Read Online The Last Hour of Gann by R. Lee Smith - Free Book Online Page A

looked at the ship.
    This time, she really saw it.
    The Pioneer had scraped over the skin of this alien world for miles, sharpening itself like a knife; family housing and the rest of the forward compartments were gone, rubbed away, and the pointed tip of what was left had ultimately struck something unyielding in the ground and stabbed itself in. This was what had created the steep angle of the ship’s final position, which had in turn created the awful weight that had caused not just Mod A but also Mods B and C to break away and fall. All the women’s dorms were gone. The men’s mods were still there, jutting crazily into the sky and spewing fire from every opening. Virtually everyone was dead.
    The world got oddly lighter. This time, it wasn’t the clouds. Amber realized with a start that she was trying to faint and so she sat down and leaned forward to put her head between her knees as far as her bodily dimensions made possible. She really didn’t want to faint. Whatever was going to happen next, she wanted to be awake when it happened. Bo Peep’s little girl was not about to die with her eyes closed.
    The warmth and soft press of a body beside her told her Nicci had sat down too. Amber raised her head a little and looked at the Pioneer some more. This was what she’d spent six days bullying her baby sister into. This was what she’d lost her apartment, her job, and sixty pounds for. This was it.
    She leaned forward again and opened her mouth, but apart from a groggy belch, nothing came out. She hadn’t had anything in her stomach for years, after all. Maybe a lot of years. Like…hundreds.
    That made her want to throw up again, but since that was just futility, Amber made herself look around some more instead. She could see a cluster of uniforms standing apart from the rest, close to the biggest gash in the smoking side of the ship, and a little ways from them stood just two—one crimson and gold Manifestor and one military grey Fleetman, close together, deep in conversation.
    She stood up.
    Nicci caught at once at her hand. “Where are you going?”
    The last thing Amber wanted was to start a mob. She bent over to speak softly against Nicci’s ear. “To see if I can’t find out what’s going to happen next.”
    “Next?” Nicci’s hand tightened painfully. She didn’t seem aware of it. Her eyes were huge, glazed, pleading. “We’re…Someone’s going to come, right? Someone’s going to come from Earth and rescue us? We’re going home now, right?”
    A few people looked their way. Amber made a point of patting Nicci’s hand, trying to look as if she were comforting someone. She wasn’t sure if people really patted other people’s hands for comfort or if that was just in books, but no one paid them too much attention, so she guessed that was all right.
    “Keep your voice down,” she said, once she was fairly confident they had privacy again. “And don’t freak yourself out. Panicking can’t help anyone.”
    “Amber…” Nicci’s staring eyes became a wondering, glassy gape. “Amber, the ship crashed! We crashed here! People are dead!”
    “I mean it, Nicci, calm down.”
    But Nicci either wouldn’t or couldn ’t obey. Her voice kept rising, sending shards of panic through every quavery word. “We crashed here! Half the ship is gone! Amber, the ship is broken! We have to be rescued! We have to be rescued right now !”
    Amber grabbed a fistful of Nicci’s shirt and yanked her to her feet, thrusting her face right up close. She hissed, “Shut up or I’ll slap the shit out of you and I guaran-goddamn-tee I’ll be better at that than you are! Shut! Up!”
    Nicci did, trembling. She blinked and tears came bubbling out of her, but they were silent tears for now. Her lips pressed together, turned downwards in a clownish exaggeration of sorrow.
    “If you panic, other people are going to panic and once that starts, we are not going to be able to stop it, so you take deep breaths or do