Wavefall by Rebecca A. Demarest

Author:Rebecca A. Demarest
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sci-fi, space opera, science fiction, quantum
Publisher: Rebecca A. Demarest
Published: 2019-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

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A brief headcount showed that all but a couple of the miners had made it to the oxygen chamber safely, and everyone was waking up, albeit slowly. Brad stayed right where he was while people shook feeling back into their limbs. Not everybody had made it to the ground before they lost consciousness, and one guy had a broken nose, but everybody else seemed to be in decent shape. Nobody expected to be able to find the two missing miners; bodies were rarely left behind.

The low murmur of the crew checking in with each other was interrupted by a minder crying out. “Why didn’t the Wave alarm go off? Is something wrong with our Canary? I don’t want to die out in the ass-end of nowhere!”

He was calmed by the men around him, and their shift leader turned to Brad. “You saw the Canary go down, right?”

To give himself a moment, Brad rubbed his eyes and struggled to a kneeling position. He hesitated at revealing Andrea’s unique reaction to the Wave, unsure how the men around him would take it. He’d seen them turn unreasonable and fearful over far less interesting information. “I don’t really know. All I know is the Canary collapsed right in front of me and then I started running, but the alarm wasn’t going off, so I tripped the general alarm.” He found it disturbing that no one had used her name yet, not even Matt or the other men who had slept with her. “Look, Andrea’s in my cabin, we can find out.” Brad hauled himself upright with the help of a tree branch and worked his way unsteadily to the door.

The walk felt longer than usual, but he and half the station personnel made it to Barrack 5 and popped the door manually since the electronic door controls were still out. Brad sighed in relief when he saw his trunk in the middle of the room and his stuff scattered around it. Andrea had made it. He opened the lid to find her unconscious and curled into a tight little ball, blood all over her face. Concerned, he checked first for a pulse (present), then any wounds (none) so he said over his shoulder, “She’s good. She hit her nose on the way down, but I put her in here to stay safe during the Wave. It’s lined.”

“You took the time to get her in here.” Lewis helped Brad lift Andrea out of the trunk since it was obvious she wasn’t going to be waking up immediately.

Brad started gently massaging Andrea’s wrists, trying to wake her up. “Trust me, I know exactly how long it takes to get from my bunk to the safe room and I also know exactly how long it takes from the moment of catatonia to Wavefall. I had the time, so I took it. I didn’t think carrying her through the station was the best idea at the time; unconscious people are difficult to manhandle without injury, which you should remember from our last vacation leave.

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