We glide silently between the carcasses of the Myriad battleships. There is something profoundly disturbing to watching the powerful vessels gutted and lifeless. Fifty thousand lives destroyed in an instant. These guys trained for decades. Top of the food chain. Never had a chance. Didn’t land a single shot.

  I don’t know what to feel, it’s just... wrong.

  “That’s what you saw, wasn’t it?” Vince asks with a frown.

  A physical impossibility, we both know it, but it’s there all the same. There can be no doubt in my mind, not with both ships right next to us, still bearing deep claw marks, the metal hull flared out due to the resulting explosive decompression.

  “Two myriad class, shredded like papier-maché. Exactly like I told you. Don’t tell me I’m imagining things.”

  “I just don’t understand how it’s possible. How far can you see? Can you see the station from here?”

  Damn it! If I’m not careful, I’m going to end up on a vivisection table. I make a show of looking out the panel squinting my eyes. They’re waiting with bated breath and I laugh.

  “Of course not. There’s no way. Look, I don’t know how it happened, OK? It just did.”

  “But there has to be a logical explanation. Things don’t just happen. I swear, if this is a trick...”

  “You know what? Fuck you. I’m not lying—”

  “Knock it off, both of you. I’ve heard dragons can affect the fabric of reality, bending space to their will. Maybe the dragon’s presence folded space, you know, kind of like an old hyperdrive created a worm hole to two different spaces.”

  Vince winces uncomfortably, the way he always does when he hears something he deems “unscientific”. It’s almost as if it caused him physical pain.

  “That’s not how that works—”

  “Do you have a better idea? I’m all ears. For now, you’re missing the important point!”

  “More important than finding something that violates the laws of physics?”

  “Rescuing the survivors, dumbass. That’s what we’re here for. Look, there are lights on those ships!”

  “Those are just emergency lights, they have their own power sources. Without an EMP blast, there should be quite a few systems active in there. Doesn’t mean anyone’s still alive. Look, see that? Clear signs of explosive decompression.” He says, pulling another part of the hull up on the screen. “That damage probably comes from the secondary core. Looks like it went supercritical and blew up. If it was enough to breach the outer hull, just imagine what it’s like inside! There are no partitions capable of withstanding such an explosion. I guarantee no one survived inside that inferno.”

  “The other one looks to be in better shape.” I say, glad to take attention away from my ‘visions’. “Aldine’s right, get us closer. If there are still people alive, we don’t have any time to waste.”

  Without waiting for a reply, I pull out my EVA suit.

  “I’m coming with you this time,” she says with a smile.

  “Are you even trained for space walks?”

  “Of course. Nearly perfect score on all tests and top of my class on the practical! I can teach you some stuff, if you like.”

  Sometimes, I hate my life. Did my first EVA walk when I was 12, out on a mining rig. Thousands of walks in some of the toughest conditions, but no worries, school girlie here is going to ‘teach me stuff’. Kill me, more like it. Vince’s grinning like a bloody idiot while I try to find an answer that doesn’t make me sound like an ass.

  “Ever gone off the leash?” I ask. I already know the answer, but it’s the only way I can think of to make her understand the difference.

  “Off the leash?”

  “Our safety tether cables are too short. We’re not equipped for exploration here, we just have enough to do basic tasks around the barge.”

  “Oh, flight EVA? But...” She stares at my old suit in confusion. “Your suit isn’t equipped for flight.”

  I smile. Welcome to the real world, Aldine.

  “Well, feel free to tell your dad we need some fancy flight suits. In the mean time, this is how we do it:”

  I grab my ballast bag and hand it over to her. Weighs more than she does, and she nearly collapses forward trying to hold it.

  “Easy now.” I say, catching her. “You get your initial propulsion by jumping from the ship, then you adjust the direction by throwing a handful of junk from the bag. When you land on a wreck, you just refill your bag and you’re good to go.”

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  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Hey, you can stay here if you like. Watch Vince for me.”

  Vince lets out a snort. She looks upset at first, but changes her mind and now she’s all smiles. Very enthusiastic even. Scary girl.

  “Looks like you’ll be teaching me instead. I’ll be in your care, Zéph Sensei!”

  She’s watching too much anime. Either way, she isn’t waiting for my reply. She’s already found herself a suit in the closet. It’s too big for her, but not by much.

  “Are you sure that--”

  “Here. Help me out, will you?”

  I want to protest that it’s too dangerous, but I restrain myself. Conditions aren’t ideal, but I’ll be with her. That’s a lot more than I had on my first space dive. Worst comes to worst, I’ll just pick her up and drag her back on board.

  Instead, I tuck her into her suit, remove the slack and check that everything’s in order. She’s in great shape. Pretty too. She must have caught me staring for she smiles seductively.

  I grab her by the shoulders.

  “Come on, this is serious. Out there, you’ll do what I say, when I say it. No discussion. If you run into trouble, don’t panic. No matter what happens, stay calm. Just stop moving and signal for me through the comm. I’ll come pick you up.”

  “Yes, Sensei!”

  Playful, but I think she gets it, so I let that one slide and walk over to the airlock with a pair of ballast bags. These things are heavy as hell inside the ship’s cabin.

  Out in front of us is a gaping hole in the hull of the battleship. Vince managed to get us pretty close, within a hundred and fifty feet and we have a front row view of the carnage. Armored steel seven feet thick, shredded all the way through. You don’t see that every day.

  “Don’t push off too hard. Whatever momentum you start with is the momentum you’ll have when you hit the ship and that’s no feather bed over there.”

  She’s hesitating. Her bravado’s gone. The black ocean surrounds us, ready to swallow us for eternity. Space is a harsh mistress, but not a capricious one. Do everything right and you’ll be alright. I wish everything else was that simple, but it isn’t, starting with my new pupil who has yet to make a move.

  I can see fear in her face. She’s fighting for control. I place my hand on the small of her back and whisper:

  “Don’t worry, I’m here. Breathe deeply three times and jump as you exhale the last breath.”

  She nods and jumps into the void. Direction’s pretty good. A bit too fast, but she’ll learn to ease up after a few rough landings.

  “Now, slowly, throw one medium bolt to your right.”

  She fumbles with the bag but finds a bolt and flings it. Too hard. Her body starts spinning on itself.

  “Aaaaaah!”

  “Easy now. Just chuck a small bolt left to stabilize.”

  Takes a few tries, but she finally manages to lock in her position and she’s still drifting toward the gaping wound at the side of the Myriad. She’s starting to get a feel for it. Not gonna lie, it’s rather impressive.

  “Good job. Stretch out your arm, I’m coming.”

  I take a dive and catch her hand, dragging her in my wake. Could have done it from the start, but it’s best if she gets a taste of it on her own. Funnier too. The sight of her spinning head over heels was fun... and I've got it recorded on the suit's camera!

  The inside of the ship is a maze of steel corridors, bare of anything. No corpses, no machines, no... just steel and more steel, with the occasional electrical cable waving around limply in zero grav. Hardly surprising. A compressed air chamber opened to vacuum. When the hull was breached, everything was shot out like a bullet from one of those fancy airsoft pistols.

  Aldine’s starting to move better. Only had to steady her a few times along the way and now she’s hardly bumping into the walls anymore. She’ll have a few bruises for sure, but so far, she hasn’t said a thing.

  “How are we going to get in?”

  “You don’t know? Don’t you think you should have worked it out before we came out here?”

  I let her stew a bit on it. She can be so silly, sometimes.

  “I thought you knew!”

  I chuckle.

  “I do. There are service airlocks near the railguns. Bloody things tend to jam after a few hours of shooting and they need easy access. Do you know what the muzzles look like?”

  “Worth a shot, but shouldn’t they be closed for safety?”

  “Nah. In action, the entire ship is protected by energy shields. They don’t care about hull access: if you can get that close to the hull, you’re either friendly or it’s way too late.”

  I nod to the tear in the ship’s belly and she squeezes my hand through the suit. She understands me just fine.

  After several minutes of searching, I manage to find a working airlock.

  0 0 0 0.

  The light flashes green. The code is still set on factory settings. Figures. Nobody ever changes the default, especially not the gunners charged with maintenance. Forget the code and you’re stuck outside the hull in the middle of a fight! That’s not a mistake you can do twice.

  The airlock’s door slides smoothly into the hull and I step aside to let Aldine through.

  Now comes the hard part. If my guess is right, most—if not all—of the crew died upon impact and we have to figure out if there’s anyone left that can be saved. It’ll be messy at best.

  I look at Aldine. Used to think she was cold. Typical big boss’ daughter, a frigid unfeeling beauty, all businesslike with her corporate friends, but putting on a facade of the empathy with the little people to cultivate her following. What if I’m wrong and she’s really a sweetie?

  I’m about to take that sweetie into a mass grave.

  Some first date this is.