GOTCHA

2416 CE

Doug reached out and tried to take his ring from Wenrock‘s face, but it was jammed in a sharp-edged, bony crevice where the hand’s metacarpals had penetrated Wenrock‘s eye socket, leaving the fingertips protruding.

Doug‘s suit alarm went red, and over the fading roar from Wenrock‘s air Millie said, “You’ve got a rip leak at your left collarbone. Air time remaining, two minutes.”

The explosion must have blown shrapnel; Doug would suffocate before he could make it back to the Hive. “Help me!” he called. “Get out here! Wenrock‘s dead! I’ve got a bad suit leak!” Abandoning the ring, he jetted slowly away, turning from the sight of Wenrock‘s body and its halo of ice mist; Hive Seventy and Oberon moved into view at his upper left.

Millie started reciting Wenrock‘s coordinates.

“A team is on its way.” Ghermanov.

“How long?” Doug called out.

“Four minutes,” Ghermanov said. “Your identifier?”

“Magician Eight Empress Five. I’ve got under two minutes of air,” Doug said. “Hurry.”

A pause. Ghermanov said, “You’re MacNee. I remember you. You killed Turchenko.”

The suited figure jetted swiftly toward Doug and Wenrock‘s body. Ghermanov would let him die. Millie reported, “One minute of air remaining.”

“Can’t someone get me in?” Doug called. “Nye? Herbert? Where are you?”

“I’m on my way back,” Nye answered.

“Stand away, Nye,” Ghermanov ordered. “I’ll cook any man coming out of Hive Seventy for this.”

Far away, four white dots rose away from the edge of Hive Seventy-One. Ghermanov kept the teams of guards for Hives Sixty-Nine through Seventy-Two.

Doug had now rotated to face Wenrock again, with Uranus looming on the left. Millie announced, “Leak is stopped. Your air supply is twelve minutes at current usage rate.”

Something conked against the back of his helmet, and a tinny faraway voice said through the metal, “Gotcha.” A hand slapped against his collarbone.