Chimera 🌈 [ONC 2024]

9: Debris

Ryan's shuttle, the peculiarly named Fighting Machine, still sat in the docking bay by Airlock-C. It was this that she used to make the journey to Mandala, now in a lower, more unstable orbit than the Arcadia after Valkyrie's station-keeping manoeuvres. Leanne, trying not to think of the wretched duty Ryan had to perform, kept to the cockpit, glued to the cameras which followed the Martian woman's progress.

The Fighting Machine's thrusters glimmered with a ghostly green in the void of space, contrasting with the scorched white of the shuttle. Ryan had explained that the vessel was as protected as any BASE equivalent, complete with heat-shield, internal guidance system and robust propulsion, but it still looked so vulnerable out there.

Leanne was worried for her, and that was something she did not think she would admit to.

"Ryan has successfully reached BESS Mandala," Valkyrie was saying. "The hatch is still open from your egress, Miss Ziegler, so she will not have to force entry."

Leanne could see that on the cameras mounted to the Fighting Machine. It seemed an age since she had left Mandala, but it was truly only forty hours or so. She regretted ever setting foot in that shuttle and in a perverse way, would be glad to see it bumped into a course that would end with its fiery destruction. She hoped her pain would ignite in a similar way.

"Ryan is exiting the Fighting Machine now," Valkyrie narrated. "I shall monitor her vital signs."

That was something Ryan had expressly requested. Leanne had offered but Ryan had insisted on Valkyrie. She had considered pressing the matter before swiftly shutting her mouth. She and Ryan had only just got onto a firmer footing and it would be foolish to ruin that. It was clear the BASE and Nerio were not sending reinforcements, so the two women had each other only.

And Valkyrie. Leanne was not sure how she felt about occupying the Arcadia alone with the AI again.

For now, she focused on Ryan. The woman, dressed in an EVA suit as red as her home planet, attached her tether to the pulley at the hatch of the Fighting Machine and made her first step out into the black gulf. Leanne's stomach dropped. Ryan had said she had performed EVAs but Leanne doubted that. The Nerio colonists tended to stick to their lower gravity ground. Still, Ryan did not seem to balk or hesitate. She calmly adjusted the pack on her back and manipulated the small thrusters. These glittered as green as the Fighting Machine's. Leanne obsessively followed their trail.

It took a mere few minutes for Ryan to approach Mandala. Holding herself steady, she reached out a hand and touched the hull of the shuttle. Leanne knew what a relief that would be: firm stability in an open abyss with no top and no bottom.

"Entering Mandala now," Ryan's voice said over the comms. She barely sounded strained. Just like Cliff, Leanne thought, so calm in the face of adversity.