There, against the glass was a slitted, iridescent blue eye the size of a basketball watching them. It disappeared, just as the ship was hit again. This time, Jules felt it more in her boots and she knew they were going to flip.
“BRACE!!” she yelled, Tom echoing the command as her stomach dropped and the world went ass over teakettle, to the right.
There was a different pitch in the scream that came out of the back, but Jules could only hold onto buckling metal. Crashing gear and breaking glass drowned everything else out. Suddenly, they were upright again. Someone screamed for Dr. Hall as the on-board lights flickered and died, leaving them all in the pitch dark. A moment later, lightning crackled over the outer hull, nearly blinding Jules.
“Fuck!” Tom cursed, just as the ship was struck again and this time, they rolled to the left. Anything that hadn't come loose the first time gave up the fight now in a cacophony of deafening noise. A hiss and a different kind of sound turned Tom's attention to the windshield, where a foot-long crack had appeared.
Something metallic hit the windshield, making both Jules and Tom jump.
“Hull plating!” she called over the noise. Suddenly, the hair on her arms stood on end and the air became acrid with the smell of burnt wiring and electronics. Something roundish and blue appeared in the air near the ceiling and pinged around the cockpit before dissipating against the glass. “Ball lightning!” she yelled as the air crackled again and another bluish light zoomed out of the cockpit and down the passageway.
The ship lifted again. As Jules recognized the direction, she grabbed Tom's sleeve as the shuttle was rolled on its end and then slammed onto its roof in a bone-jarring crunch of metal and rolled over its end once more. Something popped in the dark as the ship was lifted again, this time rolling to the right. The shuttle slammed to a stop before being yanked to the left.
This time, when the nose of the shuttle went into the air, there was a different feel to the lift. Jules's eyes went wide. The ravine with the river at the bottom. Frantically, she tried to recall. Was it a drop to a shelf and then a drop to the river or was there a slope? Shitshitshit.
As the shuttle was slammed onto its roof again, Jules's head hit the headrest hard enough to put stars in her eyes. She couldn't hear anything but the ship being torn apart. Was Tom alive or like Chuck, was he lying there, dead? A muttered curse blistered the dark, making Jules breathe a sigh of relief. The shuttle rolled onto its side where the abuse proved too much for the windshield. The crack raced across the glass and spidered out as their movement changed again.
“We're sliding!” Tom's voice was a beacon in the dark. They were, indeed, sliding downward on Jules's side. Metal screamed in the darkness, as if the ship was finally realizing the trouble they were in.
Suddenly, they crashed against something that halted their momentum so violently Jules wasn't even sure if they'd actually stopped or were falling. Minutes ticked by before she realized that they were upright; a soft light was coming through the windshield and that noise rushing in her ears was silence.
“T—” Her voice cracked. “Tom?”
“Fuck me.” Yep, he was fine.
“Later.” As sunlight filtered into the shuttle once more, Jules heard Tom hit the release on his harness. She followed suit and rose to unsteady legs.
As a kid, Tom Merrick had adored roller coasters. The loop-de-loops, the ones that spun like centrifuges and even that poofter tea-cup one. Now, swear on the Queen's knickers, if someone brought up building one, he was gonna shoot the bastard.
“SITREP!” he yelled before he was even out of the chair. Jules was getting to her feet, thank god, and looked to be still in one piece. No missing parts or new openings.
“DOCTOR HALL!!! Mayday, get over here!!”
Jules met Tom's gaze and they turned as one another before running towards the passenger compartment.
XI
Damage Control
“Oh my God, they're magnificent!”
Luke barely glanced at Tammy, who was facing the observation window instead of being parked in her seat beside him and strapped in. “That's not the word I'd use,” he muttered. Twisting in his seat, he could stare at the creatures with the rest of the scientists and Sharks. He couldn't blame her for goggling like a schoolgirl. For someone in her field, the massive beasts had to be a dream come true.
“Look at them,” Hanae, who was the same from her seat, added. “They're like the moray eels on Earth.”
Luke wasn't so sure about that. While it did appear that they were generating the electricity driving the storm, they were much larger than any moray eel he'd ever seen. More like the size of blue whales.
“It's not so surprising,” Tammy eyes were still glued to the window. “With an environment this ionised, it would make sense the life forms evolving here would generate a higher than normal electrical field. On Earth, it presents in marsupials and insects.”
“Like the Skewers,” Hanae remarked.
“Skewers?” Luke glanced back at the oceanographer.
“That's what Major Merrick called the bovine-like creatures we discovered at the river,” she explained, making 'horns' at her forehead with both forefingers.
Of course, he would. Luke resisted rolling his eyes and went back to staring at the new lifeforms.
With the beasts mostly keeping to themselves and the Gunny calling out the closing distance, Tammy didn't think the Firefly and its occupants were in any immediate danger. Having observed lions and other animal groups in the wild, she was confident in her ability to read a situation, regardless of whether the animal was a lion or an overgrown lobster.
Suddenly, the ship vibrated and hummed in a flash of blue light. Luke sat up straight. “That was a lightning strike,” he told his brother as Olivia entered the passenger compartment.
“Great.” Fan-fucking-tastic. “I want everyone strapped in, NOW,” he ordered, glancing towards the expedition leader who had moved to the window beside Tammy. “Including you, Dr. Hall,” he said in a more respectful tone.
Grumbles of disappointment met his command, at least until the next energy surge hit. It was a good reminder and lit a fire under any stragglers. Around him, harnesses snapped into place audibly as Ozzy and Jazz walked up the rows to conduct a quick check. After a few moments, both men informed the Gunny everyone was packed in before heading back to their seats.
As Ozzy walked by the observation window, he glanced out of it and stopped. “Uhh… Gunny?” he called out, waving the man over. “We got two of the creatures on approach.”
“What?” Tammy loosened the chest strap of her harness, so she could look behind her, ignoring the Gunny's demand she sits back down. Sure enough, two of the flying behemoths had broken off from the pod and were now approaching the shuttle. Light pulsed through their blue-green carapaces, turning them a deep purple as their long tails swished from side to side, not unlike agitated, or pissed off lions.
“Olivia! I think we might be in trouble.”
Popping her harness, Olivia slipped out of the straps, ignoring the Sharks' protests and moved to the window. While Tammy was an exobiologist, Olivia had anthropology and zoology degrees.
“Oh hell,” she muttered, within a second of reaching the window and realizing the younger woman's intuition was on target. “They might have interpreted our ability to take a hit as a threat,” she began, turning for the cockpit. “We need to get out of here NOW.”
“BRACE!” Someone yelled, a second before the ship was hit so hard, it was lifted off its landing struts and slammed back to the ground. The few people on their feet when the hit occurred were tossed across the deck.
“I got you!” Simply reacting, Luke grabbed Tammy first, a brotherly instinct making her his priority. Ozzy tumbled back into the boots of the row across from him with a yelp and Olivia disappeared out of his vision. Swearing, Luke dug his fingers into Tammy's arm to pull her back into the seat beside him.
The next hit came from the other side
and all but tossed Tammy back into her seat. With Luke's help, she scrambled to get her harness secured. “Where's Olivia!”
Looking up, Luke felt panic stab at his chest. There was no sign of Olivia. Across from him, two Sharks had a dazed-looking Ozzy by his body armour and were strong arming him into a seat, but there was no sign of the expedition leader.
Another strike sent any thought out of Luke's head as the shuttle was flipped and tossed like a child's toy. With nearly neck-breaking movements, the 80-foot-long shuttle was thrown from end to end and rolled over like a cat's toy. Everything and anything that wasn't secured or bolted down became projectiles in the topsy-turvy tumble, raining down on their heads one moment and then pelting them from all directions as they were rolled again and again.
The fourth hit took out the lights, setting off several curses and a couple of screams. The stinging odour of burnt electronics hit his nose a second before hissing and popping sparks lit the air somewhere to his left. At some point in the last six months, a very bored Luke had memorized the entire manual to one of these ships. The panel that just went housed the main communications transceiver. Shit.
As the ship slammed into the ground once more, Luke realized the entire ship was being crushed. In the intermittent light, he could see places where the bulkheads were bowed in and parts of the roll-cage struts had buckled. Calculations regarding foot pounds of pressure needed to do such damage rolled through his head like a ticker stream, as did the numbers stating just how much more the ship could take. He really wished he hadn't read that damn manual.
There was another sizzling, crackling sound as a bluish light lit the compartment. Luke didn't need Andropolis's shout of 'Ball lightning!!' to know what it was. “EVERYONE BOTH FEET FLAT ON THE DECK!” he yelled as another roundish ball popped through a bulkhead and shot across to the other side.
The ship rolled once more, shaking their very bones as it was slammed into the ground. When they began moving again, Luke recognized a change in the pattern of movement just as he heard Tom's distant shout that they were sliding.
After what seemed like forever, the ship's slide came to a sudden, abrupt stop. Around him, people were swearing or crying. Or throwing up. Gross.
“Derick!” Luke called in the darkness.
“I'm here! You okay?”
“Yeah!” The only other time he came this close to fainting was when he first found out Bigfoot was alive and only a ship or two away. “Olivia!” Luke called out, over top of the Major's demand for a SITREP. He didn't answer, figuring Tom or his brother wouldn't be appreciative of him stating the obvious. Instead, he let Derick answer it.
“Can someone see Dr. Hall?!” he called out. They hadn't moved in a good two minutes and he could hear harnesses being released. Most likely, the Sharks, since Derick was ordering the squints to stay put. A light flared to life and was followed by a handful more beams piercing the dark amidst cries of protest.
“Dr. Hall! Mayday, get over here!”
“You found her!” Tammy undid her harness, but Luke held her back. He recognized the voice, it belonged to the comtech, Shiny, but her calling for the medic couldn't mean anything good, nor were the shouts for help to 'get this shit off her!'
“Tams, stay put,” he warned as the Captain and the Major came in, looking just as tossed and addled as the rest of them. His brother called them over to Shiny's location. “I'll go see.”
“But…” Tammy glared at him and huffed back against the bulkhead.
Silencing her with a look, Luke unfastened his harness and got to his feet. Picking and stepping his way over the equipment and various instrument cases littering the floor, he stopped when Derick's shoulders sagged, and Jules covered her mouth. In that moment, Luke knew. Olivia was gone.
He didn't have to see Olivia's head turned at an unnatural angle or Shiny respectfully closing the woman's eyes. He didn't need to smell the release of death from her body. The woman had taken a chance on him after the destruction of Sol, giving him purpose during those dark months when he thought everyone he loved was dead and gone. She'd scoured the survivor lists when he was crushed in the depths of despair and delivered the good news his brother was a confirmed survivor on board the Rutherford.
Jesus, she was gone! Luke stumbled back towards Tammy, who was shaking her head as tears leaked from her eyes.
“No. No!” The young woman's lower lip trembled, the facade of strength shattering when Hanae threw her arms around her to share her grief. Reclaiming his seat, he pulled both women to him as word spread through the expedition team.
* * *
“Jules, look at me.”
A hand touched her chin gently, pulling Jules's gaze away from the body of Dr. Hall. She stared at Tom, shaking her head. “I-I should have taken off,” she nodded. “I should have…”
Tom glanced around them and even though no one seemed to be paying attention to Jules, he didn't want them to see her like this. Not when she had an uphill battle anyway as the replacement Captain to the Rutherford.
“C'mon,” he said, taking the liberty with the woman to slide his arm around her waist. “This way.”
Tom led her through the aisle towards the cockpit, but it wasn't easy. Tangles of wire and conduits clawed at them from the ceiling and the walls like brambles. Once in private, he lifted her chin again to get those beautiful eyes to look at him.
“Jules, luv. Listen to me. I need the Firefly's status. I need to know if we can fly.”
“I should have taken off,” she whispered more to herself than to him. “I should have just gotten us out of here and circled back when the storm was over.”
The profound regret in her voice was something Tom recognised all too well. Hadn't he been drinking himself into a stupor since they'd left Sol to avoid his own demons?
“Jules,” he squeezed her shoulder. “You couldn't have known this was going to happen and it was a good call.”
Jules looked up, hardness seeping into her normally warm brown eyes. His words were kind, but she couldn't absolve herself. Not yet. “Maybe, but when I saw those damn things, I should have left. It was too much of a gamble they wouldn't attack. I shouldn't have risked it.”
“You made a decision…”
“And it was wrong!”
“You couldn't have known,” Tom's voice was firm, now planting both hands on her shoulders. “Bugger it, neither of us saw it coming. Look, there'll be time enough for us to think about where we went wrong, but right now, we need to know if the hopper can fly. You're the only one who can do that and, however bloody bad it is, we'll manage. I trust you.”
Closing her eyes, Jules inhaled deeply, letting it out and nodded. Later, she'd examine how much his trust in her at this crucial moment meant but he was right. Rubbing her face, Jules sniffed and considered his question.
“Right now, no. Even if the hull is intact and airtight and we can repair the windscreen and the windows, I need to inventory the systems that are offline and see if they can be repaired. I'll need someone who can do that…”
“Luke Rickman,” Tom volunteered without hesitation. “Luke's your bloke. The kid's a genius, I swear on the Queen's knickers.”
A snort escaped Jules before she realized it. “You have a fascination with a dead woman's underpants, you know that?”
“Safest place in the universe,” Tom quipped back as if it were a no brainer.
Rolling her eyes, Jules gave him a gentle push. “Then send him up to me. I've got to get started. Tom?” When he turned back to face her, she gave him a sad smile. “Thanks.”
“For what?” Tom winked before turning away to head back to the others. When it was all said and done, when everyone was safe, he'd make sure Dr. Hall was remembered like the top bird she was.
Right now, he had to make sure they didn't end up just as dead.
* * *
“Thank God, you crazy woman,” Maya told the unconscious but relatively unaffected Ren Richards as she shoved a cabinet away from the sid
e of the medical bed. She'd left Gunny to handle moving Dr. Hall's body, with a promise that she would let him know how Ren fared. The redhead was sporting a few new cuts and maybe a slightly scrambled brain (who the hell didn't after that ride), but she was breathing and still secured tightly to the bed.
Too bad Maya couldn't say the same for her Med Station. Almost all the cabinets had fallen open and the once neatly stowed supplies were now strewn all over the 12 foot by 12-foot space. Only the cabinet reinforced with a lock remained intact, save for the dent made by the office chair. Bloody hell, there were even loose Band-Aids tangled in Ren's hair.
Brushing those away quickly, Maya checked the IV in the crook of Ren's arm. Her tape job had held and there was no blood backing up the tube, even though the bag was dumped on the floor. Scooping it up, Maya carefully unkinked the line and draped it over a monitor mounted to the wall. That would have to do until she could get back and sort out the mess.
Her medical bag wasn't where she'd left it, but Maya found it easily enough. She threw the strap over her shoulder, glanced at Ren once more and headed for the door, stopping short when the Major himself appeared. He looked no worse than he usually did.
“Major.”
Aware that Derick was busy sorting out the clusterfuck their mission had become in the last ten minutes, Tom took a moment to stop by the Med Station on his behalf. Not that Derick was the only one who would want to check on Richards and Mayday. The young medic was soldiering on in the best tradition of the British Army, even though the raw wound of her personal loss was given almost no time to scab over.
“You both all right?”
He was not surprised to find Ren mostly sorted; Mayday wouldn't have permitted otherwise. But right now, his question was more for the medic, even though he was trying to be subtle about it.
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