8. Ree

8

Ree

I'm still standing in shock as the door closes behind him and the first shuddering explosion rocks through the ship.

It knocks me into my cryobed, then I bounce back off and fall heavily onto the slick floor. Pain shoots up my left knee from the impact, then my body is flung down the passage where the rest of the harem is stored. I crash into the cryocoffin at the end, immediately feeling the telltale ache of cracked ribs.

The spike of pain that follows my next breath confirms it.

"The hell! We're in space," I complain, not understanding what could cause these shifts if the ship itself supplies artificial gravity.

But physics was never a strength of mine.

Right now I feel pinned to the floor. Is the ship malfunctioning? From the sounds I assume it's being attacked, even though I don't really have any obvious reference points based on experience. The blaring alarm seems to confirm it.

As much as I don't enjoy following the slime's orders, it seems like the best course of action is to get back to my cryocoffin-cum-bed and close the protective glass.

Or whatever it's made of, since glass would have cracked under the force of me hitting it, but the chamber I collided with shows no sign of damage. I'm glad, since I would have then had to figure out how to move Silver out of her damaged chamber and into my own.

And then, judging by the shuddering explosions I feel, the rest of this ship would truly be my coffin.

The heavy weight pinning me to the floor suddenly eases.

I crawl down the passage toward the relative safety of my chamber as fast as I can, trying to ignore the pain radiating from my ribs and knee. The ship continues to shudder, then I'm abruptly lifted off the ground, weightless. This improves my pain levels, but leaves me spinning in the air wildly until I can get a hand solidly around one of the chamber handles.

It's Azure's chamber that I grab and it doesn't seem possible that someone could be so still and unconcerned with such pandemonium all around them.

I take a moment to get my bearings and for the dizziness to pass and I realize I need to reverse directions and get my feet spun around toward the floor. The process of turning myself is excruciating and my ribs are on fire, but I do it anyway.

I move myself through the air by pushing myself from one chamber handle to the next, not realizing until I push off from the last one that I'm moving too fast out of their hallway and into my small cell.

I brace my arms in front of me, which helps absorb some of the impact as I collide with the wall that holds the camera. My right arm braces more effectively than my left because I'm at a bit of an angle, which starts me on a spin toward the left of the cell.

I ping-pong off the wall after hitting it with my back, my foot catches on the bed and I spin again, with my feet moving toward the ceiling. I grind my teeth against the pain and shoot out my arms, successfully snagging the edge of my cryocoffin.

The hated camera catches my eye.

"I hope you enjoyed the show, assholes," I yell at it.

I take a few moments to get myself properly oriented, then I use the internal handles of the chamber to pull myself into a lying position.

For the first time since waking up in this cell, I appreciate one of my harem's upgrades, since it allows me to read the text on the touch screen.

I stab a finger at the 'close' option, relieved when the cover extends and snicks closed.

I feel a sudden pressure on my back as I'm pulled tight against the soft lining of the chamber. The intense feeling of claustrophobia I get is improved slightly when I realize I can still move my arms.

After witnessing Silver's terror and paralysis, I haven't been able to get anything but fitful rest when using this thing as a bed.

Nightmares of waking up and not being able to move have plagued me ever since.

There are no straps and I have no idea how the chamber is managing it, but I'm being held in place so I don't ricochet around.

I carefully avoid touching anything else for fear of accidentally putting myself to sleep. I'll admit that I have begged the universe to let me have a break from the terror, but this is not the time. I'm breathing heavily and shaking. Each breath is like being stabbed with thousands of knives and so I focus on getting my panic under control.

As I do, I rethink the nickname I gave these cryocoffins now that I'm in one and feeling far safer than I did just moments ago.

It helps that I was the one who put myself in here. I look out to the other women in their chambers. They look exactly the same. Long hair draping over their upright bodies. Eyes closed like they are sleeping peacefully.

I can still feel shudders, even now that I'm in my chamber and held in place.

Several long minutes later, just as my breathing is no longer elevated so the stabbing pain happens at a more controlled spacing, the shuddering gets far worse. Rather than intermittent explosions, the shaking is constant and is steadily increasing in violence.

When a giant fissure opens up in the ceiling of the long cryochamber hallway, I understand why.

The outside of the ship is on fire.

Considering we were just flying through space and there is no oxygen to burn out there, we must be crash landing on a planet. I have a moment to appreciate my penchant for science fiction movies helping me make that deduction before my mind shuts down that train of thought in sheer terror.

The fissure widens, mostly staying along the ceiling.

The cryochambers are holding in place, but have started to shudder. When the opening extends down the wall toward one of the chambers, whatever was holding Navy's chamber down loses the battle to stay affixed.

She hurtles toward the jagged edge of the hole and it shatters the protective covering, then in another blink she disappears out the burning opening.

It feels like a shot to the heart, and I let out a keening cry.

Although it all happened too fast for me to see exactly what happened, I'm certain Navy is dead. I assume these chambers were designed to withstand damage, but that clearly exceeded their parameters.

Tears stream down my face when I realize I'll never know the woman's name. Or anything else about her.

Losing her is like a gaping wound in my mind.

She may not be the only one to die.

My chamber isn't shaking yet, I assume because of the relative protection of my slightly offset room, but others are moving more violently. Olivia's chamber shoots out the opening and I cry out again in anguish. The fire clears a moment later.

I'm pretty sure hers was still intact as she flew out.

"Please, please let her be alive," I sob out.

I can only hope that the chambers were made to survive a crash landing on their own.

Soon after, the ship spins and I catch glimpses of heavily forested land, then the sky, then back to the land. I make myself stop looking because the force of the spin and the rapidly changing colors is making me sick. Still, I have to keep opening my eyes to check on the rest of the women.

One by one, more of the chambers break loose and fly out of the opening.

The only chamber, aside from my own, that is still in the ship is Silver's. It's currently wedged against a jagged edge of the ceiling or it would have already been ejected.

I have this inane moment of panic at the thought of her leaving me alone, then our plummet comes to a sudden, violent halt.

Silver's chamber crashes forcefully to the floor.

I'm dazed for an unknown amount of time following the impact. Even with the chamber to protect me, it felt like my brain tried to flatten out when the ship met the unforgiving ground.

I take a quick stock of how my body feels. My ribs and knee still hurt, but I assume the nanites have been at work because the pain levels are diminished.

I don't seem to have picked up any additional injuries.

When I look back out, I see that Silver wasn't as lucky.

Her chamber is on its side, the protective glass shattered and she looks like a rag doll, bent at the waist and partially hanging out of it. The glass is cutting into her stomach and blood is seeping from a large gash in her forehead, mixing with the silver of her hair.

"No, no, no, no!"

I scramble to get out to help her, initially unable to remember how I got inside to begin with.

"Get your shit together!"