The Lost Ship of the Tucker Rebellion - Marie Sexton Page 0,46
chaos as people rushed to evacuate. Denver hoped it’d be enough to dissuade Gerald from a detailed search.
The alarm still blared, and the automated narrator continued her warnings.
COMPLETE LOCKDOWN OF SECTOR THREE WILL OCCUR IN ELEVEN MINUTES. ALL CITIZENS MUST EVACUATE SECTOR THREE IMMEDIATELY.
The comm at Gerald’s shoulder beeped. “What is it?” Gerald snapped.
“Sir, we have a major issue at gate two. Requesting backup immediately.”
“Shit!” Gerald turned again to Denver, clearly torn, and Denver decided this wasn’t the time to be argumentative. He aimed instead for conciliatory.
“Look, we’re not leaving without this machine. If you want to search it again, then do it. Just do it fast so we can get the hell out of here.”
“Sir!” the voice came again through Gerald’s comm. “The shit’s seriously hitting the fan over here, sir. We need help in a big way.”
Gerald sighed, then said into the comm, “I’m on my way.” He turned to Denver and Laramie with a scowl. “Go,” he said. “Get the hell out of sector three.”
That had to be the easiest order to obey that Denver had ever been given. “You got it.” It even gave them an excuse to hurry, and whatever got them out of sight of station security faster was a good thing.
The dialysis machine had tiny wheels. They were wobbly and off-balance and stuck more often than not, but it was better than having to lug the damned thing the entire way. Denver pushed and Laramie led the way, making sure people didn’t run into them in the chaos and jar their precious cargo. Denver had no idea how fragile the biologicals were at this point—they couldn’t be too dainty if they’d survived decades in space—but he didn’t want to risk any damage.
“What are you talking about?” Denver asked, grunting as they lifted the machine up over a rumpled section of grate. They were ten minutes out from Doc’s office on a normal day, but the alarm had made it anything but. A mob of scared people stood between them and their destination.
“Look under your fingernails.”
“I’m being serious,” Laramie warned, and yeah, that was his serious voice, or as close as he ever got. “We haven’t exactly had a normal upbringing. We never got a chance to learn about plants like the kids here do. How is this going to work?”
“Maybe Spence can help us.”
“Oh, sure.”
“First of all, I didn’t fuck him.”
“Not yet, you mean.”
Denver chose to ignore that. “Second: I didn’t hear you offering up any other suggestions back on the ship.”
Laramie scowled but didn’t reply.
“Third: you’re giving me a headache.”
“And you’re being a pain in my ass,” Laramie retorted.
The argument stopped as they reached the mob of people trying to push their way out of Sector Three. They shuffled forward with the crowd, jostling the dialysis machine between them.
ALERT! COLLISION ALERT. IMPACT IS IMMINENT. COMPLETE LOCKDOWN OF SECTOR THREE WILL OCCUR IN SIX MINUTES.
Finally, they squeezed through the gate. Denver looked up, eyeing the giant doors that would slam shut in less than six minutes. Had the alert been real, anybody left in Sector Three would have been doomed. Denver felt another twinge of guilt. Was their freedom worth the chaos and fear they’d just caused?
Maybe not. But his brother’s life was.
“I hope nobody gets hurt because of us.”
They turned off the main thoroughfare toward Doc’s office, breathing a sigh of relief as they left the scattering mob behind.
“Seriously,” Laramie said. “Why don’t you see how strange this whole thing with Spence is?”
“Oh, good. This argument again. Silly me, thinking we could drop it like adults.”
“How can you get on my case with Ginn when you’re twice as nuts over a kid you barely know?”
“Oh look, here we are.” Denver forced a grin. “At Doc’s office, the place we really need to be, without having been stopped and searched.