Defying Mars (The Saving Mars Series) - By Cidney Swanson Page 0,84
not pursuing us.”
“My aunt must consider the wreck a priority,” said Pavel, trying to convince himself this was a good thing. “More ships are on the way,” he added, pointing to his screen. “Where are we heading?”
“I have found something unexpected,” said Ethan. “I detect no live signals from Marsian wafer-computers aboard the wreckage. However, I have located a signal some hundred kilometers south-southwest.”
“Marsian?” asked Pavel.
“It is an escape pod,” said Ethan.
“What?” demanded Pavel. “The Galleon had escape pods and you didn’t think to mention this until just now?”
“Steady, now, lad,” murmured Brian Wallace.
“It did not occur to me,” admitted Ethan.
“Well then, give me the shizin’ coordinates already!” shouted Pavel.
~ ~ ~
Lucca hated inaction at times such as this. She’d been at the point of ordering her cruiser several times. She was close. So close. But there was no point leaving her military hub in Mexico City until they recovered the crew for her interrogation. On the other hand, she might like to try interrogating prisoners aboard the cruiser. They could fly circles over the wreckage of the enemy vessel. It was good to wear down prisoner morale with compelling visuals when possible. She smiled as she lost herself in imagining the possibilities.
Her secretary scurried in. “Madam Chancellor,” she panted, “A call from the Pacific. You weren’t answering, so I thought—”
“Yes, yes,” said Lucca. “Put the call through.” She was annoyed at herself for having been pre-occupied. Seconds counted at times like these.
“Madam Chancellor, we are continuing our search for any signs of life aboard the vessel,” said the officer. “However, we show signs of a craft separation.”
“Another ship?” asked the Chancellor.
“An emergency escape vehicle, we believe,” replied the officer. “Large enough for one or at most two people. It crashed several minutes after the larger vessel just off the coast.”
“Send me the coordinates at once!” demanded Lucca.
Then she called for her cruiser.
38
NO MORE
Jessamyn’s tiny craft bobbed, a small cork in a giant ocean. She took a deep breath as her eyes fluttered open and then she clawed at her helmet with one hand, punching at pod air-intake valves with the other. Several hairs were removed by the root in Jessamyn’s eagerness to get her helmet off and breathe freely. She felt like one very large bruise, but she was alive!
Deeply, she inhaled her first breath. Her nose remembered the metal-tang of Earth’s oceans. The moisture, the salt, even the cold of the air struck her as tiny miracles of delight.
She laughed aloud and then groaned, her abdominal muscles cramping into a charley horse. But what did pain matter? Pain meant she was alive. She leaned back to ease her stomach muscles. The pod, already tossing on the waves, bobbed in response to the shifting of her weight. It was a strange sensation, such motion when she knew she’d landed.
“I made it,” she shouted, cackling gleefully. “It was impossible, but I did it! I made it!”
She stood, abruptly curious to observe the ocean outside. Pressing her face against the pod’s porthole window, she saw kilometer after kilometer of water. Water as far as the eye could see. She had a strong notion it wasn’t drinkable, but the wonder of it struck her mute. So much, so much. How could there be so much water?
She felt her unnatural heaviness as another wave struck the tiny craft, and she sank back down to rest. Her craft tipped again and she floundered forward into the wall before her. She ought to have adjusted the Galleon’s artificial gravity with more regularity.
The Galleon.
A wave of utter horror passed over her, more incapacitating, more powerful than the ocean swells. Her brave, beautiful ship was no more. The Red Galleon lay in pieces, scattered over the waves, and Jessamyn felt her heart squeeze tight in anguish.
Why could she never save what she cared for most?
This, she thought, was why the captain always went down with her ship. Because it hurt too much to live on when your bonny ship was no more. Tears welled up in her eyes.
She heard Harpreet’s gentle voice in her mind, telling her, “Tears are a gift from the Divine, child.” But these tears did not feel like a gift. They felt like failure.
What did it matter that she’d survived her landing if she’d destroyed her ship? She’d stolen Mars’s last raiding ship and then obliterated it. She could never make up for what she’d done, for what she’d taken from her world. She deserved to die, miserable and alone on the waves.