S. Andrew Swann - Hostile Takeover 02 by Partisan

Author:Partisan [Partisan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-12-03T22:55:26+00:00

All the Shaftsbury’s systems were on a priority list in the main computer. Usually the list went something like: life support, flight control, communication … all the way down to the holo displays in cargo and the hand dryer in the bathroom. She had just, inadvertently, put the field’s power requirements at the head of the priority list.

The computer, obligingly, was already shutting down nonessential systems to keep the field powered up.

Stupid, stupid, stupid …

Tetsami reslung the HVE across her back and pulled herself up the ladder. As she did so, the ship lurched to port, nearly yanking her away from the wall. Below her, she saw the headless guard roll off of Kelly. She wished she had the time to check on Kelly and Gavadi, but she had to get to a priority port before a critical system failed.

She climbed up through the hatch as the ship pulled another hard maneuver to starboard, doubling her over the lip of the hatch and shoving the air from her lungs.

The lights in the corridor here had already been cut down to emergency levels, casting a red glow over everything and making the spots of gore on the wall a dead black.

She didn’t need to see the color of the stains to know what they were. She could still smell the ozone-transformer reek of an HVE discharge and that wall was covered with microscopic craters from impact-scattered fléchettes.

The ship stabilized, and Tetsami pulled herself up into the empty corridor, unslinging her weapon.

She knew nothing of the Shaftsbury’s layout, other than the fact that the cockpit was in a hump above the nose. However, she had no trouble finding her way there. She just followed Jarvis’ cursing.

Lights were shutting off as she ran. She knew that the only priority access to the ship’s systems would be in the cockpit now.

“What the fuck you mean you can’ t! ” Jarvis yelled ahead of her.

Tetsami ran up a narrow flight of stairs that led to the cockpit. As she ran, the Shaftsbury dipped its nose in a shuddering dive. The stairway fell away from below her, and when the dive leveled out, she slammed face first into the stairs.

She got unsteadily to her feet, bloodied and feeling a massive bruise where her HVE’s stock had rammed into her abdomen.

She closed the cockpit. Jarvis was blocking the door, back to her, yelling at the crew.

“Get some lift, you bastards!”

The voice responding to Jarvis was calmer than it should have been. Tetsami figured that it was the pilot. “The system is diverting power from the contragrav. Neutral gravity is the best we have.”

Tetsami came up behind Jarvis and, for the first time, saw the view outside the ship.

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