I planned to anyway. Donnie's words played over and over in Leo's head. Challenging him. Dismissing him, with a single phrase. Leo hauled himself along the zero-G rails, hand over hand, back to the cockpit, forcing down the sour taste of fear. No use shouting at Donnie. No use trying to point out to Donnie that it wasn't Leo's fault. That was the problem.
It was his fault.
He recalled the battle so clearly, even now, months after. Nearly a year ago, in fact, but the aftermath still hung over them, the outcome of his decision a knife between them, cutting the bonds of brotherhood. A blunt knife, not slicing cleanly but tearing at already wounded flesh, severing them slowly, painfully, anger and resentment welling like black blood in the ragged wound.
Focus he thought grimly. Focus. They were in the middle of unknown space, powerless, damaged and now something had hit them, something that killed the engine and sent Donnie's light pets running in fear. Fix that. Get the engine back online. Get home. Then, somehow, he had to find a way to mend this broken link in their family chain. Had to find a way to bring Donnie back to them, before it was too late.
He pulled himself through the cockpit door. "Anything?"
Raphael shook his head. "Nothing."
"I've got something," said Mikey.
Leo hauled himself over to Mikey's station and clung to his harness with one hand. The view on the screen showed one of the topside video feeds. "I can't see anything."
"Look." Mikey ran his finger along the screen. "See that?"
Leo's gaze followed Mikey's finger but he could see nothing. Then, like a composite picture coming into focus, he saw dark outline, beyond which the starfield was hazy and faded.
"Raph, are you reading anything?"
"Yeah. Something."
Leo pushed off and floated over behind Raph. "What is it?"
"Some sort of radiation? I don't know. Where's the brainiac?"
"Babying the reactor. It's not stable."
"Should we ask him?"
"No." Leo cut Raphael off harsher than he intended. "No. We have to deal with it."
"How?"
"We'll go outside and have a look."
Raphael shuddered. "Is that a good idea?" The question was reflex on Raphael's part, Leo knew. Funny, he thought. In their youth it would have been Raphael storming and questioning everything. But he and Raph grown into a relationship of mutual trust. They all had. He wondered suddenly how fragile that trust was. How easily it might break, under the right circumstances.
Focus. He breathed out slowly, a meditative breath. Raphael looked up sharply.
He forced himself to smile. "Do you have a better idea?" He clapped Raphael on the shoulder, gripped the harness to stop himself floating away from the rebounded kinetic energy. "Keep in contact. We're just going to get a visual. That's all"
Mikey unclipped his harness and followed Leo. In the hangar they suited up, into the bulky, custom-made spacesuits. The inside smelled of plastic and disinfectant, a stomach-churning mix. He went through the pre-walk checks. Pressure, seals, tank capacity, safety line, and finally comms. "Can you hear me, Raph?"
"Got you."
"Mikey?"
"Yeah boy!"
Raphael's snort carried through the headset, tinny and far away but just as derisive.
"Aw, you jealous, bro? Don't wanna come for a stroll?"
"Shut up, Mikey."
Leo beckoned to Mikey who followed him to the airlock. They cycled through, their suits expanding and becoming slightly more comfortable as the air pressure dropped. The green light went on and the outer door unlocked.
Leo opened the hatch and led the way because he was the leader, not because he particularly enjoyed space walks. He kept his eyes on the hull until he had clipped his safety line to the rail. He pulled himself out and moved, hand over hand, along the curve of the hull. Breathe in, breathe out. When he thought he had himself under control, he raised his gaze.
The dizzying expanse of the universe opened up above him and he braced against the wave of vertigo and nausea that he always felt on a space walk. They didn't do them often. Space walks were dangerous, and only for emergencies. Like this one. And he had never become used to the lack of direction, the vast, endless expanse of nothing that surrounded them. Terror hammered at the back of his skull, insistent, deafening. He pushed it down, swallowed against a mouth gone dry, turned his head slowly to check on Mikey.
Mikey had his safety line clipped and was closing the airlock hatch. He was, to Leo's orientation, upside down, and Leo's inner ear complained bitterly. Mikey pushed off confidently and floated over to Leo. Leo felt a moment of envy and resignation. Mikey, of course, had no trouble with space. Unlike Raphael who, on his first and only spacewalk, had frozen in terror, unresponsive, and had to be hauled back into the ship, shaking for hours later.
Mikey raised his fist in the signal for ready. Leo raised a fist in reply and then hauled himself hand over hand up the curve of the hull, keeping his eyes on the metal below him, rather than the open universe. They climbed slowly, with only the hiss of their suit ventilators to keep them company.
On the crest of the ship Leo paused and clipped his harness to the next rail.
"Dude," breathed Mikey into the suit mike. "What is that?" He hung upside down, pointing to the starboard side.
Leo followed the direction of his arm and saw what he meant. Out here, stark against the silvery hull, black coils worked their way along the ship, loop after loop. He blinked. He could see the light of the stars through them, as if they were opaque.
At first he thought the mass unmoving, but then he realised the coils were shifting slowly, like seaweed fronds in a gentle swell. He pulled himself hand over hand towards the rear of the ship. The coils were everywhere, but seemed to be just tubes. There was nothing holding them to the ship, and yet they stayed there, not drifting free.
Finally the massive bulk of the engine came into sight. Leo sucked in a breath. A black coil led straight into the long tube of the exhaust.
"Donnie." Donnie might be focused on the reactor, but he needed to see this. "Donnie." Silence. "Donnie, are you getting my visual?"
"No, actually, I'm fixing the engine."
"You need to see this."
An irritated growl down the commlink. "Sure, would you like me to fix your problem for you as well?"
"Just look, Donnie." Leo winced at the sharpness of his ow voice.
"If the reactor gets unstable while I'm-wow." Silence. "Huh. Is it-is it feeding on our exhaust?" There was an intense curiosity in Donnie's voice, something Leo hadn't heard in months. It hurt like blazes to hear it, to have this glimpse of a brother from better times. "It must be. It's some sort of space creature, attracted by the neutrinos in our exhaust. How long are those coils?"
"They're covering most of the starboard side. And they seem to be semi-transparent."
"Makes sense." Silence, and the tapping of keys. "Oh yeah, look at that. Hardly any centralised mass. Any space creature of that size must be able to exist in a vacuum, and it seems to be that the creature is doing that by de-stabilising its body somehow. Fascinating! If it's a neutrino feeder it must normally exist in solar gravity wells. Huh, or maybe supernovas? I wonder what levels it needs to sustain itself in deep space? Can they travel? I wonder if-"
Leo didn't want to interrupt, didn't want to lose this Donnie, this excited brother, babbling cheerfully about the space creature that was currently head first in their exhaust. Well, presumably head first. If it had a head. But they needed it away from the ship.
"And, huh, that would explain the noise."
"What noise?"
"Grinding, thumping noises from the exhaust. I think it's trying to crawl further up the pipes, after more neutrinos. It can probably sense them coming from the reactor."
That thing in the ship? No. That was bad. "How do we get rid of it? Can we turn off the reactor?"
"Not if we want to turn it on again."
"All right, how do we kill it?"
He knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as it was out of his mouth. Silence came down the line. "I don't know, Leo. That's your speciality."
Like a blunt blade. Straight into the centre of him. He was aware of Mikey turning his head toward him. Was aware of the uncomfortable silence over comms. But he had to ask. Had to get rid of this thing for the safety of the ship. "Can we damage it?"
A long, long silence. He was about to ask the question again when Donnie's voice came over comms. "Yeah. Use the laser saws. If it has any cohesion that will cut through it." Even through the tinny speakers Donnie's voice was cold, colder than space. "Excuse me, I have a reactor to maintain."
Leo swallowed, and again, not trusting himself to speak. When he had his breath under control he spoke. "Raph. Can you bring a couple of laser saws to the airlock?"
"Halfway there," said Raph's voice.
Mikey left to fetch the saws. Leo floated above the hull, one hand on the rail, watching the slow movement of the coils. How was this going to go down? Would the creature attack? He could see no armour or weapons in the diffuse body, but who knows what might happen when they cut through the flesh. And out here with nothing but the spacesuits they were vulnerable.
Mikey returned with the saws. "Double pronged attack?"
"No. You stay here in case something goes wrong."
Leo used the suit's power pack to maneuver himself down towards the exhaust. He floated over a mass of body, through which he could see the hull, shadowy and dim. How did it hold itself together? He was surprised Donnie hadn't asked for a sample to examine.
He grabbed hold of the rail and released his tether, winding it back so he could clip it to the rail here, closer to the exhaust. Then he hauled himself, hand over hand, toward the edge of the exhaust and the head of the thing inside.
He reached out a gloved hand, curious, hesitant. His fingers met the thing's flesh. There was a sensation of pressure, but nothing else through the thick gloves. The thing's body yielded to his hand, with hardly any resistance. He tensed, waiting for a reaction, but the thing seemed not to notice him.
Well, maybe he was just too small to be of interest to a massive low density interstellar whateveritwas. Leo turned and gave Mikey a fist up to show he was ready. He powered on the saw. A five-foot coruscating line of laser beams emerged from the end of the saw. Leo took a deep breath and lowered it toward the beast, tensing in anticipation of resistance.
The saw sheared through the body like it was tissue paper. He was more than halfway through the thick body before it thrashed. The saw jerked in his hands, slamming him against the hull. He scrabbled for a handhold, failed to get one, and found himself drifting off into space.
Vertigo overcame him as he spun, his vision blurring. He tried to keep himself from throwing up, twisting to see what was happening on the ship.
The coils thrashed. The body tore itself away and drifted into space. It was coming right for him. He grabbed his lifeline, braced against the impact. Would it be enough to tear him loose? Don't panic, don't panic. He was going to float into space. drifting, helpless. Was his air running out? How long before his suit shut down, before the cold seeped in? Stop it, stop it. He clung to the tether, the lifeline that held him to the ship. You're not floating free. You're still attached. Calm down.
The coils reached him, floated past, driven by the thing's thrashing reaction to his cut. But even as they touched him they dissipated, and the stars came back into focus.
"Leo. You okay, bro?" said Mikey, at the same time as Raphael said "What's wrong? Leo?"
Leo closed his eyes. He heard the echo of his breath in the helmet, realised he was gasping for air. Calm, calm. His hands were shaking. Don't throw up. He'd thrown up in his suit before and it was awful. He needed to tell his brothers that he was okay, but his throat wouldn't unclench.
Mikey spoke over comms. "Hang in there. I'm hauling you in."
He felt the tug on his belt, but no other indication that he was moving. He kept his eyes closed, focussed on his breathing, until he felt a hand grip his sleeve.
He opened his eyes. He was back on the hull.
"You with me?"
"Yeah. Thanks Mikey." Relief made his fingers tremble, and his voice shaky.
Mikey gave him a thumbs up. He pushed away, back toward the opening of the exhaust, and stuck his head over the edge. Leo's stomach jerked in reflex.
"It's done," Mikey's voice came over the headset. They would all hear that. "Big worm head be gone."
Leo waited for confirmation from Donnie, but there was no reply. "Let's get back inside."
Leo paused at the apex of the ship to look out at the stars. There was no trace of the space beast.
