#post-itpenny

The impact was so loud that the sound alone shook the walls of the Aurora.

Ryley froze, as did the dozen other people in the hallway. There was a split second of logic trying to spill into place to answer the question of what happened.

It was a meteor, debris, or some foreign object that got past the ship’s defense perimeter. It’s a long spacewalk and a few spots of welding ripped metal awaiting him.

But the ship felt different, and that split second was crushed as fast as it came. Something was wrong.

Later, he would question if the alarms really did take that long to sound off. Or if his panic had stretched the moment out. A second turned into minutes. But Ryley was already sprinting to the nearest Lifepod Bay by the time the alarms blared and flashed to life.

Ryley had completed four successful trips since starting with the Aurora Maintenance Team. Each launch was prefaced with a five minute video on evacuation safety and two hours of struggling to complete a single drill. It was like herding cats, as his uncle would have said.

It was worse than that now, he could hear the panic just behind him. The stampede of people pushing and shoving. There were no neat and orderly lines walking to the nearest pod as they practiced loading in teams of two. “Make sure you stay with your exit buddy!” Some lady from Health and Safety would be twittering through the intercoms. 

Not here, none of that was here.

Ryley once read that it was traditional on Earth that women and children would evacuate first with ship officers last. But this was space, this was an Altera craft. He was certain none of that really mattered here.

But, as Ryley rounded the last corner, he realized there was a problem. The doors to the pod bay were jammed shut. Too many people already there banging on the keypad, they needed a ship officer to authorize entry, and the poor man was stuck behind the crowd, shouting at deaf ears to be let through.

Ryley blinked once, twice. His brain fired into gear. He dropped to his knees and crawled between a few pairs of legs to reach the wall where a small panel was set. The entrance to the maintenance shaft. Once inside, it was nothing to hotwire the doors. They popped open with a metallic hiss, one brushing past, inches from his nose. By the time he crawled back out of the tunnel most of the crowd was gone. The officer was still there, however, directing people inside.

The lights were flickering now, and the floor began to take on an uncomfortable tilt. They were in some kind of decaying orbit, they weren’t floating in space, they were falling.

The officer spotted Ryley and yanked him from the tunnel, shoving him into the pod bay, shouting something Ryley couldn’t hear over the alarms still blaring, the ship’s AI calmly telling them to abandon ship.

He wasted no time. Ryley sprinted to one of the last remaining lifepods. There were two left. One for the officer- Good.

The ship was now tilting at a dangerous angle, the hull groaning in protest. Ryley knew the Aurora, he knew it was crying out, helpless, and falling. They were all falling. 

He jumped into a seat and slapped the door button. The safety restraints slammed over his shoulders as the pod was jettisoned.

For a moment there was silence. His heart was still hammering in his throat. He looked up at the small hatch window fixed into the ceiling and opened his mouth in a silent cry. 

There was a terrible gash along the Aurora’s side. Fire and metal fell away like some great beast had reached up to rip at her torso. She was dying. 

Around her, Ryley spied bright metal orbs shooting away. Other lifepods. Some whizzed past his tiny window. Two or three were hit by falling debris, and crushed in the process.

He hoped the people in there died quickly.