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Consciousness flooded back to Iago.

He gasped, spat, trying to keep from choking on his own saliva.

He was floating, and flailed for something, anything solid to anchor himself on.  His hands found nothing, and he struggled through the instinctive panic to speak through bleeding lips.

“Three-dimensional map projection,” he told his system.  “Orient me upright.”

He could see lights in his suit, he could hear the air pumps working.  But no visual appeared on his hud, and he reached up, to feel if the face plate was even still there.

It was.  At least that was something.

“Ackerman?  Hernandez?  Anyone there?” he said into his radio.  There was no response.

His higher systems must be out.  It was a strange problem to have, with the heavily-distributed nature of the suit’s computer meaning something should be working as long as the suit was even partially intact.

But it was a situation he’d drilled for.  His breaths loud in his ears, he reached for his manual thruster controls on his side and gave a burst from his shoulders.

He did not know what his orientation was, only that he was floating in a room.  It was dark, so he couldn’t tell one bulkhead from another, but if he got into a gentle spin he might just figure out up and down.

As he rotated, he realized that he’d been perpendicular to the floor, and was now seeing the windows of the Equator ring.  The area they’d taken on to defend.

And they had failed.  Because he saw that the explosion from earlier had not just torn open the protective shutters over the doors and windows, but blasted out the solid blocks of transparent titanium.

Large shards were floating, still carrying momentum.

Out of reflex he felt his body for air holes, for sharp pains, for the sight of spherical droplets of his own blood floating by.

But he felt, he saw, nothing.

“Emergency recording log,” he said, hoping that system was working.  He didn’t get an indicator, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t working.  Their black boxes were quite hardy.

“An explosion has opened the windows of the equator ring.  I’m sorry, but we failed.  Most of my unit are KIA, and I cannot find the rest.  I seem to have no serious injuries and no suit punctures.  Primary systems are all offline.”

The Hev pod was gone, he realized – and it had been the epicenter of the explosion.  It was expected that a pod would explode if its team died – because why not?  It would make it easier on the next wave.

Had they killed the entire boarding party?  That didn’t seem likely, there had been a hell of a lot of Hev, at least forty.  He knew for sure he’d only taken down about three.  His battery likely hadn’t killed any.  So it probably wasn’t that the Hev were gone.

Maybe the pod had malfunctioned and exploded, taking their own party with it.

He couldn’t count on them all being dead, though.  If he’d survived, they might have as well.

He didn’t know where his mag rifle had gone, but he knew his duty wasn’t done.  Groping to his side, he found his sidearm and drew it.

“I do not know if any of the boarding party is still alive.  I will keep this running in case I fall.  I hope it serves someone . . .”

With the artificial gravity out, he’d have to get around with thrusters.  Keeping a close eye on his reserve fuel and reaction mass in case he needed to make an emergency burn towards cover, he headed towards the messiest area.  Tables, chairs, silverware, even plates and dishes, had been thrown by the explosion, towards the walls.

Fuck.  This was Watchito’s, wasn’t it?  Elliot’s favorite restaurant.  They had the best pizza on the Craton.

The place was eerie in the darkness.  Lit only by starlight . . . it should really be almost pitch-black, and he wasn’t sure why he was seeing as much as he was.  There had to be some dim light sources still on, but wherever he looked he could not see them.

A sound came from behind him.  That was impossible, of course, because he wasn’t even touching anything that could carry sound, and it clearly had come from outside of his suit.

With a quick hiss he spun to face behind himself, lifting his sidearm.  A second burst shook him as it arrested his spin.

He saw nothing behind him.  Certainly nothing so close it was touching him.

But he scanned the dark room more carefully.

There!  Was that irregular shape a limb?

It wasn’t moving, so he jetted over.  The size and shape didn’t look Hev, and it was hopefully one of his own team, just unconscious.

As he got closer, he saw that his first thought was correct, but his second was not.

It was Ackerman.  Bloody droplets in perfect spheres were leaking from a dozen punctures through his armor.  It had been pieces of the windows.  Flying at high speeds, even his armor hadn’t stood a chance.

The man’s O2 meter was at zero; his tanks must have gotten voided.

He’d survived for at least a little bit, Iago realized.  He’d grappled onto a metal railing.

A small decompression wouldn’t have sucked people out, but one this big . . . Ackerman must have barely had time to connect himself here.

“Ackerman is KIA,” he said for his black box.  He rotated the man around, finding that his rifle had been slung and hooked.  Taking it off, he tapped in the code to convert it to his system, and slung it.  He’d need it.  If the Hev had succeeded here, it was only a matter of time before another landing party came.  Now he just had to find a way to alert command-

His eyes flickered over Ackerman’s face.  The plate was gone, his face exposed to the bare vacuum.

His eyes were bloodshot, his face swollen, looking like putty.  His mouth was open, tongue dry – all the water on it had boiled away.

But his lips were moving.

It wasn’t just some kind of twitch.  Despite the fact that he could not be alive, despite the fact that dead men did not talk, Len Ackerman was mouthing words.

He seemed to be repeating himself, and Iago tried to make sense of this bizarre death message.

But he couldn’t.  And his eyes were drawn upwards, to the man’s own eyes.  Despite being dry and bloodshot, he saw they were moving.  Widening, as if in terror.

“Ackerman!” he called, pressing his helmet to the man’s.  It wouldn’t help without air to transfer the vibrations, but he did it out of habit.

His eyes were inches from the other man, and they moved – for an instant locking onto his own.

“. . . as terrible . . . time . . .”

Shaking, Iago pushed Ackerman’s body away.  Its safety link kept it from drifting far, but he had to get it away from him.

He jetted back, feeling a surge of nausea, he tried to fight it back.  He failed.  A hose and mouthpiece dropped in front of him, and he bit onto it.  The hose had a gentle suction, taking his vomit away so he didn’t choke.

He focused hard on not breathing in while it worked, and when it was done the mouthpiece retracted.

Breathing hard for a moment, his helmet still smelling horrible, he struggled to regain composure.

He forced himself to go back to Ackerman, he had to confirm what he’d just seen.

And as he put his face nearer the man’s, he saw no movement.  His eyes were not moving, nor his lips.  He was blue.

His heart thudded in his chest.  Panic and adrenaline did things to men, he knew that – him, in this case.  He tried to shake the image of Len’s lips moving from his mind.

He knew he had to find someone from his unit, or another unit.  He had to do his duty . . . even if . . .

Even if he was terrified.

Because he was certain that Len Ackerman had said those words to him.

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