Arkship Countdown

by Niel Bushnell

  Colmen pulled at his wrist com. ‘Flight deck? This is Chief Colmen, engine deck. Gilgore grid has collapsed over the engine core. We need to protect that area from another hit.’

  ‘We see that,’ a voice replied. Commodore Waffron, probably. ‘The grid is unstable across the entire–’

  The com died, the voice replaced by static.

  A rumble began, far away, rolling towards them, getting louder and louder.

  ‘Command section’s been hit,’ Flint shouted over the noise as the entire room vibrated.

  ‘What the hell could disable the Gilgore gird?’ Braxwell asked desperately.

  Colmen leaned back in his chair, suddenly realizing what he had done. He stood up to look at the engines, stretching away along the deck. In the distance, he could see his engineers working to try to fix the problem with the grid, but he knew it was too late.

  The deck erupted with painful light, and Colmen watched the ceiling buckle at the far end. The metal bulkhead gave way, sucking the air into space, and the flailing bodies of three engineers flew through the gap. The other workers fought to keep hold, pulling each other to safely as another detonation ruptured the central cube drive. Violent flames shot from within as the deck filled with noxious smoke. Automatic decompression barriers fell over the windows, robbing Colmen of his view, and he turned to see the ashen faces of the other workers in the control room.

  ‘We’ve lost the deck,’ Flint muttered.

  ‘Cube drive is dead,’ Braxwell said. ‘Fallorite rods are on fire. Cascade likely.’

  Colmen stood, staring into their faces, his brain no longer capable of making decisions. ‘What should we do?’ he asked, feeling terrified.

  Flint answered. ‘There’s nothing we can do, Chief. If the automatic systems can’t shut down the rod fires then the ship is gone.’

  Colmen nodded. He already knew the answer. He couldn’t send in anyone to halt the fallorite fires, the radiation was too great. Even bots would be useless inside the housing. They had failsafe systems that were meant to deal with this sort of eventuality, but they had never had reason to test them before. This was an unprecedented scenario; the grid going down was unthinkable.

  ‘Cascade,’ Braxwell said, sounding tearful. ‘It’s happening.’

  Colmen took it all in, quietening his mind. He was their chief, he reminded himself, and they looked to him for guidance. ‘Pull your teams out, sound the evacuation order, and get to a lifeboat. We’ve lost the arkship.’

  ESCAPE

  T-PLUS 1 hour

  Colmen stumbled along the deck towards the lifeboats. He wiped the blood trickling from a cut on his forehead with the sleeve of his uniform, and squinted to see through the smoke. The ship was in chaos. The floor was constantly shifting, tilting one way then the other, throwing people and their belongings to the ground. For a few moments, the gravity generators had gone offline, and he was forced to pull himself along with the rest of the refugees. More than once he’d stumbled, fallen to his knees, knocking his head on the wall, but he carried on towards his goal.

  Ahead, lifeboat wardens were herding people to the right location, holding them back when they tried to push their way onto the departing pods. As Colmen waited in line, fresh doubts cluttered his thoughts. His wife and son were dead, he was sure of it. And all of this was his fault. That data stick must have contained some piece of code that had burrowed into the Gilgore grid control system and, at the right time, had shut it down, leaving the arkship open to attack. Bran Colmen had blood on his hands. The blood of thousands of people.

  He stepped out of the line and drifted away from the lifeboats. He didn’t deserve to leave. He found himself walking through the ship, up through the decks, until he came upon the command level. It was quieter here, just a few officers fleeing. He stood by an exterior window and looked out to space, hoping to catch a glimpse of their attacker. But the view was restricted, and all he saw was debris and escaping gas.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’

  Colmen turned around. There was the Lord Chamberlain Cam Tanis, struggling with an unconscious crewman in his arms.

  ‘Here,’ Tanis said. ‘Help me.’

  Colmen obeyed, lifting the young man’s legs. They stumbled towards the lifeboat section, bracing themselves against the wall as another impact shook the ship.

  ‘Command is gone,’ Tanis muttered. ‘We didn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘Prince Thyred?’ Colmen asked.

  ‘Dead.’

  Emotion overtook him and Colmen burst into tears. He had killed his prince.

  ‘We still have work to do,’ Tanis shouted. ‘We must get the prince to safety.’

  ‘But I thought you said . . .’

  ‘Halstead. He is leader now.’ Tanis gestured towards the unconscious body in his arms. The face was covered in scars, but beneath the injuries Colmen could recognize the youthful features of Thyred’s son.’

  ‘This is Halstead?’

  Tanis nodded.

  They stopped by a lifeboat entrance. Tanis activated the door and they lifted the young prince into the lifeboat.

  ‘But where will he go?’ Colmen asked.

  ‘Anywhere but here. It’s not safe. I’ve arranged for a decoy; people believe he is aboard the Demon Star. It will launch soon and, hopefully, take the attention away from the lifeboats. We can’t keep him on the ship. If they board us they’ll want him dead.’

  ‘They won’t board us,’ Colmen said bitterly.

  Tanis glanced over his shoulder at the Chief.

  ‘The fallorite rods are in cascade,’ Colmen explained. ‘The ship won’t survive.’

  The Lord Chamberlain’s eyes widened. ‘Then we must get him away from here.’ He pulled the harness over the boy and strapped him into the lifeboat. He checked the systems were working, then leaned into the pod. ‘May the gods go with you, Hal, my prince.’

  Tanis stepped away and the hatch closed, sealing the prince into the lifeboat. Automatically, it began the launch sequence and flew out of the ship. Colmen peered through the tiny hatch window, watching it fade from view.

  ‘Come on,’ Tanis cried as another explosion rocked the vessel. ‘We need to get out of–’

  The wall beside the Lord Chamberlain collapsed, throwing debris over him. He fell to the floor, motionless.

  Colmen pulled him from under the shattered wall, checking he was still alive, and bundled him into the next lifeboat. This one was larger, with three seats. As he tightened the harness Tanis came round. ‘Get in,’ he said feebly.

  Colmen smiled regretfully as he closed the hatch.

  As the door mechanism sealed the lifeboat shut he could hear the Lord Chamberlain’s muffled voice, pleading with Colmen to join him. The lifeboat ejected, taking Tanis away from the burning ship. As he watched it go, Colmen realized he was going to die here, on the Ark Royal Obsidian. He was glad it would be here, in his home, not on some other arkship or lifeboat. He would leave the exploration of the Cluster to others, like Bara. He hoped she had escaped. He prayed she had new adventures ahead of her.

  Bran Colmen stood alone, thinking of his beautiful Rewan. He had loved her so much. Their marriage had been a good one, filled with laughter and love. He pictured young Tealor, his potential cut short, and anger and regret consumed him. His boy did not deserve this. He had a full life ahead of him. Finally, he pictured Valine, imagining his hands about her throat.

  REFLECTIONS

  T-PLUS 2 hours

  Valine watched the line of explosions rip through the Ark Royal Obsidian and she couldn’t help but feel regret. They were meant to take the ship, not blow it up. This was Commodore Waffron’s fault. He had miscalculated his bombardment. At least she had done her job properly, not that it made any difference now.

  She looked down on the crippled ship and wondered if Bran Colmen had made it out or not. Valine had taken no joy in disposing of his family, even her hatred for the House of
Kenric didn’t make the killing of young children easy. She remembered when she had been that age, searching for scraps of food as her parents wasted away in the half-reality of gravel. The Kenric family had traded in the drug, she discovered years later, refining it, selling it to entire arkships full of addicts, getting rich from the misery of families like hers. They deserved what had happened today.

  Still, that boy. That little boy and his terrified face. It would take her a long time to forget his pleading screams.

  Valine stepped away from the window, she had seen enough.

  ‘Take us home,’ she ordered the pilot of her cruiser.

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