Gata battleship, Berge system
Although his suit was designed to operate outside in the cold environs of space, he didn’t want to be floating around aimlessly in between two huge duelling warships. His shields wouldn’t save him from the ordnance they’d be hurling at each other.
He activated the magnets in his boots, counting that if he got near enough to a bulkhead he might be able to attach, but the speed he’d attained worried him.
The corner he’d rounded at speed on the loader came up and he braced himself as he was slammed into the outside wall. He grabbed at a couple of the handholds, but they just ripped out of the wall, such was his weight and momentum.
Bache thought he was hallucinating as the corridor suddenly became narrow and seemed to bend around to the right. He hurtled into it, his shield alarm shrilling a warning of overburden. A handhold appeared right in front of his face. He snatched at it and this time, because the collision had dramatically slowed him, he held on.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned to check there wasn’t anything following and about to crash into him from behind. His moment of euphoria was short-lived, as all he saw was a sea of stars.
‘Oh, shit,’ he shouted at no one, as he realised with a deep foreboding, the ship was no longer around him. The wall he was clinging to was just that—a twenty-metre section of internal wall floating all on its own in deep space.
He ducked as a soldier slammed into the wall just above and to his left, his dead limbs stiff with cold, and as he rebounded the body turned. Bache recoiled as grotesque lifeless eye sockets, where the fluid-filled eyeballs had expanded and exploded, regarded him coldly and accusingly.
‘Fucking outrageous,’ he mouthed, glancing around fearfully. He couldn’t see either ship, although the fact that they were both matt black probably didn’t help. A lump of something spewing fluids and gas zipped past and he was really glad that hadn’t hit his wall. Something bright flicked through his peripheral vision, causing him to let go with one hand so he could follow it.
‘The planet,’ he whispered, realising with growing dread that he had forgotten the ships had been close to Berge and its gravitational field would eventually pull him in to his certain death.
Zaphir popped into his mind, along with his father, and he felt a deep wretchedness at not being able to say goodbye. Then he castigated himself for being so defeatist. He was still alive, there were always options.
It was at this moment, as he swung around with one hand clinging onto the wall panel, he noticed a faint glow below him. It was a large section of the planet’s broken moon, the one they’d hidden beside earlier, and it was close. The system’s binary star was glowing off its ochre-coloured regolith and as he watched, he realised he was getting slowly closer and seemed to be curving down towards its surface.
That’s interesting, he thought. It’s still got a degree of gravitational pull.
He quickly discerned that if he was going to hit that, he didn’t want a large section of wall crushing him into the surface. It didn’t have an atmosphere either so he wouldn’t burn up or anything, but he’d have to make sure he wasn’t travelling faster than his shield could cope with. It was almost impossible at this altitude to gauge his speed over the surface.
After what seemed like an age, but was actually only twelve minutes, he could discern individual rocks on the approaching section of moon. Although still fast, he thought his speed was manageable. The moon section was actually travelling around the planet in the same direction as him, it was just he was the faster of the two. Thinking about what he had to hand to slow him down, he did have his arm-mounted laser. It did have a certain amount of recoil and would certainly slow him, but the downside was it would use up the suit’s power supply quickly if he used it a lot.
Glancing at his remaining energy and oxygen levels, it indicated seven hours and thirty-nine minutes if all he did was hang around and breathe.
‘Crap,’ he mumbled softly, looking at the wall section again with renewed interest. He realised, with the acute angle he was coming in at, if he could turn that to be underneath him, it could take some of the impact of the landing, so long as it didn’t dig in too much.
He conducted a test and fired the weapon on a high stun setting at the left-hand side of the wall. It worked, the large piece of reinforced composite began rotating very slowly.
Over the next few minutes he repositioned the wall so it was underneath him, using the least amount of energy he could get away with. The surface was close now, although being on top of the wall, he couldn’t see how close. Pulling himself in tight with the handhold he braced for the inevitable crash. He knew it would hurt, he just hoped it wouldn’t damage his suit.
WHUMP. The impact took him completely by surprise. He didn’t hear it, but he certainly felt it. Even with his shield, he was sure he just broke at least one rib. It went all smooth again and he realised with the tiny amount of gravity, he’d rebounded and would be coming in again.
Looking up, he was face to face with the ochre regolith. The wall had hit and was rotating, so his nightmare of it coming down on top of him was now an almost dead cert. He let go and kicked it away as hard as he could, forgetting this would send him into a spin. His left arm hit first on the second bounce and he certainly heard this one, as his helmet crunched onto the surface a split second later. Pain shot up his arm and across his chest as he took a deep breath. He thankfully took the third hit on his back, which flipped him over onto his front. Shutting his eyes, he held his breath and waited for the fourth impact and after what seemed like way too long, he took a breath and opened one eye.
Four identical rocks lay just in front of his visor and it wasn’t until he moved his head, did he realise he was stationary and there was only one rock. His visor was badly cracked.
Painfully, he stumbled to his feet. His chest was agony now and he could feel his wrist swelling up inside the suit. Looking around through the slowly settling dust, he saw the section of wall about a hundred metres away surrounded by its own cloud of regolith.
He was also surprised to see a collection of petrified flora sitting blackened and stiff as far as the eye could see.
‘There must have been an atmosphere here at some point,’ he said to himself.
WHUMP.
He ducked as something large impacted a few hundred metres away. He didn’t so much as hear it, but felt it through his feet.
‘Shit,’ he shouted, glancing up nervously and trying to walk normally. This he quickly realised was impossible, as one meaningful step had him floating for a moment before gradually coming down again. It was like trying to walk along the bottom of a swimming pool, only worse.
‘Fuck,’ he said, swearing again. ‘Even if I see it coming, I can’t get out of the way.’
He began very slowly, strolling towards the big lump of something that had hit a moment ago with the idea that if he sheltered next to that, the odds of something hitting in exactly the same spot would be less. Then again, the more he thought about it, he realised that was probably crap.
An alarm in his suit made him jump. He stared at it for moment, not quite believing what it said. Oxygen level was getting critical. His suit must have a leak.
‘Ah—just perfect,’ he mumbled and on reaching the unrecognisable lump of spacecraft half buried in the surface, he sat down, tilted his helmet back and stared up at the planet. A constant stream of shooting stars flashed across its surface as more battle debris burnt up in its atmosphere.
‘That’s actually quite pretty,’ he said, before thinking about Zaphir and his father again. Only this time, there were no options. No ships, no lifeboats and no oxygen.
Before long, he found no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get enough air in and he began feeling light-headed. He closed his eyes, when in the distance he felt another WHUMP.
‘Missed me,’ he chuckled before falling into unconsciousness.