Citadel: First Colony (4 page)

Shock had dulled him a bit, and he was struggling to understand everything he was seeing and hearing. A screech of noise ripped through his ears and into his brain, and in some part of his mind, he knew what it meant. Fire alarms were blaring. The module was on fire.

He coughed and sputtered. His side hurt, bruised by the impact with a chair arm and a safety harness. He winced as he fumbled with the harness release, but thankfully stopped himself before unlatching it.
Get your brain in gear, moron
, he thought. If he released the restraints he would fall into the open cabin, possibly hurting himself and some of the other crewmembers in the process.

He struggled now to get a grip on the arm of the seat. He flicked the release on the harness and felt himself drop momentarily, catching himself on the seat arm and dangling high above the crew cabin.

The smoke was getting thicker, gathering at the top of the chamber. Which was, incidentally, where he now found himself. He had to get down somehow or he’d suffocate here.

Working his way around he managed to grab hold of one of the support legs for the console above him. His hand gripped the support just below the brass plate engraved with the words “Taggart Industries,” the company that built most of the equipment that Mitch relied on from day to day. Now he was relying on it to hold his weight and keep him from plummeting to, at best, a debilitating injury or, at worst, a painful, impaled death.

Dangling from the leg of the console, he managed to move hand-over-hand from one leg to another—rather like climbing on a jungle gym. He’d never had the chance to do that when he was a kid, but he’d seen vids. Who knew he’d be using it as a survival skill someday? He was making slow progress, one leg at a time, and finally found himself dangling above the pilot’s station.

This station was surrounded by a guardrail, and Mitch lowered himself to stand on it while he checked on Reilly. She was unconscious, hanging limp from her harness. There was a nasty looking cut on her forehead, where she had apparently met her console at high speed before the safety mechanism had kicked in and rotated her seat. Mitch unhooked the harness and gently lowered her to rest on the guardrail.

“Hey,” he said, gently slapping her cheek. “Hey.” He wasn’t sure what else he should do. He was certain he’d need her help, but he wasn’t sure of the best way to wake someone who was unconscious. “Hey, Reilly,” another gentle slap.

“Wha ... ” she mumbled. She made a squinting, annoyed expression and turned her face from him slightly. “Stop slappin’ me,” she said, her voice weak. Her eyes fluttered as she opened them and looked up at him.

“We’re down,” he said. “In more ways than one.”

“Alive?” she asked.

“I’m going with that, yes,” he said. He glanced around the crew cabin. Smoke was everywhere, and there were people moving about, unhooking themselves from harnesses, struggling to lower themselves safely. There was coughing and moaning all about. “It looks like the module’s landing system kicked in. She’s upright. But the shuttle is still attached to the Citadel module. It didn’t release, so we’re sticking straight up. And there’s a fire somewhere. All I can see is smoke.”

Reilly sat up, with Mitch’s help, and immediately burst into a coughing fit.

“Commander Marcos ... ” she sputtered.

Mitch looked around. He was nowhere to be found.

“He must have fallen,” Mitch said, glancing below them.

She shook her head, managing to tamp down the coughing. “Dead,” she said. She blinked a few times, tears in her eyes, and reached up to her forehead. She winced and took her fingers away quickly, looking at the bright red blood on her fingertips. “He’s dead,” she said again. “I saw him. He was blown outside during decompression.”

Mitch took this in. “He had to release the clamps manually?”

“Something happened to the release, I think,” she said.

Mitch nodded. Later, they could grieve for Marcos and anyone else who didn’t survive the crash. For now, if the rest of them were to get out alive, it was vital to start moving. “Let’s concentrate on getting everyone out of here, ok?”

She nodded in return and struggled to her feet.

There was moaning everywhere, and the sound of electricity arcing in places. From deep within the smoke Mitch could hear a firm voice giving orders, telling people to remain calm, and organizing them to gather the wounded and find a way out of the module.

It was Captain Somar.

“Captain!” Mitch cried out, using the title, even though the alien was not part of the Earth Colony Fleet. “There’s an escape hatch in the aft section, starboard.”

There was a pause. “I am sorry, crewman, I do not know these terms.”

Mitch blinked and couldn’t help smiling a little. These were ancient Earth nautical terms. The alien Captain would have no frame of reference. “Rear of the module on the right side if you’re facing the front of the shuttle.”

“Thank you,” the Captain called back and began directing the crew toward the hatch. There was a clank and a sudden WHOOSH as the hatch opened and the pressurized air of the crew chamber gushed outward into the planet’s atmosphere. The smoke was carried with it, and the room cleared enough, momentarily, for Mitch to see where the fire was.

Flames danced insanely around the oxygen scrubbers, directly below him.

“Out!” Mitch cried. “Everyone out now! The O2 tanks are going to go!”

The orderly evacuation being organized by the alien Captain now became frenzied and chaotic as everyone struggled to exit the crew chamber.

Somar picked up immediately, “Grab anyone who is injured. I need two people on the door assisting people who exit. You! And you!”

Mitch was impressed by the alien’s capacity to lead, even in this chaotic situation. He remained calm but driven.

In the meantime, Mitch found that he and Reilly were in a bad situation. They were resting on the guardrail several feet above the oxygen scrubbers, which meant that if the scrubbers went, he and Reilly would be the very first casualties. It also meant there was no fast way down. Even if they risked it and dropped, they’d land in the flames and be seriously injured, if not killed.

Mitch twisted and turned, desperate to see a way down. They were on the port side, across the chamber from the exit. There was another hatch on this side, but it was currently surrounded by flames and arcing electricity.

“Up,” Reilly said, coughing. “We have to go up.”

“I just came from there,” Mitch protested, half joking.

“The forward emergency hatch,” she said. “It’s in the floor, just above us.”

Mitch looked up. True enough, the pull ring for the hatch was in plain sight, only a few feet above the pilot’s station. He helped Reilly to her feet, and the two of them clamored up, scaling the station supports. It was grueling, and the bruising in his side felt like he’d taken a missile hit to the ribs. He pushed through the pain, hoisted Reilly up to one of the cross beams for the guardrail, and then pulled himself after. When they were close enough to the hatch, Reilly reached up, twisted the release, and let the panel fall open. Before she could grab it, the hatch pulled free and fell past them.

“Look out below!” she cried. The panel clanged and rang against the guardrail and was deflected outward, landing just short of the O
2
tanks. Mitch let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Freak out later,” Reilly said. “Exit now.”

He could hardly argue with that kind of logic. He helped Reilly up and through the hatch before struggling through it himself.

Coughing
, eyes stinging,
Thomas helped the alien guide people out of the aft hatch. His arm hurt. It didn’t seem to be broken, but it might be a sprain. Otherwise he felt like he was in decent enough shape for just having crashed on an alien planet.

The stinging in his eyes became too much and he paused to wipe them with the sleeve of his jumpsuit. The chaos around him, the coughing and groaning and sounds of fire and electricity, gave him an unwelcome sense of
déjà vu
. Of course, he knew he’d never been here or even in this situation before. But he’d seen a similar scene in his mind so many times that this one felt utterly familiar. It was a sound—a sound that could only be imagined but nevertheless haunted him—that rang most clearly in his ears.

The sound of two-hundred-thousand souls crying out as they were consumed by flame.

“Crewman,” the alien said, “I need you.”

Thomas snapped out of the trance, shook himself, and moved to the alien’s side, helping one of the injured Blue Collars through the hatch. Most of the crew was now making its way through the emergency exit, and it wouldn’t be long before they were all safely on the ground. They were going to make it.

This was his fault for playing the part of a modern engineer. What had he been thinking? He was completely out of his element here. His expertise was in systems that were antiques here. Ironic, considering that antiquated-looking mechanical systems, like something out of a Jules Verne story, had experienced a rebirth side-by-side with advanced technology. He had thought that, with his background, he could easily catch up. He had thought that he could wing it. He had been wrong.

His ineptitude had caused the chaos around him. The lives lost here would be on his head. He was proving to be every bit the villain he was accused of being.

Some new start
.

“Help,” came a weak voice from above.

Thomas peered up through the thickening smoke and saw a young woman, still strapped in her seat. Blood covered her face, and she seemed unable to make her hands work properly.
Concussion
, Thomas thought.

“Help,” she said again in a voice that was now barely audible.

Thomas leapt upward and snagged one of the seat backs. It reclined, causing him to nearly lose his grip, but he held on and pulled himself up with a huge effort. His arm screamed at him. A bolt of pain, like molten lava, ran from his shoulder up into his neck and then back down to the tips of his fingers. He clinched his jaw and pulled.

“Crewman!” the alien shouted.

“There’s someone up here!” he called back.

“The last of the crew is out, I will assist you.”

“No!” Thomas called. “Get outside and get the others to safety. They need you,” he said.

The alien looked at him briefly, then nodded. “Blessings,” he said, then exited the craft.

“Look out below!” came a cry from far above. Thomas watched as a floor panel clanged and rebounded from the guardrails, barely missing the scrubber tanks.
That was a close one
, he thought. He continued to haul himself upward until he was eye-level with the injured woman.

“I’ll get you out of here, ok?”

She nodded weakly and struggled with her harness. Thomas reached over her and pulled the release. He then pulled her free of her seat, bracing himself while keeping her close to him. He gasped from the pain in his arm, had a fleeting mental image of shredded muscle and cartilage, and pushed through to hold on to both the girl and the seat. He began the climb down with her clinging to his aching shoulders.

There was a pop and hiss, followed almost instantly by a sudden explosion.

One of the smaller tanks near the fire had finally had enough, and the explosion sent shards of hot metal sailing across the room. Whatever had been in the tank was liquid and extremely flammable. It spread like napalm and covered the surface directly below him.

“Damn,” Thomas said, surprisingly calm.

They would have to scale their way over to the exit and drop down directly in front of it. This was going to be tough, since there were no seats in that area and the drop from one of the guardrails cleared a good fifteen feet at that point.

Thomas held the woman tight as he climbed across seats. Again, one of the seatbacks reclined suddenly, throwing the two of them downward at an alarming rate. The girl screamed as he caught both of them by grasping an armrest. His shoulder bellowed its protest, and his left arm, which felt sprained before, now felt like it was ready to snap.

There was nothing for it now. It wasn’t possible for him to climb back up with the weight of both of them on an already-injured arm and shoulder. That left only one choice—drop into the flames below.

He took a couple of deep breaths, grasped the injured women tightly, and let go of the armrest.

They hit with a thud, but he managed to keep his feet under him. Flames leapt onto the legs of his jumpsuit and caught the material almost instantly.

Actually, Thomas realized after a few seconds, the material was fine. It was resisting the fire, but it was covered in the burning liquid.

A sound was coming from behind him, like a metal balloon stretching to its limits. There was a pop and a whine as one of the seals on the oxygen tanks burst. There was no time left!

Thomas clutched the woman to him and ran full on towards the hatch. He leapt, diving for the opening with no idea what would be on the other side.

It has to be safer than here.

The tanks blew at that moment, and the concussive force funneled out of the exit behind them, propelling them both outward into open air.

The module had landed nose up with the hatch several hundred feet off the ground. The outward thrust of the explosion launched Thomas and the woman into the treetops, and the two crashed their way through a lattice of small limbs into the brush below.

Somar
was scrambling down the side of the module
when the explosion rocked the craft, nearly shaking him loose and hurtling him to the ground. He saw two figures flung from the ship, vanishing into the treetops—the crewman and the woman he had bravely stayed behind to save. Somar prayed that they lived through the impact in the forest.

As he reached the bottom rung and finally stepped down onto the alien soil, he looked around at the surrounding chaos. Many of the humans were injured and lying on the hard-packed ground among splintered trees and upturned brush. The sounds of moaning and anguished cries filled the air around him.