Borderlands: The Fallen Read Online Free PDF Page B

hadn’t seen him. What was he up to?
    “Looking down the hall’s not gonna make Dad come back sooner, Mom. He’ll be back. Anyway it’s embarrassing, you doing that …”
    “I know, Cal, I just …” A chime sounded from her handbag, sitting on a shelf by the door. She hurried to it, and answered the fone on the uni. “Zac?”
    At first all she heard was static, and a kind of roaring. Then she heard Zac’s voice, only half-audible. “… not on the ship … not on … I’m on a DropCraft.”
    “You’re
what
?”
    “I’m calling you on ship-to-ship but the signal’s weak, technical problems, there was sabotage … Craft out of control …”
    “Did you say
sabotage
? Of what?”
    “The DropCraft was …” Static, roaring. “… I’m transmitting my landing coordinates to you so you can arrange for someone to pick me up … this thing’s not going to make it back …”
    “Landing coordinates for what? Zac—tell me you’re not going down to Pandora!”
    “No turning back now … there’s a treasure there … crashed ship … ET site … going down to … Oh shit, this thing’s on fire … Marla, maybe I shouldn’t have sent you those coordinates. They might go after you on the …” Static. “… that I love you … I’m sorry I went behind your back and … just tell Cal that I …”
    Static, roaring.
    “Zac!”
    The uni’s polite digital voice said,
“Call ended.”
    Marla tried calling him back—the fone couldn’t find a return number.
    “Mom? Did you say Dad was going down to …”
    A blaring alarm interrupted him, the ululating siren breaking off for an announcement.
“Evacuate ship! All passengers to Study Station! Passengers take Airlock Three to the Study Station! Do not gather luggage! Go immediately! This is an emergency! Evacuate ship! All passengers to …”
    “Mom—what’s going on?”
    “Never mind, we’re getting out of here—” She grabbed her shoulder bag and hustled Cal ahead of her, down the hallway.
    “Wait, Mom! Stop pushing! I just want to get my mindtouch!”
    Was he really worried about a VR helmet at a time like this? “Forget that thing and just
move
! Hurry!”
    They rushed down the corridor, down a ramp to an elevator. They took the elevator to the main corridor, the two of them breathing hard, side by side, during the short ride. “Our room is a long ways from Airlock Three,” shesaid, putting one arm around her son. “It’s the other side of the ship. Hurry!”
    The elevator doors opened and they hurried down another corridor, turned a corner, went down another ramp, then a short flight of stairs. They reached the main corridor down the center of the ship, and saw a panting ship’s steward, a round-faced little man in purple coveralls, his popeyes made even more so by panic as she rushed from a side hall.
    “Go!” he gasped as he passed them. “Get to Airlock Three!”
    “What is it?” she asked, hastening after him. “What’s going on?”
    “Those things behind me—those damn drones! Someone’s overridden the security drones—they’re sabotaging the ship!” He pelted on ahead of them. She glanced back—saw four disklike drone bots flying along, their tops blinking, lasers licking out from a node on their undersides, the energy beams hitting power conduits along the corridor. Wherever the beams struck, the lights went out, section by section, so that the corridor was being consumed by darkness, a bite at a time.
    “Oh my
God
,” she muttered, pushing Cal along ahead of her.
    They reached an intersection and saw the entrance to Airlock Three off to the right. The airlock led to a flexible tube, an umbilicus that extended from the ship to the main body of the Study Station. Running up to the airlock, Cal tugged at the door latch—it wouldn’t turn. A small indicator read: locked down. An oval viewport to the right of the airlock showed the umbilicus extending through space to the station.
    Marla could see the popeyed steward