From Beyond by Jasper T. Scott & Nathan Hystad

Author:Jasper T. Scott & Nathan Hystad [Scott, Jasper T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Anthem Press
Published: 2022-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

Beyond III

“Impact in t-minus five minutes,” David announced through the comms. “Relative velocity holding steady at four hundred and eleven klicks per hour. All hands, safety check.”

“Strapped in and ready,” Zasha declared.

“Likewise,” Carter added.

“Standing by,” Liu said.

David studied them via the camera feed on his auxiliary display. Each wore a pressure suit and was secured directly to the communal deck with cargo webbing and other improvised restraints. The jump seats weren’t ideal in this case, because while sitting, the force of the impact would compress their spines to the point that the vertebrae could fracture. Liu had informed them that the best way to tolerate the extreme forces of the collision was to lie down.

David and Lennon would be fine in the bridge since their seats were facing the nose, which put their backs on the same plane as their corresponding deck. Because they were going to collide tail-first, it placed them as far as possible from the impact.

“T-minus two minutes,” Lennon stated. “Any changes?”

David glanced at the nav display and shook his head. After dumping their fuel, an encouraging prospect had occurred to him. If the Interloper was reacting to their approach by trying to disable them, wouldn’t they also have collision avoidance systems? Their ship had already proved that it could maneuver, when it had cut its velocity and shaved two weeks off this encounter. But with precious little time remaining before impact, the Interloper was as enigmatic as ever. If it could speed up to avoid the collision, it had clearly chosen not to do so.

“Maybe their computer already scanned us and ran the numbers, and they realized we can’t even dent their hull,” Lennon suggested.

“It’s feasible,” David said. Whatever the case, they were ready. They’d emptied the bottom twelve feet of the cargo bay. That, plus the empty fuel tanks and the thrusters themselves, would create a good forty feet of crumple zone. By all estimates, that should be enough for them to survive the impact, but the damage to the living compartments would be severe, and depressurization was a very real probability. Hence the pressure suits they were wearing.

“T-minus one minute!” Lennon called.

David tensed and reached for the docking harpoon controls. He flipped up the safety cover and watched unblinkingly as the range to the Interloper ticked down steadily.

6840 meters... 6612... 6156...

The harpoon cables had a maximum range of fifty meters, which meant that he had to fire them less than a second before impact. Human reaction time was about a quarter of a second, and he needed to hit the button a half-second before impact, but if he went too soon, they’d fail to reach the Interloper’s hull. Beyond III would bounce off and drift into space. If he shot them too late, the results wouldn’t be any better. They’d become snagged on the debris of the buckling thruster assembly.

“Ten seconds,” Lennon said. “Nine... eight... seven...”

David’s vision narrowed to a hazy tunnel. He became hyper-aware of his surroundings: the range to target scrolling on

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