His face grim, Alexi gripped the wrench like a battle-ax and pushed off for the exit leading to Node 1.
“Alexi, stop!” Kimberly ordered.
He ignored her. He kept going until Viktor grabbed him by the foot. Alexi tried to shake off his grip, but he rotated toward the hatch. Turning, he glared at Kimberly, his face white with fury.
“We cannot allow those mad dogs to live,” Alexi said. “I will stop them.”
“No, not alone,” said Kimberly. “You didn’t see them. They’re too well trained, extremely coordinated.”
“The new one is tourist and unable to function in zero-gee. I kill him first.” Alexi was built like a weight lifter, his chest and arms bulging inside his flight suit.
“And if you fail?” Kimberly challenged.
“I will not fail,” Alexi muttered. He turned to go.
Viktor said, “Listen to Kimberly. You are right, comrade, but we will stop them, not just you. We work together.” Turning to Kimberly, he asked, “You have plan?”
“Yes, I do.” She moved up so she could keep an eye out the exit, to detect the intruders if they tried to surprise them. “They’ve cut off the comm links with Earth, so I imagine whatever they have planned, they’re going to see it to the finish. Like I said, they looked well trained, so we’ll have to surprise them, catch them off guard so we can stop them before they reach their goal, whatever it is.”
“You mean we ambush them and then kill them,” said Viktor. “So we hide.”
“That’s right,” Kimberly agreed. “Viktor, you and Alexi wait in Node 3, then rush out together to surprise them. Robert, you hit them from the side, coming from here. I may be the smallest on board, but I’m faster than any of you. I can draw them out, make them chase me to Node 1.”
Robert followed her gaze out the exit and frowned. “But what if they catch up with you?”
“They won’t. I’ll make sure of that. Farid’s still getting his space legs back, and like Alexi said, the new guy, Bakhet, the Qatari tourist—he’s still fumbling around, although that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.”
Viktor asked, “So how will you do it? What you say, ‘Draw them out’?”
“I bet they’re moving from aft to bow,” Kimberly replied. “Probably methodically searching the entire ISS, hunting us down, module by module. Which means they’ll be searching as a pair. So I’ll start working my way aft, down by the SM module. When they spot me I’ll shoot back here, toward Node 2. But I’ll stop in the U.S. lab and incite them. When they enter Node 1 that’s your signal to converge and spring the ambush.”
“And kill them,” Alexi said grimly.
Kimberly raised an eyebrow. “It would be nice to be able to question at least one of them, find out what they have in mind or if they’re just insane.” She hesitated. “But yes, after seeing what they’ve already done, I think our top priority is not just stopping them, but killing them.” She looked around. “Any questions?”
The three men shook their heads.
“All right, let’s go. Be sure to hide in your respective modules. As soon as they’re in Node 1, go for it. I’ll try to yell when they’re there, but don’t wait for me if you see them. I may not be able to give you a signal—I may be trying to survive myself.”
“Right.” The two Russians pushed off, Alexi and Viktor across the module, to Node 3.
Kimberly waited until they were out of sight, then started out. Robert grabbed her arm. “Good luck, kid.”
“Thanks.”
Following Kimberly to the hatch, Robert said, “Basher was serving as CAPCOM. Does he know what’s going on up here?”
“He must have seen what I saw on the monitor, so hopefully he dropped NASA TV’s feed to the public; but one of those murderers must have cut our comm to Earth. So Scott probably doesn’t know we’re still alive. No one may know.”
“So if we don’t succeed, then as far as NASA’s concerned we were taken out when those guys docked.”
“Yeah.” Kimberly wanted to get started for the SM module, but Robert still clutched her arm.
He asked, “If we don’t get them—if they kill us instead—what do you think those guys will do next?”
“I don’t know,” Kimberly said as she pulled free of Robert’s hand and started aft. “Maybe they’ll just kill themselves; maybe this is some sort of twisted suicide mission. In any case, let’s not let them get that far.”
NODE 1
Kimberly tried to get her breathing under control as she entered Node 1. Her heart was pounding wildly against her ribs; it seemed as though the thump-thump-thump could be heard throughout the ISS.
There was no sign of Alexi or Viktor. They were already hidden, out of sight and hopefully ready for the ambush. She tried to steel herself, knowing that if either of the murderers still had the knife Farid had used on Ivan Vasilev, they’d probably use it as soon as they spotted her. Which meant that she couldn’t get too close, and she’d have to take evasive action so they’d never have a clean shot.
She’d have to make sure that they’d miss. Otherwise it might be the last thing she’d ever do.
Scott used to call it jinking, she remembered, when he told stories about trying to break the lock of a missile’s radar on his F-22 and he’d have to whip the fighter back and forth, slamming the stick as far as it would go and maxing out the gees.
Now Kimberly knew she’d have to jink herself, careen from wall to wall off the sides of the modules as she tore back to Node 1 with the two murderers at her heels. Otherwise they’d find an open shot and she’d be as dead as Al Sweeting and the two Russians.
Or would they try to rape her first? Kimberly shuddered at the thought.
Panting, she looked down the long passageway of interconnected modules, from the closest—the Russian FGB—to the farthest, the SM. In the distance, a thick silver cylinder, one of the RTGs, dislodged from its mooring in MRM-2, tumbled slowly across her view. Behind her was the U.S. lab, where she’d be waiting while the guys sprang their ambush.
Since they’d killed Al in the SM, that meant they were probably going through either the DC-1 or the MRM-2, she reasoned. She didn’t want to be trapped away from the guys, so she thought she’d barely venture into the FGB and hopefully flush them out there.
She’d turn and hightail it back here. The distance wasn’t that far, barely thirty meters, but it was far enough for them to gain the advantage and kill her.
Which is not going to happen, Kimberly told herself firmly.
Now that her heart rate had slowed, she whispered loud enough for the guys in the modules at right angles to where she floated in Node 1 to hear her.
“Heading out to the FGB. Wish me luck.”
She floated backward, looking for a place to plant her foot and push off, when Alexi popped his bald head out of Node 3. The hotheaded idiot was showing himself, and if the two intruders spotted both Alexi and herself it wouldn’t take much for them to surmise that a trap was being set.
“Alex,” she hissed. “Down.”