The lights flickered again, and the background hum of the shuttle’s systems steadily decreased, then died, leaving the cabin in silence. A red emergency light came on, bathing the three of them in eerie shadows for several tense moments before the main lights returned.
They sat in silence, listening as carefully as they could to several sounds, clearly audible now that the shuttle’s main engine had powered down. There was an irregular but steady hammering from aft, in what Eric assumed was the navigation and landing station where the guards and landing techs were. An occasional shouting could be heard from the direction of the bridge, although the words were unintelligible through the thickness of the flooring and bulkheads that separated them. Other sounds assailed them now, the most disconcerting of them being the metallic clangs and pops from the stressed structure of the craft itself.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Eric said.
“We may have a worse problem.” The tone of his father’s, words caught his attention immediately and he stared at him. He was sweating, his brow furrowed and eyes squinting in deep concentration. “Glenney, I’m being blocked.”
Glenney’s eyes widened. “The implants?” he snapped. “Were they damaged in the collision with the shielding?”
“No! They’re fine, but they’re being blocked or jammed by something.”
Eric felt the floor tilt suddenly beneath them. There was a pause, then another lurch and a horrible sound of metal tearing somewhere in the shuttle. The movement stopped with a bone-grinding jerk, the angle of the cabin even steeper than before. Eric glanced at his hands, his fingers white-knuckled on the armrest of the seat, and realized that the ship seemed to be vibrating slightly. He touched the wall above the viewport then, sliding his palm slowly up the surface as it curved into the ceiling, and reached as high as he could without unbuckling his restraints.
It felt like… He looked quickly into the viewport, but it seemed the same as before until he picked out an object on the ground and stared at it for several seconds. “We’re sliding!”
There was another grinding lurch, then another as the shuttle’s weight tore it loose from the shielding, sending it sliding freely down the curving outside surface of the shielding. Eric had just enough time to reflect that the craft slid in a smooth arc, like a snowball would if thrown onto the sun-warmed metal roof of the stables. The sensation of falling was gradual, at first—the Azalea Dream had impacted the shielding near its top, where the angle was not as steep—but as it traveled frictionlessly down the side, the angle steepened and they fell faster and faster. A second before impact, at a point where the shielding was nearly vertical to the ground, Eric felt a brief sensation of weightlessness.
Chapter Fourteen
The Azalea Dream had rolled quite a few times before finally coming to rest with the floor remarkably level, tilting to the port side at only a slight angle. Eric had twisted around in his restraints and leaned heavily on the wall, his back flat against the viewport. He sat unmoving for what seemed several minutes, trying to examine his surroundings but finding it difficult to focus his eyes in the dingy shadows cast by the red emergency lighting. It was uncomfortably warm in the cabin, and as he felt droplets of sweat rolling freely down his forehead and beneath his arms, he wondered idly how much time had passed.
There was a groan in front of him as he faced the opposite row of seats, and he struggled to get unbuckled. “Father! Are you all right?” Finally free of the belt, he knelt at the side of Javas’ seat, carefully working his father’s restraints loose.
“I’m—ah!” He pitched forward dizzily once the belt was off and rubbed tenderly at his right biceps. “I’m fine.” He pushed himself upright, wincing at the pain in his arm, and looked Eric over with obvious relief that his son had escaped serious injury.
“Glenney?”
“He’s on the floor,” Eric replied, “up front.” They both stood carefully, picking their way tentatively over the cushions and galley items that had come loose in the crash, and made their way forward.
That Glenney was dead was immediately clear to both of them. He lay on his back, neck and both arms bent at unnatural angles. His mouth was open, his jaw askew, and a puddle of blood collected beneath him that looked, bathed in the red lighting, more like thick black paint.
“He wasn’t strapped in when we broke loose from the shielding,” Eric said, remembering how the shuttle had tumbled on impact, tossing the hapless Security Chief violently about the cabin. The floor shuddered as the wreck settled, angling slightly forward, and Eric watched in queasy fascination as Glenney’s head rolled to one side and the puddle of blood ran across the floor and up against the forward bulkhead.
“I think we’re on the slope on the south side of the grounds,” the Emperor said. “We’d better get out of here before we fall the rest of the way down.”
Eric agreed and the two of them went immediately to the rear of the cabin where the exit door was located. Through there they would have access to the lower aft deck and the main shuttle hatch, but the door would not budge. The Emperor put a foot on the frame and pulled again, but stopped when the pain in his arm grew too severe. “Here, let me give it a try,” Eric said, grabbing the door handle. “Open the access panel and see if turning the release bar manually helps.” His father easily popped open a small panel to the left of the door and groped around inside while Eric pulled.
“Wait. Wait a minute.” Javas peered inside, trying not to block what little light there was, and reached in once more. “The release bar’s in place,” he said, puzzled, “but take a look at this and tell me what you think.” He pulled his arm out and stood out of Eric’s way.
Feeling inside the panel, the Prince grasped the release and turned it several times before giving up and removing his arm. “It spins freely, as if it’s not attached to anything.”
His father nodded agreement. “That’s exactly what I thought. And I don’t believe it was damaged in the fall.”
Eric, his back to the door, allowed himself to slide to a sitting position on the floor. He was sweating heavily now, and he removed the Imperial dress jacket he’d donned in preparation for the landing. He rolled it into a ball and tossed it the length of the cabin, then leaned his head back against the hard, warm surface of the door. “A second shield projected above the House shielding, effectively sabotaging the shuttle landing. Communications and shuttle systems that should have withstood the initial impact damaged… How about your integrator? Is it still being blocked?”
“Let me try—” Javas fell silent as he removed his own jacket and unbuttoned his shirt collar. He folded the jacket once, dropped it to the floor and sat on it as a cushion. A full minute passed before he inhaled deeply and sighed, adding simply, “Yes.”
“And now we find…” Eric stood, angrily kicking the door squarely in its center. An idea came to him and he pressed his ear to the warm metal, listening carefully for sounds from the other side. He looked around at his feet and found a small pitcher that had been shaken loose from the galley. He banged it sharply against the door four times in quick succession, paused, struck the door four more times, then listened closely again. Nothing. “And now we find that the main exit door has been disabled from the other side. Fairly obvious, isn’t it, Father?”