Time Bomb

by R. M. Olson

  She smelled faintly of ship grease, and the sharp scent of burnt ozone, and the sweet, musky smell of the ship’s interior. It was a nice smell, somehow—the smell of flying, and space, and freedom.

  He’d never realized, until he met Jez, what flying was. What freedom was.

  She swung the mallet again hard, and turned over her shoulder to grin at him. “Got it,” she said. “Hand me that cylinder you were working on.”

  She stopped speaking suddenly, her eyes widening slightly. Their faces were only centimetres apart, and he found himself staring at her lips, still bruised and cracked from her run-in with the prison guard days before. He blinked and took a deep breath, releasing her for a moment to grab the part she’d asked for. When he turned back, she was still watching him. He handed her the part, and then, his heart hammering, put his arm around her again, pulling her in close.

  Because they were working, and if he didn’t hold her tightly enough, she couldn’t repair the shields. That was the only reason they were doing this, and it would be prudent for him to remember that.

  But somehow his brain wasn’t functioning as clearly as it usually did, and he felt a little like he had on the outside of the ship with his oxygen running low—an odd sense of euphoria mixed with disorientation, and the feeling that he couldn’t seem to breathe just right …

  She hadn’t turned back to her work yet. She was still watching him, and she shifted slightly, settling herself more firmly against his chest, and there was an expression on her face of slight wonder, like she’d just run her hands over the controls of a new ship. And her lips were parted, ever so slightly. Why was he noticing her lips? And why couldn’t he seem to make his heart settle down? And why the hell was he leaning into her, shifting his grip on her body so she was turned to him instead of the wall, and …

  “Sorry, still working on the grav controls,” said Tae through the earpiece, and they both jumped.

  “It’s going to take me a while though.”

  Lev sighed shakily and shot a wry glance at Jez, then tapped his com against the wall.

  “Thanks, Tae,” he said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

  “Best get working then, I guess,” said Jez. She’d turned away again, and her voice was unsteady, and he could feel, though her back, her breath coming a little more quickly than it had been.

  She could probably feel his heart pounding as well.

  He sighed. “You’re right. We have plenty to do.”

  She half turned, and grinned at him. “Looks like I’m the one doing all the work here.”

  He rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to answer.

  To be honest, at this point he wasn’t certain he’d trust himself to do anything anyways. He wasn’t entirely sure how his brain had completely short-circuited and his body had become suddenly shaky and unreliable at the feel of Jez’s body against his, and the sight of her staring at him, lips slightly parted, eyes wide, but whatever it was didn’t seem like it would go away any time soon.

  He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, Jez working her way methodically through the warped parts, he holding her steady. But as far as his now-completely fuzzy brain was concerned, they could stay like this forever. In fact, even getting the oxygen online seemed slightly less important than him being able to hold on to Jez, and not having to let her go.

  Jez herself was strangely quiet. She didn’t make any smart remarks, which was a change in itself, and she seemed to have leaned her head back against his shoulder as she worked, and he could feel her breath hitch slightly, every time a blow of the mallet pushed her back against him.

  He shook his head at himself. This was actually ridiculous. They were all going to die in about a few hours’ time. He should be able to focus, at the very least.

  Another mallet blow, and her body shifted against his, and his heart jumped, his throat going suddenly dry. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe normally.

  “I think I’ve just about got it,” she said at last, and he took another deep breath and managed a smile.

  “Good. Let’s—”

  There was a jolt, and for a moment he was clinging to both Jez and the handholds, ducking his head as tools and parts fell around him, and then the gravity shut off again and he was once again weightless.

  Jez grinned slightly. “Haven’t been in a sketchy grav-field for a while. Almost forgot what it was like.”

  “You—did this often?”

  She smirked, turning slightly in his grasp. “You should have seen the ships Lena had me flying. She gave me the worst crap she had, and I still pulled off jobs no one else could.” She paused a moment. “I—I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  “No need,” he said, smiling slightly. Yes, she’d gotten him thrown in jail, indirectly, when she was about sixteen and before he’d ever met her, but the longer he knew her, the more he figured he’d been lucky to get off that easily.

  And, if he were being honest with himself, she could probably get him thrown in jail again tomorrow and he’d still smile and tell her there was no need for an apology. He couldn’t seem to help himself.

  “Yeah. Well, I’m sorry anyways.” She paused again, perking up. “But you should have seen that job. It was amazing.”

  He shook his head, smiling despite himself. “I imagine any job you flew would have been amazing, judging from my personal experience.”

  “Any job I still fly is amazing,” she said, still grinning.

  “It is.” He paused a moment, then, with a force of will, said, “We should probably get to work putting this back together.”

  “Yeah.” She gave him a small smile, and after a moment he forced his arm to release her.

  It was harder than he’d thought, and the feeling of his body without hers pressed up against it was emptier than he’d expected it to be.

  She pushed lightly off the wall and grabbed a handful of parts, and he let go of the handholds and prepared to do the same. And then there was a jolt, and he grabbed for Jez, pushing himself forward, and they landed on the floor in a heap, Jez on top of him, her elbow digging into his ribcage. He grunted at the impact, and she swore loudly into the com.

  “Could have warned us, tech-head.”

  “I’m sorry. I told you, there’s something haywire with the system.”

  She rolled her eyes, then glanced down at Lev. “You OK?”

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  She was probably as heavy as he was, and he was going to have bruises.

  Still, better than her landing on her broken arm or bruising up her ribs any more.

  She rolled off him, and he sat up. They were still slightly tangled together, and again, for one brief moment, their faces were closer than he’d intended.

  “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” she asked. “Landed under me so I wouldn’t hit the ground.”

  He shrugged slightly.

  She looked at him for a long moment. Then, abruptly, she pushed herself to her feet, wincing and swearing as she steadied herself against the wall.

  “You should think about taking care of yourself a little more, genius,” she said, turning back to the control panel. The old snark was back in her tone. “Pretty sure I’m not the one who basically almost died a couple hours ago.”

  He sighed regretfully and ran a hand through his hair.

  He wasn’t totally sure how she did whatever it was she did to him, and he wasn’t sure if it was the best thing that had ever happened to him or a completely unforgivable amount of stupidity.

  But he couldn’t seem to do anything about it, and to be honest, he probably wouldn’t even if he could.

  “Going to need your specs in a sec,” she said over her shoulder, and he pushed himself to his feet and tapped his com on, pulling up the holoscreen.

  It didn’t take long to get everything reassembled. For someone who said she’d never bothered to look at the shielding system, Jez seemed to have an almost intuitive knowledge about what should go where, and th
e wire-brushed and hammered parts fit back into their places better than he’d imagined. He reached in beside her to help with the wiring, and when their hands brushed, more than once, he tried to ignore it.

  “Tae,” he said at last, tapping his com. “Can you try turning the shields on, just on the backup system?”

  “Yeah. Give me a minute to get into the cockpit.”

  There were a few moments of silence, and he tried not to look at Jez, even though he wanted to, even though the memory of her face close to his, her body pressed up against him, was a little like a drug, and he was feeling distinctly inebriated at the moment.

  “Alright. I’m going to start it up.”

  “Slowly,” snapped Jez, slapping her com. “You’ll have to dial it up slowly, and make sure the power is dialled down before you do.”

  Over the com, Tae sighed heavily. “I do actually know a few things about tech, Jez.”

  “Yeah, well this is my ship, OK?” She knelt and squinted into the access hole, and Lev joined her.

  “Turning it on now,” said Tae. Lev held his breath as something inside coughed, shuddered, and then, finally, whirred to life.

  He turned to Jez, and they grinned at each other.

  “Think you got it, tech-head,” said Jez into the com.

  “I think it’s actually working,” said Tae, a sort of exhausted wonder in his voice. “I think for once, something is actually working.”

  “Well, probably shouldn’t get used to it,” Jez smirked. She pushed herself to her feet, still grinning, and reached out a hand to help Lev up. He took it and stood, and she glanced down at her com.

  “Well, genius, looks like we have about eight hours before Lena’s missiles get here. I’m going to check on something, be right back.”

  “I’ll clean up in here,” he said with a sigh. She gave him a grin and slipped out the door.

  Still shaking his head at himself, he gathered up the tools and headed back towards the cockpit.

  He could still feel the shape of her against him, and the front of his jacket still carried her faint scent.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Impact minus 8 hours, Jez

  Jez hummed to herself as she made her way down the corridor.

  Her ship was still dead. Lena was coming to kill them all, and it was at least partly her fault.

  But she couldn’t seem to help it.

  She almost had to glance at her feet on the ground to make sure the grav-control was still working.

  There was no reason whatsoever for her to feel like she was floating. Absolutely none at all, and there was really, really no reason for the completely stupid grin on her face.

  Still …

  She could still feel his arm around her waist, the warmth of him against her back.

  The moment when she’d turned in his arms, and their faces were almost touching, and his grip on her had tightened, just a little, and he’d leaned in towards her, his dark, thoughtful eyes intense and not, in that moment, thoughtful at all.

  And it was stupid that the memory made her breath catch and her heart pound.

  He was Lev. He was a soft-boy, and a scholar, and not even a little bit her type, and she should know, because she’d been with plenty of people who were her type. Whatever that was.

  Never lasted for more than a few months, because somehow a few months seemed to be the outside limit on how long she could handle things being the same without going completely crazy, but it had always been fun while it did last. She was certainly no innocent, and Lev was certainly not the first person whose body warmth she’d enjoyed.

  But this … was different, somehow. Because it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just the fact that her heart couldn’t seem to stop pounding when she was around him, and it wasn’t just the heady breathlessness of being too close to him. There was something about Lev that was—comfortable, somehow. Like the feel of ship’s controls under her fingers and open space around her. Something that felt like home, even though she’d never really had a home for as long as she could remember.

  And that was the part she was afraid of. Because if she was being honest, she was completely terrified.

  No. Lev was definitely a bad idea, and she was definitely going to tell him that.

  Soon.

  Probably.

  She was humming again, and she could still feel the warmth of him against her shoulders, the way her body had somehow fit with his, like ship’s parts slipping into place.

  Yep. This was definitely a very, very bad idea.

  She shook her head to clear it, and glanced around. She’d reached the hatch that led down to the storage room, and she pulled it open gingerly, wincing at the pressure on her ribs.

  The thought of going down there, of seeing the scorched bones of her perfect, beautiful ship, like some burned corpse, made her feel almost sick to her stomach.

  But—she was pretty sure, when she’d been down there last time, that she’d seen something. It had been nagging at her ever since, even in the unnervingly-pleasant circle of Lev’s arms and his chest. And she was pretty sure that as she’d finished putting the shields together, she’d figured out what it was.

  She took a deep breath, and started down the ladder, holding on gingerly with her broken arm.

  Thank goodness that the prison doctor, or whoever the hell it was who’d patched her up, had used bone-set instead of a cast, because she’d be basically useless otherwise.

  She stopped half-way down and peered along the blackened corridor, then pulled one hand free from the ladder and switched on the light in her com.

  There. She’d been certain she’d seen it. That slight indentation in the ceiling, near the wall. And she was pretty sure she knew where it had come from.

  She grinned, and pulled herself back up the ladder.

  When she reached the door to the reactor deck, she paused.

  Either this was a fantastic idea, or it was a really, really stupid idea. Which were basically the same thing, really.

  She shoved open the door to the massive, echo-y reactor bay, the steel walkways lining open space that took up all the three levels of the ship.

  It only took her a moment to locate what she was looking for. There, in front of the power core, inside a heavy blast-proof casing almost as tall as she was, tucked into an enclave in the wall.

  The hyperspeed drive.

  She circled the walkway until she reached the access panel.

  Unlike tech-head, she didn’t go starry-eyed over tech. But this—this was different.

  This was a reason she might have to remember that inventor’s name, whoever they were. Illiovich, maybe?

  Because this was beautiful. Or, at least, it had been, before she’d torn it to shreds trying to keep them all alive.

  She took another deep breath, and carefully unlatched the heavy panel and pulled it open.

  Tae had looked this over, she was pretty sure. But if she hadn’t seen the dent in the ceiling of the storage room, that happened to be the floor of the tiny enclave, she would probably have missed it too. There, just below the bottom fin, there was a small chunk of metal lodged deep into a self-made divot in the metal flooring. And … yes, you could see it if you were looking. The strain along the entire hyperdrive shaft, the slight twisting in the metal.

  The pressure on it would be immense.

  But …

  She grinned and pulled the handheld heat-torch out of her tool kit.

  But she was pretty sure she could get it running again. Just take a sec.

  She ignited the heat-torch, and waited until the tip of it glowed white-hot. Then, gingerly, she reached into the narrow space beneath the fin and touched it to the lower end of the chunk of metal. The metal hissed and sputtered at the heat, sending up a thick stream of black, acrid smoke as it began to soften and warp.

  She heard the soft ‘click,’ and threw herself backwards as the twisted shaft sprang free, throwing the half-melted chunk of shrapnel across the room. The drive sp
un madly, hissing with speed, and there was a creaking sound as components groaned under the strain.

  Damn. She hadn’t realized it was so tightly wound.

  A bolt broke free with a loud ‘crack,’ and she flung herself instinctively to one side as it whistled past her cheek.

  This was not going to end well.

  She glanced around quickly, then snatched for a wrench.

  Not enough to stop it. But she didn’t really need to stop it, she just needed to slow it down, so it could release the pressure without breaking itself to pieces …

  Another bolt hissed by overhead, leaving a deep dent in the wall behind her head.

  Damn. Damn, damn, damn. She didn’t need to be giving her ship any more dents, for heaven’s sake.

  “Jez? Where are you? I thought you were on your way back.” It was Tae, and he sounded slightly worried.

  “One sec,” she managed, then dived to the ground again as a thin sheet of metal embedded itself in one of the walls.

  Get it under control. Get it slowed down, and get it under control. What did she have …

  She looked down.

  Cord. There were a couple lengths of cord in the tool kit.

  Shred her hands to the bone if she tried to hold onto it, but if she could just get some weight behind it …

  She looped it back and forth between two of the railing spokes a few times, then holding her breath, she edged the end of the cord towards the wildly-spinning drive shaft.

  There.

  A scrap of spinning metal caught the end of the cord, yanking it from her hands. She watched breathlessly as it wound between the metal spokes fast enough to smoke.

  For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. The drive was shaking harder now, and she was certain it would tear itself to pieces.

  Something else flew past her, slamming into the door frame and tearing out a chunk of the beautiful old wood, and she winced.

  Plan B, then. Whatever the hell plan B was.

  But …

  Was it her imagination?

  No. It had slowed, a little. She was pretty sure.

  But now there was a thin curl of smoke from the spinning shaft.

  Damn. Time to slow it down more.