by Tom Barber
According to the digital numerical countdown on the visor inside the helmet, he had forty five seconds.
If he didn’t make it, he’d be drifting out here until his oxygen ran out.
His body floating in space forever.
No one ever knowing what had happened to him.
He saw the ship through his visor, almost two hundred yards away, a solitary grey shape in a black world of stars.
He focused on it, praying the countdown was accurate and that it wouldn’t suddenly blast off and disappear.
Floating and completely weightless, he twisted the EMU seat around and settled himself into it.
He was trying to stay calm and breathe deeply, keeping each movement even and measured as he still drifted further and further from the ship.
An automated voice inside the helmet of the suit provided an additional countdown to the ship blasting away.
‘Warning to all personnel, ship will go into warp in thirty. Twenty nine. Twenty eight.’
He pictured his father receiving a message informing him that his son had died.
Causes unknown.
MIA.
His heart thumping, he clipped himself into place then pressed down on the EMU’s blasters.
They started pushing him agonisingly slowly back towards the ship now about two hundred yards away.
‘Twenty four, twenty three, twenty two.’
He focused on the ship, not looking back at the being drifting behind him.
There was nothing around them both apart from blackness that went on forever.
‘Nineteen, eighteen.’
The EMU pushed him forward but he wasn’t moving fast enough; he wasn’t going to make it.
He looked at the ship, still too far away, primed and ready to blast off in seventeen seconds.
In moments its presence here would be a distant memory.
‘C’mon!’ he shouted.
‘Fifteen, fourteen.’
He was forty yards away, his brow drenched in sweat.
‘Eleven. Ten.’
Twenty yards.
‘Nine. Eight.’
He pressed the thrust button in one last desperate effort and was in arms reach of the ship.
‘Five. Four.
He gripped the side of the vessel, pulling himself towards the still open pressure door and unclipping the EMU.
‘Three. Doors closing.’
He pushed the EMU rig away and pulled himself into the gap, just as the door slid across and the seal was activated, the air pressure starting to return.
‘Two. One.’
The vessel suddenly punched forward, taking off on its journey at breakneck speed, throwing Miller off his feet and sending him tumbling down the mess room.
He hit the wall and lay there in a heap, catching his breath as the ship rocketed through space.
A few moments later a green light dinged on as the air inside the ship was stabilised; he pulled off his helmet, taking huge breaths, then rose and lurched to his feet.
He moved to a porthole and saw Deimos already almost out sight, the last creature just a memory, drifting out there forever in the blackness.
Taking deep breaths, his brow, combat fatigues and inside of the space suit soaked in sweat, Miller closed his eyes and sagged down in a seat beside him, completely spent.
It was over.
TWENTY SIX
Out of the space suit and wearing just his BDUs and Kevlar vest, Miller had just finished zipping up the bodies of Johnson and his co-pilot in black body bags and stowed them below. The ship was on autopilot, headed straight for MC1. According to the log, they’d be there in approximately an hour and thirty minutes at this speed, punching their way through space.
Once he arrived, he’d report to his CO immediately, telling him what exactly had happened down there on #94.
They needed to know the fate of Olson, his team, the Delta Force team and just what hell Miller had encountered at the station.
On the upper flight deck, he walked back into the cabin, still dressed in his fatigues, combat vest and boots, all his weapons gone. The opening of the pressure door had sucked out anything that wasn’t locked or bolted down inside the mess room, and that included his Beretta.
He sat down and looked around at the empty seats around him.
For a moment, he saw all of his squad there beside him, some dozing, some joking, others keeping to themselves.
He blinked and they were gone.
But he was still here.
And he was safe.
He leaned back and went to close his eyes, but noticed a music system on the wall across the cabin. He stepped forward and activated it, scrolling through the selection on the hologram in front of him.
When he made it to D, he smiled and hit Play.
The first few keys of Clair De Lune filled the ship.
Returning to his seat, Miller leant back and closed his eyes, feeling the ship powering its way through space taking him to MC1, the calming music helping to provide some peace of mind after the terrifying events of the last two hours.
Finally at ease, he pictured home in his head, and smelt the barley in the fields.
He felt the cold beer in his hand and the evening sun on his face as it set in the distance.
His old man on the porch beside him.
A long way from here.
After eight years, nine months, sixteen days and just over six hours, Corporal Will Miller of the US Army 101st Spartans was finally going home.
He figured by now he’d just about earned it.
THE END
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About the author:
Born in Sydney, Australia and raised in England and Brunei, Tom Barber has always had a passion for writing and story-telling. It took him to Nottingham University, England, where he graduated in 2009 with a 2:1 BA Hons in English Studies. Post-graduation, Tom followed this by moving to New York City and completing the 2 Year Meisner Acting training programme at The William Esper Studio, furthering his love of acting and screen-writing.
Upon his return to the UK in late 2011, Tom set to work on his debut novel, Nine Lives, which has since become a five-star rated Amazon UK Kindle hit. The following books in the series, The Getaway, Blackout, Silent Night, One Way, Return Fire and Green Light have been equally successful, garnering five-star reviews in the US, UK, France, Australia and Canada.
Condition Black is Tom’s first novella.
For info on all new releases
Follow @TomBarberBooks.
The Sam Archer thriller series
by
Tom Barber
NINE LIVES
26 year old Sam Archer has just been selected to join a new counter-terrorist squad, the Armed Response Unit. And they have their first case. A team of suicide bombers are planning to attack London on New Year’s Eve. The problem?
No one knows where any of them are.
THE GETAWAY
Archer is in New York City for a funeral. After the service, an old familiar face approaches him with a proposition. A team of bank robbers are tearing the city apart, robbing it for millions.
The FBI agent needs Archer to go undercover and try to stop them.
BLACKOUT
Three men have been killed in the UK and USA in one morning. The deaths take place thousands of miles apart, yet are connected by an event fifteen years ago. Before long, Archer and the ARU are drawn into the violent fray. And there’s a problem.
One of their own men is on the extermination list.
SILENT NIGHT
A dead body is found in Central Park, a man who was killed by a deadly virus. Someone out there has more of the substance and is planning to use it. Archer must find where this virus came from and secure it before any more is released.
But he is already too late.
ONE WAY
On his way home, Archer saves a team of US Marshals and a child they are protecting from a violent ambush in the middle of the Upper West Side. The group are forced to
take cover in a tenement block in Harlem, their ambushers locking them in and sealing off the only way in or out of the building.
And there are more killers on the way to finish the job.
RETURN FIRE
Four months after they first encountered one another, Sam Archer and Alice Vargas are both working in the NYPD Counter-Terrorism Bureau and also living together. But a week after Vargas leaves for a trip to Europe, Archer gets a knock on his front door.
Apparently Vargas has completely disappeared.
And it appears she’s been abducted.
GREEN LIGHT
A nineteen year old woman is gunned down in a Queens car park, the latest victim in a brutal gang turf war that goes back almost a century. Suspended from duty, his badge and gun confiscated, Archer is nevertheless drawn into the fray as he seeks justice for the girl. People are going missing, all over New York.
And soon, so does he.
LAST BREATH
A Federal manhunt is underway across the United States. Three people have been shot by a sniper, and he’s gone to ground somewhere in Washington D.C., his killing spree apparently still not over. As riots engulf the city and the manhunt intensifies, Sam Archer arrives in the city to visit his family.
Or so it would appear.