Orion Lost by Alastair Chisholm

Author:Alastair Chisholm
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Published: 2019-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

19

Scrapers

Beth had seen Scraper ships. On newscasts, in blurry footage taken by fleeing victims. In lessons, where they had always seemed remote and irrelevant.

It wasn’t remote now. Scrapers were coming for them and they were helpless: no way to fight back, no way to move, no way to Jump. There was nothing they could do—

“—orders, captain?”

Nothing except wait for them—

“Captain!”

She started and looked up. Vihaan was glaring at her. He said, in an exasperated voice, “You need to give us orders.” The others were watching.

Orders? What orders could she possibly give? Scrapers were coming! What was she going to say to them? It was ridiculous. She almost laughed.

Instead she said, “Right.” Her voice wobbled. “We’ve, ah, we’ve got a bit of time until they arrive. We can either try to fight, or try to Jump.”

“We’ve got no ammo to fight them off with,” said Arnold in frustration.

“We cannot Jump!” wailed Lucille.

“Mikkel thinks we can if we get three emitters online,” said Beth.

Mikkel shrugged.

Lucille threw her arms up. “You do not understand!”

“Then tell us,” snapped Beth.

This time her voice didn’t wobble, and she temporarily cut through Lucille’s panic.

The girl stopped. “There are four hundred emitters,” she said at last, making an effort to keep calm. “We need them all to Jump properly. Without them, we cannot steer. We cannot say which Jump to make, yes? But we have only … two-hundred and eighty working, maybe. If we Jump with this, maybe the Jump will not work. Maybe it half works and we are stuck in between, yes? Or the Jump gap is too small and half the ship goes through!”

Beth said, “But Mikkel thinks—”

“Yes, yes,” Lucille muttered, waving an arm. “Yes, it might work. We roll the dice, it comes up six, then it is OK, yes?” She stared at Beth. “But if we do not … we will die. And even if it works, we could be anywhere.”

“Well,” said Beth, trying to sound confident, “that’s just what we’ll have to do.”

To her surprise, talking to Lucille made her feel better. The more she tried to reassure the small girl out of her terror, the less panicked she felt herself.

“Right,” she said to the bridge. “You heard Lucille. We need emitters. How long do we have – any ideas?”

Vihaan chewed his lip. “The rat’s Jumped once. It has to boot up and Jump again … maybe once more? And they’ve got to come back… That would be three hours.” He looked uncertain. “Possibly.”

Beth nodded. “OK. Let’s say two hours. Arnold, what’s the state of the other Gizmos?”

“I got another one kind of working,” said Arnold. “It’s pretty flaky.”

“Send it out right now.”

She rubbed her face. What else? “Mikkel, we’re going to need to get the emitters going at really short notice. And a Jump. Oh, and Sleeping too.”

Oh god, Sleeping.

“Just do … whatever you have to do. Get us ready.”

Mikkel nodded and sauntered off to a console. He hummed under his breath as he worked, as if bored. Beth wondered if shaking him really hard would make her feel better.

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