Steven McDonald - Steven E. McDonald

The nailgun swung back to point at Miller’s eye. Weir reached out with his free hand, tapped pads, flipped a switch. Displays lit up.

Words appeared on one of the screens, pristine text against a dark background: Gravity drive is now primed. Do you wish to engage?

“What are you doing?” Miller said.

“You’ll see,” Weir said. He grinned again, reached out and tapped a key. He lowered the nailgun again, barely paying attention to Miller.

New text appeared on the display: Gravity drive engaged. Activation in T-minus ten minutes. A countdown timer appeared, running backwards.

Miller started a lunge for the nailgun in Weir’s hand. It snapped up again.

He backed away carefully. “If you miss me, you’ll blow out the hull. You’ll die too.”

“What makes you think I’ll miss?” Weir said.

He has a point there, Miller thought.

Something moved at the edge of the bridge windows. Miller had to work hard to cover his shock. Cooper had just drifted into view, peering into the bridge. Miller could barely believe it. If he could keep Weir distracted—

Weir turned so fast that he seemed to blur. The nailgun made a loud spitting sound. A six centimeter nail struck the thick quartz glass of the bridge windows, buried up to the head. A web of minute cracks radiated out from the impact point. Miller could hear the glass creaking.

Weir seemed oblivious to the effects of what he was doing. He stepped toward the window, the nailgun held out.

Cooper suddenly vanished from the window, leaving behind a crystalline trail. Miller almost smiled. Cooper was a resourceful cuss, that was for sure.

Miller turned and ran, diving for the door, hitting the deck and rolling through.

Behind him there was the sound of the nailgun firing and the smack of a nail going into the window. Miller turned around, rising.

Weir turned to look at Miller.

The bridge window shattered, the pieces pouring outward with the atmosphere of the bridge. A gale plucked at Miller, trying to take him from his feet. He managed to grab hold of the door frame, pinning himself in place.

Weir was picked up by the rush of escaping atmosphere, slammed into the helm console and bounced up toward the shattered window as he flailed, trying to grab hold of something, the nailgun falling from his hand and flying out of the window.

Miller’s nose was beginning to bleed.

The pressure door was moving.

Weir spread out like a starfish, somehow getting hold of the shattered edges of the bridge window, heedless of the glass chopping into his hands. He started to haul himself back inside, bloody ice forming on his hands and face.

One of the less secure bridge monitors ripped free of its mountings, sailing towards the window, slamming into Weir’s midriff. The scientist flailed wildly, trying to regain his grip, but it was too late. Trailing bloody crystals, Weir vanished.

Starck was conscious again, clinging to the side of a console, losing her battle against the outrushing atmosphere. The Event Horizon had a lot of atmosphere to dump.

“Come on!” he yelled to Starck, hoping his voice would carry.

“I… I can’t,” she shouted back. Her hands were slipping and she was gasping for air, blood starting to stream from her nose.

Miller turned, grabbing the first almost-loose item that he saw, some kind of compressor unit just outside the bridge. With a yell of desperation, he yanked it loose, slamming it down in the path of the pressure door. Straddling it and putting a hand on the door to help keep it propped open, he leaned into the bridge, holding his other hand out to Starck.

“Give me your hand!” he screamed. “Your hand!”

Starck lunged toward him, reaching out. He closed his hand around hers. The temperature was dropping rapidly, cold enough now to form a layer of ice on their arms. Their veins were bulging as the pressure continued to drop. He did not want to think about the level of capillary damage they were both experiencing.

The door jerked forward in its track, pushing him, crumpling the compressor slightly.

“The door,” Starck yelled. “It’ll cut you in half! Let go! Let me go!”

“I’m not leaving you,” Miller yelled, and he hauled back with all the strength he had left, pulling her back with him into the corridor. As she came she kicked the compressor, loosening it.

Starck fell on top of him, screaming, and he rolled desperately, trying to get them up against a wall.

The compressor pulled free, flew toward the window.

The pressure door slammed shut, almost taking Miller’s boot heel.

The winds died down.

Miller gasped for breath, cradling Starck. They were alive, battered, and half-frozen, but they had made it and Weir had not.

In the depths of the ship, a Klaxon began to sound.

“The forward airlock,” Miller said. His lungs hurt beyond belief, drowning the pains in the rest of his body. Starck looked like hell.

They got to their feet, making the best speed they could to Airlock Bay 4, deep in the nose of the ship. It could be Cooper, but there was no way of knowing yet. He had no idea what Weir might be capable of—for all they knew, he might consider an involuntary unsuited spacewalk to be no more than lighthearted fun.

They ran into the airlock bay, coming to a stop. The dim light was no help and the flashing light inside the airlock did nothing but confuse things. All Miller could see was a humanoid shape, moving slowly as it came in.

Miller crossed the Bay, opening a tool cabinet, taking down a zero-g bolt-cutter. It made a more than adequate bludgeon.

“It can’t be him,” Starck said.

“I’m not taking any chances,” Miller said, hefting the bolt-cutter as he walked towards the airlock. “Stay behind me.”

The airlock hissed open abruptly.

Cooper tumbled in, frantically trying to remove his helmet.

“Cooper!” Starck shouted. She ran to him, opened the clasps, pulling his helmet off. He bent double, his hands on his knees as he took a deep breath of the dank air and started coughing.

He straightened up, trying for another deep breath. “Let me breathe,” he gasped, “let me breathe.” Cooper must have been down to the wire when he started back, Miller realized.

“You’re okay now,” Starck said. “It’s over.”

“It’s not over,” Miller said.

Starck turned, following Miller’s look. A workstation was active, a display flashing. Gravity drive engaged. Activation: 00:06:43:01

“Weir activated the drive. We’ve got to shut it down.”

Cooper glanced at the workstation, looked back at Weir. “How? The bridge—”

“The bridge is gone,” Starck said. “What about Engineering?”

Miller gave her a hard look. “Can you shut it down?”

“I don’t know the process,” Starck said angrily. “Dr. Weir was the expert.”

“I don’t want to go where the last crew went,” Cooper said, giving Miller an unwavering look. “I’d rather be dead.”

“Then we blow the fucker up,” Miller said.

“Blow it up?” Starck said, staring at him as though he had followed Weir into the mouth of madness.

Miller went over to the workstation, the others following. He keyed in commands, pulling up a schematic of the ship, pointing. “We blow the corridor.

Like Weir said: use the foredecks as a life boat, separate it from the rest of the ship. We stay put—”

“And the gravity drive goes where no man has gone before,” Cooper said, his eyes narrowing.

He did not smile.

They entered the Gravity Couch Bay at a trot. Justin was still floating comfortably in his tank, unperturbed by the recent events. Miller was grateful for that—Justin had been spared some of this insanity.