Space Colony One Books 1 - 6

The Concordia Deception-3

SOMETHING WAS LYING across Ethan’s chest, pinning him down, and it was covering his face so all he could see was darkness. His legs were free, however, and he didn’t seem to be badly hurt. The only discomfort he could feel was an ache where he’d hit his head and the crushing pressure on his rib cage.

All around him he heard sobs, screams, and cries of pain. The memory of where he was flashed back into his mind. There had been an explosion. He began to struggle. He had to find Cariad. She could be seriously hurt. He had to help the others.

Ethan pushed against the thing that was trapping him. He felt it shift, and he pushed harder, grimacing with the effort. The object seemed to move toward his head, so he concentrated his efforts in that direction. The pressure on his chest began to lift. He pushed harder, drew up his knees, and used his legs to drag himself downward.

As he eased out from the confined space, his chin caught on a metal corner. He twisted his head away, but he couldn’t escape the sharp edge. He was panting with the effort of holding up the object that pressed down on him, but he couldn’t let it go. If he did that, the corner would descend into his neck.

There was nothing for it. If he wanted to get out, he would have to drag his face down the corner. He took a deep breath, pushed upward as hard as he could. He lifted the trapping object another few millimeters and pulled with his legs. As he slid along, the corner bit into his skin at his jawline. He winced. A cut tore up his face to his cheekbone. He gasped in pain, and paused for a fraction of a second before making a final effort. The corner grazed his eyelashes and hit his eyebrow. It drew another cut up to his forehead.

With a yell of effort, Ethan pulled himself the last few centimeters. He was finally free.

His left eye immediately filled with blood from his cut and more ran down his face and dripped from his chin. He sat up and looked about him with his one good eye, wiping the blood from the other. Before the explosion, he’d been seated in the Leader’s box roughly midway up the tiers in the audience section of the stadium. Now, he was nearly at ground level, and the seating was in broken chaos all around him. A section of it had fallen onto him. He realized he was lucky to have survived relatively unscathed.

Some people from the unaffected parts of the stadium were running over to help. Some were already lifting the wreckage left by the explosion, desperately trying to free trapped victims.

Still wiping the blood from his eye, Ethan leapt to his feet. He had to find Cariad. She’d been sitting right next to him. She couldn’t be far away. He scanned around and spotted a single white shoe. He was sure it was one of hers. Then he caught another glimpse of white deep within the jumbled remains of the seating. It was the other shoe. He was sure of it.

He scrambled over shards of broken plastic and metal and put his face to the opening where the shoe was visible. He could see a glimpse of her ankle.

“Cariad,” he shouted. He repeated her name twice but heard no reply and her foot didn’t move. He pulled at the ruins that were trapping her, removing the mangled pieces one by one.

“Have you found her?”

Strongquist had appeared by Ethan’s side.

“Let me help you,” the Guardian said.

Ethan briefly wondered where the man had been seated that had allowed him to survive the blast. He’d thought Strongquist had been sitting close by. But his fears about Cariad soon drove the thought from his mind. He could now see her leg. Blood was spattered across her dark skin.

Together, Ethan and Strongquist removed the remaining pieces that covered her. They each grabbed one end of a large section of seating and lifted it up. Beneath it, Cariad lay on her side. One of her legs was folded up but looked okay. However, one of her arms was bent at an unnatural angle. Her clothes were stained red and her eyes were closed.

Ethan crouched down beside her and gently touched her shoulder. “Cariad.”

“Don’t move her,” said Strongquist. “Her neck could be broken. Is she breathing?”

Ethan watched her chest, which rose and fell slowly. “Yes.”

“Good. Stay with her. If she wakes up, keep her still and calm. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

The Guardian stepped down over the seating and ran across the stadium field, heading for the exit that led to the shuttle field.

Other Guardians were working through the wreckage from the explosion, but many Gens were standing around in shock, simply watching what was going on or wandering around the muddy ground aimlessly. Rain had begun to fall again, but this time hardly anyone seemed to notice. Ethan remained with Cariad, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder. The fact that she didn’t seem to be bleeding heavily reassured him a little, but he wished that she would wake up.

What had caused the explosion? There had been nothing explosive in the stadium. No fuels or anything under pressure. It had to be a bomb. But who would want to set off a bomb during the Naming Ceremony? He didn’t have to think hard to answer that question: it had to be a member of the Natural Movement.

After the sabotage on the First Night Attack, the perpetrator had been caught and executed, but now it was clear there was more than one of them. Natural Movement fanatics were living among the colonists, determined to prevent the expansion of humanity into the galaxy.

Memories of Lauren flooded his mind. He would never forget seeing her fall beneath one of the predatory native life forms on that fateful night. He couldn’t erase the image of her remains from his memory. His feelings of loss were still raw. Looking down at Cariad, he swallowed. He couldn’t face losing someone else he cared about.

Her eyes were moving beneath their lids. They flickered, then opened wide in alarm. She tried to rise, but Ethan gently restrained her. “You’re okay, but you mustn’t move. You’ve been hurt. Strongquist has gone for help. You’re going to be all right, but you need to stay still.”

She seemed to hear him because she stopped struggling. Her gaze sought out his. When their eyes met, he managed a small smile to try to reassure her, but he imagined the sight of his bloody face was less than reassuring. She struggled to speak but he couldn’t make out the words.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get you fixed up. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Strongquist was back. He’d brought two of his Guardian buddies with him, and they were carrying a board somewhat like a stretcher and other items Ethan didn’t recognize. A flitter hovered nearby, and more were spread across the field. Guardians were loading the injured onto them.

Ethan stepped back to give Strongquist and the other Guardians room to work. First, they pressed a jet injector against Cariad’s neck. Immediately, her body relaxed and her eyes half closed. Then they carefully turned her onto her back while one of them held her head, keeping her as straight as was possible on the uneven surface. They slipped some kind of collar around her head, neck, and back, and lifted her onto the board.

Ethan helped the Guardians carry Cariad down to the flitter.

“Where are you taking her?” he asked.

“Back to the Nova Fortuna,” Strongquist replied. “Her back or neck may be broken, and the settlement’s medical facilities aren’t yet equipped to deal with an injury of that severity. We can assist with her treatment aboard the ship.”

Ethan wanted to go with Cariad but he also wanted to remain to help search for more survivors. The scene was still in chaos. The Leader was nowhere to be seen and no one else seemed to be organizing a response to the emergency.

“Can you please send me word as soon as you know anything about her condition?” he asked Strongquist.

“Of course,” the Guardian replied. “Don’t forget to have someone check you over and fix that cut.”

With those words, the Guardians sped away on the flitter with Cariad. Ethan turned to face the pandemonium. He went to the nearest group of bystanders who seemed to have been frozen to immobility and gave them instructions for organizing others who were also doing nothing, forming them into rescue teams. He also told them to find people with medical experience and send them to him.

They needed to divide the destroyed portion of seating into sections, and they could take it apart, piece by piece, shoring up unstable parts. They would find everyone who was trapped.

Ethan realized he was still using only one eye because the other was covered in blood. He took off his shirt and ripped off the sleeve. He tried to wipe the blood from his eye so that he could see out of it, but it was too crusted up. Instead, he cleaned his face as well as he could, though his cut continued to weep fresh blood, then he tied his shirt sleeve over his eye.

A Gen ran up to him, panting. “I’m a medic. Where should I go first?”

It was going to be a long, hard, heart-breaking afternoon.

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