Wounds, Book 1 Read Free

my God.” She half-stood, and then the Missouri spun in a drunken, counterclockwise whirl. There was a sputter of circuitry followed by the ozone stink of fried relays. The runabout porpoised and bucked and then their gravitational unit must have stuttered because the impact caught Lense like a punch to the midsection. Her feet left the deckplates and she smashed against a science console aft. The duranium hull groaned and the deckplates shuddered so much the vibrations rattled into her teeth.
    The waves kept coming. They were so fast, the runabout’s inertial dampeners couldn’t keep up. Lense gasped for breath as centrifugal force palmed her back, pinning her to the deck like a bug to cardboard. Her muscles quivered as she pushed up. She made it to all fours but another hit sent her pitching forward. The point of her chin banged off the deckplates the way a billiard ball ricochets against a bumper. Gagging, she coughed a spray of bright red blood.
    “What is it?” Choking, she backhanded blood from her mouth. “What the hell is it?”
    “Some kind of distortion waves!” Bashir was at the helm, battling for control. “All around! Like rips in space! Can’t pinpoint the origin! Are you all right?” He spared her a quick glance over his shoulder, and her gut iced. An oily slick of blood coated his face like a mask, staining his teeth orange. The ooze was turning his uniform from blue to purple.
    Then his eyes widened: black rimmed with white outlined in blood. “Oh, dear God. Elizabeth, fire , there’s a fire; the transporter —!”
    She smelled it then: the astringent odor of molten plasticine. Balls of black smoke boiled from the ceiling-mounted transporter assembly, and her throat seized against the smoke’s acrid sting. Then there was a brilliant yellow flash that left her dazzled as a shower of sparks arced to the deck, and tongues of red-orange flame licked along a bulkhead.
    Get up get up get up! Rolling, Lense snagged the edge of a seat, hauled herself to her feet, then staggered to an emergency locker. Dragging out an extinguisher, she clicked it to life. White fire suppressant spewed in a white cloud, and she aimed up, but then the ship yawed to port and flipped so violently she lost her balance, her boots skidding like she’d slipped on sheer ice. She lost the extinguisher; the back of her head cracked against the deck, and then she saw the extinguisher spinning high as a baton before arcing down, straight for her face.
    “No!” Tucking her head to her knees, she rolled. But she was too slow. The extinguisher glanced off her spine with a solid, brutal thwack, and she screamed.
    “Elizabeth!” Bashir, frantic. “ Elizabeth !”
    “I’m all right!” Through a haze of pain, she saw Bashir’s back; the drizzle of his blood; the way his shoulders hunched as he fought with the ship.
    Got to get to him…he’s losing too much blood…got to put out the fire…
    Somehow she made it to her knees and then she was crawling on all fours, grappling for a handhold on the science console just aft of Bashir’s seat. Only everything was blurry and she was breathing hard, and sour bile burned the back of her throat.
    Head hurts…can’t breathe…where’s the control for…can’t black out, not now…
    She was shaking and it took all her focus and concentration to get her fingers to obey. But they did, and in the next moment, there was the faint electric blue shimmer aft. She huffed out in relief as black smoke and flames flattened against the force field. Then she did the only thing she could think of: shut off life support from the field aft and evacuated all the air.
    No air; fire will suffocate . Her head was fuzzy and she shook it clear, hard to do when the ship was still jittering so badly it was a wonder they hadn’t already broken apart at the seams. Bashir’s bleeding; have to get to him; we’ve got to call for help…
    “Bashir,” she began—and then her voice died in her throat.
    Because