Ok, this is definitely the last time I’m doing this, she thought, trying and failing again to match the trajectory of the ship. I get it now. I really do. Karma always gets the last laugh. I acknowledge my own shortcomings, my own selfishness. I swear I’ll be a better person from now on until the day I die – just pleeeease don’t make it be today. Gomez adjusted the stabilizers in her Evacpod and gave it another shot.

 

She’d regretted this mission almost immediately after volunteering. Her friends were so brave, so patriotic for the Homeland. She wasn’t. She’d spent her entire life trying to just barely succeed – for scholarships, for housing allocations, but not so well that she’d be put in the hot seat. That was for someone else. Yet, when Soo-Jin, Yun, and the others stood up for what would almost certainly be a one-way mission, she’d felt obligated. They had been through far too much training together for her to back out now.

 

But they were all noble and stuff. Not like her. She was fine with making a stand on principle, when people were rude or too oblivious to know they were rude. That teenager who had taken the last seat on the MagLev while that old lady was going for it? Rude. She had stood up for her. She had given him a cold stare and everything. He had even said he was sorry. Gomez was up for taking a stand, as long as her life didn’t hinge on it.

 

She had been hoping for a desk job somewhere after the academy, maybe in Logistics. That guy Todd worked there and seemed pretty cool. She was good with supply chain and could pilot a shuttle like nobody’s business. What she couldn’t do – what she shouldn’t have been asked to do – was rescue stranded civilians before that damn fleet took over the whole colony. If I get out of this, she thought, maybe I’ll let Todd buy me a drink.

 

The Evacpod groaned as she coaxed it into maneuvers it was never designed for. Aren’t there real, actual pilots for this sort of thing? she wondered, scrambling to catch the ship. Why me?

 

To be fair, she knew that most of their seasoned pilots were already at the front, as was virtually their entire military. They had been hip-deep in turf wars for several cycles now. Resources were scarce. They needed all the help they could get.

 

Now, she needed all the help she could get from the civilians she was supposed to be rescuing. She had gotten somewhere between the mesosphere and stratosphere before her so-called rescue ship took heavy fire from two strafers, probably those newer, light-duty ones they’d been briefed about. They had come out of nowhere and shot off her vertical stabilizer before she even understood what had happened. It was all she could do to hit the emergency Evacpod sequence before the whole ship flew apart.

 

That’s when she had noticed the old asteroid miner filled with people, heading up from the colony. She saw the pilot and some of their faces as they soared by her. They looked confused. She even made eye contact with some kid for a few seconds. He looked at her, then slowly pointed up to the sky as if she didn’t know she was going in the wrong direction. Real helpful, kid, she thought. Real. Helpful.

 

Gomez nudged her hair from her face, fired the auxiliary thrusters, and chased after the ship. She knew they couldn’t do much to help until she got close enough. If she matched their speed and trajectory, the pilots could engage their retrieval gear and scoop her pod up like it was just another asteroid. It was a tricky maneuver but her ship was just about the right size – certainly much lighter than most asteroids. Once the EM clamps engaged and the stabilizers adjusted for the extra weight, she could ride it out until they got to the nearest station. Doing so would likely deplete their primary battery and most of their emergency one – assuming both were fully charged when they took off – but they could probably still make it there on fumes.

 

She had enough time for one last attempt before the Evacpod battery gave out. Once that went, rescue or even crash landing the Evacpod were off the table. Her only remaining option then would be her ejection seat. She would have to punch out and parachute back down to the surface without losing consciousness, survive that landing, evade capture until the colony was retaken (if it ever was), and not starve or die of thirst.

 

Gomez slid her visor down and heard it click into place. She felt her EVA suit pressurizing. She gunned the thrusters, pulling up as close as she could without ramming the ship. She could see the retrieval arms extending out from the starboard mining bay. She could see the faces of some of the colonists. She saw that same kid, his nose pushed up against the glass, staring at her. She felt the pod shudder again, buffeted by turbulence. The EM clamps should connect any second now, she thought.

 

Then she felt …nothing. At all.

 

She looked up as the retrieval arms flailed, grasping at thin air as the ship slowly, steadily moved out of reach. The pod battery was drained. She could still see that kid. He looked surprised.

 

He waved timidly and then the ship was gone.