The Xenocide Mission by Ben Jeapes

Author:Ben Jeapes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307434043
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2009-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Day Eighteen: 20 June 2153

Pathfinder shuddered as the shockwave tore the length of the ship. Those standing were flung violently against deck or bulkheads. The screams of the passengers were added to the groan of the vessel.

Gilmore had been seated. His lap took the impact against the table and held him in place. He gritted his teeth against the assault on his eardrums: the alarms, the shrieking, the shouting over the intercom and all around him.

He pushed himself to his feet – unsteadily, the artgrav was fluctuating – and fumbled for his aide. ‘Shut down alarm to this module,’ he ordered, and that part at least of the background clamour stopped abruptly. He thought of calling McLaughlin, listened again to the noise from the intercom and decided against it. If the captain was still alive then he could do without the distraction. ‘Shut down data feed,’ he said instead, and now all he had to contend with was the noise coming from around him. He ignored it and abruptly pulled open a tall, man-sized locker.

‘My God,’ said Bakan. She stood up, slow and unsteady, and looked around her. Several observers were sitting or lying on the deck. Some of them were clutching at their arms or legs or heads and moaning loudly. ‘Does anyone have medical training?’ She was breathing heavily but was looking calmer and calmer with every second; someone determined to get the situation under control no matter what. ‘We’re going to have to take care of ourselves.’

‘First aid and autodiagnostic kit in that locker there,’ Gilmore said. He had the pressure suit out and was wriggling out of his jacket. ‘It’ll handle everything up to and including broken bones, instructions are self explanatory.’

‘And where are you going?’ Bakan said.

‘Flight deck.’ He didn’t add: ‘if it’s still there.’ He judged that the impact had been almost amidships. The flight deck was amidships, equidistant from bow and stern and from the hull in all directions. It was meant to be the securest place, shielded by as much ship as possible in all directions. But Pathfinder’s designers hadn’t taken into account the possibility of a midships ramming.

He also had no idea what he would do when he got there. But the fact was, he was a spacer. It was where he could do the most good.

‘We . . . we were told to stay here,’ Shintani objected, and Bakan rounded on the Pacifican.

‘Don’t be an idiot, Toshio. That was to keep meddling civilians from getting underfoot. Mr Gilmore is a trained spacer and he can do us all a lot more good there than here.’

Mr Gilmore had one leg into the pressure suit. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Could you give me a hand?’

Three minutes later he was through the module airlock and into the ship’s airless passages. The artgrav was still wavering and every other step was either too light or too heavy. The passageway was lit with red emergency light, empty and eerie, and the only sound in his ears was his own breathing and his suit’s systems.

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