Steven McDonald - Event Horizon

He shot down the tube and into the Second Containment, growling, “Hold on, Baby Bear….”

Coolant was once again forming wandering globules. He splashed through several of them, splattering coolant left and right, making angry noises at the obstructions.

Reaching out, he managed to kill his velocity by grabbing the main console, an effort that almost dislocated his shoulder. He caught sight of Justin’s safety line, taut across the room, and made his way to it, following it down into the main area of the Containment.

The line went all the way down to the Core.

It went into the Core.

“Oh my God,” Cooper whispered.

The Core was a pulsing black mass poised in the middle of the gloom. It seemed almost alive, angry. Justin had somehow fallen into it, or been pulled in. The safety line had not slackened, which meant that it was still likely to be attached to him.

Cooper put his hand on the line.

It went slack. Cooper’s heart skipped a beat and his skin felt so cold suddenly that he could have sworn his suit heater had quit.

The Core rippled and pulsed outwards, a cold black explosion. Cooper started to back off, his heart racing. There was another pulse, bigger this time.

Something light hurtled from the depths of the darkness. A human figure.

Justin.

Cooper kicked off, hurtling upward, his arms wide. Justin, limp as a dishrag, slammed into him, sending them both off on a new vector, the pulse from the Core providing additional impetus. Cooper turned his head frantically, tumbling them slightly. They were heading straight for one of the long control rods that lined the containment chamber, a fatal encounter if they struck it head on.

Cooper twisted, kicking out, trying to change their position. He finally managed to put them both into a slow backwards tumble, praying that it would be enough.

He clutched Justin tightly, closed his eyes and begged the gods for mercy.

He felt the control rod slide by beneath his backside, slick and cold. He almost cried with relief.

They slammed into the wall, rebounded, came up against the side of another control rod. Cooper was ready by then, holding on to Justin with one arm and gripping a long zero-g screwdriver in the other. He drove the business end of the screwdriver into the side of the control rod and hung on for dear life. It was a hell of a way to stop. Between hitting the wall and this ad hoc braking maneuver, Cooper figured he was going to be aching for the next two years.

Cooper extracted the screwdriver bit and put the tool away on his belt, turning his attention to Justin. He pulled the younger man close, looked him over.

“Justin, you talk to me, give me something here,” Cooper said. Justin’s head lolled to one side. The engineer was still breathing. There was no way to tell for sure until Justin’s suit came off, but there were no overt signs of physical injury, no apparent bleeding. The suit was still secure, no visible holes or signs of air loss.

Cooper closed his eyes tightly, wondering if he could pray enough to bring them both out of this mess in one piece.

“Baby Bear,” he said, softly, “don’t do this… don’t do this…”

Clutching Justin to him, he kicked off again, aiming for the exit.

Behind him, the Core pulsed with dark malevolence.

Medical instruments and debris whirled lazily in the air, some bouncing gently from the walls, ceiling, deck. The last vibrations had subsided now.

Whatever had struck the Event Horizon had moved on, Miller realized. It did not seem likely to repeat itself any time soon. Cautiously, he rose out of his protective crouch, giving his suit a visual check as best he could.

He turned around, surveying the damage. The hatch was buckled and torn, the door hanging by one bent hinge. Some medical instruments had been buried in the walls, ceiling, and floor. Cabinets and lockers had been blown open, contents spilling out to add to the general airborne chaos.

No indication of air leaks. Small mercies, he thought.

Auto-keying his radio, he said, “Can anybody hear me?”

There was an almost immediate response from Smith. “Captain Miller.”

Miller sighed and frowned, but it was more with relief than annoyance.

“Smith, where the hell have you been?”

“We have a situation here,” Smith said.

Miller suddenly felt ice cold.

As far as Weir was concerned at the moment, the best way to make a man feel clumsy and incompetent was to make him get into an EVA suit in a hurry. DJ was patiently helping him with the details, which meant that DJ was taking a terrible risk himself.

Starck was just completing her suit-up, getting her helmet in place and locked down. Smith had managed to be in a suit faster than Weir had ever imagined it could be done. His helmet was already on, and he was holding a conversation with Miller.

DJ slapped Weir’s helmet onto his suit. Weir reached up to seal it, hearing the hiss. The radio was already active.

Smith was saying, “We lost the starboard baffle and the hull cracked. Our safety seals didn’t close, the circuit’s fried—”

“Do we have time for a weld?” Miller asked. To Weir the Captain sounded as steady as a rock. He envied Miller that cool detachment.

DJ was suiting up quickly now. Starck came over to Weir, checking his suit and making sure his helmet was properly sealed.

“We’re losing pressure at two hundred and eighty liters a second,” Smith said, “and our oxygen tanks ruptured. In three minutes our atmosphere will be gone. We are fucking dead.”

“No one’s dying on my watch, Smith!” Miller barked. His was a voice you would choose not to argue with. “What about the reserve tanks?”

“They’re gone,” Smith said.

There was a long silence. Weir pictured Miller racking his brain for a solution to the dilemma and failing to come up with anything acceptable. As far as Weir could tell, listening to the damage reports and Smith’s pessimistic liturgy, there was only one option left to them.

“The Event Horizon,” Weir said.

Starck, Smith, and DJ turned to stare at him.

“What?” Smith said.

Weir stepped towards Smith. “It still has air and reserve power. We can activate gravity and life support.”

“No one’s breathed that air in seven years,” DJ said. “It could be contaminated.”

“We can’t stay in these suits,” Starck said. “The air won’t last.”

“I’m not getting on that bastard,” Smith said, sounding angrier and angrier. “We don’t even know what happened on that ship.”

Weir turned to the pilot, his face set. “It beats dying, Mr. Smith.”

Miller closed his eyes again, tried not to sigh, opened his eyes. “Weir’s right. Get on board the Event Horizon. I’ll meet you at the airlock.”

He started toward the ruined hatch as Smith said, “But—”

“You heard me, Smith.” He stopped in the corridor, got his back up against the wall. “Peters, are you with me?”

I’m ahead of you,” Peters said.

She moved across the main consoles, throwing switches, checking readouts.

For all the design work thrown into the Event Horizon, the ship had some very standardized instrumentation. She had the boards figured out and operating.

“Bringing the thermal units online,” she announced, pressing a keypad.

She turned to another part of the console, making sure she had her feet planted firmly on the deck. “Hold tight and prep for gees,” she said, then counted to ten under her breath.

She pressed another keypad.

Beneath the decks, artificial gravity units ramped up, humming. Peters felt the rising fields as a pulsing, tingling sensation through her body. Suddenly she had weight again, not just mass.