The Rainbow Legacy

By jinnis

Sina hit the release button and pulled the tiny scout ship in a flat curve away from the target while the missile sped away. The neat manoeuvre brought her into the cover of an asteroid. With some luck, the crew of the heavy freighter would never know what hit them. Well, it would become obvious, at one point. Just as long as no one knew who fired the viral grenade. The last thing Sina needed was her ship getting grounded on a legal charge of sabotage.

Sabotage was her business, but being convicted for it was not on her agenda. For the tribe and for the greater good, she tried to prevent another government-sanctioned dumping of toxic waste in the asteroid belt.

Her eyes glued to the scanner, Sina landed her camouflaged craft in a deep crater on the dark side of her chosen asteroid. If she shut down her systems and sat tight for a while, chances are high she would go undetected. And once the virus infected the freighter's system, they hopefully had other problems than searching for their assailant.

Sina leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes to keep out the darkness that filled the cooling cockpit. Soon, only her bio-suit would keep her alive. The first time she'd pulled this stunt, she had been afraid something would go awry, the survival suit would malfunction or the ship refuse to power up. But these days, she was cool on the job, a jaded veteran. With a deep sigh, she relaxed into the embrace of the chair.

She could only wait, now, as much as she hated it—always did. The memory of her first tribal mission sent a shiver down her spine. If not for Dek, she'd have run straight into the trap. Her partner cautioned her to wait for the first move of the enemy and saved her life. They got Dek anyway while he covered for Sina. The detonator had been her responsibility, and she'd been too slow.

Dek had been alive when she hauled him back to the ship, even joked about her clumsiness. But she could not stop the bleeding from what she mistook for a taser wound. The poison ate its way into Dek's bloodstream before they reached the base, and he died during the final approach.

Sina had refused to work with a partner since. No one blamed her for Dek's death, but she knew better. He had been a mentor and friend, the only person she trusted with her life since the day he found her on the junk deck of Border Three, where she scavenged with the other orphans for the leftovers from the entertainment sector.

She had been eleven, twelve at most, a slip of a girl without education or any prospect for the future. Not even the night dens would take her in as a wench with her bony frame and shaggy white mane. Dek didn't mind. Sina never found out what he saw in her, skinny and foul-mouthed. He fed her, clothed her, and showed her the ropes, taught her to read and write, wrong from right. And he introduced her to the tribe.

A scratching on the hull jolted her out of her memories. It didn't sound like an asteroid impact. Besides, it came from the bottom of the hull. With her ship's systems down, there was no way she would get visuals, not without blowing her cover. The tiny transparent cockpit dome didn't allow to check the hull. She still tried craning her neck to get a glimpse of the sound's source. The ship rocked, and the noise stopped. Perhaps the landing ground was unstable? With bated breath, she waited. Everything remained silent.

Sina returned to her chair and dropped into the upholstery, glancing up at the dome. And gasped.

Two gloved, five fingered hands pressed against the glass, followed by a helmet with a mirrored visor. One hand lifted in a clumsy greeting.

Sina reached for her taser. But shooting the cockpit window was a bad idea. In lack of alternatives, she waved back.

.

This triggered a flurry of motion. Sina tried to understand the gestures of the visitor in vain. They were nuts or overjoyed by her presence. Still indecisive about what was more plausible, she watched the person outside writing with the fingertip invisible letters onto the cockpit dome. Sina squinted and tried to follow the mirror writing.

'C-O-M-E--V-I-S-I-T-?'

She shook her head. "Sorry, mate, I've no intention of leaving the ship, not while the freighter might attack at any moment."

'P-L-E-A-S-E-?'

Was this a kid? Or someone trying to lure her out of the safety of her ship by all means? Sina shook her head again. The person outside remained still for a while, the mirrored helmet touching the dome. Then they turned away, glided down the hull and disappeared.

Instead of feeling glad, Sina was disturbed. With no idea what the stranger was up to, she pressed her own helmet against the window, trying to see what happened below the ship. She needn't have worried. A slim figure trudged away from the scout, shoulders sagging and head hung low, a picture of desperation. At a distance, the stranger stopped, turned around to stare at her ship one more time, then shuffled on.

A knot formed in Sina's stomach. This looked like a disappointed child. With a sigh, she clambered down into the storage compartment to the lower emergency hatch between the thruster cell block and her life pod. She hesitated. Was this a good idea? Without her, the ship was a sitting duck if the freighter came to get her. Yet the virus should have eaten its way deep into the victim's computer system by now. With a bit of luck, they didn't know what hit them and were worried out of their minds by random error messages.

Determined, she turned the cranky wheel and pulled the lever, glad for the old-fashioned mechanic system. Next, she reduced the pressure from the inside of the airlock with the manual pump, a task that had her sweating in no time. But she couldn't risk blowing a significant portion of her precious oxygen.

Outside, Sina followed the small footprints. In the low gravity, they were far apart, leading her to the crater wall and a lock similar to the one on her ship. She had to repeat the cumbersome procedure, only hesitating a fraction of a moment before she opened the inner hatch.

The heavy blaster pointed at her vibrated in a pair of trembling hands. Behind the fearsome weapon, Sina made out a pair of brown eyes in a very young, dark face, framed by black curls. The girl still wore her bio suit, minus the mirrored helmet. Sina pulled off her own and tried a friendly smile, ignoring the fear a shot from the blaster would shatter the lock behind her and kill them both.

"Hi, I'm Sina. You invited me for a chat?"

The girl, her name was Liza, was shy. It took all Sina's persuasive skill to coax her into showing her around the tiny asteroid base. Obviously, she ran the affair on her own, a feat for a girl of ten or eleven.

"How come you're alone out here? Don't you have parents?"

"I'm here with my dad. He went to fetch provisions on Border Three. It's been three weeks, maybe four. I'm sure he'll be back soon."

Three weeks was a long time, and Sina suspected the girl knew the man wouldn't be back. No need to point out the obvious. "But why do you live out here in the first place?"

"I'm not sure. Dad says it's important for the tribe. I was supposed to stay with mom, but she died in the explosion on the Shelly. Maybe you heard of it."

The Shelly-incident had been a great success in the tribal war, a battle well won–from Sina's point of view. Did this make the girl her enemy?

"Did your mom work on the Shelly?"

"No. I don't know why she went there at all, it being the property of the Doctor tribe and everything. Dad said she died a hero and that I'd have to be proud of her. Then we came here."

Sina rubbed her temple while she paced the small room, only to stop moments later in front of the sole picture decorating the bare living space. The faded print showed an ancient ship back on earth, half sunken, a painted white dove only just visible beneath some rainbow stripes and the name Rainbow Warrior. If she needed proof Liza's parents were of her own tribe, here it was.

She ran a finger along the frame of the picture. The other day, she'd overheard a talk about a secret outpost in the asteroid belt. As it was not her business, she had dismissed it. No member of the tribe was supposed to know everything, for safety reasons.

"You can't stay here, Liza."

"I have to. What if dad comes back and I'm gone?"

Sina shook her head while checking the environmental readouts on the home system. Energy and oxygen would last a few weeks. But the water was low, even for one small person. And the food was almost gone. She wondered how the girl had stayed sane, all alone. Her dad left 37 standard days ago on what should have been an easy three-day trip. But Border Three had been lost to the Cerberus tribe over sixty days ago, long before he got there.

"Sorry, kid, but you won't survive alone out here. Your dad was a warrior, wasn't he?"

A single tear ran down the girl's cheek, only to be rubbed away by an angry hand. Then the innocent face hardened. "Yes. Like my mom. Like I will be, one day."

Sina recognised the fear in these brown eyes, paired with hope and determination. Her chest was tight and her eyes burned. This must be how Dek felt all those years ago. Perhaps it was her turn to give something back. There wasn't only the tribe and its eternal struggle to prevent the destruction of the environment, the base of life. Someone needed to teach the next generation why they had to fight for their future—and how to do it.

An unfamiliar sensation stirred beneath Sina's anger. When she had asked Dek how she could become a warrior, he had laughed. "One day you, when you can see beyond your hatred and anger, you'll know you are one."

Today was the day. Sina reached out a hand. "Come, Liza, let's pack your bag. I have a job to finish and you can lend me a hand."

The glint of hope in the girl's eyes touched Sina's heart.