by Jill Myles
SEVEN DAYS
by Jill Myles
When science officer Zoey Maldonado heads out to fringespace for a routine astro-archaeology trip, she never imagines that it’ll be her last trip. A solar flare is about to take out everything in the solar system – including them – in one week’s time. She’s stranded on board a tiny science vessel with no one but a very sexy soldier.
A very, very sexy soldier who’s interested in passing the time in very naughty ways. After all, what better distraction from impending doom than really great sex?
Kaden’s had his eye on his gorgeous science officer ever since they left port. Of course, she’s forbidden to a lowly soldier. But when fate deals them a bad hand, he decides that it’s time to stop paying attention to regulations and start paying attention to the woman at his side, and make her enjoy every minute they have left…
Day 1
“What do you mean, we’re trapped?” Zoey asked the pilot, astonished.
The small cockpit was scattered with all kinds of printouts and star charts in various disarray across multiple lit-up displays. A cup of coffee was spilled on the floor, next to a stack of carelessly strewn maps and manuals. In the midst of this chaos sat Captain Garcia staring blankly at her, his eyes rimmed with red.
With a flare of alarm, Zoey looked out the viewport window of the cockpit. Nothing but an endless blanket of stars met her gaze. What was he talking about?
Off to the far end of the window, she could barely see the blue globe of the planet that would be their destination. It was no larger than a marble at the moment, thanks to an unexpected but brief side trip they’d made to Ceti 17 to study a broken research vessel in a nearby asteroid belt. The Cephalon was the same star-class as the Yokohama, and their voyage was a study of the Yokohama. Dr. Nevis had thought it would be worthwhile for them to visit the other wreck, even though it added a few days of travel onto their trip. She stared at the small globe of Titan 34, with its faint yellow ring. They were supposed to orbit the planet, not land, since it was a methane planet. And thanks to their detour, they wouldn’t get close to its ring—or the ship graveyard—for another week. “I don’t understand, Captain. How can we be trapped? We haven’t even gotten to our destination yet.”
Garcia put his head in his hands, his shoulders silently shaking. She snatched one of the nearby printouts and scanned it. It was from the closest comm relay station the next solar system over. She skimmed it quickly.
... miscalculation... change course... massive solar flare... coronal mass ejection... geomagnetic storm due in your direction in the next 7 days... vacate the vicinity immediately...
“A solar flare coming in seven days?” she said aloud. “But we’re not near the sun.”
The pilot gave her a scathing look and snatched the printout back from her. She noticed his eyes glittered with unshed tears. “The solar flare already happened. A big one. Biggest I’ve ever seen. It’s just going to take seven days for the aftermath to hit us. Do you even know what a geomagnetic storm is, Science Officer Maldonado?”
Okay, now she was getting irritated. Her hands went to her hips. “You’re the pilot. You tell me.”
“It means that when that storm rolls through space, it’s going to fry every electronic system in its path. No life support. No engines. Nothing. We’ll be toast.”
Her mouth went dry. She forced herself to swallow, thinking. No systems. If the storm fried the computers, it would be a matter of hours before they ran out of oxygen on the Alcestis. They’d suffocate—if they didn’t freeze to death first. Either way didn’t sound pleasant. Zoey wet her lips, thinking. “Can’t we back away to a safe distance?”
Garcia gave her a weary look. He tugged one of the navigation panels toward him and touched the screen. “This is our current location, thanks to our unscheduled stop.” He tapped the screen and a small green blip was numbered with their ship’s identification number. “This is how far we’d be able to get in seven days with our engines running at capacity.”
He tapped the screen again, and a field of blue washed outward.
She leaned over the panel, examining the solar-system layout. They were close to the second planet from the sun, and only four planets orbited the brilliant orange star in this system. The field of blue encompassed the nearest planet—Titan 34—and their prior destination, Ceti 17, the third planet in the system.
Everything else was nowhere close. “What about the sprint drive?” Zoey asked.
He shook his head. “The sprint’s powering down from our travel here. It’s going to be another nine days before it’s operational again.”
Zoey stared at the map. They were stranded... all because they were stuck on a cheap science-class vessel? The sprint drives were a low-cost alternative to hyperspace that ran off dark matter. While a ship with a hyperdrive could displace solar matter and sweep across the universe in minutes, sprint drives were just that—they were able to accelerate long distances for a very short period of time and then powered down again for a very long time. Their tiny ship—the Alcestis—was a research vessel en route to Titan 34 to salvage records from other wrecked ships in the vicinity that were hundreds of years old. A ship graveyard and the ones heading there were scientists and anthropologists.
The Alcestis was not a priority vessel, ergo, they had a sprint drive.
And right now it was powering down.
Anxiety flashed through her, along with disbelief. Surely not. This had to be some sort of sick joke he was playing on her. She was the ship’s lower-ranking science officer. This was her first interplanetary excursion. She hadn’t even finished her basic coursework yet in extraterrestrial archaeology to qualify for her doctorate.
“Well, what can we do? Can we send a distress signal?”
“I did. There’s no one in tribunal space close enough. You can hope that some off-the-records space pirate shows up in fringe-space in the next six days, though the odds of that are slim. Otherwise, I’d suggest you record a vidpic to tell your loved ones goodbye.”
And he put his head down again.
“Oh,” she said very softly, and the weight of it hit her. Zoey wobbled as she turned and looked out the viewport at the small blue globe of Titan 34. They weren’t even close enough to see the wreck of the two famous ships in the asteroid belt. They were still several days away from getting a visual. She’d been so very excited at the prospect, but now she felt sick.
She’d never see that visual, not now.
Zoey cleared her throat. “We should tell the others. They deserve to know, so they can prepare.” Her voice wobbled on the last note. “For the end.”
“Can you get them?” Garcia voice was nearly toneless, all anxiety stripped away to leave nothing but a monotone. His eyes were dull, fixed on a nearby panel.
“Okay,” she said, and raced out of the cockpit. Even as she did, she forced herself to slow down. What was the rush? They were going to die in seven days, thanks to a freak solar flare. It was going to overload their tiny ship and strand them dead in the deep of space. They were going to die. Slowly. Horribly. She felt the bitter sting of tears as despair overwhelmed her and clenched her fists, forcing them back. She couldn’t cry yet. She had to inform the others. Then, after everyone had the bad news, then she’d allow herself to bawl like a baby.
She was going to die in seven damned days.
Forcing the thought out of her mind, Zoey marched down the hall of the small spacecraft. Alcestis was a research-class vessel with only four on board—two military officers and two science officers. There were four small, private chambers on the ship—a mess, a lab, a gymnasium and rec room, Zero-G facilities, shower facilities, and the cockpit. It was Spartan compared to s
ome luxury liners, but they were on a science mission, and budgets were always tight. The entire length of the ship wasn’t more than a couple hundred feet long, and half of that was engine. Granted, the entire vessel was small, but with only four on board, it didn’t seem crowded.
She went to her boss first. Dr. Ian Nevis. As remote and unfriendly on day sixty of their voyage, she dreaded telling him the news. He didn’t smile in greeting as she entered, barely glancing up from the data logs that scrolled past on his monitor. If anything, he barely acknowledged that she’d entered the room. Self-conscious, Zoey smoothed her ponytail and cleared her throat.
“What is it?” he asked in his clipped, elegant voice. Dr. Nevis was a smaller man, with unassuming brown hair and a pale face, but he had a gorgeous voice, educated and rich and smooth. She could listen to him talk for hours.
She felt the bizarre urge to burst into tears and lay her head on his shoulder. Not because he was comforting, but because she desperately needed someone. Something. Anything.
He frowned at her, looking up from the screens of research that scrolled past. He wouldn’t hug her and comfort her. He’d demand that she compose herself. Cool and contained and all business, that was Dr. Nevis.
“Captain Garcia wants to speak to us,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Bad news.”
He arched an eyebrow and moved his hand across the display, saving the information for later. “Are we going to be late to Titan 34?”
Getting there wasn’t the problem. It was surviving afterward. She swallowed, not trusting her voice. “Just come to the bridge, all right? Garcia is going to explain everything.”
Before he could comment, she exited the room, slumping as she did. She didn’t want to be the one to have to share all the ugly details. Someone else could do that.
One more to round up. A headache began to throb behind her eyes. Rubbing her forehead, Zoey headed across the deck to Kaden’s cabin and knocked on the white molded-plastic door.
“Sleeping,” he yelled through the door. As the ship’s XO, Kaden Aziz did a little bit of everything. He was the backup pilot, gunnery, and navigator. An XO was the muscle for the scientists, and every research vessel had one. He was bodyguard and handyman all in one. Most scientists jokingly referred to them as “meatheads” and the common thought was that any idiot with muscles could be an XO. It didn’t take learning, just bulk.
And this particular XO got under her skin. Though she’d tried to keep a professional distance between them, Kaden constantly tried to talk to her. With dark eyes and smooth golden skin, he was easy to look at. Unfortunately—or fortunately in her case—all he could do was grin at her. Relationships between an XO and a science officer were strictly forbidden, so however much he might like to flirt with her, they couldn’t do a thing about it.
Zoey banged on Kaden’s door again. “Garcia wants to talk to you. It’s an emergency.”
A low groan of protest on the other side of the door and then a shuffle. “I’m up,” he called. “I’m up. Be there in five.”
He hadn’t picked up the note of anxiety in her voice. Good. She curled her fist, realizing just now how much her hand shook. “Meet us in the mess hall.”
She didn’t need to tell him that—their small crew had all their weekly meetings there. But he mumbled something around the electric hum of a toothbrush and she moved away from his door, suddenly filled with nervous energy. Damn. Damn. Damn.
Two months out of port. Sprint drive down for another nine days. Six days from planet-fall on a planet that was nothing but poison. Too far from shipping lanes. Damn it. There had to be something. Anything.
She didn’t want to die.
Her fingers trembled again, so she clenched her fists, crossing her arms over her chest and marching back to the mess hall.
Dr. Nevis sat at the foot of the table, waiting. He gestured at the empty spaces where three other seats were still empty, clearly irritated. “Well?”
“I’ll get Garcia,” she began.
Dr. Nevis stood. “I’ll be in the lab until—”
“Just wait,” she bit out, interrupting him. “Please.”
He looked at her with a mixture of surprise and irritation.
“Please,” she repeated, and then spun around on her foot and nearly crashed into Kaden. He was scratching at his undershirt, stretched tight over his brawny chest, his military-issue jumpsuit slouched around his waist. Tattoos covered one big arm, and he gave her a lazy grin and a wink. “What’s your emergency, science officer?”
She pushed past him. “Just sit down. Garcia’s going to explain everything.”
#
Garcia had talked slowly, his words already slurring from alcohol. Ten minutes into aborting the trip, and he was already breaking out the alcohol. Great.
Solar flare. A massive geomagnetic storm heading their way.
Screwed.
They were on the edges of fringe-space, and they had a lifepod. They could all climb into it and launch, and shuttle out. Lifepods had a smaller version of the big sprint drive that the Alcestis did, and it could get them into the next system. The good news was that they’d be safe from the geomagnetic storm. The bad news was that they wouldn’t be able to get home. They’d have to wait for rescue. And the pods weren’t equipped with much in the way of supplies. They’d have to go stasis.
Kaden watched Dr. Nevis’s mouth thin with displeasure. Arrogant prick. Like this was Garcia’s fault.
At his side, Zoey sat, looking soft and vulnerable and sad. “So the trip is over and the lifepod’s not a failsafe?”
“Bad news all around,” Garcia said. “Sorry, Science Officer. You’ll get your trip next time.”
“Hopefully,” Dr. Nevis said, a bitter sound in his voice. “You said yourself that it’s low on supplies.”
As Kaden watched, Zoey seemed to slump in her chair. Assholes. He’d gone to her side immediately, ignoring the annoyed looks the scientist had shot his way when he muscled in and wrapped an arm around her, hugging her close to his chest. He’d tried to keep his distance, but fuck that. Kaden had seen her first. Like hell he’d think about protocol when she needed comfort. If she wanted a damn hug, he was going to be the one to fucking give it to her.
She’d hesitated for a moment and then sank into his embrace, needing the comfort. He couldn’t imagine what she was feeling on her first trip out. Anxiety? Disappointment? Sadness? Either way, it warranted a hug, even if it was only from a meathead XO. He rubbed her back.
Kaden knew what this all meant. He’d been an XO for a long time, and in the military for longer. Everyone heard a story or knew a buddy that had run into a string of bad luck and had to abort a mission.
Some didn’t come back from a trip. It happened. You didn’t serve in the military without expecting misfortune to head your way sooner or later.
But poor Zoey was a science officer. She expected a nice, quiet little trip to her spot in fringe space, expected to take some pictures, catalog some samples, and head back to the university she worked for. Judging from her prim demeanor ever since she’d stepped on the ship, he’d guessed that this was her first space expedition.
Hell of a first trip.
#
Hours later
“We have a lot to do, Science Officer Maldonado,” Dr. Nevis said again, distracting her from her anxiety. “I want you to do a data-dump of all the records we have in the system.”
That could take hours, but it was a mindless task. She nodded. “I’ll get to work uploading the catalog.”
“Good,” he said in that same, pinched voice. He studied her for a minute and then added, “I’ll meet with the meathead to determine exactly how much time we have left and how much data storage we can utilize.”
She nodded, inhaling a deep breath. Okay. No panic. There was plenty of time to jettison the life pod and get out of the star system. No problem. She got to work, the infernal hiss of the computer’s recorders as she uploaded data into one large mega-file irritat
ing, so she put on her earbuds and turned on some soothing music.
This trip had turned into a disaster. They should have never stopped at Ceti 17 for that scanning run. It had turned up nothing, and all it had done was strand them here. She felt a surge of resentment for Dr. Nevis in that moment, since it had been his suggestion to do an unplanned trip to the wreck of the Cephalon, but how could anyone have thought this would happen?
Certainly not Garcia. He’d been swearing a blue streak in the cockpit ever since they’d separated to work on shutting the ship down. Swearing and drunk. She didn’t envy the meathead for having to try to calm him down.
She thought of Kaden for a moment. Always quick to laugh and tease, even when she tried to keep distance between them. He didn’t act like any other XO she’d been stationed with. Science officers and meatheads generally didn’t mix well, but Kaden seemed determined to ignore those boundaries, inviting her to play cards with him in the mess hall after hours and just grinning knowingly when she’d invariably turn him down. SO and XO didn’t mix, as Dr. Nevis was constantly in her ear, telling her. But the looks Kaden gave her—with those hot, dark brown eyes and beautiful skin the color of old Earth brandy... well. Perhaps he’d be worth looking up after the voyage, provided he was still interested.
Probably not, though. Men like him didn’t go for stuffy, buttoned-up scientists like herself. He was an enormous man, over six and a half feet tall, with extremely broad shoulders and a build that said he spent his downtime in the ship’s gym, working out. She’d caught sight of him without his shirt on once, and had been surprised at the tattoos that crawled up the entire length of one arm and covered his chest. Tattoos were the mark of a soldier, she thought primly. You never saw a science officer covered in that sort of thing. Just meatheads.
Then she winced, because now she was using the derogatory term that Dr. Nevis had. Every SO referred to the XO on their ships as “meatheads” since basically they were there to provide muscle. And as one, they were usually loud, brash, and soldiers to the core. While Kaden wasn’t loud, he was definitely a soldier.
