The dense metal of the blast door was almost thick enough to deaden the wailing klaxon in the hall beyond. Simon looked about the dim space, fingertips extended as he groped for the wall he knew should be just to his left. Despite his caution he managed to jam an extended finger against the base of a grab handle, pain shooting up his arm. The joint of his finger caught slightly and he flipped his hand over to wipe it against the grab handle. Relief coming as he bumped the troublesome digit into a curve and was able to flex it again.
The klaxon was fading beyond hearing and he realized this was most likely because the air was leaking out beyond the bulkhead door. Sure enough, the bright red warnings on the three sides of the triangular opening had lit up to indicate the lack of pressure on the other side.
The three lights flickered and Simon realized they didn’t align neatly with his sense of up and down. The gravity system had also been affected and the pull beyond the door had dropped away, everything on the other side would soon start to slide down the long straight corridor to pile up against the door, drawn there by the grav plates still working on this side. Once that area failed completely there would be a mess of equipment, wreckage and bodies stacked against the opening.
Bodies. Simon’s eyes flashed down to where the long burn tracked across the chest of his suit. The surfaced ablated and torn where something had streaked across him at a narrow angle. He’d been lucky, the blast had thrown him through the blastdoor even as it snapped shut, triggered by the explosion and hull puncture as the attack ram impacted on the ship.
That’s why there were bodies. He had been talking to Romanov as they jogged towards the armoury. The comms from the other ship had been laced with attack software, the banal messages about damaged engines and part lists had arrived only moments before the bridge dropped off the intercom and the lights flickered as power routing was rapidly changed across the whole ship.
They had been headed to their assigned station when Romanov had noticed the attack rams sliding silently through space towards them. One of them growing horrifyingly large and detailed as they realized it was going to strike the ship where they stood.
He hadn’t thought to say anything
He hadn’t thought to say anything, running had seemed so obvious. His powerful legs had moved him swiftly back towards quarters and only as he slowed to palm open the door did he realise he was alone. Turning the world had seemed to slow, his neck muscles straining to rotate his head which suddenly felt stiff and heavy. His eyes darted about as the corridor behind him slowly, so slowly rotated into view.
Just before he could see there was a terrific crack as several long spears lanced through the meters thick ceramic hull. Two of them breaching the corridor itself. Then there was a series of exlosions so close together he heard them as a roar, like a space dragon screaming outside the ship. The space between the lances exploded inwards just as it came within his field of view, dozens of his colleagues smashed to bloody pieces along with the debris against the far wall, which collapsed through into the chambers beyond in several places.
Romanov had started to job towards him and turned back to see what had happened as the first bolts of white blue light slashed across the corridor and figures in suits with the hazed outline which accompanies military-grade battle gear stepped into the space. Like Simon she was moving slowly and he saw horror start to spread across her face just before a bolt struck her visor and most of her head flashed to bloody vapor, her armoured helmet hanging uselessly at her belt.
Then the compressed air and noise had reached him and tossed him bodily up and back through the already closing blast door, which tugged at him as it snapped shut just inches beyond his feet. Wait, no, that’s wasn’t right. Inches above. He looked down and cried out as he saw the stumps of his legs which both ended above the ankle. The slight angle at which he had been flying through the door meaning one stump was several inches shorter than the other.
There was no pain, but the suit could do nothing about the shock now he had noticed the double amputation and his willing mind flooded him with pain which had little to do with the physical injuries and everything to do with the pain he was utterly convinced he should be in.