Page 120 of Stars
Even if his end was here, now, in this frozen, lifeless station above Earth, he would still see Sergey again. He would feel him again, their atoms merging together, becoming one, nestled inside the heart of the universe.
Sergey…
He jerked awake, grasping Mark and struggling to breathe, starving for oxygen. Their air was too thin. He was losing it.
He didn’t want to see Sergey again in a billion years, in the heat death of the universe when their atoms finally entangled for eternity. He wanted to see himnow. Wanted to feel his hands, his lips, his body pressed against Sasha’s. Wanted to hear his voice. Taste him, everywhere.
Loneliness opened within him, as harsh as it had ever been growing up in Norilsk or living in hatred of himself in the air force. He yearned, ached, desperate for his love.
They had to get off the fucking station.
Static crackled through the radio, a whine and a warble, a scream of high gain and signal overload blasting through the speakers. He and Mark stiffened, reaching for the bulkhead and dragging themselves out of their floating huddle. Sasha kept his hand on Mark’s shoulder. If he let go, he’d lose Mark in the dark.
“ISS, hello!” Zeytsev boomed. “This is the man now in charge of Russia.”
Mark hissed. He reached back for Sasha, grabbing his elbow. “Sergey—”
“He lies. Zeytsev cannot beat Sergey.”
“Hello as well to my American friends. I understand they are listening in. And, astronauts, you will not be able to respond. But I will know you can hear me, and that you are doing what I tell you to do. I am tracking your every move.”
Mark cursed. A flickering beam of light fell out ofIndependence’shatch, followed by Sarah, holding her flashlight in a trembling hand. She moved slowly, curled over her abdomen. They’d done what they could for her wound, but blood stained the bandage wrapped around her belly. She grabbed the bulkhead and floated, listening to Zeytsev’s demands as she struggled to breathe. Each of her breaths was labored, rasping. Internal bleeding.
“Astronauts, you should investigate the Soviet property you have on board. You may be surprised at what you find.”
For a moment, they didn’t understand. Soviet property?ZvezdaandZaryawere made by the Russian Federation, not the Soviets. Their dead Soviet, strapped to the satellite—
“Holy God,” Mark breathed. “The nuke.”
He and Mark took off, flinging themselves towardFreedom’shatch. They’d dogged the hatch and locked it with a broken handhold, trying to contain the horror of Joey’s death. “Wait,” Mark said. “Masks. Grab the isolation masks. And gloves.”
Sasha bounced off the bulkheads and ricocheted through the hatch betweenDestinyandUnity, fumbling in the pitch black. They’d left the masks tied to the command station, looped through the tie-down by the commander’s computer next to the medical kit. He grabbed for them as he swung the medical kit over his shoulder and kicked back toDestiny. He tossed Mark and Sarah each a mask and fitted his on as Mark dug out gloves for everyone.
The mask covered his face completely, like a firefighter’s mask, and had a portable tank of oxygen attached beneath the chin. It smelled like carbon and fear, the stink of sweat and adrenaline. The last time he’d worn the mask, Mark had drilled into Michaela’s skull.
Moving intoFreedomfelt like crawling into the bowels of Hell. Giant orbs of blood shivered in zero g. As the station turned, Joey’s body had shaken loose, and his organs—what hadn’t been savaged by Rafael, torn apart or eaten—splayed out from his open abdomen. Sasha and Mark flicked on their flashlights. The hull was spattered with red, crimson splashes like paint had been thrown against every wall.
Blood splattered against their masks. Sasha wiped the fluid off the plastic. It smeared, his gaze now filtering through red.
Sarah pushed through the gore and brushed by Joey’s body, giving him a gentle shove down to the deck and out of the way. She was the first to make it across the hold to where they’d stored the warhead out of sight. Mark and Sasha caught up as she unlatched the storage locker and hauled it open.
Green numbers blinked up at them, winking from the face of the countdown timer.
As they watched, the timer blinked from 12:00 to 11:59… 11:58…
“So, ISS, you have found my surprise,da?If you want to live, you will do exactly as I say. You will launch immediately. You will bring Russia’s warhead and yourselves back home. These are the coordinates where you are to land your capsule.” He rattled off a longitude and latitude, something deep in Siberia. “Your onboard systems can calculate an acceptable reentry profile. Oh, and, my American friends? You will allow their ship to return to Earth and to land in Russia. We will consider any action taken against the return of Russian property to be an act of war, and we will retaliate against the United States with nuclear force.”
Sasha’s ears rang, Zeytsev’s voice echoing in his skull. Where was Sergey? Why wasn’t he saying anything? Why wasn’t anyone in Russia taking Zeytsev off the air?
Was there anyone left there to oppose him? Had Sergey—
“I can fix this,” Sarah rasped. “I need both toolboxes, fromUnityandDestiny.”
“I thought you couldn’t disarm the timer,” Mark said. “Out there, you couldn’t disarm—”
“That was in space,” Sarah snapped. “Go, both of you. Get the tools. We don’t have time to argue!”
Sasha followed Mark out ofFreedom, trying to swim over the orbiting clouds of blood. Mark turned left towardUnity. Sasha twisted right, pushing off and reaching for the tool bag tucked overhead—
