Almost.
But Eric didn’t stop. He couldn’t, not even for the moment to give the sight the respect that it deserved. His time was running out. There was so little oxygen left.
Eric’s air was running out. His head was spinning as the oxygen was becoming thin. His eyes started to blur. His body grew weak. Step by step he drew closer, driven only by sheer will.
As Eric came upon the wreckage, he could see Helena’s body still snagged on a piece of the jagged metal. Her lifeless, cold body was slowly swaying to the ship’s movements and was tossed about like some rag doll.
Eric’s heart broke upon seeing her again. Her death, right before his eyes, was still all too soon. His guilt of having to leave her while she was still screaming in pain gripped his soul. He would always have the weight of wondering if he could have warned her sooner or perhaps even dragged her out of the room before it all exploded, kicking and screaming, if he had to, just to save her life. Now, he would never know.
Now, he was about to do something else that was going to eat away at his soul. He caught hold of Helena’s body. For a moment, a moment he knew that he didn’t even have, he looked into her lifeless, wide open eyes. They were glazed over with frost from the coldness of space and seemed to stare at him with a horrified and pleading look of despair as if calling out to his soul in one last desperate plea. He couldn’t tell if the look was out of condemnation or a final cry for help. Either way, he didn’t see any form of forgiveness or redemption.
From what little light that came from the control panel from deep inside the room and the flashing of the emergency lights, he could see that Helena’s body had greatly expanded from the lack of atmospheric pressure. He could also see how her flesh had turned blue. Ice had started to form around her eyes and lips. Her form was almost frozen.
“I’m so sorry,” Eric said with a pang in his heart, not just for what he had done or what he could have or should have done, but for what he was about to do.
With a slight tug, Eric dislodged Helena’s body from the mangled, shredded, jagged metal piece of the ship’s hull. His heart continued to feel pain as he let her body go and tears filled his eyes as he watched her drift away and tumble into the cold, dark, great void called space.
As much as he wanted to stay and grieve this moment, to give Helena a time of respect that she was due, the oxygen levels left in his tanks read empty. His was now on fumes. He had already taken the time that he needed to enter the ship just to move her out of the way.
Doing his best through shallow breathing, Eric carefully slid his body between the sharp, jagged, metallic shards sticking up from the ship’s hull. The last thing he wanted was for these dagger-like pieces to shred his spacesuit wide open. He had come a long way, against all odds, facing the threat of losing oxygen and the threat of flying out into space. He wasn’t going to have his life be dashed aside, this close to his goal, due to some carelessness of his own doing.
Once he was inside the room, he quickly made his way toward the portal, the very portal that he had pulled himself through when this room had exploded. His vision was now blurred beyond any sense that he had ever known and it was already difficult to make out the shape of the door let alone the wheel that would open it.
Eric gave a crank on the wheel. Nothing happened. He tried again. Again, nothing happened. He felt his body start to shake and spasm due to the lack of air he was getting. If he didn’t open it soon, his body would collapse and there would nothing more that he could do than to lie there and slowly suffocate. He put his full body weight on the wheel and let himself fall.
The wheel spun and the portal was sucked open by the vacuum of space. The sudden depressurization of the hall beyond pulled at Eric’s body. This time, he was ready. He had activated both boots and instead of being threatened to be sucked out into space like what had happened last time, this time his body didn’t move.
At first Eric made no progress against the suction of the vacuum pushing him backwards. But slowly, one small step at a time, he made his way. Inch by inch, foot by foot, Eric strained his muscles and his body against the onslaught of the force that was pushing against him. When he finally stepped over the portal’s threshold, Eric pulled the portal closed and cranked on the wheel sealing the door behind him.
Eric’s body collapsed and he fell to his knees. The floor faded from view several times. His heavy breathing was only sucking up used, stale air. There was nothing left and that was a few moments ago. Now, all he wanted to do was close his eyes and lay down. Exhaustion had made its way though his whole system. He needed to sleep.
But he knew the moment that he closed his eyes would be the moment he died. With what little strength he had left, Eric put his hands upon his helmet and twisted.
A gush of fresh air hissed into Eric suit. All he could do was take in deep breaths of air. Over and over again he breathed, letting the oxygen flow through his body, through his brain, heart and lungs. His body was still quivering from exhaustion but he still couldn’t quit, not now. Now he had to find Vincent or a landing craft or both before the ship imploded.
.
Chapter: 41
Vincent ran down the ship’s corridor. He had already dealt with Eric and now there shouldn’t be anything or anyone between him and the cargo that they were carrying, that was except for the singularity containment field. The computer had no problem reminding him of this fact.
“Warning...Coolant at critical levels. Singularity engine degradation. Destruction immanent.”
If he could only get to the singularity containment controls and attempt to reroute what was left of the coolant to only that part of the ship, then he might be able to salvage the ship and the cargo. If not then he would take his chances in one of the landing crafts. But he had little time and a lot of ground to cover.
Vincent was nearly out of breath by the time he made it to the singularity engine room. Sweat was running down his face and chest. It wasn’t just the distance between where he had dumped Eric into space and here, but it was also the fact that his spacesuit was heavy and bulky. He had considered removing it for speed, but there was still a chance that he would need it if the ship started to take on more compromises to the hull or if he needed it to reach another planet.
The control room to the singularity engine was in worse shape than when he left it. Glass panels of monitors had shattered, fuses were blown, and electrical circuits were fried. Some kind of electrical surge had come through this room and the only good thing that Vincent could find was the fact that he wasn’t in here when it had. Even the window looking into the room that contained the singularity itself was fractured.
Vincent was able to tell that everything had been affected by whatever had swept through here. All of the gauges were in the red. Red warning flashing lights had lit up the control room.
The security officer found one of the computers that was only slightly fried and displayed only a minor crack along its monitor. From there, he let his fingers fly across the keyboard as he punched in one command after another. It was easy to find the controls to the coolant system, but the problem was trying to get it to flow into this room. It seemed that the various control valves along the ship were stuck open. From what Vincent could guess, there was too much coolant running too quickly and the valves were frozen open. The coolant would continue to spill to every floor on the ship and could not be turned back to this room. On top of that, if his readings were correct, there wasn’t enough coolant anyway. The supplies were too low.
Despite his inability to carry his initial and optimal plan, there was still something he could try to accomplish to maintain the cargo. He punched in a few more commands and hoped for the best. His only hope was to jettison the singularity into space. Once it was gone, the singularity drive would no longer need coolant and would shut off and the containment field would no longer need to be maintained. Yes, he would basically be adrift in space, but he would be alive and the cargo would be safe. All he had t
o do was drop the blast shield to the room beyond and then drop the whole room into space.
A loud whining noise echoed off of the wall above the sound of the warnings that were going off. The hydraulics was working, but by the sounds of things, it was just barely. The blast shield was starting to lower into place, although slower than Vincent would have liked and probably slower than they should have. But, as long as it continued…
Vincent’s hopes were dashed aside once he heard the loud crunch. It was the sound of metal against metal and it had come the same time that the blast shield stopped. That was it; the solid metal shield only dropped about a foot and wouldn’t go any further. If he jettisoned the singularity room now, there was a chance that the resulting vacuum and the small charges that were set to push the room away would destroy what was left of the integrity of the glass window that was already cracked.
It was still worth a shot. If he could punch in the eject commands and get out of the room fast enough, he still might be able to secure his mission. With renewed hope, Vincent typed in his commands with his body set to bolt for the door.
Nothing. Nothing happened. With the blast shield stuck in the open position, the commands were just not being accepted. It was time to leave.
Quickly, Vincent left in all due haste. There was only one thing he could do now and that was to save his own skin and his mission be damned. It was no longer worth any risk let alone his life. It was time to abandon his post and he no longer cared about the consequences.
But he couldn’t just take off in one of the shuttles. It required one person to open the bay doors and once that happened then the cargo bay would be shut off and secured. There would be no way that he could open the cargo door and then get into the craft to take off. However, there might just be a way around this and it would require something out of his room.
As fast as he could go, Vincent continued to run down one hall and then another. He rounded one corner and turned down another corridor. He climbed one set of stairs after another. He maneuvered around fallen equipment, broken pipes, downed conduits spilling what little coolant they had left, and made his way around destroyed monitors. He even had to avoid dead Dagons and had to be careful of the floor where their ichor had spilled. He had to accomplish all of this while still wearing his spacesuit.
As soon as he burst into his room, Vincent saw what he was looking for. His laptop was still hooked up to the mainframe. It only took a few moments to pull the wires and take the computer. He knew that the battery life would last a few hours and if luck held out then he would only need it for a few minutes.
Again, Vincent ran back down the halls. His boots echoed off of the empty corridors. His loud heavy breathing became labored and only contributed to the other sounds of the hissing of leaking conduits and the warnings that were still coming over the ship’s intercom.
His side started to ache, yet he pushed on. His legs felt like lead, yet he pushed on. His head was pounding and his heart felt as if it was going to burst through his chest, yet he pushed on.
What few lights were left now flickered and only added to the flashing red emergency lights. Shadows danced off of one hall and down another.
Despite the sights and the sounds, despite the fallen debris, and his aches and pains, Vincent pushed on. He didn’t know how much time he had left and he knew that every second counted.
Each stairway down that he came upon, he decided to utilize in a different fashion than normal. Instead of simply running down the steps and run the risk of tripping, Vincent grabbed a railing on each side and slid down. It was an old military trick to get down stairs faster when in a hurry.
Vincent burst open the door to the cargo bay. Here, he was able to see the two landing crafts highlighted by the flashing emergency lights. The one closest to him was already open and from what he could guess, it was the one that Bruce had opened the back cargo bay door of to get his mining mech.
Quickly Vincent jumped into the cockpit of the landing craft and went through the initial preflight commands. The ship’s bay door started to close as the engines started to warm up. Lights flickered on, and gauges came to life. The ship started to hum to life.
It was then that Vincent pulled his laptop across his lap and started to punch in a string of commands and passwords. With the mainframe now online, at least for now, he would be able to connect with the computer remotely and didn’t need to be concerned about being hardwired.
Once he was in, he found the command sequences for the engine room of the Harbinger and followed the programming trail to the exact controls that he needed. And, although he wasn’t a programmer, he was familiar enough with the ship’s systems and protocols that he knew what he was looking for and he had no problems finding it.
With a few more commands, the process to open the loading bay door was initiated. Several red warning lights flashed across the whole bay. A siren echoed off of the metal walls.
“Warning...Cargo bay doors initiated. All personnel must leave the cargo bay area. All access points will be sealed in thirty seconds.”
“Warning...Cargo bay doors initiated. All personnel must leave the cargo bay area. All access points will be sealed in twenty eight seconds.”
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Eric rounded the last corner that took him to the hall at the bottom of the ship. This corridor would lead him to the three engine rooms on his right and the cargo bay on his left. All he had to do to find the landing crafts was to head down the hall and turn into the bay. There had been no sign of Vincent, so maybe it would be a simple thing just to grab one of the…
“Warning...Cargo bay doors initiated. All personnel must leave the cargo bay area. All access points will be sealed in twenty six seconds.”
‘Damn, Vincent got to them before I did.’
Eric knew that he only had the twenty six seconds to, not only cross the hall and make his way into the cargo bay before the doors sealed shut, but he also had to cross the cargo bay and make it into one of the landing crafts before the main cargo bay doors opened and he was sucked out into space. His only other option was to stay here and become one with the ship, quite literally, as the Harbinger would end up folding in upon itself once the singularity containment field collapsed.
Eric took off in a dead sprint. Despite the fact that his body wanted to give up and quit, he simply couldn’t give in, not now. His legs moved as quickly as he could make them and his arms pumped as hard as he could get them to go.
‘If only I didn’t have this suit on,’ Eric thought to himself. The very item that had saved his life was now slowing him down and was trying to condemn him to die.
Eric ran harder in a desperate attempt to make it in time. His body slammed against the portal’s door as he made a hard turn into the cargo bay. He knew that he would get a nasty bruise from the impact, but it was worth it.
Now that he had a straight shot to the landing crafts, Eric poured on what little speed he had left. The computer continued to count down giving him the warning of when the bay doors would open and his life would be forfeit. He had to make it, he just had to.
The only question was, which landing craft should he take? The closest one seemed to be going through its preflight commands. This one would be the one that Vincent was in and the thought of not going to this one had crossed his mind. Vincent had already shown that he was capable of killing anyone that got in his way, and that included Eric himself. However, he didn’t have the time to run to the other shuttle and punch in the preflight commands. Vincent’s ship still had a few more moments to go before it was ready to take off and there was still a little bit of time to make it aboard. His mind was made up before he even realized it.
It only took a few really good strides at the speed he was going to get to the shuttle. It took a few more moments to find the side hatch to the smaller ship and a few more moments to get inside.
Vincent heard the slamming o
f one of the side hatches. He had to admit that the sound had startled him. Someone had boarded his craft. As far as he knew, he was the last one alive on the Harbinger; there shouldn’t have been anyone else. Perhaps it was another bipedal Dagon. Perhaps it was someone he thought was dead and had come back to haunt his ignorance. Perhaps it was just his imagination.
As Vincent continued through the preflight commands, one hand moved to his sonic blaster. He wished that he still had his plasma thrower but that had been lost somewhere in the shuffle with the doctor. His second hand moved through the interior camera controls. His expression went from being startled to being surprised once he saw who it was.
“You’re alive?” Vincent said through the ship’s intercoms. “Well hang on then, things are going to get a little bumpy.”
The portals leading from the docking bay to the rest of the ship closed shut. Their seals locked airtight as the computer continued the procedure that had been initiated. Suddenly a hissing sound was heard as the computer started to suck the oxygen out of the bay area. This was to keep the much needed breathable air for the crew that would have been left behind, instead of letting it escape into deep space.
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