Magnet (Lacuna Short Stories) Read Free

seat functions in two stages. The goal of the first stage is to remove the canopy. To effect this, tiny rockets mounted under the cockpit glass blast the whole thing free in one piece, with the forward thrusters blasting it up and away from the pilot. All the air in the cockpit gets sucked out in one big woomph which generally takes any kind of debris or loose items with it.
    I remember viewing the whole first stage in slow motion. I saw the sparks as the rockets blew off the canopy, then I saw a few things – a stray coin, a condom wrapper, the business card of that fine hooker I met in Brisbane and tiny, perfectly spherical droplets of blood – all get blown out of the canopy as the atmosphere vacated it.
    The second stage, which occurs milliseconds after the first, is the part which saves your life. Because there’s no atmosphere anymore there’s no sound at all except the faint hiss of air inside your suit. Heavy-duty rockets ignite under your seat, hurtling you out of your cockpit. Little cables attached to each one of your limbs pull taut, jamming your arms in against your chest, your legs in against the seat and your head against the back of the chair; this stops your limbs flailing around helplessly as you’re blasted into space.
    I knew it from my training, but this part I don’t remember so well. Perhaps it was the wound, or my brain suddenly having fourteen times Earth’s gravity exerted on it, but I don’t remember much except a crushing force jamming me down into the seat, blasting me out into space. Since I had very few points of reference amongst the unmoving stars, aside from the pressure cramming me back into my seat I really had no sense of motion once I was clear of my stricken craft.
    Then the doomed wreckage of my ship blew up below me as the Toralii energy blasts struck the fuel and ammunition reserves. The shockwave followed in my wake, almost dissipating when it caught up to the back of my seat... but it was enough to shake and rattle the chair, twisting it completely around right as the rockets died.
    Carried by its inertia the chair spun, now, rotating on its horizontal axis. Without friction it continued to turn, the stars slowly tumbling by. I caught flashes of weapons fire, and saw through my limited perspective the Broadsword Piggyback fly into the fray, all of its cannons ablaze as it tried to fight off my attackers so it could save my sorry arse.
    The cables loosened their grip and I kicked out, trying to stop the spinning. Eventually I worked the seat to something approximating stable, although due to my grogginess I couldn’t be certain. I could hear nothing but my own laboured breathing and the hiss of escaping air. I watched a mute battle from a distance, Piggyback firing its weapons in every direction as, like a trio of bees attacking a bear, the three Toralii warbirds stung at its thick hide. I didn’t see them get hit, but I knew that if they did, the Broadsword was strong enough to tough it out.
    Droplets of blood floated all around me. I had left what I had spilled during the initial impact behind me as my seat had rocketed me to safety, so this was new blood. And there was a lot of it.
    Lightheadedness began to take over. I didn’t have a radio system as I floated in space, just the emergency locator beacon that I couldn’t hear. Piggyback would no-doubt have a lock, though... I imagined crew of the Broadsword confirming their data even now as they fought their way towards me. With something approaching a mixture of idle curiosity and apathy I watched the flashes of gunfire in the distance.
    After a few moments the battle no longer concerned me. I needed to know where I’d been hit and to do that I needed to be free of the ejection seat. I struggled, reaching around for the release clasps, yanking them with both hands. The force sent me tumbling out and away, and as the ejection seat and I separated I could see the damage... the seat of the chair was splattered with blood,