Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 Read Online Free

to the deck, clutching her leg.  “You bastard!” she shrieked.
                  “I did warn you,” he replied.  He tossed her his belt.  “Tie this around the wound like a tourniquet.  It’s not going to take long before you bleed out.”  Gasping, she stuffed a rag on each side of the wound, then put the belt around the wound and pulled it tight, cinching it up.  Blood had pumped from the wound, but it had slowed considerably once she put on the belt.  “Now, get up off your whining ass and get inside the pod.”
                  Breathing hard, sweat pouring down her face, she pulled herself along the deck to the hatch.  Pulling herself to her feet, she grabbed the handle on the hatch.  Pressing the appropriate controls, the hatch hissed and then popped open, swinging on well-oiled hinges.  The inside of the pod looked clean, well-maintained.  It was designed to hold six people, three on a side like in some passenger cars on liner ships.  She knew that a standard pod had enough foodstuffs on board for six people for a month, medical supplies, a toolkit, duct tape, and a distress beacon which would automatically activate once the pod was launched so that rescue forces could locate the occupants.  The pod was also equipped with hibernation equipment, to put the occupants in survival sleep for months, and sometimes years if rescue was known to be a long way off.
                  She turned to look back at the lieutenant.  The gun was pointed at her, unwavering.  He was apparently unconcerned about the noise the gun made when fired.  “Get inside, bitch,” he said. 
                  Tamara started to climb inside the pod when he shoved her in, hard.  She stumbled over the knee knocker and crashed into the cushions inside, her leg exploded in pain.  She lay on the bottom of the pod, her back against the small window on the far side from the hatch.  Her breath came in small gasps, she could feel herself losing consciousness. 
                  She looked up to see Islington pointing the gun in the pod, though not at Tamara directly.  “No, no, no!” she shouted.  An instant later, he started firing.  Bullets hit the inside of the pod, ricocheting off the inner panels, off the electronics, missing Tamara by inches in some cases.  She curled into a ball, screaming in terror.  Her eyes were squeezed shut, and eventually the fusillade of bullets ended.  Miraculously, none of the shots had hit her, but the inside of the pod was wrecked.  Fortunately, it didn’t look as though the hull of the pod was compromised, though that was a very close thing.   But the internals were shot, literally, in this case, but most of the panels were dark.
                  The hatch swung closed and sealed.  A few seconds later, there was a loud clunk of the magclamps disengaging and then the heavy press of the pod’s thrusters burning, as the pod shot away from the station at maximum speed.
                  Her head was swimming and the acceleration of the pod wasn’t helping the nausea.  Pulling herself over to the back of the pod, fighting the pressure of the inertia, she pulled down the medkit from where it was velcroed to the bulkhead.  Popping the small kit open, she saw a number of vials of Combat Heal, a nanite solution with a cocktail of drugs used for fast recovery from injuries on the battlefield.  Taking one, she pressed the injector into her injured thigh, above the injury.  It stung, but she could immediately feel the pain ease.  It would take a few hours for it to truly kick in and start repairs, but now she could think clearly.  Undoing the belt, she cleaned the wound with a bottle from the medkit and then put patches over them.  It would keep them from bleeding while the Combat Heal did its job.
                  Grabbing the toolkit from another small compartment, she started to take a look the