Entity [ONC 2024]

8

Both Porter and Ndara struggled to carry Finnegan the distance to the airlock and the safety of the shuttle, especially on the strange stairwell. By the time they reached the junction leading to the outer door, Finnegan's legs had stopped helping them. He slumped in their arms, catching them by surprise. Porter checked her glitching EV suit monitor, noting they had used far too much air in the effort.

"My crate ... my equipment." Taking a moment to rest, they laid Finnegan against the wall as he mumbled to himself. "My equipment ..."

"Forget your equipment. You'll get more." Porter checked the BP cuff on Finnegan's arm. "Christ! He should be dead!"

Before Porter could make a better examination, the entire derelict shifted, sending her tumbling away from Finnegan and, in that moment, the man chose to begin clutching at the connectors and straps of his helmet, hands scrabbling to release them. Ndara had crashed against the wall, a crack appearing on the faceplate of his helmet.

"Need air ..." Finnegan had already unfastened part of the connectors before Porter scrabbled across to him.

She batted away his fingers, restoring the connections, as the ship trembled once again. Whatever was happening, it only made Porter more convinced they should have left long before. Hell, they should never have come down here, leaving the survey of the derelict to drones, but she had stood helpless against the captain's greed and leadership. She could have done more. Insisted, but no-one else had stood beside her as she protested. Porter couldn't fight that.

"We need to get him out of here. Hold his arms. Don't let him take off that helmet!" Despite her own exhaustion, she took hold of Finnegan once more, waiting for Ndara to join her. "How's your helmet?"

"It is only cracked. For now." Ndara's gloved hand touched the faceplate. "It is not critical."

For once, Ndara's voice did not carry that underlying sense of amusement as he helped her to lift Finnegan to his feet. They only had a few more metres to go, and then the distance to the shuttle. That part could prove difficult. If Finnegan managed to remove his helmet on the surface of the icy asteroid, he would not survive for long.

The red lighting lent an eerie ambiance to the alien ship, creating twisting shadows upon the walls as they rushed to carry Finnegan to their escape. She couldn't remember it looking so dour before, even in the sweeping beams of their helmet lights. Now, it had taken on a gothic intensity that screamed of terrors in the shadows. It even created grotesque masks of features behind faceplates.

"Captain! Suggest immediate evacuation. Whatever's happening, it can't be good." Porter wasn't even certain the captain was listening and, after a pause, tried a different tack. "Chen? What can you see?"

"I see a scary shit-load of movement. Ice is breaking off from the derelict. And ..." The Ops officer paused as she checked something. "There's a heat bloom at the stern of that ship and it's intensifying. If I were to guess, I'd say it's the engines and if I were to go further, I'd say they're heading for overload. But that's just a guess."

"I'll take that guess." Only a couple more metres to go. "Keep trying to raise the captain and get GAIA prepared to create some distance from this ship."

"Roger that." Chen's comms clicked off as she singled out the captain's frequency.

Porter looked up. She had spent so much time looking at the floor, she hadn't paid much attention to what lay ahead and, as soon as she saw it, she knew Ndara did too. The airlock doors were preparing to close. Lights had started to flash upon a panel beside the doors, a pictogram showing the doors closing. The entirety of Finnegan's weight fell upon Porter's arms as Ndara moved before she even had time to think.