Storm Killer by Benjamin Blue Read Free Book Online

had re-entered the station at the southern hub airlock twenty minutes earlier. No one was around the northern hub at this hour.
    The two indicator lamps above the keypad glowed yellow showing the airlock cycling was in idle status and both the inner and outer doors were secure.
    In dead silence, the indicator lamp for the inner door changed to red as the inner door slid open three centimeters. Ten seconds later, the lamp flashed to green.
    The airlock was suddenly filled with a deafening sound of air rushing out into space as the outer door slid open even when the outer door lamp flashed to green.
    Something was amiss. The computer was designed to detect when the inner door was ajar and not allow the outer door to open. Two green lights meant the computer thought the doors were closed.
    Storm killer’s designers had taken no chances with possibilities of computer or door sensor failures in the air lock system. They had built in a decompression sensor that alerted a backup computer system when the airlock was malfunctioning. This backup system performed as it was designed.
    An emergency icon displayed and began blinking on the engineering console at the control center. The icon blinked on the screen over the picture of the airlock. Banner text ran beneath the icon reading, “Airlock failure – Northern Hub.” Simultaneously, the computer activated the station’s emergency condition sirens.
    The engineering duty officer read the banner. He pulled up a live picture of the airlock on his computer monitor. His eyes widened as he saw both airlock doors open. Loose objects were being sucked out the airlock. Papers and debris were swirling through the airlock into the emptiness of space. The station’s precious oxygen supply was bleeding away!
    He keyed the communications pad on his desk and raised Greg Ballard on his cell.
    Greg answered, “Ballard! What the heck are the sirens about?”
    The duty officer replied, “Northern hub airlock is open on both sides. The alarm is the decompression alert.”
    Ballard responded, “The airlock is open on both sides? That can’t happen! What the hell kind of SNAFU is this?”
    He made a snap decision and order the engineering duty officer, “Get the meteor strike repair crew up there. We may have to seal off the inner door.”
    He jumped in his cart and raced to the hub elevator access point for this quadrant. He would be first on the scene unless some poor SOB was accidentally caught near that airlock. Anyone near there could be dead from lack of oxygen by now. God, I hope no one’s hurt ,he thought, as he leaped on the elevator and pushed the ‘up’ button.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    12
User
    Kim Danby had taken a hot shower. Her short bowl-cut brown hair was towel dried. She combed through the tangled hair as she looked in the mirror and wondered. Why am I here? Nothing ever happens up here and I’m a physical and emotional wreck .With that thought, she grabbed her lower back and winced.
    The old injuries from the Los Angeles riot just would not heal completely. Not only had her physical injuries not healed, neither had her mental ones.
    She sighed and reached into the drawer of her washstand. She pulled out a small black leather case. She sat on the edge of the bed, unzipped the case and laid the contents out next to her.
    She lifted a small vial and looked at it. About twenty CCs of cocaine hydrochloride and water mixture were left in the vial. I’ll have to mix a new batch soon, she thought.
    She pulled a syringe from the bag, affixed a needle, and carefully filled it from the vial. She grabbed the large rubber tubing from the bag and using her mouth and right hand tied it tightly around her left arm. Slapping her arm a few times to raise the vein, she quickly plunged the needle in and injected herself.
    She lay back on the bed and sighed again. Only a few minutes now. Only a few minutes and I’ll get some relief, she thought as she waited for the euphoric feeling from the