Like he’d know with all systems dark.
“We need to see beyond the ship—” she said, letting him know she was worried about the same crap he was.
Had the pirates got hosed by the wormhole? Or were they coming through after them?
She gave a frustrated sound, then glanced around. Spotted a tool of some kind and grabbed it. She knelt in front of a panel, cleared the blood from her eyes again and opened it up.
“How can I help?” the green geek asked, staggering over next to her.
“When I tell you, try the controls just above where I am,” Arian said, her voice, muffled but still matter-of-fact.
He could admit to himself, he’d been impressed before and he was now, while also trying to figure out why she seemed different from their first meeting. And then he gave it up as not worth the increase in his headache.
“Want me to go check out in the bay, sir?” Tiger asked. He leaned against the hatch jamb, but his color had improved.
Coop hesitated, then nodded. “Grab a first aid kit, too. There are probably several in the lockers.”
Tiger headed out, using the wall to keep upright. There were at least two guys—guards—out there in the bay, Coop recalled. “Check on the guys out there,” he called after him and got a “roger that” in response.
He turned back to the bridge in time to see Arian sit back and look up at the geek. “Try it now.” She scrubbed at her face, smearing the blood around. She looked at her hand, then wiped it on the leg of her coveralls.
The geek bent over the controls and started doing stuff.
“Nothing yet.”
Arian’s head disappeared inside. “Try again,” she said.
After more tapping, and what felt like a long time, the screen flickered.
“It’s trying, but not—” the geek said, “no, wait, here it comes.”
Coop helped Arian climb to her feet, and she joined the geek at the controls. He noticed she braced with one hand, while she studied the data. No surprise she might be a little dizzy when blood still tracked down the side of her face. He leaned against the wall on her other side and tried to process the data. The good news, there didn’t seem to be a lot of bogeys around the Boyington. Some rocks were still tracking along with them, but no ships that he could see. Then he looked closer.
“Where’d everything go?” He was no geek, but he had a bad feeling that they weren’t in Kansas anymore. D’oh, wormhole. They’d gone through a wormhole. Thinking it didn’t help him process what his eyes saw. He repeated the words to himself. They’d gone through a wormhole from where they were to somewhere else. He rubbed his face, and the hand came away sticky and red. Maybe he was hallucinating?
“We’re…” the geek swallowed. “…not where we were. We’re…somewhere else.”
“Where?” Coop asked.
“I don’t…know. Somewhere. Could be a long way from…” Panic had filtered into his voice. “No way to know…”
“Well, at least we’re not dead,” Coop reminded him.
The geek blinked a couple of times and then nodded. “Right.”
“I feared the anomaly would tear the ship apart,” Arian said. “When the barrage interacted with the anomaly, it increased its size and gravitational pull.”
That seemed to worry her more than the change in location. Of course, she’d done this rodeo once already.
Coop thought he heard the geek mutter under his breath. “Not dead is good.”
Maybe if he said it enough, they’d all be convinced. Tiger came back with a first aid kit.
“They’re both down, but breathing. Don’t think they broke anything, but I’m not a doc,” he said. He dropped the kit on the empty seat and opened it. He studied each of them, then said, “Line up for some first aid.”
* * *
Coop sat impatiently tapping his boot on the floor while Tiger mopped him up and slapped a bandage over the spot. Didn’t seem to be a big deal, but now that he knew it was there, it hurt. As if he figured that, Tiger handed him a couple of pills. He glanced over his shoulder at Arian, his gaze admiring. It wasn’t the first time they’d noticed the same gal, but it was the first time Coop wanted to punch out his friend. Because he was a grownup, he could get past it. Besides, he needed to get a grip. Focus on the big problem. The really big problem.
They were lost. Lost in space.
He’d never liked the movie, he sure didn’t like having it in his reality. You don’t know how lost we are, he reminded himself. Just because the geek looked ready to cry…he didn’t know either. They didn’t know what they didn’t know yet. Once they knew…
“We need to get in contact with the bridge,” Coop said.
The link between our ships is still active.
“So they should be able to see what we’re seeing?” Coop asked the dragon.
He hesitated. There are many reasons they might be unable to see or respond to hails.
“Ship is probably on emergency power.” Coop blew out a sigh, then wished he hadn’t. His ribs didn’t like it.
Arian braced herself on the wall and closed her eyes, her head tipped as if she were listening to, or for, something. For just a second it seemed to Coop that little lights flickered under her skin. He blinked, and they were gone. Man, he’d really banged his head.
Her lashes lifted. “The power source does feel different, less than what it was before.”
Coop exchanged a look with Tiger. How could she tell that?
She is what you would call a machine whisperer.
Coop was pretty sure he hadn’t, and wouldn’t, call anyone any kind of whisperer, but okay. He even got what the dragon was telling him. She was a good mechanic.
She is much more than that. The dragon sounded amused. But you already sense that, do you not?
I have no idea what you are talking—thinking about, Coop said, not out loud, because he was not stupid.
“Many systems are offline.” She dropped her hand and sighed. “There is much…clamor around the ship.”
He hesitated, considering the question he wanted to ask. Wasn’t sure how Pappy would feel about it. On the other hand, Pappy wasn’t in a position to object. And he expected his people to act in emergencies, not just sit on their hands.
“Do you think you could get the engines going again? Maybe help restore communications?”
Tiger’s eyes widened. He knew Pappy’s inclinations, too, but he didn’t protest.
Arian didn’t look surprised or much of anything. As always, she considered the question before answering. “It depends on the type and severity of the damage.”
“Will you try?” he persisted.
“Of course,” she said, this time with hesitating.
She was profoundly pragmatic, he decided. She had to know it wasn’t going to be easy—and was likely to be dangerous—working their way through a distressed ship, but she hadn’t hesitated. Of course, her fate was tied to theirs now, but it didn’t feel like that. Impression he got from her, it was…sensible. Even the way she bent to collect her scattered tools was practical. Drama-free.
Though it wasn’t appropriate to the circumstances, his brain coughed up that moment in the passage when the mob of crewmen had pressed them together. Really pressed them together. She’d felt it, too. He’d seen it in the way her pupils dilated and the way her breath hitched. When she’d licked her lips, he’d almost lost it. If they’d been alone—they wouldn’t have been pressed together, he reminded himself. He massaged his aching temple and looked around, at anything but Arian.
He saw one of her tools at his feet and handed it to her, wondering if it was what had bruised his ribs. Kind of looked like his rib felt. He turned to the geek. “You stay here and help—”
“Rhubreak,” Arian said. “His name is Rhubreak.”
Really? “Okay, you help Rhubreak with this ship, maybe try to figure out where we are—” Would the dragon be able to communicate with the geek?
I will use the screen t
o talk to him.
The geek looked like Coop had just asked him to be a red shirt but, after an uncertain look at the dragon, he nodded. A spark of geek-like interest in the alien ship pushed more of the panic from his eyes. He went to push up his glasses, realized they were gone and started looking for them.
“You say the impact of the weapons increased the size of the wormhole…?” His tone had already lost some of its fear as his geek wheels started to turn.
Coop exchanged an amused look with Tiger.
“There is a problem outside this ship,” Arian said, erasing any signs of amusement.
Coop spun around and found her with her palm against the wall again. “Problem?”
Coop glanced toward the open hatch door and noticed a faint red pulse of light coming from the bay. Tiger’s eyes widened in alarm. “The bay shield.”
As one they turned to Arian. “Can you do anything?”
“I can try.” She slung the bag of tools over her shoulder and headed out.
He looked at the geek. “Might want to work on getting the door of this ship closed while you’re messing with stuff.”
The geek’s eyes went wide again, but Coop didn’t have time to hold his hand.
Outside in the main bay, the red alarm lights pulsed. Based on the gap between flashes, it was counting down to failure. As if it had been waiting for them, it added an alarm to the mix. Would have been nice to do that sooner…
“You should help those men onto the ship,” Arian said, her gaze scanning the bay. “Where are the controls?”
Coop pointed them out, then turned to help Tiger move the two downed guards onto the ship. It did not feel great when the door of her ship cranked up with them outside. Dragon could have waited until he was sure Arian could get the big doors closed in time. What would happen to the ships in the bay if it decompressed?
“Let’s see what we can find in those lockers.” Maybe there were portable oxygen kits in there. And some way to anchor themselves? As they headed toward the lockers, Coop saw Arian run a hand over the panel, then dig into her bag and extract a tool.
The red lights pulsed faster.
They were running out of time.
He grabbed a locker door and flung it open. Then another and another—there they were. He tossed Tiger an oxygen kit and grabbed two more, one for him and one for Arian, and a big flashlight. “See if there is anything else in these things we might need,” he ordered Tiger. “Like some way to anchor ourselves.”
She had the panel open now. He reached her side. “Oxygen.”
“If the shield fails, we will be sucked out into space, will we not?” She didn’t so much ignore him as stayed focused on the task in front of her.
“You might want to hurry,” Coop said. He turned on the flashlight and shone it into the guts she’d exposed. “Maybe we should ask the dragon to let you on the ship, Tiger—”
The flashes got seriously closer together. In a way bad for them.
He looked back at the ship, wondering if they could make it now?
The huge doors began to close, but moving slowly. Coop turned Arian around and fitted the mask over her face. “Hold on.”
He pulled a mask over his face and looked around. They’d need something sturdy to hang onto.
Tiger appeared out of the murk carrying harnesses with hooks. The door slid closer and the lights pulsed faster as they scrambled into the harnesses.
He pushed the hook over a bar and got a good grip on Arian, even though he knew it wouldn’t help them when the cold of space rushed into to take the place of the oxygen and their exposed skin turned into chunks of ice. The red warning light turned solid, and an alarm shrieked—
He felt the tug from changing pressure—
—and the doors locked into place.
It felt colder than before. Despite this, he dabbed at the sweat on his forehead, and leaned against the wall to support legs that felt like rubber, He yanked off the oxygen mask. “That was close.”
Tiger lifted his mask. “Let’s not do that again for a while. Or ever.”
“That would be best,” Arian said, pulling hers down. Then surprised him with a sudden smile.
If this had been a movie, he’d have kissed the girl right now. A pity this wasn’t a movie. For a lot of better reasons than kissing a girl, but for sure that one.
8
“I had a feeling you had a sense of humor,” Coop said, something different in the smile he directed at her, something that replaced cold with warm.
Did she? Arian blinked. What was that?
The ability to perceive humor or appreciate it.
So it is a positive?
Yes.
She felt humor from Rhubreak, but she ignored him because she liked the look in Coop’s eyes. The warmth that filled her felt like basking in the high hot sun. There were urgent things to do. She knew this. But they’d almost just died. Surely for one moment, she could be happy to be alive and smiling up at Coop? Tiger cleared his throat and Coop jumped and turned toward him, a tinge of color staining the top of his cheeks. She glanced at Tiger and caught him grinning and shaking his head.
“Man, you got it bad.”
Because she did not know the proper response to his comment, she turned toward the hatch that would give them access to the larger ship. “Should we…”
“Yes,” Coop straightened with a jerk, then looked startled. “Surprised my legs are working. That was quite the shot of adrenalin.”
“Yeah, adrenalin,” Tiger jeered, but he followed them to the exit door.
Her legs felt different, less stable, too, as she followed the two men. Coop tried the control. It was not a shock when the hatch did not move.
“No power?” Tiger asked.
“There should be a manual override,” Coop said, examining a panel next to the door, then looking at the other side.
Arian studied the walls on either side, as well, noting a place where there could be handles or access notches. She inserted her fingers in the spots. She tugged, and after some resistance, the panel released.
“That would be it,” Coop said, reaching past her to force the handle down.
It did not appear easy. There was a loud click and the hatch slid part way open. The two men tossed packs through, then forced their way through the gap. Arian handed her sack of tools to Coop. Then squeezed through to a passage that felt unfamiliar with strips of dim lighting running along the floor. Warning lights, placed at intervals, pulsed near the ceiling, but did not offer additional illumination. Instead, they increased the murkiness by throwing red shadows onto the walls in strange patterns.
She reached for her bag, aware of the muted pulse of emergency power through the soles of her boots.
“You sure we should head for the engine room? What about the bridge?” Tiger asked, the odd lighting making his expression challenging to read.
Coop hesitated. “Was thinking we’d head toward the central core and see how it goes.” His gaze, meeting that of his friend and fellow pilot, was sober and filled with worry. “We might not be able to get to either.”
“The central core?” Tiger appeared troubled by this. “Wouldn’t it be quicker to work our way down from here?”
“The engine room is more exposed, and so are all the routes there from here. If there are hull breaches or collapsed passages…” Coop ran out of words for several seconds as he tried to order his thoughts. “If we got stopped, we’d have to work our way back.”
Tiger nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
They fell into step beside Arian, but Tiger kept looking at Coop, she noticed.
“You’re not thinking of doing what I think you’re thinking of doing? Are you?”
“What’s that?” Coop asked. He shone his light on the symbols that told them where on the ship they were.
“The central core. You’re not thinking of trying to climb down that way?”
Coop shrugged. “If the power is off, it’s the fast way down. We’r
e only three decks up.”
“Do we know if we’ll know if it’s off? Just because the engines are off, doesn’t mean—if it’s still active and we pop a panel, all that will be left is some crispy pilots. And possibly no ship.”
Coop glanced at Arian. “Could you tell by doing your touch thing?”
Her touch thing? Arian looked at her hand, then let it drop to her side. “Perhaps.” What had the girl in the movie said? Don’t make promises you don’t know if you can keep. A promise was serious, not something to be offered lightly. “I can try.”
Coop’s grin turned a bit crooked. “Well, let’s find out.” He looked around as if getting his bearings. “Let’s try this way. If I remember right, it’s quicker through the medical bay.”
The corridors looked, felt, and smelled different from other times she’d been allowed off her ship. The air was thick, a bit smoky, and carried the scent of singed wire and burning chemicals.
It was a relief to her when they found that they were not alone—there were other survivors on the Boyington. They started passing people in various stages of recovery. Each time, the two men paused to assess, offer assistance, and ask if anyone had contact with the bridge of the ship.
Arian watched and added mental notes to the other things she’d observed about these people. Deeper into the ship, the injuries became less, so the stops became shorter. But she noted these other groups were working to help others, to open stuck hatches—doing what needed to be done. They were shaken but focused.
As they drew closer to the core, she became concerned. If these people were typical, then those in the engine room would also be working to repair the engines. That they had failed was troubling. Either there was no one there able to effect repairs, or the engines were seriously damaged. Or it was taking time, which left another question for her to ponder. How long did they have before they succeeded? She had not missed the part about how simply opening a panel could kill them. If her “touch thing” did not work, they would die, and perhaps cause other deaths.
Planning to risk her life in this way was new to Arian. She’d taken risks when she left the house to gaze at the stars—life-threatening risks—but a risk with low odds. Getting on the ship with Rhubreak was also a risk, and when they were attacked, well, that was do or die. No thinking involved. But moving through this ship, she had time to wonder why she had not hesitated to come with them.
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