Tales from the Drift: Old Lessons, Hard Futures

Chapter 40 - Nothing but a Closet Drama

VESSEL: TEMPEST WRATH // MONTRESSOR SHIPYARDS // HYPERGATE CHANNEL

The ship lurched. Brego flipped down onto the desk, slamming his jaw in the process. Another bang and another lurch, and he flopped back across it. It was a dazed moment of blurry vision before he found his balance, only to collapse in the highbacked chair at the next tremor.

The hull resonated with a thunderous boom as an unseen force pulled at the whole ship. The engines screamed for one incomprehensible moment and then lulled to a dire moan.

Brego's hand came away from his face slick with blood. He squinted his right eye and winced as more blood seeped through the line of his eyelids.

Metal ripped and ruptured.

He could hear each crack inside his chest. Feel each tear inside his bones. His wound throbbed in rhythmic sympathy.

The lighting in the captain's cabin, glorious in its wash of emergency red, never flickered. The power systems never fluctuated. The walls trembled, but they did not buckle.

The cabin, considered Brego as he stared at the blood covering his hand, was located behind the command dais. Presumably, Fermian had sleeping quarters somewhere on the Wrath, but not here. This room was meant for other things.

Why was this a concern? Shouldn't he do something about the bleeding? He applied pressure. Maybe he ought to find a way to keep the ship from coming apart? No chance of that. Better to concentrate on what little he had control over.

"Which was? Right. Well, you're concussed. Keep talking. Stay... awake."

Talking hurt.

"Thinking it is."

So. What were those other things which Fermian Hargaris, captain of the Tempest Wrath might use this little boxy room for? He was getting silly. Rephrase. Which of Fermian's needs did this room serve? That's a good thread. Did he retreat here between raids? Was this his plunder room?

No. No plunder.

He waved away that thread, flicking little droplets of blood across the desk. One such droplet caught his eye and turned it toward the door. The immovable door.

The emergency bulkhead was the key.

Thread. Main thread? No. Key.

"Who's to care if I change metaphors.... It's my damn concussion." He groaned. "More questions... time for more... questions. Silent. Questions."

An interrogation room? A gilded prison? His left eye focused, albeit badly, on the sarcophagus still quite secure in its corner despite the raucous rending and rumbling.

A panic room?

What would panic the ferocious Captain Fermian Hargaris to the point of hiding? Nothing. He'd stand and fight. Until he couldn't.

"Until he couldn't?"

Brego turned toward the emergency bulkhead, scraping the blood away from his eye as he did. The bulkhead had severed the door's connection to the rest of the ship. The magnetic seals would have severed the whole room from the ship, but the room still had power. Independent power source. Like the sarcophagus.

The Wrath's bridge was not buried in ship's midsection. It was located at the prow. Along the exterior hull. Heavily armored and shielded, yes, but on the exterior.

He looked up at the cabin's ceiling.

He cocked an eyebrow.

"An escape pod? Well. That's not Norr standard."