What Judgments Come

Al-Khaled paused, sharing with the first officer a meaningful look that Xiong understood to be an unspoken exchange of mutual respect from two shipmates who together had seen and experienced their share of trials and challenges. “I’ll be there.”

“We’ll be there,” Xiong corrected.

Eyeing the two officers, zh’Rhun nodded in understanding and gratitude. “Go.”

Xiong followed the engineer out of the cargo bay, stopping at the hatch long enough to turn back and see zh’Rhun and Davis now standing alone at the row of consoles, whatever they might be saying now completely drowned out by the alarm klaxons. The isolation chamber before them was in a constant state of movement, with dents clearly visible all across its surface. How much longer would it hold?

Long enough, I hope.

He had to run to catch up with al-Khaled, who had already traversed the short corridor leading from the cargo bay and made it to the wider passageway ru

Always the optimist.

Feeling something less than useless, Araev zh’Rhun watched as Kurt Davis continued his frantic work, his head bobbing between his console’s rows of buttons and controls and their accompanying status monitors. Every few seconds, she spared a glance toward the isolation chamber, one side of which was now bulging outward and looking to zh’Rhun like a pregnant mother’s swollen belly.

Considering what was about to happen, she decided the analogy was apt.

“What can I do?” she asked.

“Get out of here,” Davis replied, not turning from the monitors.

Zh’Rhun shook her head. “You first.” Each had already stated for the record—and in Davis’s case that included a possible charge of insubordination and disobedience of lawful orders—that neither would leave without the other, and Davis was determined to remain on task as long as necessary. Staring at his face, illuminated as it was by the glow of viewscreens and status displays, zh’Rhun comprehended the man’s resolve, seeing that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for his shipmates. There was no way she was going to leave him here to do that alone.

“How much time?” she asked.

Davis grimaced, squinting from droplets of sweat ru

“I’m thinking less,” she said.

She flinched at the sound of Mahmud al-Khaled’s voice bursting from the wall-mounted intercom. “Al-Khaled to zh’Rhun. Everybody’s out, Commander!”

“That’s it!” zh’Rhun said, grabbing Davis by the shoulder and pulling him away from the console. “Time to go!”

“Wait!” Davis said, extending his arms as though stretching for the workstation. “We can’t!”

Zh’Rhun heaved the lieutenant ahead of her and pushed him toward the exit. “It’s over. Move!” She tried to ignore the sounds of metal coming apart behind her, concentrating instead on the sounds of her boots against the deck plates as she closed the distance to the hatch. Davis, ru

As the door sealed, Davis hit another control and a status indicator on the panel with the label bay decompressing illuminated. A deep rumble made its way through the bulkheads, and zh’Rhun felt a mild reverberation in the deck beneath her feet as the cargo bay’s outer hatch was opened while the compartment still possessed an atmosphere. In her mind’s eye she pictured the bay’s contents being blasted toward the now open hatch as everything in the room was vented into space.

Then, something—the Shedai, of course—slammed into the hatch right in front of them.

No. She did not know why she should be surprised. After all, what was a decompressed cargo bay to an entity that had already demonstrated its ability to traverse interstellar distances without any known form of space vessel?

“I think our plan has a few holes in it,” Davis said, seemingly an echo to zh’Rhun’s own thoughts.

“Bridge to zh’Rhun,” echoed Captain Okagawa’s voice over the intercom. “Where the hell are you?”

“Come on,” zh’Rhun said, grabbing Davis by the arm and pulling him along with her as she began to sprint the length of corridor toward the access boom. Standing in the doorway, waving for them to hurry, were al-Khaled and Xiong.

“Move!” al-Khaled shouted.

Behind zh’Rhun, another impact against the bulkhead echoed in the hallway, and this time it was accompanied by the rush of escaping oxygen. Another alarm sounded in the corridor, and she recognized it as the alert for a hull rupture. They were less than ten meters from the hatch when it slid shut, blocking their escape and hiding al-Khaled and Xiong from view. Halting their advance, they turned in time to see a black mass ripping through the corridor’s interior bulkheads before the pressure door ahead of it closed, sealing the two officers in a ten-meter section of passageway. Decompression protocols were in effect, with containment doors closing throughout the ship, sealing their respective compartments and preventing the entire vessel from being compromised.

“Shit!” Davis said, his eyes wide and his voice rising.

In response to his obscenity, something punctured the hatch leading back to the cargo bay, and a long, black spike thrust itself through the metal. Once again, zh’Rhun heard the hiss of air escaping into space.

From the control panel positioned next to the door that would have been their portal to escape, the intercom flared to life with Captain Okagawa’s voice. “We’re picking up a hull breach. All containment hatches are in place. Is everyone out of there?”

“No” was all zh’Rhun had time to say before the hiss became a roar.

The decompression alarm howled in the corridor just as the pressure hatch began to shift, and Xiong pulled al-Khaled back before the door could slice him in half.

“Watch it!” he said, yanking the engineer almost off balance before the hatch sealed with a resounding click. With the hull breach, Xiong knew the emergency doors spaced throughout the ship would be closed, which he recalled was normal operating procedure on older vessels like the Lovell. The ancient Daedalus-class ship was from another era, before emergency containment force fields and other protective measures had become standard equipment on modern starships.

Slamming his fist against the hatch, al-Khaled released a grunt of rage. “No!” Then, training and experience seemed to reassert themselves as he turned to the control panel set into the bulkhead beside the door. Xiong saw that the panel was more than a simple door or intercom panel, as it also contained controls for overseeing emergency protocols such as separating the hulls. There was an intercom, as well, and Captain Okagawa’s voice erupted from it.

“We’re picking up a hull breach. All containment hatches are in place. Is everyone out of there?”