Skirmishes by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page A

ripple.
    The thought hit the forefront of her brain, a grasp for understanding and nothing more. And that was all she needed.
    She couldn’t focus on what had happened. She needed to focus on what was about to happen.
    She had to save this ship and everyone on it.
    “Grab something stable!” she yelled. “Grab something stable right now!”
    She had to get the crew thinking, because she doubted there was enough time to do much else.
    Right now, the ship had oxygen and the temperature was reasonable. The gravity was gone, and so far as she could tell, everything—all of the equipment—had been shut down.
    The backups on her suit weren’t working, not that she had access to all of them. Some of them were in the stupid helmet, which of course, she couldn’t see.
    There was ambient light, however, because the crew had turned the windows to clear. Something was glowing from outside the ship, providing some light inside the bridge.
    It had just taken time for her eyes to adjust.
    She could see shapes, and little else. Unidentifiable material of all sizes floated around her.
    People were easier to see—long bodies, limbs flailing, reaching for something to grab on to.
    Thank God bridge crews had mandatory loss-of-gravity training exercises. The crew knew how to handle this.
    Although, when she ran the exercises, she had never shut the lights and power off at the same time. And, dammit, neither had her instructors, which meant that no one else’s instructors had done so either.
    She hoped to hell that emergency beacon she’d sent had reached the fighters and transports she’d sent for earlier. Even though she had asked them to remain out of range, they might have seen the explosion. With luck, someone would be here soon.
    She let out a small breath, her throat sore even though she hadn’t been yelling. Everything about her body, not just her heart, felt off. Whatever had affected the systems had had an impact on her as well.
    Which meant that it had done the same to her crew.
    She hoped that whatever it was had a localized effect, because if it didn’t, it would move outward as a wave. Which meant it would hit everything in its path—the fighters, the transports, everything.
    But not the squadron, right? It was too far away.
    She was guessing. But the guessing gave her some comfort. Because if the whatever had moved out as a wave, it would dissipate, and its effects wouldn’t be as severe farther away from the actual explosion itself.
    Besides, the distress beacon could be received all over the sector. Even away from her squadron.
    She hoped.
    Because her ship needed rescue quickly.
    It needed rescue now.

 
     
     
     
    FOURTEEN
     
     
    ELISSA’S OWN MOMENTUM had stopped. Now she was moving with the ship itself. She could feel it turn. It also groaned, and that sound worried her more than anything. Something was bending, shifting, twisting, and that wasn’t good.
    She wondered if there had been a hull breach on any of the levels. If so, then the atmosphere would dissipate in the bridge a lot more quickly. The problem was, she didn’t have a way of examining the hull, not with everything shut down.
    She held on to something jutting out of the wall/ceiling/floor. She couldn’t quite tell, but she knew that she was probably nowhere near the consoles, since this jutting thing was unprotected. She had felt the wall/ceiling/floor around it, and realized the jut was intentional. Which meant that she was clinging to something a human wasn’t meant to get near in a traditional workday on the bridge.
    “Everyone found something to hang on to?” she asked.
    No one answered her. She still saw limbs flailing in that twilight, and then someone floated by.
    She couldn’t be the only person still alive, could she? She was the only one in an environmental suit, but her helmet had floated past her twice, and the human head was a vulnerable thing. If the whatever that had hit after the explosion had killed people without