Free The War of Pawns (The Human Chronicles -- Book Three) by T.R. Harris

echoed off the metal bulkheads.
    And then the tumbling stopped, and the groaning of the metal bulkheads began to taper off.
    But still the incapacitating weight pressed down upon their bodies.
    Through the pain, Adam forced himself to crawl the meter or so to Kaylor’s now-empty pilot’s seat. He fought against the invisible force to lift an arm up to the seat, and then to pull himself up even more. With screams of his own forced out from his lungs, Adam’s hand reached the top of the control console, and found a gravity control. He cranked it down, and felt the ship suddenly surge to the rear. The wrong control! He felt again and found another. As he turned this one, he felt the weight begin to lift from his body. A split second later, he had the gravity for the bridge back to normal, and he felt the air return to lungs. He could at least breathe again.
    Even though his entire body cried out in pain, he lifted himself onto Kaylor’s seat and turned down the gravity in the other four sections of the ship, as well as dissolving the forward and aft wells.
    The ship was dead in space – but at least they were still alive.
    As the Humans began to slowly lift themselves up off the cold metal deck, groans of pain spilling involuntarily out of their mouths, Adam looked over to see Kaylor and Jym prone of the floor, blood flowing from both their ears and noses.
    He dove to the deck and lifted Kaylor’s head. He had no idea how to check for a pulse on an alien, so he rested the side of his head on Kaylor’s chest. To his delight, he heard a rapidly beating heart. He gently set Kaylor back down on the deck and repeated the maneuver with Jym. He, too, was alive.
    Adam leaned back against the base of the command console and looked at the rest of the people on the bridge. They appeared to be no worse for wear, just a lot of stiff movements and bloodshot eyes, yet he desperately hoped there would be no lasting damage to the two aliens. He was sure that another second or two of the crushing gravity, and they both would have died.
    “What the fuck just happened?” Sherri managed to feebly ask. She climbed into one of the command chairs lining the bridge and looked up at the image on the forward tac screen. All around them were the last dancing blue, white and green remnants of the electrical discharge from the nuclear explosions. They had been exceptionally large explosions in order to affect such a large region of space; not your normal Earth-size nukes, but alien ones developed over thousands of years of advanced technology.
    “Sherri, can you take a look at Kaylor and Jym?” Adam asked his voice raspy, his throat dry. “They’re alive, but I don’t know what condition they’re in.”
    Riyad stood leaning against the command console, looking down at Adam seated on the deck. “I guess I should thank you for saving our lives, but I don’t really feel like it right about now.”
    Chris was also climbing into one of the large Juirean-size command chairs. “What are you talking about? What just happened?”
    Riyad looked over at him with a wry smile. “Adam used the gravity wells to absorb most of the blast from the explosions. We’ll have to check the radiation levels, but I’m assuming we’re going to make it through okay.”
    Then looking back down at Adam, he said, “Well played, Adam. Well played.”
    “Just seemed like a good idea at the time.”
    “What about the Juireans?” Sherri asked as she tended to the two aliens, who were just now beginning to regain consciousness. She had torn off a piece of her tunic and was dabbing the blood from Jym’s nose. Both aliens were blinking rapidly, spittle draining from their open mouths.
    “Are you two all right?” Adam asked. He watched as slowly the sound of his voice began to register with the aliens. Then Kaylor awkwardly bobbed his head. “I believe so. Are you sure that was the only thing you could have done to save us? We almost died.”
    “Like I said, it