DECEMBER 14, 2124 CE
The path from outside observer to Head of the “Littlest Convoy” (a nickname used both as an endearment and slight these days), felt longer than it had been, but by most measures was still shorter than it had the right to be.
All of the other mission leaders were gray by now, having devoted nearly the whole of their life’s work to this. Many were retired, and all but a couple had watched their ships disappear into the night.
Vanhi was still fresh, though. Not young by most standards, but nowhere near the end of her professional endeavors. For others, the P.U.M.s had been the entire book, but for her, the convoy was just a chapter, and an opening one at that. She’d taken up the reins as an outsider, not building from the ground up, but reassembling, reusing. It gave her a perspective the other heads didn’t have; she could be more objective, in a sense, as the convoy was not the only legacy she intended to forge for herself. It wasn’t even fully her idea—she wanted it, definitely, but she didn’t quite have the same level of emotional investment in her mission as others did in theirs. It was a job—an amazing job, but still a job, not a piece of herself. She knew there were plenty of colleagues that resented her position, and that made tomorrow’s “unveiling” all the more important.
The trip to the Moon had been a day’s jaunt—graviton-based systems were far quicker and more efficient than rockets—and she’d spent the evening in solitude, pouring over her speech notes while others wined and dined in the base’s mess hall.
Maranas Moon Base served as one of twenty in a network of staging grounds for the ships’ construction workers. Once the bases had served their function for the missions, they would be converted into colony habitats. The ships themselves were built and housed in construction yards set at two Lagrange points between the Earth and the Moon. On her ride out, Vanhi had caught a sharp zing of sunlight bouncing off something in the distance, and was sure she was looking at Twelve’s three ships. It was the same gleam that denoted a space station streaking across the sky on Arizona summer nights.
When she was sure the festivities had died down, and that all reasonable people had gone to bed, Vanhi left the base’s library. The room they’d allotted her was small and cramped—normally her favorite kind of working environment, but not this evening. She’d paced for most of the night, back and forth in front of the pressure-sealed shelves (the base’s collection of first edition books was one of its boasting points for intellectual tourists), repeating the key points of her speech over and over.
The base, though fifteen years old, still retained a strange, fresh-plastic scent. There was a sterile newness about it all, and an alien strangeness. It prickled her nerves.
The heels of her tennis shoes did not clop-clop-clop through the domed halls like pumps would have, which was a saving grace with her head already pounding. She needed some water, and at least four hours in snooze-town, and a big-ass breakfast before the press conference tomorrow.
C heard her mumbling about food. “There is a breakfast on tomorrow’s itinerary, though there is no indication of whether or not it will qualify as ‘big-ass.’”
Vanhi snickered as she slid her key card through the reader at an airlock door before proceeding into the next hall. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be happy to know idli is on the menu. I’ve noticed that, when it’s available, you choose to consume it as a first meal seventy-eight percent of the time.”
“Are they serving it with sambar?”
“No. Coconut chutney.”
“Monsters.”
She traversed the majority of the hall before the airlock she’d come through hissed open once more. Figuring it was none of her business, Vanhi didn’t turn to see who else was keeping late hours.
Their shoes made a sharp tit-tat on the cement floor.
The noise was irritating—like a mouse scratching or a sink dripping—but she was only a few more hall lengths from her door, almost within sight of the narrow cot that took up most of her room. She was so ready for her head to hit the pillow.
But then the tit-tat of the stranger’s shoes picked up their pace. Vanhi’s heart rate jumped in response, matching the rhythm.
You’re on the freaking Moon, she reminded herself. This isn’t some dimly lit parking garage that anybody can slither into.
But she knew that stride, the focus of those steps. Every woman who’d ever been alone in an alleyway with a figure close behind knew those heavy, quick footfalls meant danger.
Her room lay one more hall away. Not far at all. She slipped her card through the next airlock reader, scurrying by, hoping the door would shut and the seal would take before her follower could slide in after.
No luck.
Almost there, almost there.
The footfalls trailing her came faster, fell heavier.
She picked up the pace in turn, heart thumping like timpani in her ears.
“Stop,” slurred a high-pitched voice behind her.
Vanhi did not stop. Her quick steps evolved into a jog.
Coming to her door, she took a breath, but did not look up. Sometimes not making eye contact was the key. Just get inside and everything will be fine.
She pressed her thumb to the ID pad, trying to keep calm. Trying to look calm.
“Unable to process, please try again,” chirped the lock.
She scraped her thumb down the textured paint of the hall wall, hoping.
“Unable to process, please try again.”
“Son of a—”
“You.”
It didn’t matter that Vanhi was prepared for the fingers digging into her arm. Didn’t matter that she knew she’d be spun—that immediately after she’d be pushed against the wall or yanked down the hall. Her gut still roiled at the audacity, sank like a stone because of the intrusion, burned like a coal knowing that no matter how prepared she was for an attack, she was never really prepared.
Her heart hammered in her ribs, and she drew in a sharp breath. A hot, quick flash of panic flared through her extremities as she tensed.
Her shoulder blades cracked solidly against the metal door as a woman trapped her against the frame. Vanhi could have fought back, could have struggled, but she wanted to de-escalate. Her blood thrummed in her body, flushed her cheeks, flooded her muscles. She bit back the immediate swell of rage, the urge to kick and punch.
“I told myself I wouldn’t do this,” the woman gritted out centimeters from Vanhi’s face, Australian accent heavy. Sour whiskey fumes rolled off her in waves. “But I have to know why. Why
