Free Hard Vacuum 1 by Simon Cantan Page B

outside. She could see the man inside the barracks hurrying towards the airlock.
    She was concentrating too much on the man and almost missed the handhold on the hull. She didn't have thrusters. A missed handhold meant a slow death drifting through space. Kyra pulled herself close to the hull and waited. When she thought enough time had passed, she looked back through the window.
    The man walked away from the airlock; apparently he hadn't seen her. He reached her bag and picked it up again, slinging it over his shoulder.
    "Once I get that gun, I'm going to give you a prostate exam with the barrel," Kyra growled.
    Kyra wondered just who the men were. They were obviously military from the way they moved, but they didn't keep together like a squad. She concluded that they had to be mercs.
    Male mercs too. From her experience on the front lines at Eris, men weren't worth a damn in combat. They were too weak and too emotional to handle it.
    She closed the outer airlock door and scanned the area around her. She was clinging to the wall of the large metal wing, which extended all the way to the centre of the station. A few handholds ringed the door but didn't extend further out. A hundred metres to her right, a soft coupling tunnel connected Delta Wing to Alpha. Following the length of the soft coupling with her eye, she could see an airlock jutting out, halfway down. It was two hundred metres from where Kyra floated.
    Kyra enhanced her vision with her ReadyNet and zoomed in on the airlock. She could make out handles around it. Without any kind of propulsion, it was going to be risky, but she didn't see any other way. She lined up, planting her feet against the hull. After making a last - second adjustment, she launched herself into space.
    A hundred and seventy-five metres to go.
    A hundred and fifty.
    The space station jolted from some kind of impact, shifting to her left.
    Kyra knew she wasn't going to make it. She was going to glance off a blank section of the hull and drift away into space.
    Scrabbling, she grabbed her water bottle from her belt, ripped it free and threw it out into space with suit-boosted power. The bottle shot away from her, and she arced in the other direction. It was going to be close.
    The handhold neared. Kyra grabbed for it, catching it with her fingertips and pulling herself to the hull. With her heart in her throat, she wrapped her arms around the bar. "Let's not do that again."
    The soft-coupling airlock was smaller than the one in the barracks. She barely fit inside it with her suit. Pulling herself in, she slammed the outer door and pressed the cycle button.
    The airlock flashed red, refusing to cycle.
    "What the fuck is wrong with you, you hunk of plastic shit?" Kyra slapped the panel with her hand.
    The airlock flickered green and cycled, sending air into the compartment.
    "Yeah, that's what I thought," Kyra said. She pushed the inner door open and moved into the soft coupling.
    Kyra struggled along the plastic corridor, back towards Delta Wing. Her feet sank into the flexible surface. It had been designed for zero gravity movement, with plastic rungs extending from every side. After a few exhausting minutes, Kyra reached the airlock for Delta Wing and looked through the small window.
    She could see the man from the barracks at the far end of the corridor, her bag over his shoulder, talking to the other men. They pushed a few stragglers through an open door. Kyra accessed her ReadyNet and saw the door led to the canteen.
    She waited until they all went in, out of sight, and then opened the heavy door to the corridor. She padded to the first shop nearby and slipped inside.
    Racks of dresses and jewellery filled the shop. Nothing she could use. She padded out again and around to the next shop. Inside this store, lurid pink and purple displays contained an assortment of sex toys. Kyra ignored the luminescent vibrators and cling suits, heading for the S&M section near the back.
    She scanned the