Kraken Orbital (21 page)

I took just a
moment to centre myself and relax. To adjust to it and remind my
tired mind that I had to be stronger than this. I was used to
closed in spaces. I was used to garish safety helmets and
different densities of atmosphere. I just needed
to adjust and give myself a much needed break.
Don’t forget the gloves!

I managed it
all just in time. The room, when I turned back to face it, was
slowly filling with a brown
colored and
thick vapor. The gasses filled the room in volumetric and
undulating clouds. It choked the air and reduced visibility to near
zero. I needed to feel my way out.

That is, as
soon as I had adjusted to it. I could feel my heart pound inside of
my chest with the added restriction to my breathing of the horrible
apron. But at least it would cover the cracks in my
armor and stop any of the corrosive gasses from
getting to my skin. I closed my eyes. Out of fear, out of instinct,
I’m not sure which.

I felt like I
was tapped in an elevator or something. I’m used to the confined
spaces alright. What with the mine and the suits we had to wear
when we were digging. Not to mention the cramped beds we were made
to sleep in. But this was different. In all of those times, there
was always a way out. I always had some sort of control and an exit
plan.
Now I didn’t.

The smoke shrouded me in a blanket of
uncertainty, it blocked my eyes and I had to draw harder with my
lungs just to get some sort of breathable oxygen into my body. I
turned from side to side, almost freaked out but caught it just in
time, and placed my hand on the desk I had been looking over just a
moment ago.

It was the only anchor I could find. If I had
let go of it, the gasses would have disorientated me so completely
that I wouldn’t have been able to tell where I was. The chair, the
bench, the old computer screen. They helped me find a starting
point now that I had to paint a mental picture of the place.

There was no
other way I could get around now that I couldn’t see.
One. Two. Three. Four. I counted my breaths in
my head and held my eyes closed to focus just on the need to
breathe and the need to be calm. Ok. There it was. The last of the
adrenaline ebbed out of my choked system and I could think
again.

I
c
an open my eyes and not freak out now.
I’m acclimatized to the gas mask. To the lack of spatial awareness
and everything else that came with it. I run my hands over my
apron. The same sort I had seen Kolt wear in life, in death and in
life after death. I brush it over and over to make sure my
breathing has settled as much as I had thought.

‘
Ok, I’m
ready to go.’ There is no source of light at all. I can’t see more
than two to three inches further than my nose but there isn’t a
thing that I can do about it just yet. Wait! My hand brushes past
something right there as I trace the folded contours of the rustic
apron. There’s something inside of a concealed pocket.

I
rummage for it but do so calmly so as to not
overexcite myself and have to start the whole process yet again. I
know what it is already. A glow stick. The kind that matched the
light of ten to twenty candles burning strong. They had been used
in emergency packs all over the galaxy for as long as I knew of,
and much longer before too.

All I
ha
ve to do was crack it, and let the
chemicals within react to create an emitting light that might just
help that tiny amount. My hand finally finds it. I take it from the
concealed inside pocket and break it with a fierce snap using both
of my hands.

As the
chemicals inside start to mix, the
glow
stick illuminates just a few inches more of the growing fog in
front of my face. I can see the various levels to it now. The
clouds upon clouds of it. The density and thickness of it. But I
have to say that I am relieved to have not seen anything more than
just the gassy fog.

The mind
plays tricks. In this strange place. In this unknown world. Given
what we saw back in the caves that led to the mountain pass, those
shapes, ghastly figures dancing about the mist. I was so certain
that it would have been the same
here as
soon as I lit up the gas.

‘
Okay.’ I
sigh to myself and exert myself just that little but more to draw
in a deeper and more satisfying breath of filtered air. My
thought’s turn to Lucy.
What
is it about her?
That has me so… off
balance. I think is the right thing to say. I care about her. And I
don’t know why. I don’t believe in love at first sight. At least,
the old me didn’t. But I have to concede, and my heart pounding
when I just think of her confirms it, that I guess this is just
what it is. Love at first sight.

‘
Come on
Parker!’ I bat the thoughts out of my head physically with my fist.
I need to think. Yes, ok, I do care about her. A lot more than I
should and a lot more than I suppose I’m supposed to. I do, after
all, and even if she doesn’t, remember who she is.
But so what?
My mind screams at me. A new start. That’s what I promised
myself this would be. If I care about her then to Hell with
anything that might stop me.

But I do need
to shake off the paranoid thoughts, the smitten worries, and just
get my ass into gear and find her.
If she is still alive
. My mind
sneaks another harrowing thought to me from under the
radar.

But I dismiss it just as fast. She is smart.
More capable than I am. Strong, angelic and fast. She found time to
warn me. She will have found time to make it to safety too. I’m
sure of it.

No more
fooling around! I demand to myself and take the first step through
the choking dense fog. I can map the place in my mind now. I know
the vague direction of the
stairwell that
I used to get down here. I make for it, with an uncertain arm
waving out in front of me as some kind of poorly designed mine
detector.

The
glow stick is doing it’s job. I know these
things can last hours and I certainly hope to have this figured out
before that long. It should be ok. I slam my foot into the base of
one of the chairs, it scared the life out of me and it hurt like
Hell too. I listen as the chair on wheels slid across the flame
scarred, once highly polished metal floor, and slammed into the
metal railing that lined the staircase. It makes a dull thud, with
a tiny echo that follows but was soon choked away.

That helped.
In an odd way. It reconfirmed the location of the steps in my mind
and also made sure there was nothing more in my
way upon the floor that I can no longer see. In a dash of
bravery I jog the remaining distance to the steps and start
climbing much faster than I though I was going to be able
to.

I cut through
the fog with a spurt of energy, motivated by my selfish and
childish desire to heroically save Lucy from whichever cupboard she
had hidden in.
I finally make it, out of
breath and feeling clammy underneath my double layers of apron and
armor, to the point where we had parted ways. Half way up the
monumental structure that used to be the engine room.

I
finally
realize now how hard it must have
been for Kolt, or his ghost, or whatever he was, just to breathe
wearing these damn things. My lungs are burning with the harsh pull
of my diaphragm again and again just trying to suck in more air.
But I had to be glad of it. Without this garish and let’s face it
down right ugly thing, I would have been dead by now.

It
t
akes me twice as long as usual to get my
breath back. I’m a big guy. I’m fit and I’m strong. I slam an axe
against a rock face all day long but this place, this uncivilized
planet at the ass end of the galaxy, is killing me.

I place my open palms on my knees and arch my
back over to get my breath back. It seems to help. My lungs can
work more efficiently it seems in that position. But that’s not the
only reason I’m doing it. I was trying to ignore it. I was trying
to just hope it would go away. But my back is killing me with pain.
From the fall on the ice, from the jump off the mountain pass and
most of all from the crash that started this whole chain of
events.

I feel like
doubling over and just staying there, crawled up in a ball,
until such time as I either die or some one
rescues me. But my will power will have to prove itself yet again
here. Because I can’t do either of those things. And I won’t
either. I need to save Lucy. I need to figure this place out and
try to find a way off this cursed decrepit land.

‘Stand up you coward.’ I said, no, demanded
of myself. It was odd. How much that voice inside could mimic what
the guards, the so called bosses come slave drivers, back at the
mine would say. And it was even more so odd that I listen to
it.

I
st
and up straight and fight the urge to
scream out as I hear my back crack back into place
again.

The pain
finally g
ives way and my breathing
settles. I need to get a move on. I still have no idea what had
happened to Lucy, or even if she is still alive. But I know that I
need to be faster than this. She might have safeguarded herself
somewhere and somehow but I don’t know how long, if that was true,
she would be out of harms way for.

I know that
I’m facing the crack between the two broken halves of the door,
even though I cannot see it. The gas, still illuminated by the glow
stick, is spreading further and faster. I can see it, carried by
some current of wind or breeze flowing through the bowels of the
ship, gushing through the crack in the broken door.

‘
Lucy!’ I
scream at the top of my lungs. The sound barely
carrie
s. My mask drowns most of it and
the thick foggy gas gets the rest. There is nothing but silence. I
sigh to myself and slide through the small gap in the broken
door.

I
c
an feel my apron and my armor beneath it
snag on the sharply protruding shards of sheered metal but I can
just about fit through. I have to suck my gut in and not take in
any air but I get through.

Now
I
’m starting to feel a little scared. I
have to admit it. I have no point of reference anymore. No mental
picture of what the place was like before the gas filled the
corridors and airways. I was going to have to make my way through
here like some kind of blind and rabid dog.

I crouch to
the floor and start rubbing my hand over the slick surface of the
cold metal. It almost sen
ds shivers
around my skin. The surface is icy cold to the touch. My fingers
almost get stuck to it like they might a frozen metal railing in
the deep winter.

That
’s strange. Very strange.
Because it doesn’t feel cold at all. I have to keep going. Somehow.
I have to find the strength. I’m not sure bravado is the word that
I would use but I need to save her. I have to. So I, again, power
through my protesting heartbeat and start moving again.

I stay low
down on the floor, propped up on my hands and scurrying along like
a spider. Staying low but keeping my knees off the burning cold of
the metal below. The
glow stick is
showing no signs of fading but it does little to pierce any light
through the volumes gas. It just lights up the various billowing
layers of it. Like the worst fog you could think of. It’s
debilitating, choking and highly claustrophobic.

I barely get
ten meters before I sea them. Figures moving in the mist. Not just
shapes and projections like back in the cave, but genuine people.
Dark silhouettes moving in front of me, but at least not towards
me. My gut reaction is to toss away my glow light.

I throw it
behind me and am again embraced in thick darkness. It must have
slipped, or I must not be that good at throwing, because it lands
just behind my stretched out feet. I lay on the floor as low and as
flat as I possibly can get and try my hardest to stop
hyperventilating. I have nothing to defend myself with. I can fight
okay, but I really don’t have it in me right now.

I
c
an still see them, but more faintly now
that my only source of light is behind me. There are three figures.
Three easily recognizable as human frames ahead of me. One is
taller, the other shorter. Both slim. But The third is being
carried, cradled by the two others. The head of the third in the
arms of the first. And the feet of the third in the arms of the
second.
Lucy?
Had someone gotten to her? Had
someone killed her?

I
sh
ake my head from side to side. It hurts
with the added weight of the gas mask around my nose. I’m faced
with another burning question.
Were there still people surviving, still living in the
hollowed out ruin of the Kraken?
Either
way, I’m not going to stand for it! I lift myself up to a standing
and tall position. I ignore the hurt in my back, I block out the
pain in the neck and the burning of my lungs as they try harder and
harder to draw in more oxygen when there is little left.

I start to
run. I ke
ep my blurring and glazed eyes
fixated on the dark figures and make a direct line for them. My
feet slam against the floor with every step of my stride in sprint.
Breathing is harder and harder but I keep going anyway. I can feel,
and hear, a growl build up inside of me. My arms swing violently up
and down to balance me as I leapt at the tallest of the figures.
But fall against the wall instead.