The Outback Stars

The Outback Stars By Sandra McDonald


PROLOGUE



Despite the protective suit shielding her from flames, Lieu-tenant Jodenny Scott expected to die very soon. The prospect should have alarmed her, but on some dim, exhausted level, she sup-posed it was only fair. So many of her shipmates were already dead or dying, cut down by unexpected violence in the middle of what should have been routine operations. Why should she be any differ-ent? She fought her way through the fire, her damaged lungs labor-ing, her gloved hands groping for the control panel that would put an end to this inferno.



“Lieutenant,” said the voice over her commset. “Report!”



She would have been angry—how did they expect her to talk when she could barely even breathe! —but all her energy was focused on her mission. If somehow she survived this disaster, she would direct her fury toward the people who had caused it. The murderers who’d killed her friends and coworkers. Very briefly she thought of the man she loved, and how she had last seen him: burned, bleeding, unable to even hear her final farewell.



Jodenny’s hands closed on what she hoped was the control panel. She bent forward so that her visor was flush against the metal, but ash and smoke made it impossible to see. In her mind’s eye she imag-ined the panel: the sensors, the indicator lights, the override. Her gloves were too bulky to feel fine details. She pulled one off, ignoring the noisy alarm in her helmet that indicated a suit breach. She touched searing hot metal and recoiled with a cry. But then her fin-gers brushed against the lever she needed, and she wrapped her burn-ing, blistered hand around its handle.



Here goes everything, she thought, and pulled with all her strength.



A new alarm started to screech. With violent speed, smoke and debris and corpses and anything that wasn’t lashed down, including Jodenny herself, rushed toward the vacuum outside the ship. She felt herself lifted and carried toward the stars, her lungs collapsing, her suit unable to protect her. But she had done it. She had saved her ship. This time…



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