“Shut up, and listen to me,” I say. “I love you, and in case this goes—”
I feel it before I hear the explosion rock the ship, sending shudders through the superstructure. A scream escapes me as the lights flicker. “I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I hope that doesn’t mean I’m about to die right this fucking second, but I can’t not tell you how I feel.” I realize my com unit connection died, the signal no longer there. “Shit!” I don’t know how much of that Olarte heard.
Hopefully, at least the “I love you” part of it.
I shrink back into the corner of my cabin, onto my bunk and as far away from the door as I can get, and clutch my stylus in one hand and my com unit in the other. The room is dark, except for the low, red glow of an emergency light pod right over the doorway.
I don’t slap the controller on my suit front to activate the emergency light built into it, because I want to preserve my power reserves in it for as long as possible.
I also don’t want to end up being a well-lit target in case I am forced to flee my cabin.
Seconds after the explosion, the ship’s emergency alarm sounds. I feel a sickening tug on my suit’s exterior as my ears pop and the internal air supply kicks in, all telltale signs of a hull breach of some sort.
Swallowing to both help stabilize the pressure in my ears and, hopefully, to keep from puking from fear inside my suit, I curl into a tight ball where I’m sitting on my bunk.
Then I freakingpray.
Did I mention I’m not religious, but you bet a bitch will do their best to cling to whatever hope they can in times like these.
My suit’s system switches back to external air, meaning we haven’t completely lost all atmosphere.
In school, we underwent countless training scenarios that always left me feeling shaky and ill on the back side of things. Even in simulators, it was impossible to remember that, no, that’s not a hostile boarding party about to kill you, it’s just training to prepare you.
But they do that for a reason, to keep you at your post and doing your job to hopefully keep you and your crew alive.
So here I sit, holed up in my cabin, terrified. I wonder if Mom and Dad even had time to experience a fraction of this fear before they died.
I hope not. I want to believe with all my heart that it happened so quickly they never knew what hit them. Literally.
I give up trying to hail McMurtry or Olarte. I can’t help but wonder if the boarding party employed some sort of signal disrupter of their own to prevent the ship from taking off under tachyon drive, or from possibly trying to ether-jump, in case the captain and his cohorts were able to override whatever they did to the system and restore the jump drive.
It feels like an infinity of time passes as I sit huddled there in my bunk while I hear the sounds of weapons fire and people screaming echoing throughout the ship. At some point, I realize I am crying—sobbing, actually.
I don’t even care.
I want Olarte.
I want my happiness, dammit!
I want to be off this fucking ship and I want to besafe.
I want a home, I want a family, I want a future. I have all the money I’ll ever need to take care of me and mine for the rest of our lives.
Nothing is worth this stress, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m no hero.
When another explosion rocks the ship, I let out another scream despite trying to stay quiet. I can’t help it. There’s another tug of decompression against my suit, and I again feel the suit’s system switch from external to internal air for a moment before it switches back.
That means it’s another limited decompression emergency and the section was sealed off.
I’m worried about McMurtry. I hope he got himself to safety. He’s a good guy with siblings and family who love him. He’s been a friend to me when I needed one.
I choke back another scream as it sounds like the firefight has moved into the corridor right outside my damn cabin door now, including loud, heavy thuds against the door, like bodies slamming into it. Not like they’re trying to gain entry, because no one’s hit the door button yet, but more like they were thrown against it, or fell against it.
Trembling, I hold my breath and listen, terrified to call out and alert whoever is outside to my presence.
I guess McMurtry and I were right to play dumb, if the captain’s going through all of this. Such a dedication to their criminal act means it’s likely far more serious than I even imagined possible before.
If it’s worth costing people their lives.
