#SciFriday

Legacy of the Rainbow (Warriorpunk)

Sina hits the button and pulls her tiny scout ship in a flat curve away from the target while the missile speeds away. Her neat manoeuvre brings her into the cover of an asteroid. With some luck, the crew of the heavy freighter will never even know what hit them. Well, that's not entirely true. It will become clear what hit them, eventually. But as long as no one knows who fired the viral grenade, Sina is happy. The last thing she needs is her ship getting grounded on a legal charge of sabotage.
Of course that's exactly what she's doing, in the name of the tribe and greater good. Her goal is to prevent another officially sanctioned dumping of toxic waste in the asteroid belt. To reach it, she will take a risk any day, as long as it pays off.
Her eyes glued to the scanner, Sina gingerly sets her camouflaged craft down in a conveniently deep crater on the dark side of her chosen asteroid. If she shuts down her systems and sits tight for a while, chances are high she will go undetected. And as soon as the virus spreads deeply into the freighter's system, they hopefully will have other problems than searching for an assailant.

Sina leans back in her chair, closing the eyes to keep out the darkness that fills her quickly cooling cockpit. Soon, only her bio-suit will keep her alive. The first time she pulled this stunt, she was afraid something would go awry, the survival suit would malfunction or the ship refuse to power up after cooling out. But these days, she's a veteran on the job. With a sigh she relaxes into the softness of the chair that embraces her.
Now, there is nothing to do but wait. She hates waiting, always did. She nearly blew her first important mission because of this trait. If not for her partner, she'd have run straight into a trap. Dek insisted on waiting for the other side to make the first move. He was right, of course, and waiting saved her life. They got Dek anyway, in the end, while he covered for Sina. She was responsible for the detonator and it took her a fraction of a moment too long to trigger it.
Dek was still alive and even smiling weakly when she brought him back to the ship. But she was not able to stop the bleeding from what she mistook for a simple taser hit. The poisoned wound started to fester before they reached base and Dek died during final approach.
That was the last time Sina worked with a partner. No one ever put the blame on her, but she still feels guilty. Dek had been her mentor and friend, the one person she trusted with her life.

Way back, he found her on the junk deck of Border Three Station, where she scavenged for the leftovers from the entertainment sector, like all the orphans did. She was twelve at the time, thirteen at most, without formal education nor a solid prospect for the future, not even as a lady of the night in one of the establishments flourishing on Border 3. Her pale skin, bony frame and almost white hair were about the least attractive combination for a job in one of the dens.
But Dek didn't mind. Sina never found out what he saw in her, all skinny and foul mouthed. But he picked her deliberately, showed her the ropes, taught her to read and write, wrong from right, and finally introduced her to the tribe.

A slight scratching noise on the outside jolts her out of her memories. This doesn't sound like an asteroid impact. Besides, it comes from the bottom of the hull. With her ship's systems down, there is no way she can get visuals, not without becoming electronically visible to every superficial search of the asteroid's surface. From the tiny transparent dome of the cockpit she can't oversee the hull. Nevertheless she stands up and tries to get a glimpse of the source of the continuous scratching. The ship rocks slightly and the noise stops. Maybe she landed on unstable ground and now the supports shift? With bated breath she waits. But outside all remains silent.
Sina returns to her chair and lets herself drop into the upholstery. Before she can relax, a terrified gasp escapes her lips.
Two gloved, five fingered hands are pressed against the glass dome, quickly followed by a helmet with mirrored visor. Then one of the hands lifts in a clumsy greeting.
Sina grasps for her weapon. But shooting through your cockpit window is seldom a good idea. In lack of alternatives she waves back, hesitantly.
This triggers a flurry of motion with the visitor. Sina tries to understand the gestures flashed at her in vain. He or she must be either completely off his rocker or overjoyed by her presence. She's still indecisive what's more probable when the figure outside starts to write letters onto her cockpit window. Sina squints and tries to follow the ghostly mirror writing.
'C-O-M-E--V-I-S-I-T-?'
She has no intention to leave the ship, not while she still fears a counterattack of the freighter. Unconsciously she shakes her head. This leads to another spelling attack.
'P-R-E-T-T-Y--P-L-E-A-S-E-?'
Is this a kid out there? Or someone trying to lure her out of the safety of her ship by all means? Sina shakes her head again, decisive this time. The person outside just stares at her for a while. It's creepy, with the mirrored helmet. Then he or she turns away and glides down the hull, along the distinguished rainbow painted there, and out of sight.
Instead of feeling glad, Sina is disturbed. With no idea what the stranger is up to she presses her own helmet against the window, trying to see what happens below the ship. She needn't have worried. A small figure trudges away from the scout, shoulders sagging and head hung low, a picture of utter desperation. At a distance the stranger stops, turns around to check out the ship one more time, then shuffles on.

Suddenly Sina feels bad. This looks very much like a disappointed child. With a sigh she clambers down into the storage compartment where the lower emergency hatch is situated between the thruster cell block and her life pod. She hesitates. Is this really a good idea? Her ship is a sitting duck here, if the freighter is out to get her. On the other hand, the viral program should have eaten its way deep into the victim's computer system by now. With a bit of luck, they still don't know what hit them and are worried out of their minds by randomly popping up error messages.
With determination she turns the cranky wheel and pulls the lever, glad for the old fashioned system to work with muscle power alone. Next she has to reduce the pressure from inside of the airlock manually, a task that has her sweating in no time. But she can't risk to blow a significant portion of her precious oxygen.
Finally outside, Sina finds it easy to follow the footprints in the dust, in spite of the low gravity. They are small, but look definitely human. She reaches the crater wall and finds a lock similar to the one in her ship. She has to repeat the cumbersome procedure, only hesitating a fraction of a moment before she opens the inner hatch, aware of the risks.
She comes face to face with a heavy blaster hold by a pair of shaking brown hands.
Behind the fearsome weapon Sina recognises a pair of brown eyes in a very young face, framed by black curls. She was right, after all. The girl still wears her bio suit, minus the mirrored helmet. Sina pulls off her own and tries a friendly smile, in the knowledge that 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 is Liza, is shy. It takes Sina a while to coax her into showing her around the tiny asteroid base. Obviously, she runs the affair on her own, on really scarce means. The kid can't be older than eleven or twelve.
"How come you're alone out here? Don't you have parents?"
"I'm here with my dad. He left to get provisions from Border 3 and hasn't come back yet."
"But why do you live out here in the first place?"
"Im not sure. Dad said it's important for the tribe. I was supposed to stay with mom, but she died in the big explosion on the Shelly. Maybe you heard of it."
Of course Sina heard about the Shelly-incident. It was a great successes in the tribal war, a battle well won–from her point of view. Does this make this girl her enemy?
"Did your mom work on the Shelly?"
"No. I don't know why she went there at all, it being 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."
Absentmindedly Sina starts to pace the small room, only to stop moments later in front of the only picture decorating the bare living space.
The faded print shows an ancient seagoing ship, half sunken, a painted white dove only just visible beneath some rainbow stripes and the name: Rainbow Warrior. If she needed more proof Liza's parents were of her own tribe, she got it here. She runs a finger along the frame of the picture, almost reverently. The other day, she overheard some talk about a secret outpost in the asteroid belt. As it was not her business, she dismissed it. No member of the tribe is supposed to know everything, for safety reasons. Sina states the obvious.
"You can't stay here, Liza."
"I have to. What if dad comes back and I'm gone?"
Sina shakes her head while checking some environmental readouts on the home system. Energy and oxygen will last a while. But water runs low, even for one small person. And food is almost gone. She wonders how the girl managed to stay sane, all alone. Her dad left 37 days standard ago on what should have been an easy three day trip. Border 3 was 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 runs down the girl's cheek, only to be rubbed away by an angry hand. Then the innocent face hardens.
"Yes. Like my mom. Like I will be, one day. I'm strong."
Sina recognises fear in these brown eyes, paired with hope and determination.
Suddenly she knows exactly how Dek felt, all those years ago. Seems it's her turn to give something back, now. This is not only about the tribe and its eternal struggle to prevent the destruction of the environment, the base of life. It's also about giving the next generation a future to fight for, and about showing them how to do it.
For the first time she feels not like a mere fighter but like a true warrior herself. She reaches out a hand.
"Sure, kid. Come, let's move out of here. The first lesson on your way to become a warrior is called survival."