice.” Behind Enzo, the officer aimed another kick at Ted’s stomach.
Eustis closed his eyes and said, “You’ve been very kind to me, but I have to do something. I just can’t.”
“Suit yourself,” Enzo said, dropping Eustis’ bag. Eustis stepped around Enzo and prepared to do, well, something, but he wasn’t sure what. Before Eustis could act, Bragg’s thick arm was wrapped mercilessly around Ted’s neck, but he suddenly shoved him away with a shout and Ted tumbled into the corridor wall.
“The dirty no-script bit me!” Bragg shouted. Eustis stood frozen as he watched Bragg reach for a holstered sidearm.
“No!” Eustis shouted. He was running when the pistol spat a bolt of red plasma and Ted lurched and flopped lifelessly to the ground. Eustis skidded to a stop five paces from the body—the smell of electric ozone and cauterized flesh was sickening.
“We need a reclamation team in corridor three,” Bragg radioed. Bragg holstered his firearm, stepped aside, and brushed past Eustis with a satisfied smile. “Two less lungs to fill.”
No one stopped to investigate. A man lay dead, and no one cared. He stared down at Ted, hoping, even willing him to breathe, to sit up. Looking down at Ted’s body, others came to mind. Leena Bickle. Sue Tuttle. Rod Musker. Martha and Todd Grambling. Murdered by that soulless animal, Admiral Strafe. This wasn’t the place to cry, and he wasn’t sure he could with how dehydrated he felt. But the tears welled, and he rubbed his face with his sleeve.
A light touch grazed his arm. Slowly, as if his head weighed as much as the earth, he looked down. The kid was blurred by watery lines of sorrow. Enzo had the strap of Eustis’ duffle bag. He was handing it up toward Eustis. He didn’t say anything but just looked up at the oddly woe-begotten man. Eustis reached for the strap of his bag, silently turned, and followed the kid down the corridor. “Thanks for giving me the chance to talk to him.” He hoped beyond reason that it made a difference.
After a long breathless walk in low gravity, Enzo led him through an arched opening that spilled out into a broad landing port. Eustis managed to stow his tears for now, but he sensed he would need to find a place to mourn. He was working hard to push the day’s events out of focus, but his mind was having trouble making sense of the world he was now a part of.
Another glass dome rose between them and a ship, if it could be called that. It looked like the loosely erected contents of a scrapyard. It was cable-lashed to the port mooring and remained docked by way of an enclosed gangplank.
“Behold,” Enzo said. “The Scuttle.”
If the filth and violence of Slingshot station were enough to make Eustis want to return home, the sight of the ship was more than adequate fodder for nightmares. Eustis closed his gaping mouth and blinked his unbelieving eyes.
“Are there pieces missing, or is it supposed to look like that?” Eustis asked. It didn’t look like it could make orbit, much less a million-kilometer journey to Musk City, Mars. Maybe the whole endeavor was a mistake. Maybe this wasn’t where he was supposed to be. When Enzo didn’t answer, he said, “I mean, is it airtight?”
Enzo paid no attention and kept moving toward the gangplank that led to the hatch of the splintered vessel. Eustis took a moment to study the craft.
Compared to many in the Sol System, the Scuttle was not large, but to Eustis, it was a hulking giant. It was the size of a city block, and its misshapen form told a hundred stories Eustis couldn’t wait to hear. Black scorch marks wrapped the breadth of its bulbous body. Entire panels were curled back, unriveted, and hanging free. Beneath the broken skin, a tangled and corroded electrical skeleton was visible. Its shape resembled that of a lopsided mutant whale whose fins had been severed.
“When we’re inside,” Enzo said. “Stay quiet. No Questions. You’re going to lay low for a little while.”
“Aren’t they going to be mad when they realize—”
“No,” Enzo said. “Not mad. Insanely enraged.” Enzo smiled. “It’s not too late to back out.”
“No,” Eustis said, but his tone wasn’t convincing. He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced back up the gangplank. There was no other option. “I’m in.”
“Ok,” Enzo said. “Let’s go.”
Eustis took a deep breath of rocket exhaust and coughed on the greasy flavor of the thin atmosphere.
“Lord, help me,” he said as he followed Enzo through the black tunnel that led into the belly of the titanium beast.
Twenty-seven minutes later, the Scuttle shoved off from Slingshot Station, drifting slowly upward in a lazy orbit. Forty-three minutes later, a smaller, ship drifted from Slingshot port tie-off with a similar heading.
