Mists Of Orion ( part 1 )

 Something shook her awake. Her eyes crept open slowly, like shutters on rusty hinges. She fought to keep them open even though she couldn't see anything -- her eyes hadn't adjusted to the light, and there was condensation on the lid.
Condensation? There shouldn't be anything on the lid.

She knew they'd been hit when her ears were assaulted by the warning klaxons. She knew things were in a bad way. She knew she wasn't sleeping anymore. She knew she had seconds to breath.

She frantically reached into the top of the sleeping chamber and pulled on the small plastic tab. The small door popped open, and the breathing mask slid into place, waiting for her, a small shiny tube of condensed air on each side of the mask.

The very moment she pulled it over her head, the chamber's lid let go.



It cracked first, like a white spider web formed instantly, then pressure sucked the 4-inch-thick polymer lid away from her. She watches it fly out into the bridge like flakes of snow in wind. Then her body lunged forward. She moves her legs up, bending them so when the force sucks her out, her legs won't break.

Everything whips past her in a blur. She is flipping through the air head over heels, out of control and moving very fast toward the unseen puncture in the hull. She stretches her arms out, her fingers stretched out to their farthest possible length, reaching out for safety.

Her right hand slams into the ceiling and slides for a few feet along the riveted plate metal. Her hand scrapes across a vent and it cuts her palm open. Then her hand bounces off the power cord. She loses any chance to grip the cord with her right hand. Her left hand, however, slams against the ceiling now, and she knows where the cord is.

The jolt nearly separates her shoulder from its socket. She screams into the breather. Her body slams into the ceiling now, as she hangs onto the power cord for a second and looks around. She focuses quickly on the monitors, the chairs, the small hole in the far end of the bridge. She wonders why the hull hasn't healed itself yet. Why the auto-gel hasn't secreted from between the plates and covered the hole.

Her fingers can't hold the cord any longer and she is sucked straight to the floor. She bounces upward, screaming into the mask again. She slams into what feels like a person. The jolt of the impact turns on her breather and as she's in mid air, fresh smelling oxygen fills the mask. The burst of air fogs up her visor, and once again she is blind.

She starts to take a breath, thinking it may be her last, when she hits it. She lands into a chair in a perfect sitting position. The suction spins the chair; she holds on, reaching for the belt.

She belts herself in, and makes a quick decision to remove the mask.

In the next second, it's sucked through the air like a bullet, forgotten. She is typing now. Her eyes dance across the readouts. The hull has been hit in seven places. A meteor storm. No she sees now the hits are strategic. She realizes they have been boarded, as well. The hull-healing software is off line. She tries to boot up the secondary control software. It's been purged.

Purged how?

Then the suction is GONE and she feels the bridge pressurize. She tries to breathe, and at first she can't. Her lungs start to tighten and she curls in on herself.

It's only a few seconds before the oxygen floods the room, and she takes a deep breath. Her nerves calm a bit, and her chest relaxes.

She turns in the chair slowly. She almost doesn't see them at first. When she finally does, she freezes. There is no cover, no where to run or hide.

There are five of them standing near the hole, which they have plugged with some sort of spray. One of them turns to her now, and raises a weapon. She hears him tell her not to move in a strange, automated voice filtered through his helmet. His entire body is encased inside a suit of strange armor: bulky but not too restrictive, metallic yet seemingly flexible in places.

She doesn't move. She barely breathes as fear washes over her.

Two of them reach down and click off their boots. She recognizes them as magnetic gravity boots, which they no longer need.

They begin to move her way, one with a large rifle pointed at her. He's motioning for her to stand. She stands slowly, knowing she has no chance to make it to the hidden weapons locker only five paces away.

The locker is hidden perfectly into the wall, and only three crew members know it's there: the Captain, herself and head of ship security.



"Who are you?" Her voice cracks as she speaks through the dry throat of hyper sleep.

They don't respond, simply grab her and push her toward the exit. She gets her first look at the other sleep chambers now and her heart sinks. She is the single survivor of the bridge crew. The other nine chambers were all directly hit with either weapons fire or debris. She hesitates when she sees them, just enough to earn a shove.

She doesn't hesitate. She spins quickly, bringing up her leg, knocking the rifle toward the ceiling. As the other men try to flank her, she strips the rifle away from the pirate, shoves him back and levels the rifle at him, all in the blink of an eye.

As she thought, the suits slow them down, and as she begins to fire the weapon, before the other four are even ready to aim their own rifles, the first three have been perforated with explosive-tip fletchette rounds.

She ducks behind a bank of navigation computers and the same type of rounds trail after her, punching big holes in the wall and through the bank of computers.

She moves left, three more holes punch through the computer, then strafe up the wall above her.

She skids away from the computer, levels the rifle at the Nav bank, and opens fire again, shooting through the navigation computers.

The weapon's clip starts to beep and the chamber begins clicking empty.

She removes her finger and listens through the ringing, staying still, not moving at all. The weapons have a minor discharge and small recoil. Her ears are ringing from the jolt of being pulled out of a hyperbolic sleeping chamber into a weightless environment.

She stands slowly now, aiming her empty weapon, ready to duck away any second. They all lie dead on the floor.

She quickly moves around the computer and picks up a weapon with a fresh clip, then another, slinging it over her shoulder.

She stands and eye-balls the exits. How many more of these pirates are on board? Are the mechanical, engineering or cargo crews dead as well?

She turns toward the Com Center and fires it up.

Ten monitors begin to flicker, then glow to life. The monitors show her to the right of the other three crews' sleep centers, as well as the main exits, the main cargo bay, a few smaller bays and the small escape vessel, ORION.

Her eyes dart across the monitors. The other sleep chambers are open and empty. The cargo bays have more men in strange uniforms tending to the cargo.

The escape vessel, as was the plan, is hidden from all eyes except the bridge, and only the bridge crew knows where it lies.

She turns now, and walks across the bridge. She stops about halfway, turns, and fires her rifle into the power coupling connected to the Com Center.

A second later the monitors go black. She smiles and exits the bridge. She only has 1,000 meters to go.

TO BE CONTINUED

Noeland Collins