The Heart of Matter by Evan Currie

Author:Evan Currie [Currie, Evan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781612182353
Goodreads: 13645835
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2012-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

The crewman sailed through the door in the free fall of the weapons control room, just as the other members of the group closed it behind him. Harlan could swear they were laughing when the door shut, but he was busier catching himself from slamming into the far wall.

“Great. What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” Cade muttered after he’d gotten himself under control, shaking the paint can slightly to hear the rattle.

He pushed off the wall and looked back to the large pane of transparent aluminum that separated him from the others in the control room and saw that they were all pointing at the large grate that covered the magnetic containment tubes directly below and above his position.

“What the hell?” He frowned, noting a trace of color on the grates.

It took him a moment to catch on, and when he did, he had to laugh.

Supplementing the magnetic containment.

Right.

Cade Harlan shook up the can and traced over the lines he saw below him, brightening them up, and let the quick-dry paint do its job. When he was done, he kicked off and sailed back to the door.

It opened this time, letting him pass through into the control room, where the others were laughing and Petty Officer Tate took the can from him and clapped him on the back. “Nice job, Crewman. Now we’ll be safe.”

Harlan laughed. “Where the hell did that tradition come from, anyway, PO?”

Tate shrugged. “Seemed obvious to us, kid. Those torps are the fucking stuff of hell itself. We all feel better if we’ve got something a bit more powerful than magnetic containment holding them in place.”

Harlan just shook his head, but he was grinning as the mood in the control room buoyed him up. Suddenly, things didn’t seem so tense anymore, so he supposed that it must have worked, after all.

Back in the sealed tube room, the quick-drying paint finished its job and brightly marked a large circle with a star enclosed.

After all, what better to hold back the demons of hell than a pentagram?

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