Free Arrival by Ryk Brown Page A

orientations of up and down, while the rest of them needed to do so half the time just to avoid getting sick. Will assumed that it must’ve been from spending far more time in zero gravity than most people back on the Daedalus.
    Will rotated to his right and saw the green light on the compartment’s status panel. The compartment was still pressurized with breathable air. He unlocked and swung up his faceplate to call out to Jack. “Jack!” he hollered. But Jack didn’t react. “Jack!” he said even louder.
    Jack flipped open the clear plastic plate covering the control box. He was getting cold, even after being in the pod bay for only a few minutes. At least he wasn’t sweating. In zero gravity, the sweat didn’t drip off of you or run down your body like it did in normal gravity. It just sort of clung there, which was a very uncomfortable feeling if you couldn’t dry yourself off with a towel.
    Sequestered in his own little world within his pressure suit and unable to communicate with the others, Jack felt very isolated. All he had to listen to was the sound of his own breathing, and that was fogging up his faceplate. In a few more minutes, he wouldn’t be able to see anything. And although he didn’t want to open his faceplate and let even more cold air inside his self-contained world, he had no choice; he had to be able to see.
    Jack unlocked and slid open his faceplate just in time to hear Will shouting from the forward end of the bay. He turned in midair to look at Will, who was motioning for him to come toward him. But Jack still had work to do. He turned back around to drop the fourth pod, which he did with a quick pull of the manual override handle.
    What the hell is he doing? Will thought. He must see me. “Jack! Let’s go! We’ve got to leave, now!” Jack still didn’t react. Will had no desire to go any deeper into the dark bay. This place was more than alien to him. It was frightening. But Jack wasn’t coming toward him like he requested. In fact, he appeared to be moving away from him, toward the next pod.
    Against his better judgment, Will pushed off the forward bulkhead with his feet and launched himself down the long drop pod bay corridor, in the same fashion as he had seen Mac and Tony do many times before. He sailed down the corridor, and as he neared Jack, he reached out and grabbed one of the structural members to stop his momentum. His hands caught hold, and his feet passed under him, twisting his torso until he was facing the opposite direction from where he came.
                    
    Another explosion inside the port wall of the galley blew half the interior wall away, sending pieces of sheared metal and flames spewing across the cabin. Mac took the fire bottle he was about to hand Tony and sprayed it around them, repelling the streams of fire and the razor-like shards of metal away from them before they could damage their pressure suits.
    “It’s no use!” Tony yelled. “We’re not going to stop this thing with fire bottles!”
    Mac changed his comm-set to the primary frequency. “Frank, this is Mac! You gotta decompress this section and suck all the air out! This fire is outta control and there’s no way we can stop it!”
    “ I can’t do it from here, the system is down! ” Frank’s voice came back. “ You’ll have to do it manually! ”

    Mac spun around to face the bulkhead between the galley and the wardroom. The climate and life-support interface panel for the entire compartment was there by the doorway. But there were no lights showing at all, not even red ones. He moved over for a closer look and found a large shard of metal embedded in the face of the control panel. The entire control panel was dead.
                    
    Will pushed off from the support and caught Jack’s shoulder, coming to rest next to him. “Jack! Frank says we have to go now!”
    Jack spun around to face him. “My comm’s busted, give me yours!”
    Will reached