A cylindrical passageway led Stahl through the chamber towards a companionway that he knew led directly into the control room. Like everything else in the chaotic ship, the glass walls that lined the tubular passage, now acted as its floor. Despite his obvious urge to escape, a silent call took hold of him. He stopped and knelt down, peering through the transparent floor into the gloomy chamber below. The hibernation tanks rested silently in their racking, apparently safe and sound despite all the traumas that had taken place. Apparently satisfied, the SS officer was about to move on and continue his escape when the glass floor suddenly cracked and collapsed beneath him. He landed heavily on one sphere and slid along its surface, the broken glass following him in his wake.
Stahl hit the floor below. Winded, he slowly picked himself up. Within the chamber a dead calm ruled. The chaos of the explosion seemed to be a million miles away as if the noise and unpredictability was unable to enter this silent sanctuary. On the floor were scattered resuscitation equipment and the ghostly gowns of the medical team who would have coaxed the slumbering colonists back to life. But despite the almost hallowed atmosphere something didn’t feel right because Stahl had the unnerving feeling that he was being watched, observed, scrutinised. The most obvious candidates were the hibernating Nazis, but their eyes remained closed, at peace. It was something else.
A slight movement caught Stahl’s eye. Perhaps this was the source of the insidious gaze that rested upon him? He turned and saw that it was only a piece of discarded machinery which vibrated slowly in time with the ship’s death throes. The smashed glass that had followed Stahl soon joined the strange and unnerving symphony. Then, as if confirming his judgement of the situation, the plasma bubbled into view. Stahl stood rooted to the spot as he watched the twisting tentacles snaking between the spheres. Unlike its previous manifestation, the alien plasma’s actions weren’t destructive. Instead, it gently caressed the glass containers as if the glowing tips were carefully examining the slumbering humans inside each.
Stahl drew his pistol and stepped forward to confront the entity. The ethereal presence whipped away from the containers and formed a bright vortex around the bewildered Nazi. A single barb of energy emerged from the glowing wall and hovered over Stahl. Like its examination of the colonists, its touch was gentle and devoid of threat. It eventually found his swastika arm-band. Here the plasma strangely lingered. Then, to his astonishment, the plasma appeared to caress the stark angular shape.
Eventually the plasma pulled away from the swastika as it directed its attention towards Stahl’s face. Instinctively, he raised his right hand to defend himself as the finger of energy drew nearer. Then, as it touched him, there was a brief flash of light and Stahl screamed in pain. His palm smoked as he clutched his injured hand against his chest.
As he collapsed to his knees, there was another flash. This larger explosion enveloped the entire chamber. After the blinding flash vanished, the plasma was gone, and so were all the precious colonists. Darkness swiftly overcame Stahl. But before he slipped into unconsciousness, all he could hear was the gentle ringing of the now empty racking.
Konrad and the other survivors pulled themselves along the passageway as it lurched and spun wildly. The violent movements mirrored the ship’s death throes. At the far end of the passage stood the large airlock they were searching for. It may have only been a few metres away, but to the exhausted prisoners it may as well have been kilometres away. What lay within was tantalising. The ship’s red alert lighting exposed the myriad equipment that was stored inside the large antechamber. Unused probes and a large, tank-like rover, all safely stowed in neat lines. Racks of empty pressure-suits, their large glass face-plates blankly observing the emergency. Compared to the claustrophobic, almost medieval conditions of their old quarters in the connecting tunnel, the airlock offered the prospect of a safe and modern sanctuary.
The red strobes beckoned the prisoners on, but unknown to them, inside the control room, Bauer had lowered the second lever into place. Once the final lever was lowered the explosive purge would be triggered and the globe would be free from the dying mother-ship, and once the process started, the door towards which Konrad, Elsa and Ziegler crawled would automatically seal and no amount of electrical sabotage would unlock it. Konrad grabbed the frame of the open hatchway and at that very second, the unseen and unannounced countdown reached its climax as Bauer lowered the third and final lever.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
With a loud pneumatic hiss, the airlock started to close above Konrad. At that instant the surviving prisoners rushed up the passageway. Konrad clung to the top of the ladder and let his fellow prisoners pass by. At first, he remained strangely calm as the men and woman clawed by, but soon, a sense of desperation took hold of him as he watched the hatch slowly slide shut. Due to its size and weight, its progress was slow and laboured, nevertheless, the hatch was as remorseless as the tides. By now, Ziegler and Elsa had climbed into the airlock too. Konrad was about to squeeze through the diminishing gap himself when yet another explosion rocked the module. The blast knocked him from the head of the passage and cast him several metres back down. His shoulders screamed in pain as he struggled to maintain his grip and save himself from falling further from the airlock whose closing hatch filled his mind. He knew he had no time to gather his senses; he had to get back up to the airlock before he was locked out. With determination and steel etched upon his face, Konrad climbed back up. But as he climbed, he saw the space between the hatch and the wall becoming smaller and smaller. His fingers slipped across the smooth metal as he reached out to grab the lip of the door as it slid shut.
Elsa appeared in the shrinking doorway and leaned through the closing gap and groped for Konrad’s outstretched hand.
‘Reach forward, Konrad!’ she screamed. ‘Hurry!’
After a few seconds of finger foreplay, Konrad managed to grab her hand, but the unforgiving hatch was determined to keep the couple apart. The barrier pushed Elsa further away. Elsa screamed Konrad’s name as she attempted to lean out further to help him.
‘Stay there!’ he shouted.
Suddenly a grotesque mechanical scream sounded. Its source was far below Konrad, and as he looked down, he quickly realised what had created the sickening sound. Beyond the companionway, the tunnel walls had ruptured and peeled open, exposing the interior of the ship to the vacuum of space.
As the structure collapsed off-stage, a new, even more terrifying sound then whistled into existence. A powerful hurricane of rushing air poured past Konrad as the space-ship started to decompress. The unyielding force pulled at Konrad’s arms and legs as if it was desperate for him to join it on its one way journey to oblivion. Screaming, he struggled to maintain his grip on the handrail, which, unlike him, was starting to succumb to the suction. The brackets which secured it to the warped wall started to buckle and pop.
Meanwhile, in the airlock above, the overwhelming suction took hold too. Anything that wasn’t securely fastened down such as pieces of cargo, spare parts, even prisoners, flew about the space like autumnal leaves in a breeze. The dull sound of their impacts added to the frightening din. The ravenous suction even attempted to pull heavier pieces of kit such as the disused probes from their moorings. The taut chains screeched under the strain, but they held.