I fell downwards, but only for a second before my impact suit tightened around me, and then I was falling upwards instead. My lifeline was tugging at my back, but that was trying to take me sideways. It was something else that had me in its grip, making me fall upwards, and that meant I was dead.
Playdon shouted on the team circuit. ‘Cut beams. Run!’
My impact suit was crushing me, and my lifeline was battling against the upward force. The lifeline beam was still on! I was already dead, and there was no sense in both of us dying. I managed a strangled yell despite the pressure from the suit. ‘Fian, cut beam!’
There was a strange high-pitched sound, and I wasn’t falling upwards any more, but spinning over and over. Sky, ground, and glowing building whirled frantically around me, and there was a deafening explosion. I knew what that was. That was Fian dying. I would have screamed, but I’d already used the last of the air in my lungs to tell the idiot to cut the beam and save his stupid life. He’d been too nuking stubborn to do what he was told, and now he’d never be stubborn ever again.
The impact suit wouldn’t let me breathe any more, so I couldn’t say the swear words that would have earned me about ten red warnings under the Gamman moral code. I didn’t have time to say anything anyway, because the ground flew up and hit me in the face.
19
When I woke up, every inch of my skin seemed to be on fire. Impact suits are designed to protect the wearer, but high magnetic fields do terrible things to them, turning them into a torture machine. They contract, crushing the victim inside, their material distorting into a mass of jagged points.
I should have died, pulled helplessly towards whatever was generating that magnetic spike, my suit continuing to squeeze me until I was crushed into pulp. I was in agony, but still alive, because Fian hadn’t cut power to the lifeline beam.
He’d known exactly what would happen, because the safety lectures spell it out. Strong magnetic fields create a power feedback in lift and lifeline beams. That’s a very calm sentence to describe a nightmare situation. When a magnetic alarm goes off, everyone hits the beam emergency power cut off buttons and runs for their lives, praying the sleds won’t explode before they’re out of range. Fian hadn’t done that, he’d pulled me out of the grip of the magnetic field instead, and he’d paid the price for it.
I opened my eyes to see a blurred, demonic red sky swaying drunkenly above me. My eyes still worked, since the strip of special material that let me see out of my impact suit was rigidly inflexible. I could hear my comms too. There was a confusing babble of voices talking on broadcast channel.
‘This is Earth 3. We can come and meet …’
‘Negative! This is Dig Site Command, repeating negative. Sector 21 is now code black. Earth 3, acknowledge that.’
‘This is Earth 3. Acknowledging code black.’
‘This is Dig Site Command. Emergency evac portal 57 is active. Earth Africa Casualty is standing by to receive critical injuries.’
‘This is Asgard 6. Estimate four minutes from portal. Tell them to prep two tanks.’
Playdon’s words were staccato, as he panted for air between them. I must be on a hover stretcher, and Playdon would be running alongside, guiding it with one of the handles. Months ago, I’d helped transport injured members of the Cassandra 2 research team and send them through one of the small, one way, emergency portals that were linked to casualty units. Now I was strapped to a hover stretcher and headed for one myself.
My brain was stupid with pain, but it finally processed Playdon’s words. He’d said tanks. Two tanks. I forced out a single word question. ‘Fian?’
‘Jarra?’ Playdon sounded startled to hear my voice. ‘Fian jumped at the last minute. The blast caught him, and he was hit by flying debris, but his suit says he’s alive.’
I made a noise that was something between a cry of pain and relief. Dalmora spoke, the direction of her breathless voice telling me Playdon was running on one side of my stretcher and Dalmora on the other.
‘Can we give Jarra pain meds?’
‘No!’ Playdon shouted the word. ‘There’s no time and we mustn’t open her suit unless she starts drowning. Hold on, Jarra. It won’t be long now.’
Fian was alive. I concentrated on that and enduring the pain one second at a time. A fragment of my mind chased something that didn’t make sense. How could I drown in an impact suit?
The crimson sky made a sharper swing than usual and stopped moving. What was happening? I couldn’t hear properly now, my ears were full of liquid, and I just caught a murmur of words without meaning. They’d stopped running so we must be at the portal. They’d send the stretchers through first, one at a time, followed by the rest of the class and finally Playdon. I wasn’t moving, which meant they were sending Fian through first.