The End of All Things: The First Instalment Read Online Free PDF Page B

If we do not receive both, then your ship and everyone on it will be destroyed.
    “That is all.”
    “Is that channel still clear?” Thao asked Womack.
    Womack looked at her panel. “Yes,” she said. “Everything else is still jammed up.”
    Thao turned to Ocampo. “These aren’t your friends, I assume.”
    “No,” Ocampo said. “This is definitely not how they would have greeted us.”
    “And what do you think has happened to your friends?”
    “I don’t know,” Ocampo said. “It’s entirely possible they were attacked, too.”
    “Options,” Thao said, turning to Han.
    “Assuming they are telling us the truth about the missiles, none,” Han said. “Whoever that was is right. We have no real defenses. We can’t outrun them. And even if we direct all emergency power to life support, we don’t have much time.”
    “And if they’re not telling us the truth about the missiles?”
    “Then we launch lifepods, fight them when they arrive on the ship, and destroy the ship ourselves if necessary,” Han said. “To Hell with these guys.”
    “We’ll fight, Captain,” I said. I don’t know why I said it. I wasn’t thinking about fighting at any point before. It just came up in my brain at that moment. It was like Lee Han said: To Hell with these guys, whoever they were. And if that meant fighting them with sticks, that was better than nothing.
    I looked around the bridge and saw people nodding. We were all ready for a fight.
    Thao smiled at me and then nodded, as a way of letting me know my comment had been registered and appreciated. Then she turned back to Han, who was not smiling. “But,” she said to him.
    “But they already have knocked out our power in a way we couldn’t and didn’t track,” Han said. “They’re jamming our communications and external sensors. That says to me they have more up their sleeves. Even if they don’t, if we fight them and repel them we’ll likely take losses and additional damage to the ship. We’ll all end up on lifepods just to survive. In which case whoever they are—” Han motioned outward, signifying our attackers. “—can still take the ship without any of us on it. In which case, we’ve risked everything for nothing.”
    Thao turned to Bolduc, who was the pilot on duty. “Any chance we could skip out of this?”
    “No,” Bolduc said. “We entered this system near a planet. Under the best of circumstances we’d need three days to get to skip distance.”
    “We can’t skip without engines anyway,” Han said.
    “When can we get them back?” Thao asked.
    “Eller estimated twenty hours,” Han said, speaking of the chief engineer. “Our emergency power is going to last six. We’d still have to get the crew to lifepods. Whoever stayed would find breathing difficult until the power’s completely back.”
    “No matter what, we lose the ship,” Thao said.
    Han paused an almost infinitesimally small amount of time before replying. “Realistically, yes,” he said. “Even if whoever is attacking us did nothing, we’d still have to get nearly all the crew to lifepods. And I don’t think it’s realistic to assume that whoever is attacking us will do nothing. They’ve already done enough.”
    Thao sat for a moment, silent. Ocampo and everyone else on the bridge waited, conscious of the timeline for a response.
    “Fuck,” Thao said. She nodded to Womack. “Tell them we understand their terms. The airlocks will be open within the hour. We’ll signal when the crew is in the cargo hold.”
    Womack blinked, swallowed, and nodded. She turned to her console.
    Thao turned to Han. “Tell the crew. We’re under a deadline here.” Han moved.
    Then Thao looked over to Ocampo. “Well, Mr. Ocampo. I’m beginning to think I should have refused your request.” Ocampo opened his mouth to reply, but Thao was already ignoring him.
    * * *
    The three creatures approaching Captain Thao wore black, were armed, and had knees that went the wrong way. One