Page 127 of Dead Silence
Something must have given out. The winch is meant to lock to prevent crew from being pulled away from the LINA.
Outside, the desperate tug-of-war between the escaping air and the void beyond ceases. I’m floating. The familiar silence, weightlessness, and backdrop of pinprick stars set in black is a relief.
Home. I’m home.
The tether finally reaches its end and yanks me to a halt, which sends me spinning back in the other direction, toward theAurora.
As I move that way, I catch a glimpse of the LINA being birthed through the cargo bay doors, awkwardly, partially sideways, just as I was afraid of. Her back end is much heavier, which means her front end had to swivel. Not a pretty exit.
After a moment, though, she’s free, in a scattering of small debris.
Free, like me. I made it. Max is gone, the device is, too. Or will be shortly when those timed charges go and theAuroraexplodes.
Sorry, Montgomery.
I take a deep breath. I’m exactly where I wanted to be all those months ago on our last assignment. Out here. Forever.
I probably won’t even feel it, when theAuroragoes up. Or if so, just for a second or two.
Then nothing. Blissful nothing.
Except this time, that thought does nothing to ease the knot of tension in my gut.
I bite my lip. Why doesn’t nothingness sound as appealing as it did before? The concept feels flat, empty… cowardly even. Like I’m hiding behind my former desires simply because that’s what I used to want.
I glance over at the LINA, drifting at the other end of my tether. Kane is inside. Unaware, lost in his own world, but alive. Still breathing. Sitting on the bench just inside the airlock where I left him. Alone.
That image sparks a longing intensity in my chest. Far stronger than the pull of nothingness.
I don’t want him to be alone in the end. I don’t want to be alone in the end, either.
But it’s more than that, too.
This close to death, with everything else gone, it’s stupid to pretend.
I want to be near him. Just like I always have, even if I couldn’t admit it. I want to hold his hand in mine, when the air turns to fire around us. This man who thought I was worth it when I didn’t.
“I’m coming,” I say, even though Kane can’t hear me.
Reaching up, I pull myself along the tether, moving slowly and carefully on the line toward the LINA. Toward Kane.
I’m not even halfway when the oxygen alarm on my suit chirps again. “Three percent remaining,” the female voice tells me. “At current usage, two minutes.”
I pull myself along faster, as fast as I can without risking losing my grasp.
But I can already tell, there’s just too much distance between me and the LINA. The tether is at its full extension, fifty meters.
“I’m not going to make it,” I say, my lips going numb. My head is swirling with dizziness, and I’m having trouble focusing.
“Two percent,” my suit tells me.
After all of this, I’m not going to make it. I’m going to die alone in space, after finally realizing that’s not what I want. Any of it. Death, alone, space.
“Shit.” I blink my eyes rapidly against the stinging in my eyes. I can’t cry in zero grav. The tears won’t drop. They’ll cloud my vision. Or drown me.
I keep going. But my hands aren’t cooperating, each movement clumsier and slower than the last.
Then the tether twitches suddenly in my hands, like a snake awakening from hibernation, and it slides forward through my slack fingers, like that same snake attempting a bid for freedom.
