Omega Games by S. L. Viehl Page B

violent landing had finished, and then I crawled out from under the nav console.
    The main viewer showed a valley of rocks, dirt, and dust, which may have absorbed much of the impact. Not that it had saved Moonfire from being damaged; the interior resembled a derelict being torn apart for the salvage.
    A static buzz filled my ears, and blood and smoke blinded me momentarily as I pushed myself up on my knees. I wiped my face with my sleeve, shocked to see it turn red and wet. I pressed the heel of my hand against a gash in my forehead and blinked my eyes clear before I checked the area around me.
    “Reever?”
    The acoustic shock faded as I listened, but my husband did not answer. I stumbled over a collapsed deck strut and grabbed the pilot’s seat and wrenched it around. It was empty, the harness straps in shreds.
    “Duncan.” I looked all around the helm. “Duncan, are you hurt? Where are you? Can you hear me?”
    My husband didn’t respond, but a queer-looking thing rolled out from a gaping hole beneath the console. It looked like a child made of machine parts.
    Whatever it was, it bumped and pushed its way through the debris until at last it stopped in front of me. “My systems are seventy-three percent functional. ”
    “Congratulations.” I stepped around it. “Duncan? Answer me.” I had to stop and clear my way several times before I reached the open hatch leading down into Moonfire ’s second level, a long and narrow crawl space where different systems could be accessed for
    maintenance and repair. Reever could have been thrown down there, I thought as I looked over the edge, although the entire compartment appeared to have been reduced to a pit of snarled alloy. I heard a warning Klaxon, and breathed in. I didn’t smell fresh smoke, but the air seemed to be thinning.
    If Moonfire was leaking atmosphere, I would have to put on an envirosuit. But first I had to find Reever. Metal groaned and shifted, and I hurried toward the back of the cabin. The machine child followed. My husband lay under a heap of supplies that had been ejected from one of the storage units. His face
    was bruised, and his bottom lip had been split open, but by the time I reached him he had worked his body halfway out of the pile. “I’m not hurt badly,” he told me, and looked at the machine child. “Access vessel operations array.”
    “Working.” The thing’s body made several odd noises. Blood began oozing into my eyes again, so I tore off the cleaner sleeve from my tunic and used it to bind the gash on my forehead. Then I began clearingaway the debris on top of Reever. As I worked, I saw that the screens of all the viddisplays had been blown out, and most of the consoles were either smoking and sparking, or inert.
    “What is that thing?” I asked Reever as I helped him to his feet.
    “An automatic maintenance drone.” He winced as talking made the cut across his lip widen. “The crash must have activated its power unit. The Jorenians use them to clean decks and perform minor repairs.” I glanced around us. “It’s going to be busy for a very long time.” The little drone made high-pitched sound. “Vessel operations array accessed.” “How much damage to the ship?” Reever asked it. A panel on its chest slid away, revealing a small data screen, which blipped and scrolled. “Searching
    systems database. Engines offline. Navigation systems functional. Primary power cells, ninety-two
    percent drained. Hull, intact.” “We won’t lose atmosphere, but we can’t launch without refueling.” Reever pulled a fallen wall panel upright and shoved it out of the way. “The crash caused as much damage as Alek did, but something else happened to the engines.”
    “Just before the engines failed, I heard an explosion in the back,” I told him. “Did Davidov go back there
    before, when you were showing him the ship?” “He said it was too crowded for both of us, and had a look on his own.” Reever closed his eyes for a