Asimov's Science Fiction - June 2014 Read Online Free PDF Page A

sphere, or die when her air ran out.
    "Fuck you!" She shouted down at the ship. "I choose option number three." The option she had always had, waiting for her.
    With her free hand, she sent her sphere up and away, at a bone-crushing speed even she could not have survived. When it crested the upper levels of the troposphere, outside the range of the
Veresiel's
jammers, she opened a comm channel through it, bouncing off the shuttle station back toward the Protectorate Orbital, and Helise's node.
    She picked up almost immediately.
    "Cjoi?" Helise was confused, her hair disheveled, her room behind her dark.
I've woken her,
Cjoi realized. "Where are you?"
    Not much point in lying. "I'm on a dive," she said. "I—"
    "You're WHAT?!" Helise was instantly wide awake. "No, no! Tell me—"
    "Helise, you need to shut up and listen. I've found your poachers. I don't have much time. I'm sending you the video, which should be all you need to find the rest of the group. You'll understand when you see it. But I'm putting it on an hour delay, before it'll unpack."
    "What? Why? An hour—"
    "Because I am what I am. You were my only human friend, and I'm sorry I've disappointed you."
    "What do you mean,
human
friend? You're just as human as—"
    "I don't think I ever quite was, although I tried. Goodbye, Helise." Cjoi cut her off, set the recording from her goggles to upload straight to the station's cache on an ever-shifting frequency to avoid jamming. It would keep sending data until her goggles shut off or died.
    Connection stable and no longer in need of the sphere, she turned it around, sending it hurtling back down into the atmosphere at maximum speed. Above her, the
Veresiel
was still in its climb, still thinking it was the hunter in this game.
    From this angle, staring up at the engines, she could almost imagine it was the
Ama.
She smiled as the ship suddenly turned hard to starboard, desperately attempting to change course. Her dive sphere was smaller, faster. The
Veresiel
didn't have a chance. It was too slow, would always have been too slow.
    Her dive sphere hit just forward of the cargo bay.
    Pieces of the ship flew out and down as the
Veresiel
splintered and broke. The sphere emerged from its rent underbelly, deep gouges marking its once sleek sides, panels ripped off, the interior cabin exposed. It continued its fall, unresponsive now, in a halo of debris and glass domes.
    Cjoi's suit was all red lights, life-support systems starting to fail, but she didn't care. She could feel the tiny pinpricks of needles up and down her legs and arms as the suit, recognizing a terminal situation, dumped as many painkillers and anti-anxiety meds into her veins as it could. The Calm Cocktail.
    She fell, her perfect Diamond resting on her chest, droplets of blood leaving a trail in the air above her. She'd forgotten how light they were, how beautiful. "I got the biggest one, Helise," she said, knowing the words would eventually make their way to her. "For the record."
    The remains of the
Veresiel,
broken nearly in two, plunged down through the clouds past her and into the darkness. She could see the heat-signatures of the Diamond cluster above them now, safe and sound, such as it was.
Born falling to their deaths,
Helise had said.
So was I.
    Below, there were flashes of a storm, lightning arcing through the dense clouds. Breathing was hard, the foam in her lungs starting to feel like cement, or like a billion angry ants, and despite the drugs her body hurt almost beyond what she could bear.
    In her hands, her Diamond suddenly shattered, imploding, a million beautiful shards of crystal crushing in on themselves. Around her the air filled with thousands of tiny, golden droplets. Through narrowing vision she watched as they opened like tiny umbrellas and caught the wind, soared up and away, free.
    "Show-offs," she said.
    One goggle lens cracked, then the other. She couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't breathe, wasn't sure she was even trying any more.