Orion Colony Complete Series Boxed Set J.N. Chaney (books for new readers .txt) 📖

22

The ringing in my ears kept me from hearing anything, but I knew people were screaming. There was a suit on fire, writhing on the ground and trying in vain to put out the flames consuming his body. Others were lying dead, scattered on the ground, too close to the explosion.

Marcy lay in a clump, thrown further than I was, and she wasn’t moving.

Ricky grabbed my arm, trying to get me to my feet. His mouth was forming words I couldn’t hear. He had a panicked look in his eyes. My hearing started coming back as he screamed something at me again. By the tone of his voice, I could tell this wasn’t the first time he had said it.

“We have to go!” Ricky said, dragging me up and shoving me toward the elevator. “The ship’s going down.”

I heard what he said, but it still didn’t register. The Orion was a colony seed ship the size of a small moon. It wasn’t going to go down from an explosion this size.

As if to argue with me, the ship trembled, and I nearly lost my footing.

Arun and Stacy were helping the injured suits make it to the elevator, and I half ran, half stumbled toward the elevators with everyone else. The injured suits were screaming in pain as Stacy and Arun shouted out orders.

“Iris, damage report,” Stacy yelled.

Arun had a red holo card out. She was shouting something to Elon, who piloted the Orion from the ship’s bridge.

Elon’s voice came through worried. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

“I’m patching Elon through now so we can all speak together,” Iris informed everyone in a very calm tone. “We need to exit this level immediately. The next turbine is unstable and will blow any minute. We need to evacuate the ship. We are being pulled out of slipspace. With the Navigation Core damaged, I have no idea where we are or where we will be when we are pulled out.”

“Head for medical,” Stacy told the suits carrying their wounded. “We’ll be in contact as soon as we can.”

The suits nodded and left in the first elevator.

The rest of us got into the second elevator in a hurry.

“Why are you talking about evacuating the ship?” Elon asked Iris though the comm unit.

“Navigation and a single turbine are going to take us down?” Arun asked.

Ricky hit a button on the holographic elevator wall and we were off.

“No, but we could be exiting slipspace anywhere in the known or unknown galaxy,” Iris explained. “We could be headed for a black hole or a sun for all I know. It would be prudent to prepare for evacuation.”

The elevator doors opened, and we walked out into the Assembly Level. People were screaming, looking to one another for direction as we exited, but that was not what caught our eyes.

We looked past the shaking of the floor beneath our feet and the sounds of tearing steel to what lay outside the ship. Slipspace that was usually painted in various shades of green was now turning clear for the first time since we left Earth three weeks ago.

We were drawn toward the glass to see where we had been kicked off course. When the green of slipspace finally evaporated, my heart sank.

We were outside of a massive planet that resembled Earth, in as much as there were large bodies of water and landmasses. The bad news was, we were so close to the planet, its gravitational pull began sucking us in toward it. Slow at first but steadily stronger.

I was no scientist, but I understood a no-win situation when I saw one. Without the turbines giving us power, we weren’t getting out of this gravitational pull. We were going down.

“Get as many people into escape pods and escape ships as you can, right now,” Arun said in a defeated tone. “Elon, get yourself into a pod—that’s an order. We’re going down.”

“Maybe I can pull us up somehow once we get closer to the ground, maybe—”

A rumbling filled the Orion, along with screams and cries for help. Another explosion went off somewhere, losing the connection with Elon altogether.

“Elon. Elon, can you hear me?” Arun shouted. “Elon, come in!”

Only silence answered her desperate cries.

“I’m going for my brother,” Arun said, taking off at a run. “Get as many people to safety as you can. Go!”

Stacy, Ricky, and I leaped into action, heading for the escape pod level in the middle of the ship. The Orion was equipped with enough pods to house every single person in the Orion, should the need arise.

I was part of the team that installed the escape crafts in place. Thousands of smaller cargo ships lined the perimeter of the Orion in a single ring. Along with these ships were also single and double manned escape pods that were built for a single purpose, surviving a crash.

“Everyone, please make your way to level one hundred and fifty, where the escape pods are located.” Iris’ voice was magnified over the comm system in the Orion. “There is enough room for everyone. Please, in an orderly fashion, make your way to level one hundred and fifty.”

Orderly fashion, my ass, I thought to myself as we ran for it along with everyone else on the level. There’s no way this ends well.

When we reached the elevators, there was already a mass of people cramming into them. We joined them all, squishing ourselves into one.

“I’ll be in contact,” Iris said as the doors closed with her on the other side. “I need to make sure as many people reach the escape pods as possible.”

“Be safe.” Stacy said what I was thinking.

Iris nodded, and the doors closed.

I had no idea what death would be like for a Cognitive. I imagined somewhere on board was a power source that gave her shape and thought. Right now, that didn’t seem important. We were crammed in shoulder to shoulder with a group of people crying, asking what was happening, and