“Get out,” Powell continued, “get away before the Marion breaks up, down to the surface and—”
“And what?” Hoop snapped without turning around. “Survive on sand for the two years it’ll take a rescue mission to reach us? If the company even decides a rescue is feasible,” he added. “Now shut it!”
“Okay,” Lachance said. He rested his hands on the flight stick, and Hoop could almost feel him holding his breath. Hoop had always been amazed that such a huge vessel could be controlled via this one small control.
Lachance called it The Jesus Stick.
“Okay,” the pilot said again. “Looks like the Delilah took out the port arm of the docking level, Bays One and Two. Three might be damaged, can’t tell, sensors there are screwed. Four seems to be untouched. Atmosphere is venting from levels three, four, and five. All bulkhead doors have closed, but some secondary safety seals have malfunctioned and are still leaking.”
“So the rest of the Marion is airtight for now?” Hoop asked.
“For now, yes.” Lachance pointed at a schematic of the ship on one of his screens. “There’s still stuff going on at the crash site, though. I can’t see what, but I suspect there’s lots of debris moving around down there. Any part of that could do more damage to the ship. Rad levels seem constant, so I don’t think the Delilah’s fuel cell was compromised. But if its containment core is floating around down there…” He trailed off.
“So what’s the good news?” Sneddon asked.
“That was the good news,” Lachance said. “Marion’s lost two of her lateral dampers, three out of seven starboard sub-thrusters are out of action. And there’s this.” He pointed at another screen where lines danced and crossed.
“Orbital map?” Hoop asked.
“Right. We’ve been nudged out of orbit. And with those dampers and subs wasted, there’s no way to fix it.”
“How long?” Powell asked.
Lachance shrugged his muscular shoulders.
“Not quick. I’ll have to run some calculations.”
“But we’re all right for now?” Hoop asked. “The next minute, the next hour?”
“As far as I can see, yes.”
Hoop nodded and turned to the others. They were staring at him, and he was sure he returned their fear and shock. But he had to get a grip, and keep it. Move past this initial panic, shift into post-crash mode as quickly as he could.
“Kasyanov and Garcia?” he asked, looking at Baxter.
Baxter nodded and hit AllShip on the intercom.
“Kasyanov? Garcia?”
Nothing.
“Maybe the med bay vented,” Powell said. “It’s forward from here, not far above the docking bays.”
“Try on their personal comms,” Hoop said.
Baxter tapped keyboards and donned his headpiece again.
“Kasyanov, Garcia, you there?” He winced, then threw a switch that put what he heard on loudspeaker. There was a whine, interrupted by staccato ragged thudding.
“What the hell…?” they heard Kasyanov say, and everyone sighed with relief.
“You both okay?” Baxter asked.
“Fine. Trapped by… but okay. What happened?”
“Delilah hit us.” Baxter glanced up at Hoop.
“Tell them to stay where they are for now,” Hoop said. “Let’s stabilize things before we start moving around anymore.”
Baxter spoke again, and then just as Hoop thought of the second dropship, Sneddon asked, “What about the Samson?”
“Can you hail them?” Hoop asked.
Baxter tried several times, but was greeted only by static.
“Cameras,” Sneddon said.
“I’ve got no contact with them at all.”
“No, switch to the cameras in Bay Three,” Sneddon replied. “If they’re still coming in, and Jones sees the damage, he’ll aim for there.”
Baxter nodded, his hands drifting across the control panels.
A screen flickered into life. The picture jumped, but it showed a clear view out from the end of Bay Three’s docking arm.
“Shit” Hoop muttered.
The Samson was less than a minute away.
“But those things…” Sneddon said.
I wish you were still here, Lucy, Hoop thought. But Lucy and Cornell had to be dead. He was in charge. And now, with the Marion fatally damaged, an even more pressing danger was manifesting.
“We’ve got to get down there,” Hoop said. “Sneddon, Welford, with me. Let’s suit up.”
As Welford broke out the emergency space suits from units at the rear of the bridge, Hoop and Lachance exchanged glances. If anything happened to Hoop, Lachance was next in charge. But if it got to that stage, there’d be very little left for him to command.
“We’ll stay in contact all the time,” Hoop said.
“Great, that’ll help.” Lachance smiled and nodded.
As the three of them pulled on the atmosphere suits, the Marion shuddered one more time.
“Samson is docking,” Baxter said.
“Keep everything locked,” Hoop said. “Everything. Docking arm, airlock, inner vestibule.”
“Tight as a shark’s arse,” Lachance said.
We should be assessing damage, Hoop thought. Making sure the distress signal has transmitted, getting down to med bay, doing any emergency repairs that might give us more time.
But the Samson held dangers that were still very much a threat.
That was priority one.
Though he was now in command, Hoop couldn’t help viewing things through the eyes of chief engineer. Lights flickered on and off, indicating damaged ducting and cabling on several of the electrical loops. Suit sensors showed that atmosphere was relatively stable, though he had already told Sneddon and Welford that they were to keep their helmets locked on. Damage to the Marion might well be an ongoing process.
They eschewed the elevator to climb down two levels via the large central staircase. The ship still juddered, and now and then a deeper, heavier thud rattled in from somewhere far away. Hoop didn’t have a clue what it might be. The huge engines were isolated for now, never in use while they were in orbit. The life support generators were situated far toward the rear of the ship, close to the recreation rooms. All he could think was that the superstructure had been weakened so much in the crash that damage was spreading. Cracks forming. Airtight compartments being compromised and venting explosively to space.
If that was the case, they needn’t worry about their decaying orbit.
“Samson’s initiating the automatic docking sequence,” Baxter said through their suits’ comm link.
“Can you view on board?” Hoop asked.
“Negative. I’m still trying to get contact back online. Samson has gone quiet.”
“Keep us informed,” Hoop said. “We’ll be there soon.”
“What do we do when we get there?” Welford asked from behind him.
“Make sure everything’s locked up tight,” Sneddon said.
“Right,” Hoop agreed. “Sneddon, did you recognize those things we saw on the Delilah?” He said no more, and his companions’ breathing rattled in his headset.
“No,” Sneddon said. Her voice was low, quiet. “I’ve never seen or heard of anything like them.”
“It’s like they were hatching from inside the miners’ chests.”
“I’ve read everything I can about alien life-forms,” Sneddon said. “The first was discovered more than eighty years ago, and since then everything discovered through official missions has been reported, categorized wherever possible, captured, and analyzed. Nothing like this. Just… nothing. The closest analogy I can offer is a parasitic insect.”