Free Home Planet: Awakening (Part 1) by T.J. Sedgwick Page B

demolished—shattered on the deck, one on top of the other as if felled by a rampaging giant. The charring and twisted frames and the devastated wall and ceiling panels told me that giant was a powerful explosion. Once again, I paid silent tribute to the ship’s designers for its ability to withstand such punishment. Remnants of a guard box still stood to one side. Only its footings and some nearby grime-covered debris remained. Further down the corridor was dark, so I switched on the flashlight. Scanning the floor with it as I advanced, I witnessed bone fragments and a part-melted laser rifle. Ahead were four wide doorways with no signs of doors. I guessed there were probably more, but the collapsed ceiling further along the main branch corridor was a mess. There was no way through.
    I searched each of the four labs in turn. All were severely battle damaged. All contained yet more skeletal remains. Whoever had attacked these labs had emptied them of most of the weapons. In one, some sort of heavy energy weapon stood bolted to its mount, maybe too difficult to have hauled away. Another lab still held a few assault rifles of a type I’d never seen before. It was clear they were also energy weapons. None of them worked. It was becoming increasingly clear that the weapons labs were a waste of time. In the end, the only useful thing I salvaged was the lightweight body-armor vest still in its test mount. Once back in the dim light of the main corridor, I donned the vest over my stasis suit and replaced my fleece. After listening out for any approaching droids, I leaned against the wall, to gather my thoughts.
    Why was the droid that attacked me talking about mutiny being a felony? I felt sure it was no coincidence with all the violence I’d seen. The question now was why?
    Another thing didn’t make sense. Something I’d always wondered about. Why were there so many heavily armed marines and so many weapons on a trip to an uninhabited planet? Was it just precautionary, to keep law and order or to stop future coups d’état? After all, governments had always strove for a monopoly on the use of force. Perhaps the nascent colonial government had the same idea. It sure as hell wasn’t covered in training. An alternative theory surfaced in my mind. One more disturbing and outlandish, but possible nevertheless— was Aura-c already inhabited? Did the mission planners know something we didn’t? I shook my head and dismissed the idea, never one for conspiracy theories. I’d let the facts do the talking. All the same, I couldn’t rule it out completely.
    I shook my head, trying to dispel these weighty thoughts. I had a choice to make: go destroy the droid and get to the next module or take my chances and use the lower link tunnel instead.
     
    ***
     
    I never got to the lower link tunnel on Level 1. I couldn’t even get halfway there because I found the stairwell completely impassable below Level 9. As I lay prone on the deck of the corridor near its center-point, I faced one way, then turned around and looked along the floor the other way. The floor rose in the middle where I lay, then curved downward toward both ends. With the floor in the middle noticeably closer to the ceiling, some tremendous force had lifted it. The stairwell itself was a melted mass of twisted metal, the stairs ending in midair a few steps below Level 9. Whatever had happened to the floor below was structural and serious. My guess was another explosion—this time something big—one faction trying to cut off the route for some reason or another.
    I didn’t relish taking on the security droid on Level 20—but would if I had to. But then an idea occurred to me laying there on the cold metal floor. It was what I’d seen on Level 10 that sparked it—the lab with the spacesuits. If I couldn’t get to the command via the lower link tunnel and didn’t want to face the droid, then perhaps I could use a spacesuit.
    Full of renewed enthusiasm, I sprung to