Stunned but still, incredibly, alive, Birrel unfastened the straps and floated out of the couch.
The ship was still moving, but there was no longer any gravity field to speak of. Birrel was in free fall. He floated like a great clumsy balloon out of the cabin and toward the bridge, clawing his way while the ship bent and wavered and wobbled around him, its rigid frame gone limp. As limp as his own body felt. Currents of escaping air whirled papers, garments, pieces of equipment, bits of wreckage wildly around in the interior. He was in a panic lest his helmet be cracked or his suit torn.
The bridge was a shambles of buckled steel and shattered glass. The radarman was crumpled among the remains of his equipment, which had toppled and crushed him. Thile, strapped into the pilot's chair, was stirring feebly. Birrel looked frantically around for Kara.
She was strapped into a recoil chair in front of the fire-control panel. He thought at first she was dead, but when he looked closer he could see that she was breathing. There was nothing he could do for her at the moment and she was safer where she was, so he left her and went to help Thile. There was no sign of Vray at all, except for a few small red icicles formed on the edge of a jagged rift in the hull through which everything movable in the bridge had already been sucked.
Thile's voice came faintly through the helmet audio. "I told you they were better shots."
"Are you hurt?"
"Are you?"
"I don't know yet. Haven't had time."
"Nor me," said Thile. "I can stand up, so I guess I'll live." Blood was trickling from his helmet. He snuffled at it and made futile pawing motions at his helmet. "Well, that does it. Vannevan's won hands down." He swore, a dejected and bitter man. "Four good men dead, and all for nothing. It wasn't even a good try."