A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(63)

She walked and walked, until she got as far as she’d been the day before. She stopped to think. There were two ways around the pile in front of her – one that looked like it would involve a lot of climbing, and one that looked kinda rocky but relatively flat. She considered the stinking carcass on the back of the wagon and went for the easier choice.

Turned out, the easier choice was a better walk, but the destination was pretty crazy. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that she lived on a planet, with ecosystems and geology and all that other stuff Owl told her about. It made more sense thinking that the dirt and animals had kind of happened around the scrap, like they were little details added in later on. But then sometimes, she saw something like the place she’d come to, and it was obvious that nature was always there first.

There had been a cliff or something there once – a hill, maybe. Jane didn’t have much real-life experience with land left untouched (sims didn’t count), and she wasn’t always sure if she knew the right words for the things she saw. Anyway, there had been a lot of dirt and rock all stacked up at some point, but there’d been some water or wind or something, and now it was weird. There was a big hole in the ground – a big big hole, with lots of other little ones around – where the dirt had sunk in on itself. And while there was still a giant structure of dirt and rock off to the side of it, it had slumped over a scrap pile, almost like they had melted together. Jane could see scrap sticking out of the wall of dirt, like it was trying to pull itself out. It was a huge mess, and not great for scavenging at all. She would’ve turned right around if it hadn’t been for one thing: she could see half of a ship sticking out of it.

Not a big ship, of course – she’d never found anything much bigger than home – but intact vehicles of any kind were not an everyday thing. Whenever she found one, she cleaned it out right away, especially if there was decent fabric on the seats or bunks or whatever. Fabric did not get better with age, and if she found something that wasn’t all rain-rotted or chewed up from nesting things, that was worth grabbing super fast.

She chewed her lip as she looked at the wall of dirt. It would be a pain in the ass to climb, and it looked crumbly. She wiggled her toes against where her footwraps were wearing thin. If there was fabric in there, it was worth the climb. She could do it. She could do anything.

The smaller holes orbiting the big one weren’t as deep, but they were deep enough – maybe about half again as tall as she was. She skirted around them, and when they got too tricky to avoid, she left the wagon on a flat patch and continued toward the wall. The slope was steep, almost straight up in some spots. She put her foot against it. It was crumbly, for sure. She reached up and grabbed a hunk of metal firmly buried. It held. She held. Yeah, she could do this. She’d be fine.

She continued up and up until she was at the same height as the ship. She worked herself sideways, turning her feet weird angles, letting them sink into the crumbly dirt so it would hold her weight. ‘Boom! Boom! We’ll wreck your walls!’ she sang. ‘Bang! Bang! We’ll bust your balls!’ It was the song the Scorch Squad sang when they drank alcohol after they won a fight. She didn’t know what drinking alcohol was like, but the sims made it look real fun. ‘Slam! Slam! Get drunk and fight—’ Some of the dirt gave out under her foot, and her leg slid farther than was comfy. She looked at the distance between her and the stuck ship. Almost there, but she could hear pebbles tumbling down below her, and there weren’t a lot of good footholds between here and there. Maybe this was a bad idea. She thought about it. She sniffed. ‘You’ll die tomorrow, so live toniiiiight,’ she sang. She put her foot on the next big rock.

The next big rock broke into dusty pieces the second she let her weight down.

Jane fell. The dirt caught her. She slid, arms and legs flipping over in a tangle, hard things scraping her skin and ramming her body. Her weapon pack and satchel, still wrapped around her, added extra blows to the flurry. She clawed, trying to grab something, but she couldn’t make sense and couldn’t see straight. She tumbled and tumbled, out of control.

The ground went away, but she still clawed, even though there was nothing but air. Nothing but air until her body came crashing down.

For a moment, the entire world was loud and red – a bright, stinging red that filled her shut eyes and ringing ears. Her leg felt red, too, red and angry. She remembered how to breathe, and pulled in a hard lungful. She opened her eyes. The world was not red, and neither was her leg, but something was very, very wrong with it. There was no deep blood and nothing poking out, but when she tried to stand, she screamed. She saw the sky as she did so. It was further away than it had been before, a bright circle out of reach. She had landed in one of the holes.

My leg’s broken, she thought. She’d never had a broken bone before, but somehow she knew it all the same. ‘Fuck,’ she said out loud, her breath speeding up. ‘Stars, f*cking . . . shit.’ She made ugly sounds as she tried to sit up, moaning and whining and choking. She looked up, around, all over. Even if she’d been able to stand straight and reach up, the hole was taller than her, and there was nothing to climb on – no rocks, no crates, nothing.

She was so f*cked.

‘You’re okay,’ she said, her voice coming out wrong. ‘You’re okay. Come on. Come on, it’s okay.’ But it wasn’t okay. Her hands were scraped and bruised, as were her arms, her face, everything. And her leg – stars, her leg. She pulled off her satchel and the weapon pack – both looking entirely the wrong shape – so she could lie flat on the ground. She put her hands over her face, trying to breathe, trying to stop shaking. What the hell was she going to do?