Her last relatively clear memory was of the moment when she’d darted to attack. Afterwards, she felt only the strike to her head, and everything that happened next appeared to her like an incredibly real nightmare. She remembered the fall from the bridge, sinking in the caustic liquid and panic overwhelming her like a blur as if her subconsciousness did not want to accept that it actually happened. She was not sure if she was still alive or if it was the last burst of her brain activity. She only knew that she was floating limply.

  Later, increasing pain began to grip her body, starting with her guts and ending with skin. Due to this, she realised she was breathing. Her throat and lung stung every time she inhaled. A gentle hum, broken again and again by a dull, mechanic hiss, reached her ears. Some tight-fitting, silky material covered every part of her body, large goggles pressed her eyes and tubes carrying the air stuck in her throat, forcing her to keep breathing.

  She opened her eyelids then closed them. Glaring, white light blinded her for a while. She sighed, forcing herself to stay calm. After five beats of her heart, she moved her hand slowly, but the paralysing pain was too intense to let her do anything more.

  Cerridwen lost the sense of time. Instead of squirming, standing up or overexerting her mauled muscles, she attempted over and over to recreate the chain of events before she lost consciousness and found herself there. The same images appeared in her mind repeatedly, but now she recognised the person who’d dealt her the almost critical punch. The sight of the young face, rumpled, light brown hair and turquoise eyes staring from under them became clearer with every second. At some point, Cerridwen wanted to step back from seeing herself face her enemy. The phantom creature sized her up, preparing to deal with the final strike.

  Seth!

  She rose her head and shoulders, pulling on the belts holding her. She blinked to get used to the brightness lighting the room. She looked at her hands, then at her legs and stomach. White material covered her body and stuck in her wrist, a tube forced a light violet liquid into her veins. The substance had begun its work a few hours ago, soothing her pain slightly and filling her with the life-giving adrenaline. Cerridwen reached for her respirator and tugged it off. She wanted to take a deep breath, but her lungs resisted. She coughed and spat a yellow, clammy slime. Bewildered after a knock on the head, Cerridwen put the respirator on and inhaled several times, rapidly and greedily at first, but with time, she calmed down. She breathed at a steady rate, forced by the machine.

  She sat in that position until the giddiness ceased. She lifted her eyes slowly and looked around. She lay in a ten-metre long, narrow room with dirty, once white, walls. A few more empty beds, stacked almost one on top of the other, stood next to her. Above them hung blank monitors. Only the screen displaying Cerridwen’s vital functions worked, showing charts and graphs. Stains of mud covered the floor and walls, and the majority of the tracks led from the door to her bed, which were smeared and spaced disjointedly.

  Cerridwen slid the needle out of her wrist and unfastened the belts. She drifted above the dingy mattress among the swirling specks of dust. She reached for the table close by and pushed off it. When she got to the other side of the room, she grabbed the door handle. Cerridwen did not expect that she would be able to open the heavy door which was barely hanging on its hinges with such a little effort. She was still not used to the zero gravity. Holding the door frame, she left the makeshift infirmary.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  She found herself in a corridor filled with floating rubbish. She moved forward, climbing the pipe attached to the wall. She ducked under the big grey object flying over her. Only when she took a closer look at it, she recognised that it was a Nelphian in the Union boiler suit. He did not move; his breaths too did not make any sound. His clothes were torn from his stomach and splashed with a blue ooze. Cerridwen passed him by, grimacing at the sight of the large, round splats of the creature’s blood.

  The Celestian girl reached the door, held ajar, down the hall. A bunch of wires was stuck between the door and its frame, preventing it from locking. Cerridwen leaned against the wall, pulled the door handle with one hand and began to slide open the bullet-scratched door leaf. She clenched her teeth and growled in pain when her broken bones reared their heads. She coughed, feeling her rib buckling under the pressure, but she restrained herself from panicking and breathing rapidly. She discovered that the calmer she breathed, the less painful were her moves. When a slit wide enough for her to slip through appeared, she squeezed through it to the cockpit.

  Some screens were cracked or turned off, and the others displayed only blue or green flashing stripes. The muddy traces led to the pilot seat, on which a hunched creature sat. Cerridwen did not recognise the person in the brown jacket and despite the gripping sensation in her stomach, she crept closer. She had no gun at hand, and her condition would not let her fight in case the stranger showed evil intentions. Cerridwen observed the creature for a while, but she did not notice any movements. She pushed off the wall and stopped at the backrest of the seat. With a shivering hand, she touched the Celestian’s arm stained with dirt and blood.

  “Can you hear me?” asked Cerridwen, and a chilly shudder spread down her back. Her own voice appalled her. It sounded like a muffled mechanical sputter.

  As an answer, she heard only an unintelligible word, so she spoke again, “What happened here?”

  She shook the still Celestian harder who suddenly took her hand. The stranger had been shot thrice, and a large bloodstain had formed over the holes in his jacket. With a great effort, he inhaled and coughed out red, dense saliva.

  “Chandri,” he slurred, “that Kehrian bitch made me pay the dues.”

  “What? What dues?”

  The Celestian tried to say something more but instead coughed and never breathed again. Cerridwen nudged him, but he did not respond. She wiped her hands on the bandages, leaving a red smudge. She gazed through the illuminator at the distorted view of the pitch-black, vacant space.

  The recent events divested Cerridwen of most of the energy and left a void in her head. Her exhaustion too did not let her analyse the situation and find a solution. The feeling of a twinge engulfing her skin escalated. Gasping, she had the impression of an iron anvil beating on her broken ribs even though she was wearing the respirator all the time. Bruises and fractures hindered her every move and manoeuvre in the narrow, claustrophobic hall.

  She had no idea where the cargo ship, aboard which she was locked, was headed. Cerridwen could not drive any vehicle, so she had nothing else to do other than wait until the ship reached the goal programmed earlier.

  After several dozen minutes of sitting and staring at the view, hypnotising her with its monotony, sleep overpowered her. She leaned her head against the headrest, and her heavy breaths became smoother. She closed her eyes with the hope that when she opened them, she would be home again and all that had happened would turn to be just a nightmare.