by Allen Stroud
An explosion is a violent expansion of substances as they react with each other. This expansion allows the force of a reaction to dissipate as it interacts with anything, be it gas, solid objects, liquid, flesh and bone.
This room is oxygen rich and combustible. An explosion in here could ignite the air all around me. Breathing flames is not fun. People die pretty fast, particularly as the flames they don’t breathe burn up the rest of their bodies.
I don’t want to die.
Spacesuit helmets are designed to withstand extreme variations of pressure. Usually, all the good stuff is on the inside and the bad empty vacuum is being kept out. In this case, we want to keep the bad explosion stuff in and away from the good breathable air.
When an explosion is contained, the force can’t dissipate, so it’ll do more damage to the objects around it. The metal skin of the drone, the inside of the helmet, my hands.
Oh god, my fucking hands!
In a single moment, I’ve made a choice and placed myself in extreme danger. This time, it’s all too fast for any of that delicious adrenaline-fueled tension in between risk and resolution.
My hands hurt. Everything hurts. I’m lying against the wall. I can breathe, but each time I do, my insides feel like they’re on fire. I can’t feel my fingers through the pain.
I can see, but everything’s a blur. There’s a ringing in my ears. I’m alive, though. I’m—
“Sellis, congratulations, you’re a hero, now get moving!”
I recognise Quartermaster Chase’s voice, but it’s like listening to someone shouting at you from a long way away. The words are competing with the buzzing, making it hard to concentrate on them. Big hands are on my shoulders, pulling me away from the wall. A needle jabs into my neck. I cough, and blood fills my mouth, a bitter metallic taste to go along with everything else. I grimace and swallow it down. The retching cough helps a bit and my vision starts to clear. There are two people in front of me, Arkov and Chase. The drone is behind them and it’s a wreck.
It’s been destroyed and we’re all still alive.
My fucking hands!
I can’t look at them. If I do, I know I’ll lose it. Zero gravity means that as ‘walking wounded’ I’m not subject to the same problems injured personnel on Earth might have with being moved. Both Arkov and Chase clearly want to get moving.
“Well done, Specialist,” Arkov says. “Looks like you saved us.”
“I don’t… What’s…”
“We’re waiting on instructions from the captain. Chase is trying to get through to the bridge.” Arkov’s eyes flick over me. “You need to take things slowly,” he says. He’s holding an emergency medical kit and pulling out bandages. The injection from before was morphine and it’s kicking in. The pain is settling back into the distance, helping me think about something else, anything else.
I look around. I remember the state of the corridor from before. Now it’s worse. Whole storage compartments have been ripped out. There’s a mixture of blood and debris, but the pressure seal appears to be holding, for now.
Arkov takes hold of my hands. That makes them hurt even more, but I steel myself to look away. “How bad?” I ask.
“If you mean the ship, I don’t know,” Arkov replies. “If you’re talking about yourself, well…pretty bad, I’d say. We need to get you some meds and some better help.”
“The medical room’s gone.”
“I know.”
There’s a calm about doctors when you talk to them. It’s trained reassurance, a technique refined and passed on by practitioners for hundreds of years. Arkov has none of that experience. He’s just the only person here with time to keep an eye on me.
“What happened to…Shah?” I ask.
“Came down to help us, he said,” Arkov explains. “When the bot got through to the terminal, he sealed the doors, trapping it in here. We were supposed to isolate and shut down the terminal, but by the time I got into the system it had already bypassed the lockout commands. Shah tried to attack it with whatever he could find, and it killed him.”
“He was…already dead?”
“Yeah. You didn’t know?”
“I couldn’t tell if anyone was in here.”
Arkov blinks, registering that information. For the first time, I notice he’s hurt too. There are tears in his suit, and his right leg is twisted at an awkward angle below the knee. “Well, we’re alive,” he says, trying to muster a smile.
“Shah had his own agenda,” I say. “He was supposed to be watching me, but instead, he hit me with a Taser and left me locked up in the inventory section. I don’t know who he was working for.”
“The captain will decide what happens next,” Arkov says. He’s finished wrapping my hands and glances toward Chase. “Once we get through, we need to be ready to move.”
Chase turns toward us both. He’s focused on the comms headset he’s wearing and holds a hand up to indicate he’s in mid-conversation. “…it may be difficult for you to get to us, sir. Whole sections of the ship have depressurised.… Okay, will do.… Aye, aye.”
Chase taps the bead at his collar and looks up. “We need to suit up for EVA,” he says. “The rest of the crew are meeting us in airlock control if they can.”
“What’s the plan?” I ask.
Chase scowls. “Not a good one,” he says. “But then, we don’t have a lot of options.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Shann
I’ve given the order. We’re abandoning ship.
We don’t have accurate data, but the Khidr has lost the battle. The Gallowglass is built tougher and proved more resilient. Computer projections suggest it won’t be long before our ship starts to break apart.
The only hope we have is to invade theirs.
I’m holding on to the safety rail next to the bridge exit with my right hand. My left is floating in front of me. Travers is helping Chiu extricate herself from her seat. Le Garre is checking on Keiyho. They’ve both performed heroics fixing the atmospheric leak in the view screen and shutters with repair foam. Now they’re helping their crewmates. We’ve all removed our helmets. Somehow, the bridge’s pressure seal is intact.
Le Garre looks at me and shakes her head. I know what that means.
Keiyho’s gone.
I know that moment will be scarred in my mind. Afterward, if we survive, there will be a reckoning, an emotional and mental cost for all that has been done. I will face judgement from a board of inquiry. Above them, I will face judgement from myself.
The loss of friends, people who I cared about, will weigh heaviest on my soul.
I can’t face that now. Otherwise, it will paralyse me.
The ship is a friend too. Every inch of the Khidr is my home, the place I live. The things I treasure and own are here. All of that, I have to let go.
We all have to let go.
“Make sure you check your suits. Your leak detectors could be faulty.”
Le Garre nods. She’s always been thin-faced, but now she’s a hollow version of herself. Something about her is damaged or broken. I wonder if she sees the same thing in my eyes. “Ship’s controls are set,” she says. “We have twenty-five minutes before the Khidr starts to pull herself away with the tiny amount of fuel there is left in the manoeuvering thrusters. She’ll then try to brake and assume a stationary position.”
“We’re on a countdown then,” I say. “We need to be aboard the Gallowglass before we’re too far apart to make the trip. What data do we have on getting across?”
“There’s a loss of pressure in the corridor just beyond here,” Le Garre says. “We’ll need to check every compartment before we go inside. That’s going to make this slow going.”
I’m thinking about this, trying to come up with a different solution. “Do we know where the Gallowglass airlock is?”
�
��Yes, the computer identified the drone garage, service airlock and missile launch tubes as entry points to the ship,” Le Garre replies. “The tubes are too small for us, but the airlock is close by. If we can find a sizeable hull breach, we might be able to EVA over to it.”
“There may be a hull breach we can make use of on their ship too,” Travers adds.
“Possibly,” I say, “but I don’t want to rely on it. Let’s aim for a tethered EVA to the airlock. That way we’re aiming for a known target.”
“Leaping off a moving ship onto another moving ship is not going to be easy,” Le Garre warns, “especially when there’s debris flying around. We’re more likely to die than make it. If we could get to the airlock, we’d be able to pick up some of the EVA suits.”
“We don’t have time.”
“Chase, Arkov and Sellis are in airlock control,” Travers says. “I’m in communication with them. We can ask them to make for the same place. They may be able to help us.”
I look at him. “That’s seven of us, with Johansson making eight. Have you heard from anyone else?”
Travers shakes his head. “I can’t access the biomonitoring feeds or positional trackers. Duggins was in the reactor room. He mentioned a possible leak when he went down there.”
A reactor leak would be one of the worst things that could happen. The central section of the ship holds two small nuclear reactors, advanced versions of the ones developed for submarines, and a set of RTB power units. If any of those systems have been damaged, we could already be dead and not know it. As chief engineer, Duggins is the best qualified person to assess a possible reactor breach and deal with it before it became too dangerous. Also, he cares.
“You’ve heard from no one else?” I ask Travers.
“No.”
I hesitate. What is a captain supposed to do when there’s uncertainty and imminent danger? Do we search for the people who might be alive, or save the ones who are?
Including myself.
More guilt. I know a decision has to be made, and I know what the decision has to be, but I’m responsible. These people placed their trust in me.
To be in command, to be an officer means you have to be prepared to let people die.
“We make the attempt. Gather up every emergency oxygen tube you can find. There should be at least six in this room.” I look at Chiu. “Ensign, I need to know how you’re doing.”
Chiu doesn’t raise her head or acknowledge me. Travers leans in toward her, muttering words in her ear, and suddenly she jerks up and stares wildly. “I’ll make it, Captain,” she says.
“Okay.” I have to accept her answer. She knows staying here will mean death. If she can’t cope, bringing her with us might mean the death of us all.
I take the easy choice and accept her at her word. “One tube for Chiu and one tube for me. Travers, Le Garre, you both take two.”
“Captain,” Le Garre says. “I’m not sure that’s—”
“It’s decided. Let’s move on.”
The emergency oxygen cylinders have approximately twenty minutes of supply in them. There’s no carbon filtration, so within one or two minutes, they’ll all run out at the same time. Travers and Le Garre are less injured than Chiu and myself, so they get the extra. We have to get across to the Gallowglass and find a compartment that’s still got air, and we have to do it quickly.
I glance at each of the three in turn. “Once we leave this room, there’s no going back. We have to be ready.”
Le Garre and Chiu nod. “Aye, aye,” says Travers. “Give the word and I’ll depressurise the room.”
“Tell Chase what we’re doing and execute the plan, Lieutenant.”
“Doing that now,” he says and starts tapping on his screen. “Chase said the airlock terminal is still active, so I’m sending him trajectory plots and our expected route. They’ve already suited up. They’re just waiting on us to give the go.”
“How many EVA suits are there ready to go?” Le Garre asks.
“Five,” Travers says. “Three of them have thruster packs.”
“If they bring the spares, we might last longer.”
Le Garre has a point. We can’t transfer to the empty suits while we’re trying to get to the Gallowglass, but they have oxygen tanks, which could be invaluable. That said, if we take all the suits, anyone else who is alive on board will have nothing.
“Ask them to bring a spare suit, but leave one behind. Keep monitoring the comms too, just in case someone else makes contact.”
“What about the object we found?” Travers asks. “It’s down there in the suit store. Should they bring it with them?”
“No, we leave it,” I decide immediately. “I know it’s a loss, but that thing’s been out in deep space a long time. It’ll last a bit longer in the store. Besides, we may be able to come back and retrieve it once we’ve taken command of the Gallowglass.”
“That might not be easy,” Le Garre warns.
“I’m hoping it will be.”
Travers finishes working on his screen and looks up. “There’s an arms locker a little way down from here. I might be able to make it there and pull out what’s left. Could help us if we encounter resistance on their ship.”
“Be quick,” I tell him. “Once we’re out there, we’re on the clock.”
“I will,” he promises.
I glance at the other two. With Travers about his task, Le Garre will have to assist Chiu in getting through the corridor. I’m struggling too, but I’ll cope. I have to. “Helmets on, people. Travers, tell Sam to get outside and look for us and get the computer to depressurise this room. Once that’s done, we open the hatch. First sign of a breach big enough, we assess and look for the EVA.”
Le Garre grimaces as she pulls down her visor. Her words come over the comms system. “An eyeballed EVA. Merde.”
I shrug as I, too, seal myself in. “Can’t be helped, Major. I doubt any cable is going to survive the comparative velocities. We’ll tether together and hope Sam and Arkov can find us.”
“Okay.”
We wait another minute or two as the air drains from the room. I’m conscious that every moment we’re breathing from our emergency supply is a moment lost. This is also a test of suit integrity. No one reports a problem. Eventually, Travers nods and I activate the hatch release.
We stumble into the corridor, struggling with the shifting forces. There is a jagged hole torn out of the wall. Beyond it I see stars and spinning ruin. I make a quick assessment of the jagged breach. It looks big enough, but we’ll need to be careful. Sharp metal edges could slice through suit, skin and bone, ending any one of us. The continual alteration of the ship’s motion through thruster adjustment and collisions means the reactive ‘down’ on us is changing constantly. You can’t plan for that and it makes any movement risky.
I’m following Travers and using my right hand to do everything. My left shoulder is painful and becomes agony if I try to do anything with my arm. Behind me, Le Garre is helping Chiu.
We’ll make it. We have to make it.
Travers turns toward me and points beyond the breach. I nod. He starts moving off to be about his task. I continue toward the breach.
The corridor reminds me of our trip to the Hercules a lifetime ago. Careful design and organisation have become wreckage. The spiraling movements of our ship are shaking loose more and more of its internal components, turning each compartment into rattling tins. No one ever thinks about the poor beans or coins inside those tins. Right now, that would be us.
I’m beside the breach. I activate the magnets in my suit and anchor up to the ruined wall. Le Garre brings up Chiu and helps her settle in on the other side. Immediately I start feeling the ship’s movements dragging on my suit. “You go first, Major,” I say. “That way you can help us both if we need it.”
“Aye, aye, Captai
n,” Le Garre replies and starts moving carefully through the gap. I switch my comms channel.
“Shann to Chase, can you hear me?”
“Yes, Captain, we’re just getting outside.”
“One of you needs to locate Johansson. She’s in some sort of converted projectile, attached to the hull of the Gallowglass. If we don’t reach her soon, she’ll run out of air.”
There’s a pause before Sam replies. “We’re aware of her situation, Captain.”
“That your way of admitting you helped her?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll deal with that later. Right now, someone needs to help her before she dies.”
“Understood.”
“I’m ordering you to save her, Sam. Leave Arkov and Sellis to pick us up.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Le Garre is outside. She’s gesturing for us to follow. I point at Chiu, who struggles to detach herself. Le Garre reaches down a hand and Chiu grabs it, letting herself be pulled through the gap. Somehow, she makes it without being snagged on the torn layers of the ship’s hull.
“You next, Captain,” says Le Garre.
I deactivate the magnetic grips and let myself ease away from where I was. As if in response, a dent appears in the wall opposite and a storage unit shatters. Part of it tumbles toward me. The ship shifts, and I can almost hear her groaning. Instinctively, I push off to my right, to avoid the debris, and my left arm spasms in pain. I wish I could activate the painkiller injection built into the suit, but I can’t. I need to stay clear and focused.
I’m not dying here. This captain is not going down with her ship.
I look up. Le Garre is still there, reaching out her hand. I grab it.
Chapter Fifty
Sellis
Imagine living in a snow globe after it’s been shaken. All those flakes falling around you, some of them bigger than your head.
Yeah, this is a bit like that, only worse.
I’m floating in a blizzard of broken and twisted metal. In all this, I could be hit by something tiny that pierces my suit, pushed off course by something large or cut open by something sharp.