Prophets

Twenty minutes later the whole cabin shook.

“What the hell?” Kugara said, trying to keep her feet as the ship violently vibrated. Emergency klaxons sounded, and the cabin lights began flashing red. That’s the signal for a hull breach!

Parvi’s voice came over the PA, “Everyone to the nearest lifeboat/cabin now! We’ve had a critical overlo—”

Her voice was cut short by the sound of a massive explosion that threw Kugara toward the ceiling. As she fell back down, she could feel the weight of her body sucking away, telling her that the gravity manifolds were failing. When she hit the floor again, she bounced lightly off.

The lights in the cabin died, plunging both of them into complete darkness. The PA no longer spoke, and for a few moments the only sound in the cabin came from the two of them breathing.

“Were we attacked?” Nickolai whispered.

“I don’t know,” Kugara answered. She fumbled for a handhold in the dark and found one next to the door. She pulled herself against the wall. Through the wall she could feel vibrations that made her stomach churn. Something overloaded the power plant, she thought. Emergency power should be returning shortly . . .

As if in response to her thought, a dull red light came on above the doorway. Then it began flashing rhythmically.

“Oh, shit,” she whispered through clenched teeth. She opened the console next to the door and confirmed her fears.

“What is it?” Nickolai asked.

“Shut up!” she yelled at him, as if there was anything she could have done at this point. The emergency systems had fully taken over. The cabin was sealed. She tried to get the comm to the rest of the Eclipse responsive, but the cabin’s connection to the rest of the ship was dead.

The display, unresponsive to her touches as it was, helpfully showed a schematic of the cabin’s systems. Power and life support were now on a fully closed loop, helpfully illustrated by two animated arrows pointing at themselves. Six colored blocks connected the square cabin schematic to the rest of the schematic of Eclipse.

One of the blocks turned from green to yellow to red. The small block on the screen broke in half. At the same time a pop like a rifle shot resonated through the walls of the cabin.

“Kugara?” Nickolai asked.

The first block faded from red to black as the next block broke in half. Another rifle shot shook the walls of the cabin. She shook her head.

“Kugara?”

“It’s the escape sequence,” she whispered. Another shot resonated through the skin of the cabin. This time the vibration didn’t fade away completely. Holding on to the wall next to the display, Kugara had the morbid sense of being trapped inside a loose tooth. “This cabin’s about to be blown free from the rest of the ship.” Another rifle shot and the vibrations were noticeably larger in amplitude. “If there’s even still a ship on the other side of this door.”

She pushed off the wall and grabbed the edge of the cot, the only piece of furniture in the room. She braced her feet on the floor and lifted, folding it into the wall, slamming it shut.

Another rifle shot; this time the sound of twisting and grinding metal accompanied the amped-up vibrations.

She pushed off and grabbed the handle of a yellow-and-red outlined panel in the wall. She pulled it open, and a padded bench with crash webbing unfolded. She pulled herself into it and spared a glance at Nickolai, bound to the wall. She muttered, “Shit!” as the last rifle shot echoed through the cabin.

The shot was followed by a thundering roar, and suddenly they were no longer weightless. Kugara felt herself sinking deep into the padding beneath her as the whole cabin shook. The floor of the cabin was now the wall behind her, and Nickolai was secured sideways on the wall to her left.

She stared at Nickolai and could see the strain on the sealant tape as his body pulled against it. His head bent toward her and slightly away from the wall, and his lips curled back in a snarl revealing his massive teeth. His head shook with the vibrating cabin. The cabin jerked, and Kugara winced in sympathy as his head slammed back against the wall.

“Nickolai!” she called out to him, the shaking cabin giving her voice a manic vibrato.

He grunted something and shook his head. She didn’t know if he was telling her he was okay or that he wasn’t. A shiny thread of saliva and blood trailed from his lips to the wall/floor where Kugara had strapped herself in. The