Echoes of the Fourth Magic Read Online Free

assured Del, turning the bent support aside.Billy moved to rise, but Corbin held him down. “Just you relax. Doc’ll be with you in a minute.”
    Mitchell stared blankly at the dead indicator panel, at the blank screens, not even a cursor flicking on them. “Something very big hit us,” he growled. “And we didn’t react. We just took it!” He kicked at a nearby piece of wreckage. “Someone up here, in command of the bridge, did nothing!” he fumed. “Not even a goddamn warning!” Of course, Mitchell, like all the others, had to realize that what happened had been unpreventable, and with such quick and complete devastation that no one could have changed the course.
    But Del, who knew Mitchell so well, realized that he needed a release, a scapegoat, someone to blame so he could rid his personal feelings of vulnerability. If this was no one’s fault, then it could just as easily have happened to Mitchell, but if Del had somehow failed …
    Mitchell whirled about and charged at Del. But Corbin and Brady, like Del, saw it coming well in advance and easily intercepted him.
    “You did nothing!” Mitchell screamed from behind the wall of the two men. “Not a goddamned thing!”
    “There was nothing to do,” Del snapped back, but he had to repeat himself several times as a litany against the guilt Mitchell had just laid upon his shoulders.
    “Stop it! Listen!” Reinheiser shouted, and the others quieted, surprised by the physicist’s uncharacteristic outburst. “Listen,” he said.
    A few seconds passed, the only sound an occasional creak of settling metal.
    “I don’t hear anything,” Doc Brady said.
    “Not a thing. Nothing at all,” Reinheiser emphasized. “Not even the hydraulic system.” In the span of a couple of seconds, Reinheiser’s words sinking in, terror seized all of the men with the expectation that they would be instantly crushed, as if they believed that death, in a finalstroke of cruelty, had waited patiently for them fully to realize their doom.
    Reinheiser was the one to break the silence.
    “Why aren’t we dead?” he asked, echoing the thought that reverberated in all their minds.
    They remained silent, trying to sort out a rational answer to the question. And if they weren’t perplexed enough, the main lights suddenly brightened, indicator needles jumped to life, a couple of computers beeped and began their reboot, and, most amazing of all, the familiar hum of the
Unicorn’s
mighty turbines returned. The men jumped in unison when a shaky voice crackled over the intercom.
    “Hello … anybody,” it pleaded, balancing precariously on the edge of hysteria. “This is Thompson. Can anybody hear? Oh, God, please don’t make me be alone!”
    Mitchell ran to the com. “What’s going on back there?”
    “Captain?” Thompson cried.
    “Where are you?”
    “Auxiliary power with Sinclair,” came the reply. “He’s pretty bad off. I don’t think he’s going to …” Again the voice trailed away.
    “On my way,” Doc Brady called, and he headed for the door.
    “No!” came the shrieking reply from Thompson. “You can’t!” Doc turned back to his companions, all of them frozen by the sheer desperation of the wail.
    The prospect of one of his men, reputably the finest crew ever assembled, losing control, enraged Mitchell. “You had better explain yourself!” he barked into the microphone.
    “Flood, sir,” Thompson answered evenly. “Everything between the gym and auxiliary power is underwater. You crack the hatch to forward barracks and you’ll flood the front of the ship, too.”
    “The crew!” Mitchell cried. “What about my crew?”
    Thompson’s inevitable response stuck like a dagger in Mitchell’s heart. “Dead, sir. Everyone’s dead—they’vegot to be—except for me and Sinclair and you guys in front.”
    Once again the survivors were reminded of the hopelessness of their situation. Eight men, six on the bridge up front, two in back, with fifty feet of