Ellie Quin - 04 - Ellie Quin in WonderLand Read Online Free Page A

is wrong. The ring technology was based on theoretical work by a scientist from the 21st century, called Stefan Hawking. And FYI he was a
she
. Get your facts straight before posting.
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CHAPTER 4
    The door to the automated barge cranked slowly downwards and clanged noisily against the metal floor. The echo boomed out into the darkness beyond.
    It was pitch black outside, lit only by the rotating orange hazard lights on the roof of the barge.
    Ellie stepped down the ramp, the heels of her platform boots echoed hollowly, ominously. Jez joined her at the bottom of the ramp and panned her pencil torch around.
    Their beams of light picked out grimy metal walls, a cluster of packing crates in one corner, loops of cable and a stack of carbo-ply building panels, all covered in dust.
    ‘It's a cargo bay,’ said Ellie.
    ‘Geee, you really think so?'
    Ellie panned her torch around. ‘Looks like it hasn’t been used for a while. Why did they drop us here and not at Gateway?’
    Jez shook her head. ‘Dunno. Maybe they just got fed up with us.'
    Ellie suspected the freighter's captain had figured out he was carrying fugitives from the law, that or had begun to worry they might be carriers of some kind of virulent plague. Either way it seemed he'd decided to ditch them.
    Jez curled her lips at the dust and grime. ‘And where the freg is ‘here’, anyway?’
    ‘Some place that looks like it’s been abandoned.’
    ‘Great.’
    Behind them, the automated barge sounded a soft insistent beep, and the amber warning lights stopped rotating and began to blink. It was getting ready to leave.
    ‘We could get back on it,’ said Jez.
    'And when the crew find us, they’ll just send the barge right back here again.’
    Or worse
.
    Ellie stepped off the ramp, onto the floor of the cargo bay. The ramp’s motors were already whining; getting ready to lift up. Jez joined her, stepping out into the gloom. ‘Well if we're staying we better find the exit quick-ish.’
    Ellie presumed -
hoped
- the cargo bay’s inner and outer bulkhead doors wouldn’t open simultaneously while there were still people inside, blasting them out into space. A safety precaution she was pretty certain all non-planetaryinstallation cargo bays must surely have built in. She wasn’t inclined to hang about and test that theory though.
    ‘Over there!’ said Jez.
    Ellie followed the path of her torch beam and spotted a small sealed hatchway marked with an Exit sign above. She was relieved to see a small blinking green light beside it.
    It was powered.
    At least this place wasn’t a derelict structure. She recalled Captain Darcy from Space Fugitive (Jez’s 2nd favourite sopa-dram) saying that this system had quite a number of mothballed installations. Periodic cycles of boom and bust tended to result in dozens of ambitious projects being left half-built, abandoned and floating in orbit, patiently awaiting more favourable economic times before they were dusted down and finished off.
    But then again it was just a day time soap opera. And Captain Darcy wasn't real.
    They walked quickly across the bay towards the exit, while behind them the automated barge had decided it had waited around long enough. The ramp began to crank upwards with the noisy growl of neglected servo motors.
    Jez quickly hit the switch beside the green light and the airlock hatch rattled open. They stepped through into the airlock beyond and it closed again behind them. Several pallid strip