“Shit. Jack?” She shook him lightly, but he didn’t stir.
Like her own uniform, his fire-resistant vest had repelled most of the flames, but the fringe of his collar had melted and caked into the blistering skin of his exposed neck. Glistening red and white burns seared the right side of his neck and jaw, scorching a path up through his beard to his cheek bone. It had fortunately missed his eye, though only by centimeters.
“Dammit,” she growled. “Jack, wake up.” She rolled him onto his back, loosening the top strap of his vest to peel the fabric from the smoldering flesh before it had time to dry into the wound.
Her eyes shot up as Griffith and Erandus ran around the corner, just as the fire-suppression foam snuffed out the last of the licking flames.
Erandus paused to help Warner, who cradled his elbow, but appeared otherwise uninjured.
Griffith rushed over, kneeling on the other side of Jackin. “What happened?” he called over the screaming din of klaxons.
“No idea,” she shouted back, then a tingling flutter of relief washed through her as Jackin hacked out a series of sharp coughs.
Griffith put a steadying hand on the unburned side of Jackin’s face. “Hey, Optio. This is really no time for a nap.”
Jackin sucked in a breath, then his eyes flickered open, sharpening a glare at Griffith through a sneer of pain.
The knot in Adequin’s stomach twisted. “You okay, Jack?”
He gave a short nod, then hissed under his breath as his fingers drifted to the raw burns on his cheek. “Yeah, I’ll be fine, boss, but what—”
“Warning,” a computerized voice rang over the monotonous rhythm of sirens. “Core systems compromised. Gaseous breaches detected on deck one, quadrants A, D. Deck two, quadrants A, C. Deck three…”
Adequin exchanged a concerned look with Griffith as the computer continued to list the affected areas of the ship. She glanced at her nexus, but she’d lost her connection with the mainframe.
Griffith tapped at his own nexus, shaking his head. “Network’s glitching. I can’t tell details but it looks like the effusion cylinders have been breached.”
“Effusion cylinders?” she asked.
“The tanks that house the buoyancy cocktail for the torus chamber. Unsealing the door must have triggered it—it’s leaching ammonia and hydrogen into the other systems.”
Jackin groaned as he pushed up to rest on his elbows. “How the hell would that have happened?”
“Fucking Drudgers probably left a parting gift,” Griffith growled. “They couldn’t salvage the ship themselves, and they sure as shit didn’t want us to be able to get it going and come hunt them down.”
Adequin’s brow creased. “So they rigged the whole thing to blow?”
“‘Rigged’ is probably a bit generous,” Jackin explained with a pained grimace. “They very well could have blown themselves up in the process, but a dozen or so mags worth of plasma arcs would have done the trick. No brainpower required.”
Adequin steadied herself as the floor hitched and vibrated for a few seconds, like an aftershock tremor from a far-off blast.
“Damage-control systems fatigued,” the computer announced. “System-wide deflagration imminent. Immediate evacuation advised.”
“Uh…” Erandus’s alarmed look shot toward them. “Deflagration means what I think it does, right?”
“Shit,” Adequin cursed.