DAK first contact teaser
Chapter One
The dull red glow of the space/time coordinate indicator was the first thing Captain Dak saw as he opened his eyes. The terror and confusion of the last two minutes flooded back to him then lifted as he realized that he was alive, still on the bridge of the ship. The pain in his right leg sharpened his awareness, and he tried to sit up. The weight of his fallen work station pressed him against the floor. Wiggling painfully, he struggled out from under the metal and pushed it upright until it snapped into place. He scouted four feet down the slightly angled smooth floor to the wall. Gripping his aching leg, he settled into a more comfortable position as he tried to look around through the darkness and thick haze in the cabin.
“Raj?” he asked cautiously. “This is Dak. Are you alive?”
Only a sharp electronic sound broke the silence as the main control panel blinked to life, then, as if convinced of the futility of the effort, blanked out. There was no sound except for the erratic and soft whining of the gravity regulator trying blindly and faithfully to maintain the G-force required by a now-defunct escape procedure.
Dak noticed a faint, but unmistakable, ray of light at the end of the main corridor to his left. He pulled himself along the bottom of the wall, past broken debris, toward it.
“Raj?”
No answer. Was he alone?
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