Encounters 1: The Spiral Slayers Read Online Free Page A

exploding
upwards. Elsewhere the surface of the asteroid changed, becoming lined with
thousands of cracks. The message on the status screen changed to ”Explosion
Detected” in bold red flashing letters followed immediately by ”Emergency
Egress."
    The AI fired the craft’s afterburners, fired the explosive
bolts that slammed the viewport blast armor in place, and engaged internal
dampening. Adamarus’ seat went into crash mode and folded around him.
    As his eyelids closed the ship had started turning away from
the asteroid, however, it just wasn’t fast enough. The edge of the blast wave,
thick with pulverized rocks, slammed into the ship, catching and tearing off a
section of the front blast armor and ripping away all the sensor studs and
utility arms.
     That blast wave was from a single SCAU. As Adamarus’ eyes
rested closed for a beat, the other five SCAUs implanted in the asteroid blew
and the entire mountain of rock blew apart.
    From a distance it looked like a fire cracker popping – there
one instant, gone the next. This blast wave hit the ship so hard that in an
instant, the craft was thrown outward almost a mile and continued racing away
at high speed.
    Adamarus should have been killed instantly but unknown to him
or anyone else, an alien force field had folded around his craft. Even so, as
his eyelids came half open, sparks flew and fires broke out in the spinning
cockpit.
    A heavy instrument panel broke away and hit the pilot seat,
knocking it loose as one hundred sphere-bots and smaller pieces of steel flew
around the cockpit, many hitting and becoming embedded in Adamarus’ chest, neck
and arms.
    Blessedly the pilot seat separated completely and it, as well
as Adamarus, were slammed and wedged into a small corner where the front
viewport met the lower control panels. This protected Adamarus to a degree, but
he was knocked senseless, organs had ruptured and bones had broken. His legs
were caught between the seat and the control panel, crushing both and all but
ripping them away. Both arms were broken, and the upper control cluster had
caught his head tearing part of his skull away. His face was pressed up against
the armored glass right where the outside blast armor had been torn away.
    Everything had happened in point seven seconds and none of it
had registered within Adamarus’ brain. Literally in the blink of an eye, Adamarus
had turned toward a light on the ridge outside, then found himself amid smoke
and fire, and a growing plume of blood that floated above him. It was a miracle
that he somehow clung to life.
    Still strapped into the pilot’s seat, his eyes stared blankly
out the front viewport. He could not remember anything.  He was no longer self-aware
and jumbled thoughts and images came and went randomly.
    All the lights on the control panels were out and the
emergency lights were on, but the red lighting covers had broken off. It was a
harsh white light that allowed all the destruction of the cockpit and his body
to be reflected in the glass for his shocked and dying eyes. He noticed the
blood floating around him. He coughed and more blood sputtered from his mouth
spraying the viewport.
    In a senseless state of shock he looked at the reflection of
himself. He noticed that one arm was bent at a ninety degree angle at the elbow
but in the wrong direction. His other arm was lying flat across his back.
    Waves of chills vibrated through him and he realized that he
was having a lot of trouble breathing.
    He tried to say something but an unrecognizable guttural
sound was all that emerged.
    He noticed a loud hissing sound as the blackness closed in.
    Seemingly an eternity later, Adamarus regained consciousness.
The emergency lights had gone out and he could see stars spinning through the
viewport.
    With a start, the realization came that his face was pressed
into the corner of the lower control console and the front viewport. One part
of his fractured thoughts tried to image how that could be