Okay, how about an excerpt of SAVING GRACE, coming July 15th wherever eBooks are sold..... There had been a glitch with the meeting room’s lighting. That was the first thing she had noticed. It had flickered, as if one of the bulbs needed replacing, which was impossible on a ship as tightly controlled as the Argo. She had sighed, thinking that if the flickering kept up she would have a headache before Beth finished her report and the Leadership Team meeting ended. “We know that the soil composition on the forest side of Base One is suitable for accelerated grain production, but after a decade of cultivation we will probably need to treat it to obtain maximum production.” Paying attention was harder and harder with every statistic that Beth quoted. Grace sat back in her chair, glancing at the framed posters on the wall and scowling. They depicted various third-world villages from Earth: an African woman carrying a basket on her head, a Peruvian child weaving, a Mongolian couple in the doorway of their hut. The captions glibly read “Food, Clothing, Shelter”. She wanted to find whoever had decided to decorate the meeting room with those trite images and give them a piece of her mind. Her gaze drifted across the table to Danny. At least he had been the one sent to monitor their meeting today and not some Project boss who was more concerned with alleles than lives. Danny fiddled with the stylus of his handheld, turning it over and over and tapping it on the table. His eyes were tired and unfocused and he hadn’t shaved. Grace frowned. It wasn’t like him to fidget or drift during meetings. Alvin leaned forward. “Do we have any indication that Base One is ready to accept the changes you’re suggesting?” Beth shrugged, the glow of her presentation projection emphasizing her aquiline features. “We have no indication that they won’t.” “A lot can change in three years,” Alvin challenged her. “We can analyze all we want, but we don’t really know what to expect. We don’t know what state the colony is in now because of the….” Tension spiked around the table as his words died off. Grace frowned. Her eyes met Danny’s. He returned her frown with the same intensity. At least someone agreed with her. She took that encouragement and said, “We can’t doom ourselves to failure before we start just because a group of break-aways—” A thunderous groan drowned her words. The lights went out. The ship shuddered, its engines dead. For a split second there was deep, stomach-twisting silence. The emergency systems kicked in with a low whir that rose like an off-key song. Red-tinted lights clicked on around the corners of the meeting room, flashing along the floor. The blare of the alarm sirens followed. The air was tight with swallowed panic. “Full system failure,” a recorded voice announced over the PA system. “Proceed to the nearest emergency ship immediately.” Grace jumped up, pushing her chair back. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but she forced herself to calm. “It’s probably just a drill. You know the procedure. Follow the beacons on the floor,” she ordered the others, starting toward the door with her arms outstretched to guide them. “Leave your things here. There’s an escape corridor ten feet down the hall to the left.” She slipped easily into the role she had been trained for. Like they had during other drills, the ten people in the room followed her order without hesitation. They sprang from their seats and headed for the door, muttering in confusion laced with fear. She reached the door first and opened it into the hallway. The door across the hall hissed open and Carrie rushed out, brow knit as if someone were playing a bad joke, likely Danny by the way she glared at him. “What’s going on?” she demanded. Sean emerged beside her, followed by the other group that had broken out of their main meeting. “Head down the hall to the escape corridor,” she directed them. “No one told me a drill was scheduled,” Sean said. “Surprised that they don’t tell you everything?” Danny snapped, one step behind Grace. Sean turned to tell him off. Grace pushed them both and rushed on. Alvin and some of the others from her group had already turned down the escape corridor and were shepherding people along the passage toward the emergency ship. A number five was painted above a number seventy-five, indicating that this was Emergency Ship Five and could hold seventy-five passengers. It was enough for all of them. “We’ll sort it all out once we’re in there.” Sean nodded to her and grabbed Carrie’s elbow, marching her down the hall. Carrie glanced over her shoulder from Sean to Danny to Grace, her anger melting to panic. Grace sent her friend a reassuring nod. Another door further down the hall opened and the dim corridor filled with more people heading for ES5. Their anxious chatter grew as loud as the alarms. Grace slowed to help them. “You, too.” Danny placed a protective hand on her back and nudged her along. “I have to make sure everyone gets out.” “And you’re doing a fine job. But you have to move. We don’t have time to argue.” “But—” “We’ll talk about it later.” The flickering lights, blaring sirens, and continued warnings of the PA system were muffled as they picked up their pace. Now the loudest sound was the buzzing and questions of their confused team members. ES5’s doorway stood open with Alvin and Sean on either side, helping people in. Danny all but shoved her into their waiting grasp then forced his own way past them. The interior of the ship was quiet but for confused whispering. It was designed to look like any other community room with the exception of the seats that lined the walls and the stacks of emergency supplies behind mesh netting toward the back. The ship’s lights worked independently of the Argo and the brightness was a comfort. Grace made her way to one of the small portal windows, but ES5 was still secure inside of the Argo. There was nothing to see but a metal wall. She searched across the filling room for Carrie. Everyone from their meeting wandered around the wide space, swapping looks of confusion and speculating reasons for the emergency. “This is a drill, right?” Beth asked. “Yes, I’m sure—” A loud click was followed by the groan of metal against metal. Sean and Alvin swore and jumped through the doorway, dragging a last young woman with them as the bulkhead door to the corridor snapped down. It locked into place with a resonant thunk, sealing them in. “Watch out!” Sean shouted, pulling people away from ES5’s door as it whirred to life and shut automatically. It sealed with a loud hiss, trapping them inside. Grace’s heart twisted to her throat at the sound of banging from the other side of bulkhead door. “Open the door!” she shouted. “We still have plenty of room.” ES5’s engines roared to life. Seconds later the cabin lurched. Gravity vanished for a dizzy second. Grace scrambled for something to hold on to. Another sick second later, artificial gravity kicked in. Everyone who had floated up was thrown to the floor as ES5 shot away from the Argo and into space. Grace landed on her knees, sharp pain anchoring her in reality. The pressure around her increased as ES5’s support systems rushed to life. They raced away into interstellar blackness. She ignored the pain and pushed to her feet, scanning the jumble of people on the floor for Carrie, Sean, and Danny. Carrie had the good luck of falling into one of the seats against the wall. Danny was already crawling from person to person, checking for injuries. Sean and his buddy Dave were on their feet, rushing to the cockpit where Alvin clutched the door. She stumbled her way to the nearest porthole and pressed her face against it, shielding her eyes. Her gut clenched at the sight that met her. Dozens of emergency ships of all sizes darted away from the Argo, tiny pricks of light shooting from the center like a sparkler. One was close enough for her to see several frightened faces pressed against other portholes. She looked back to the Argo. Angry cracks of red and orange appeared around the seams and in the windows. They spread, highlighting the Argo’s seams with a horrific glow that lit up the blackness of the void. An instant later the entire vessel exploded in a silent cloud of flame. She jerked back from the window with a gasp, drawing stares. But there was no need to ask what had startled her. The terrible glow of the explosion grew, filling ES5 with eerie light. She flinched, squeezing her eyes shut to keep from being blinded. Then the shockwave hit. Grace stumbled back, grabbing in vain for anything to keep her steady. Turbulence threw her to the floor. Still all she could hear was a low rumble and the growl of ES5’s engine whisking them away. As the shockwave passed she rolled to crouch on the floor. Others recovered faster, scrambling up to gape out the portholes. Their wordless exclamations and cries of shock launched Grace to her feet. She scrambled to a porthole. All that was left to see was glittering debris burning itself out as ES5 rocketed away. Ten minutes ago she had been sitting in a meeting, bored. Now the Argo was gone. They were alone in space. Ten minutes.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 23:20:36 +0000
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