Threshold by Flint Eric & Spoor Ryk E

Author:Flint, Eric & Spoor, Ryk E. [Flint, Eric & Spoor, Ryk E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781439133606
Google: 5c9rQgAACAAJ
Amazon: 1439133603
Goodreads: 7095180
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2010-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Blackness slowly lightened to dim gray shot through with red pain. For a few moments he didn't even attempt to open his eyes, didn't even know who it was that would be doing the opening.

Joe. I'm Joe Buckley.

Joe tried to take a breath, felt knives in his chest and barely restrained a cough. The air was heavy, and cold. He tried to open his eyes, but they wouldn't open at first. Working his face, squinting and frowning and moving all the muscles, he felt something rough and sticky slowly giving. Finally, reluctantly, the eyelids came open, first the left and then the right.

Stars. Stars and dark roughness. Another squint, and he realized the roughness was rock. A lot of rock. What the hell happened? He could remember working on the power line for their lab; that was it. Then boom—nothing.

There were actual scratches across his visor, now that his vision was clearing. Something had hit him hard. Not that his body wasn't already informing him of that. He managed to move enough to get the self-diagnostics running. The suit was a mess, low on power, low on air, and some systems just plain not running. He wasn't in great shape, either. Broken ribs, possible minor internal injuries, concussion . . .

The comm unit was still active, at least partly. The antenna had been torn away. Where the hell am I? "Hello? Anyone there?"

Something suddenly moved in the circle of sky above him, a huge boxy shape of girders, cubes, and angles blazing with sunlight on one side, gliding with slow majesty across and, it seemed, downward. That was ridiculous, though. Nobel would have no business down that low, not even on a search-and-rescue for him. He closed his eyes, shaking his head to clear it even though that hurt. When he peeked again, there was no sign of the ship. No one answered his call. He tried to get the suit to boost the power and tried again.

"Hello, anyone there, this is . . ." He almost coughed again. "Joe. Joe Buckley."

Faint but sharp in his ears was the abrupt reply. "Joe? Joe! Thank God!"

"Dunno about thanking him, I think he did this to me."

"Bloke's right, act of God and all that." Bruce sounded distracted, though happy. "Glad to hear your voice, mate. Getting on a little eleventh-hour for you, if you know what I mean."

"What happened, anyway?"

"One hell of a lot," Maddie answered, unable to quite keep a teary-sounding edge from her voice. "For you, what happened was that a meteor smashed the reactor-control area and blew you . . . somewhere. We think we know the general location now, thanks to Jackie. Can you tell us anything to help narrow it down? Where are you?"

"Meteor? Now I'm getting hit by meteors? What, crashing in spaceships isn't good enough? Jesus!" Another breath did cause coughing, which definitely wasn't good. Once he could finally breathe again, he answered the question. "I'm in a hole. Pretty deep. I'm down at least fifty meters, I'd guess.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.