Act of God: Defiance #3 by Jason Krumbine

Author:Jason Krumbine [Krumbine, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub

25

The alarm was a klaxon that echoed down the stone corridors, each reverb causing Mitchell’s back molars to ache.

Savina moved quickly with a surprising amount of grace. Mitchell followed her, racing down the narrow corridor at a quick hobble. He kept a tight grip on the cane and used it to pace himself a good five or six steps behind Savina. His body felt mostly normal again, but despite everything he had learned so far, he was still too cautious, too suspicious, to not hold back a little. If it gave him an edge to have them think he was still recovering, he would take it.

They passed no one in the corridor, which was good considering how narrow the space was. It felt like an afterthought, as though it occurred to somebody they needed to have a way to get from point A to point B without walking across the surface of the asteroid after they had moved in. Mitchell tried to imagine how the Oxean would move through the corridor and conjured up a rather comical image of the loudmouth council member getting himself stuck in the middle.

Despite the effort to hold himself back, Mitchell found himself breathing harder than he should have been.

The path curved sharply and started tilting downwards at an alarming angle. Mitchell had to periodically grab at the wall to keep from falling. Savina, however, moved with practiced ease, never once pausing to catch herself or even bothering to make sure Mitchell was still following her.

Eventually they reached a thick, steel door. It looked like it had been placed awkwardly in the wall. Somebody had carved out a hole for it and then discovered, too late, that it wasn’t going to fit. They managed to jam it in there anyway. It sat crookedly in the wall. One corner flush, the other jutting out almost six inches. The bottom was recessed against the stone and Mitchell wondered how it was possible that the door would even open.

There was nothing written on the door to give any indication of what was on the other side. There was, however, a fading logo that seemed vaguely familiar to him: A golden swooping arc that intersected with what used to be a black delta and was now nothing more than a faint outline.

This door was from their ship, he realized. That logo, was it what used to be the UPA in this universe? He wanted to ask, but he didn’t have the chance. Savina rapped her knuckles on the door twice and it slowly opened.

The other side was some kind of command center. It was the first sign of any recognizable technology Mitchell had seen. There were a dozen computer stations spread out across the space. Thick tubes of wires crisscrossed the floor, connecting every console and then dozens of other wires disappeared into wide, jagged holes in the walls.

The computers looked old. The screens were fuzzy. Everything had physical controls or buttons. There wasn’t a single piece of equipment in the room that didn’t look like wasn’t over two hundred years old.

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.