Citadel: The Value of War: A Citadel Novella by Kevin Tumlinson

Author:Kevin Tumlinson [Tumlinson, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: david brin existence, Orson Scott Card, the martian and andy weir, Hugh Howey and Wool, Neil Gaiman
Publisher: Happy Pants Books
Published: 2015-08-26T22:00:00+00:00

FOUR | Mine Field

“Unseen dangers are a great threat. Look carefully into those dark places where they may be hiding. Choose your path based on the light of knowledge, and correct your course as your wisdom grows brighter.”

—The Book of Nolad

Somar held a hand over the tear in Christina’s suit, twisting the fabric as much as he could, hoping to at least slow the leak and give her more time. Like the Esool containment suits, human suits were self-healing, to a degree. Given time, they might repair even the largest tear. But time, sadly, was the one thing Christina did not have.

“Captain,” Riggar said over the comms, “we have been monitoring your situation. There is a human shuttle to your right, about nine meters. Can you reach it?”

Somar looked in that direction but saw only darkness. The lights of the shuttle bay were not functioning, either as a result of their attack or because of some system failure following the explosion on the bridge.

“I do not have a visual on the shuttle,” Somar said.

“It is there,” Riggar assured him. “If you engage thrusters at full strength, you should reach it in approximately fifteen seconds.

“Understood,” Somar replied. And without hesitation he engaged his thrusters and pushed for the shuttle. He managed to avoid larger chunks of floating debris by temporarily adjusting thruster direction and then correcting course. He watched the readouts of his suit, noting that thruster fuel was diminishing at an alarming rate.

There were several small impacts, and Somar held Christina close to help block her from as much of the floating debris as possible. Their path was dimly lit by the lights mounted above the faceplate of his helmet, which showed flitting bits of metal and small objects that floated between the two of them and the distant shuttle, which was still shrouded in the cavern-like darkness of the shuttle bay.

And then, after a long and stressful flight, Somar saw a glint of light reflecting from the glass canopy the shuttle’s control deck. They were close. But not quite close enough.

Somar’s containment suit emitted a series of alarms to warn him that thruster fuel was near depletion. He turned off the thrusters and let momentum carry them forward, but this created a delay and a bit of lag in adjusting to avoid debris. They took more hits, some of which were harder than he would like.

Worse, the hits were slowing them, or veering them off course. At this rate, with all of the adjustments for correction, they would not have enough thruster fuel to help them navigate to the air lock of the shuttle.

Their best chance was for Somar to commit to a course and deplete remaining fuel to reach it.

He scanned ahead, looking for the air lock entrance in the dim portion of light that reached the shuttle from their position. It took a moment, but he found it, and with only a tiny flit of the thrusters he had them aimed at it. There were several large chunks of debris floating ahead.

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