A force like a brick smashed into my sternum and then tried slowly grinding its way inside. My ribs creaked, and for a moment I was aware of just how thin the bone was, how full of little hollows, how easily broken. I felt the skin draw back from my eyes, the muscles in my legs distort like steak hammered on a slab; but by far the most disconcerting sensation was of the blood in my body lurching upwards, sloshing against the valves of my veins, pulsing against the beating of my heart. Five seconds was all I thought I could take, but I was safely sitting in a padded, supportive chair.
Maolcas, standing, was flung from their feet, slammed across the room and knocked head-first into the back wall, where they lay, and I could not tell if they were breathing.
“We are the seeds of the forest,” I whispered. “No life is special and all of them are. No love matters more than any other, no story is more important, nothing matters more, nothing matters less. Where we fall, others may grow, so live. May your song be sung, may your name be whispered among the stars.”
I do not think Maolcas heard me.
As we breached upper atmos, the first of the corvettes came in firing range.
I ignored every red-line warning and failsafe system alert blazing across my consciousness, and reached out for the warm embrace of the ever-watching dark.
Chapter 53
Even I cannot jump a ship from barely 0.001 of the speed of light into arcspace without consequences.
The dark did not scream at me, but the ship did.
Hull alarms and electrical failures and system warnings and containment breaches and alert, alert, alert, alert…
I think we were only in arcspace for a few moments.
I dragged us out of the black, trailing debris like the tail of a comet, a savage yanking that tumbled us back into…
I didn’t know where.
Somewhere in the deepest dark, where suns were merely stars, far, far away.
Drifting in the void, a short but not exhaustive list of problems:
Gravity has failed.
Internal pressure is falling.
Temperature is falling.
Arcspace drives are unresponsive.
Inspace drives are unresponsive.
Comms are unresponsive.
There are hull breaches in at least five places, but internal sensors are struggling; there may be more. Containment doors havedropped, sealing off access to, among other areas, the engine room, the sick bay, crew quarters.
An automatic shutdown has locked internal power to emergency backup, until safe restart of the reactor can be confirmed. This requires access to the engine room. I cannot get to the engine room.
Maolcas is unconscious, bleeding, at the back of the cockpit.
An electrical fire has been reported in the secondary storage bay, but that area is already in the process of venting and the circuit has been automatically isolated, so let’s just hope that sorts itself out.
Water tanks are leaking.
Hydrogen tanks are leaking.
Internal bows are fractured.
We are lost, and will not be found.
When your ship is in distress, there is a standard protocol that must be followed.
