The 13: Mission's End Book One by Perry M.M

Author:Perry, M.M. [Perry, M.M.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2017-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

Eight

Naomi squinted in the dim light of the barracks. The Military unit was about as different as could be from the shuttle bay. Bodies were strewn about the floor. Bits of people dripped down walls pocked with bullet holes. The air was thick with a sickening, metallic smell. She found a cloth in her pack and held it to her face to help smother the smell. She was thankful that, for some reason, life support was malfunctioning in the Military unit. It was close to freezing, which had kept the bodies from rotting much.

Naomi wasn’t alone in her revulsion. None of the squad was ready for the extreme carnage. They each, in their own way, tried to keep from being ill as they slowly made their way through the barracks. For the soldiers, it was particularly troubling. They lived in barracks mostly identical on the Magellan. The familiarity made it hard to look at.

“It’s like a nightmare version of home,” Book said, grimacing.

He glanced over to see Naomi, between him and Mike, making her way through as best she could. He was impressed with her resolve. He’d seen soldiers break down from less.

They all stopped when Chef held up her hand. She pointed through the cloud of mist her breath had puffed around her to a dimly lit archway with stairs.

“That might be our exit, there,” she said quietly.

The archway was blackened and gouged. Pieces of what had once been a person painted the walls around it.

“That goes up into General Leisure. Starboard. Should be okay?” Mike looked at Naomi and she nodded, trying not to focus too much on the scene.

They slowly approached the archway. Naomi’s foot slipped in the icy blood on the ground. Book gripped her arm, steadying her.

“I gotcha,” he said, helping her through the door.

“Thanks,” she said gratefully.

The stairs were a minimalistic industrial design, made from whatever spare chunks of metal the people of the Tereshkova could scrounge up. They were made from what looked suspiciously like hull plating. Each stair made a clunking sound when touched, which Naomi tried her best to muffle by stepping slowly and softly. The plating made it impossible, vibrating noisily under every step.

“The hull is designed to disperse impact. These plates transform the energy into a kind of vibration. There’s no way to walk on it without the sound spreading,” Book said, noticing the way Naomi stepped.

“Ah, yes, that makes sense,” Naomi said. “We’ve had to use it a time or two for makeshift parts. It makes this crazy sound when you drill into it.”

“I bet,” Book said, imagining it.

They stopped at the top of the stairs. Chef had bent down to check on something.

“This one’s been disarmed. Come on through.”

They moved into the hallway. The normally shiny floors had become dull in some places. The emergency lights bounced off the blue lining the corridors turning the light into an eerie glow.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss the orange,” Chef said, staring at the floor.

They crept up to a wide intersection of halls and stopped, looking down each side.

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