Revenant Slaves Chapter 44: Chapter 43: Luna

Read chapter 44 of Revenant Slaves by Zee on NovelPedia.

Chapter 43: Luna The ship flew, corrected its course, shifted position, and dodged the debris fields in its path. Most of the crew were sedated and out, all except Luna and Avraham, of course. Only the pilot was still awake with them on the bridge. As much as they trusted their computers, they trusted their men more when things got dangerous. And the mistrust of machines was built into the very fabric of the Empire. Luna felt like her body had been put through a grinder. Her enhanced heart and strengthened body protected her from suffering anything life-threatening, but that did not make what she felt any less brutal. Every turn hurt. Every correction made her feel like her insides were being shoved around in the wrong direction. She had developed a new kind of respect for the pilots of their ship, who were able to do this without the advantages that she now had. As the ship dodged another piece of debris while flying at seven thousand kilometers a second toward the Gate, Luna felt herself being shoved hard to the right as the side thrusters fired to correct their course. Even with an endless supply of essence, she wasn't immune to the mental exhaustion of maintaining the weave all over her body. At the start of the run, she had actually been excited. That feeling had not lasted long. She had quickly learned how mentally draining it was to keep the weave stable under this kind of stress. What she had also not expected was that, even with her body amplified, she still was not used to the extreme maneuvers ships performed. Her enhanced body hadn't stopped the nausea, disorientation, and the terrible loss of perspective that came whenever the ship shifted violently to avoid something in its path. Now she wanted nothing more than for this trial to end. Then something happened. It took less than a fraction of a second. One moment, Luna was watching her displays; the next, there was a hole in the bridge, and she was staring out into space through it. It was not a large hole. Barely a few feet across. Its edges were still glowing red where something had punched through the hull, crossed the bridge, and torn back out again before she had even fully realized they had been hit. A red cloud was forming over the pilot’s couch. For a moment, Luna could not understand what she was looking at. The upper half of the couch was gone. So was the upper half of the pilot. Not cut apart neatly. Not even torn. Just gone. Reduced to blood, vapor, shredded matter, and things Luna did not want to identify. What remained of him from the chest down was still strapped into the seat, twitching weakly. The blood did not fall. It spread outward in the air. A dark red cloud bloomed over the ruined couch, threaded with larger floating globules that shone wetly under the bridge lights. Smaller drops drifted around them. Bits of blackened fabric, pale splinters of bone, and scraps of flesh spun slowly inside it. Then the decompression began. The air in the bridge rushed toward the breach with violent force. The red cloud stretched and twisted as the blood was dragged toward the hole. Some droplets burst against consoles and walls, leaving wet, dark streaks behind. Others were pulled out into space, along with sparks, fragments, and more of what remained of the pilot. Then all sound was cut off from Luna as the bridge vented its atmosphere. The only sound left was her own frantic breathing inside her helmet. Luna immediately reached for the seals of her helmet and checked them, even though she already knew she had put it on properly. She wanted to feel it with her own hands. Wanted to be sure. Seeing death so closely put a lot of things in perspective. She suddenly felt very small. The many layers of the ship’s hull no longer felt like enough. They felt thin. Fragile. Meaningless. She had always known, in theory, that ships were never truly safe. But knowing it and seeing a man lose half his body in front of her were not the same thing. Her breathing worsened. Th