The Lost Voyager: A Space Opera Novel by A. C. Hadfield Page A

A shower of dust dropped through cracks in the ceiling after the chunk thumped against it. Other pieces of debris moved as it bashed its way down.  
    Mach grabbed hold of a rock and took a deep breath. The whole field of debris covering the staircase seemed to slide down. He hoped it would stop and he hadn’t caused a mini landslide.  
    The fear of being buried alive under the falling concrete behind him spurred Mach forward. He crawled downward as fast as he could, ignoring the scrapes and stabs to his arms and legs from sharp pieces of debris.  
    A twisted piece of metal screeched against the graphene suit, but the hard material resisted splitting. Another rock bounded past him and thumped against the pile collecting at the bottom of the staircase. With only two meters to go, the gap widened to allow Mach to crouch. He immediately got to his feet and rushed forward, descending into the start of the tunnel.  
    “Mach, behind you!” Babcock said over comm.
    Mach turned. A head-sized lump of metal stuck his shoulder, sending him flying back and crashing against the ground.  
    Stars flashed in front of his eyes. He moved his shoulder and winced at the pain. A small bug, with chunky black legs and an oval orb for a body, scuttled across his visor. Its legs tapped across the transparent surface.  
    The bug rose on its two back legs and dropped, striking two small fangs against the visor with a click. Thick yellow venom sprayed out and dribbled down the side.  
    Mach grimaced then smiled at the bug’s ambitious but ultimately stupid reaction. “You’re not getting through, little fella.”
    But even as he said that, he watched with horror as his visor’s outer polycarbonate coating bubbled underneath the venom. The HUD blinked red and flashed up an emergency alert. The venom was compromising the visor’s integrity.

Chapter Six

    Mach shook his head from side to side. The bug slid off his visor, leaving a trail of toxic venom. Sharp pain shot through his shoulder as he tried to raise his glove to squash the thumbnail-sized creature.
    The bug scuttled under a crushed piece of plastic tubing on the ground, but Mach had a more immediate concern. Polycarbonate continued to bubble and a small section in front of his left eye, where the venom pooled, sagged inward as if it was made from plastic wrap. The HUD alert flashed an imminent breach.  
    Wiping the venom off with his glove would possibly melt through Mach’s hand. He raced through options in his mind, grunted back to his feet, and staggered to the pile of rubble covering the staircase.  
    Babcock’s helmet strip shone through the dust, creating a murky light blue glow between gaps in the smashed pieces of concrete.  
    “Are you okay, Mach?” Babcock asked.  
    “I’ll live. Have you got your claytronic kit with you?”
    “Yep. What do you need?”
    “A new helmet, and quick.”
    “I’ll start assembling.”
    Mach leaned over the rough pieces of concrete and scrambled up. The HUD stability measurement clicked down from twenty percent to fifteen in five seconds. He pushed all thoughts about the stability of the debris to one side and scrambled up the narrow gap, scraping the back of his suit and helmet against the ceiling as he raced for the top of the staircase.  
    Pieces of rubble thumped down into the tunnel below after he thrust his boots against them. When the measurement reached two percent, Mach took a deep breath. A moment later, a small hole appeared in his visor.  
    The freezing, carbon-dioxide-heavy atmosphere of Noven Beta rushed inside. Mach’s face tightened against the stinging cold. He focused, clambered the last two meters up, and ascended back to the warehouse.  
    Babcock stood next to the bottom half of an assembling helmet. Millions of nanoscale robots formed a sparkling silver rim on top, working to the instructions he gave them to create it. Squid Two floated over the expanding shape with extended tentacles and chirped.