No Surrender - Jeff Mariotte [9]
One by one, the others on the away team filed through the hatch. Kieran tried to let her pass first, but Sonya firmly insisted that she bring up the rear. Kieran shrugged and went in. When Sonya followed, she sealed the hatch behind her. There was no light inside, so everyone turned on their helmet’s overhead lamps, beams cutting this way and that through the gloom.
“The internal atmosphere is supposed to be within acceptable range for all of us,” Sonya reminded the others. “All three inhabited planets in this system are close enough to Earth-like for human habitation, even though Val’Jon is the only one with a substantial human population. And most of the prisoners here—not all, but most—are from this system. But we don’t know what the conditions are like inside, or even if the pressurizer will function in the airlock.” She touched the control panel that would equalize pressure. “Let’s find out.”
A hissing sound emanated from hidden vents, followed by a greenish fog. Corsi kept her eyes trained on her tricorder’s display, and when she spoke again there was urgency in her voice. “That’s poison gas, people,” she said. “Everyone’s still got filters on, right?” The others responded in the affirmative.
Fabian said, “I don’t understand—this stuff would be instantly fatal to Kursicans and everyone else who lives in this system.”
“It’s another security measure,” Hawkins suggested. “So unauthorized visitors don’t let themselves in. Maybe the airlock has to be operated from inside the station, or with some special code.”
“Code,” Soloman repeated. “Allow me.” He approached the control panel Sonya had used to fill the airlock with poisonous gas.
The Bynar floated before the panel—the airlock was still a zero-gravity environment—and began speaking to it in that strange, high-pitched computer language in which he was so fluent. Several minutes passed as he and the Kursican controls had an unintelligible dialogue. At the end of it, he touched the panel just as Sonya had.
She heard the hissing noise again, and the green fog dissipated. A moment later, Corsi announced, “All clear. We’re going inside.”
She opened the next hatchway and passed through. “There’s gravity, but the air’s not breathable in here,” she said. “And is it ever a mess.”
Lieutenant Commander Domenica Corsi stepped through the hatch into a place where artificial gravity worked and, therefore, the effects of the station’s unbound careening through space were immediately evident in the beam of her headlamp. She had entered a kind of staging area, where prison staff would have suited up to make excursions into the weightless, airless space of the open shuttlebay. But everything was, to put it delicately, everywhere. Equipment, EVA suits, even instrument consoles had been uprooted by the g-forces of the station’s motion, and were still flying across the large room with every new lurch the platform took.
And that included herself, now that she was inside the station’s gravitational field. The station took a sudden tumble and she was thrown head over heels. No longer weightless, she slammed into the bulkhead with enough force to knock the wind out of her. Someone piled into her from behind, and she saw that the rest of the team was also bouncing around the chamber.
This is no good, she thought. She had scanned for any threats from other beings before even going through the hatch, and found the chamber uninhabited. But the motion of the platform could wipe out her whole team, just as surely as it must have killed the prison crew and inmates.
The room took another turn, and Corsi started to fall. She reactivated her magnetic boots, which she’d foolishly shut off upon stepping into the station’s gravity field. She was on the floor, she realized, even though she was looking down at the ceiling. Some of the away team had fallen down there, and everyone looked a little dazed. P8 Blue had rolled into a ball, using her chitinous armor to shield herself. The others, though, were being battered. Corsi knew that the greatest danger