trying to find anything to catch onto and push myself. I twisted
as much as I could and my chest felt like it was on fire from the effort. All
those weeks of careful movements from Cass were being undone.
I screamed in agony in the last moment
before I knocked myself free and fell through the hole. There were more stairs
left than I realized and it was a longer fall than I expected. I must have
turned from the effort of twisting out of the gap, and I landed directly on my
right leg as a result. The pain was so intense that I couldn’t even make a
noise. I couldn’t even think. I don’t know how long I lay there in the dark or
when the pain subsided enough for me to realize where I was again.
“Burke! Are you back now? You need to
block the hole!”
My eyes were rolling in my head and I
couldn’t tell if the black spots I was seeing were from my eyes or the broken
display showing errors. I crawled up the stairs for what felt like an eternity,
involuntarily whimpering as I did so. I leaned against the rubble at the top
and felt around for any loose stones on the stairs around me. I placed them
into the gap, slotting them together, trying to block the moonlight from
getting in at first and then packing them tightly so none of the crawlers could
get in.
The screams still came from outside but
nothing breached inside. My leg throbbed, like a shock of pain that pulsed out
in tune with every beat of my heart. My arm was numb. My head was pounding. I
still don’t know if I fell asleep or passed out.
Part
Two
I woke to a sliver of light creeping
into the hole in my visor. I tried to move and found that the suit was powered
down. Alarm gripped me as I suddenly feared that I may have been unconscious for
days, trapped under the ruins of the base. It was late in the planet’s night
cycle when we had escaped down into the darkness, and the suit’s power was
already low from the lack of sunlight for many day’s worth of time. I was
scared that I may have sentenced myself to a slow death trapped in the same thing
that had allowed me to survive this long.
A few moments passed until I woke up
properly and promptly berated myself for being so stupid. Light was what had
woken me up, so the suit could manage to collect at least a little power from
that, if it needed any at all. I peered through the crack in the visor and
discovered, to my surprise, that it wasn’t sunlight. I was still inside the
base, but in a different area than I was when I was last conscious.
“Cass?” I tried to call out to her and
found my throat was hoarse. My mouth was dry; my tongue was an uncomfortable
lump of flesh in my mouth. I tried to coax what little saliva I could into my
mouth and tried again. “Cass?”
The suit came to life around me. I moved
carefully to stretch my muscles while trying not to awaken any pain of my
injuries.
“You’re awake!” She sounded too happy to
be only pleased about that one thing. “I had to move you. I wasn’t able to wake
you up, but I had to risk it or we’d have run out of power. You were right
about coming down here, Burke. I found power cells in a crate down here. I
hooked some of them up to what remains of the network down here and—”
“Slow down. One thing at a time. Let’s
get me up first.”
The faceplate released and I was
temporarily blinded by the flood of light that it had been holding back. It had
only been a few weeks since we had been stranded here, but artificial light
already looked foreign. Cass wouldn’t let me move myself upright and I didn’t
argue. The fall had been the most painful thing I had ever experienced and that
included the times I had been stabbed and shot. I didn’t want to consider the
damage it must have inflicted.
I was able to get a better feel of the
room when I was on my feet, and I confirmed that I was in the same room that
Adam and I had found the stolen cargo for our client. The room was mostly
undamaged, with only two points of collapse that
as much as I could and my chest felt like it was on fire from the effort. All
those weeks of careful movements from Cass were being undone.
I screamed in agony in the last moment
before I knocked myself free and fell through the hole. There were more stairs
left than I realized and it was a longer fall than I expected. I must have
turned from the effort of twisting out of the gap, and I landed directly on my
right leg as a result. The pain was so intense that I couldn’t even make a
noise. I couldn’t even think. I don’t know how long I lay there in the dark or
when the pain subsided enough for me to realize where I was again.
“Burke! Are you back now? You need to
block the hole!”
My eyes were rolling in my head and I
couldn’t tell if the black spots I was seeing were from my eyes or the broken
display showing errors. I crawled up the stairs for what felt like an eternity,
involuntarily whimpering as I did so. I leaned against the rubble at the top
and felt around for any loose stones on the stairs around me. I placed them
into the gap, slotting them together, trying to block the moonlight from
getting in at first and then packing them tightly so none of the crawlers could
get in.
The screams still came from outside but
nothing breached inside. My leg throbbed, like a shock of pain that pulsed out
in tune with every beat of my heart. My arm was numb. My head was pounding. I
still don’t know if I fell asleep or passed out.
Part
Two
I woke to a sliver of light creeping
into the hole in my visor. I tried to move and found that the suit was powered
down. Alarm gripped me as I suddenly feared that I may have been unconscious for
days, trapped under the ruins of the base. It was late in the planet’s night
cycle when we had escaped down into the darkness, and the suit’s power was
already low from the lack of sunlight for many day’s worth of time. I was
scared that I may have sentenced myself to a slow death trapped in the same thing
that had allowed me to survive this long.
A few moments passed until I woke up
properly and promptly berated myself for being so stupid. Light was what had
woken me up, so the suit could manage to collect at least a little power from
that, if it needed any at all. I peered through the crack in the visor and
discovered, to my surprise, that it wasn’t sunlight. I was still inside the
base, but in a different area than I was when I was last conscious.
“Cass?” I tried to call out to her and
found my throat was hoarse. My mouth was dry; my tongue was an uncomfortable
lump of flesh in my mouth. I tried to coax what little saliva I could into my
mouth and tried again. “Cass?”
The suit came to life around me. I moved
carefully to stretch my muscles while trying not to awaken any pain of my
injuries.
“You’re awake!” She sounded too happy to
be only pleased about that one thing. “I had to move you. I wasn’t able to wake
you up, but I had to risk it or we’d have run out of power. You were right
about coming down here, Burke. I found power cells in a crate down here. I
hooked some of them up to what remains of the network down here and—”
“Slow down. One thing at a time. Let’s
get me up first.”
The faceplate released and I was
temporarily blinded by the flood of light that it had been holding back. It had
only been a few weeks since we had been stranded here, but artificial light
already looked foreign. Cass wouldn’t let me move myself upright and I didn’t
argue. The fall had been the most painful thing I had ever experienced and that
included the times I had been stabbed and shot. I didn’t want to consider the
damage it must have inflicted.
I was able to get a better feel of the
room when I was on my feet, and I confirmed that I was in the same room that
Adam and I had found the stolen cargo for our client. The room was mostly
undamaged, with only two points of collapse that
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