Doug barged into the common room and surveyed the scene. It only took a second or two to see who was where.
Dave Flowers, Jimmy Stott and Penny Heston were sitting at a table on the right apparently taking an early breakfast, Penny turned around as Doug entered.
Ai Zhao, Lucy Li and Zoya Indlikova were at the kitchen work surface talking. Mikhail Deskov was studying one of the food storage lockers.
Where was the eighth? The moment Doug realised the shortfall, Vlad Melsovic charged at him from behind the door.
The doors were swinging shut, but I caught sight of Doug being floored by the large Russian and his small projector skidded off across the floor, spinning as it went.
I rushed into the room with my larger projector already on, pointing it at Vlad as I entered. The Russian collapsed on top of Doug. At the same instant, I saw a lump of clear jelly fall onto my arm and another onto my faceplate. In addition, Mikhail was running towards me from the counter and Dave, Jimmy and Penny were rising from their table.
For an instant I was stationary, mesmerised by the LRP which was trying to squeeze its way past the seal on my glove. The other one was rapidly crossing my faceplate to get at the seal where the helmet joined the shoulder assembly.
In a flash, I realised that the large portable projectors were not designed to turn on oneself, it would be no good to me, only the multidirectional projector could help before this thing was inside my suit. I swung to the left, managing to irradiate Dave and Penny as I did so. The cardboard box containing the multidirectional projector was by the window in the lounge area. I ran flat-out towards it across the non-skid floor which helped prevent low gravity accidents.
Almost as if in slow motion I saw Jimmy change his direction towards me and Ai, Lucy and Zoya dropped their utensils and started along the same vector.
It was going to be a near thing. I sprayed the three women, but the range was too great, only one stumbled. I threw the projector at Jimmy, catching him square in the face and slowing him down. Only six metres to the box.
I tried to brush the LRP off my arm, but it got a grip on my other glove and was now trying to get in through the left-hand seal. The one on my helmet had vanished. I guessed it was at the neck-join and trying to squeeze itself through that seal. We knew from my experience in the Orion that they could reduce themselves to microns in width. The seal would not protect me for long. Only three metres.
Jimmy threw himself at me in a rugby tackle, didn’t get the best of grips and I managed to kick myself free. One metre.
Zoya was going to get to me as I reached the carton. It stood a metre high and about half a metre square. I punched my left fist into the cardboard, simultaneously noticing that the LRP was almost into my glove, then I twisted to the right to knock Zoya onto the floor with a body check.
With one hand in the top of the carton, I pulled myself around and felt for the on switch. Thank God it was on my side of the machine. I flicked it on, felt a searing pain in my left wrist and slammed my right hand down onto the raised button.
The pain was horrendous and I felt sick. I fell onto my side and looked around. Mustn’t pass out. My wrist felt as if a stream of boiling water was falling onto it. Doug was leaning over me when I gave up the struggle and passed out.