Frontier's Reach: A Space Opera Adventure (Frontiers Book 1) by Robert James (beach read TXT) 📗
- Author: Robert James
Book online «Frontier's Reach: A Space Opera Adventure (Frontiers Book 1) by Robert James (beach read TXT) 📗». Author Robert James
Jason mock saluted. “Yes, sir.”
His brother had indeed grown up. Eyeing his own bloody knuckles, Jason wished he could say the same about himself.
Eighteen
Decium Ore Mining Facility - Orion V
What is that incessant beeping?
Nicolas opened his eyes. Darkness surrounded him. Only a dim red light illuminated his environment while dust particles floated throughout the air.
He peered at the ceiling, immediately realizing he was flat on his back. He peered out the viewport with a turn of his head. A massive cliff face stared back at him. Nicolas tried to drag himself from the floor but was caught. He glanced down. His right foot had gotten wedged in a hole. He yanked at it, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Susan!” he yelled.
You fool. Susan wasn’t there. He didn’t know whether she was dead or alive. I hope she’s okay.
“Koeman!”
He didn’t answer either.
“Bloch!”
The only response came from his echoes. My ship?
Nicolas hauled himself into an upright position and surveyed the damage. Beams had fallen through the ceiling, and the workstations were mangled. Memories of the grisly sights from the Siege of Maxima returned to him.
Beside him, under a broken girder, lay the limp body of Mister Bloch. His eyes were still open, but he was well and truly dead.
Nicolas reexamined his foot. He didn’t want a beam to fall through the ceiling to seal his fate as well so acted quickly. He could still move his toes, so he tried to break loose again, but it was in vain. Reaching down, he grabbed the laces of his boot and untied them. With one almighty heave, he wiggled free.
“Can anyone hear me?” Nicolas stood to get a better view of the decimated operations center, but the darkness and the particles in the air made it almost impossible to distinguish anything.
Then, a sound.
He moved past a broad beam. A pair of legs peeked out from a fallen door. Nicolas used all his strength to remove it.
“Mister Koeman?”
The flattened administrator was breathing, but only just. A gory gash bled out on his forehead and a pool of blood poured from his abdomen.
The clammy-skinned Koeman gingerly sat himself up and Nicolas helped him onto a chair. He groaned catching a glimpse of Bloch’s lifeless body. “Is he—”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Nicolas swiveled Koeman’s seat around to keep the ghastly sight away from him. “How are you feeling?”
“Like my guts are falling out.”
Nicolas didn’t want to give him the bad news.
“Is everyone else dead?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“What about your ship?”
Nicolas walked over to the communications console. One of the few in working order. But they wouldn’t be sending a commlink to anyone any time soon. “The comm array has been blown to pieces.” He ran his hands over the controls, trying to reactivate the scanners, but they’d also been knocked out. Just like every other vital system.
“Any luck?” Koeman winced through the agony.
“No.” Nicolas crossed his arms, wondering what the hell had gone on up there. “I’m sure Perera got her out of orbit in time.” He turned to the deteriorating Koeman. “Come on, let’s get you to the infirmary. Where’s the nearest one?”
“One…level…down.”
Nicolas lifted him off the chair ever so gently and put his hand around his waist. They moved for the door and entered the corridor. With no emergency lighting to speak of, their surroundings were pitch black. They continued on, using their hands to guide their way. Under and over beams, between girders and through fallen cables. In their tracks, they stumbled on another pair of bodies.
“Dead?” Koeman asked.
Nicolas took their pulses and nodded. They moved on until they reached the elevator shaft. Like everything else, it was out of commission. Koeman pointed him to the emergency stairwell, and they descended the spirals steps.
More devastation greeted them in the empty infirmary. Nicolas dragged Koeman over to a bed that hadn’t been trashed from the bombardment.
He felt sorry for the administrator; Nicolas wasn’t the person to take care of someone in his condition. What I would give to have Susan here right now. He attempted to activate the medical scanner beside the bed, but it wouldn’t operate. “We’ll need power in here somehow.”
Koeman coughed. A hearty splash of blood spluttered out of his mouth and his eyelids closed.
Nicolas squeezed his hand. “Stay with me!” He grasped him even tighter. “Koeman, can you hear me!”
The administrator’s head nodded ever so slightly.
“Listen to me.” Nicolas touched the man’s sweaty face. “I need to know where Susan went. Where is Doctor Tai?”
Koeman’s eyes fluttered.
“Hey, don’t you die on me. Not yet,” Nicolas demanded. “Where’s Susan?”
Koeman gestured for him to come closer. He pulled Nicolas by the collar with what strength he had left. “She’s down in…”
“Where?”
“Worksite… Fifteen,” Koeman gasped. “That’s where the—” He stopped. His eyes glazed over, and the grip he had on Nicolas relented. The last of his lifeforce disappeared with his head banging onto his pillow.
Nicolas stared down at the bloody body and sighed. He now had no choice but to get to Worksite Fifteen. He regarded Koeman once more and walked to the stairwell beside the elevator and made his way down to the heart of the facility.
He wondered about everything that’d happened.
Who are the attackers?
Why did they attack?
What do they want with Orion V?
Does it have something to do with the package we brought from Earth?
If it did, Nicolas understood whoever had attacked would come down to the surface for it. He just hoped he could find Susan alive before anyone else did.
He came to the end of the staircase and into the sizeable central transport hub. In one section the rocky ceiling had caved in and derailed half a dozen carriages from the track. More bodies littered what had become a war zone. He checked over who he could, but he didn’t find a single soul alive. The aerial attack had been swift and brutal. To kill so many people sheltered so far beneath the surface
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