by Jaleta Clegg
Jasyn laughed. “Deal me in. What game?”
Their voices dropped to a soft murmur.
I fell asleep eventually.
“Dace, your shift,” Jerimon said.
I startled from a dream full of screaming people, scrambling for a nonexistant weapon under my pillow. I tumbled off the narrow bunk to the floor.
“Remind me to send someone else next time. I don’t want shot.” He pulled the door shut, leaving me in the semidarkness of the cubby.
I sat on the floor and ran my hands through my hair, trying to sort out my memories from the nightmares left by the Eggstone. My stomach growled.
Jasyn lounged in the pilot chair, bare feet dangling over the arm rest. The pale blue of the uniform she wore matched mine, except for the name badge. Peterson. I swallowed bile at the memory of screaming and blood mixed with blond hair and harsh sunlight.
Jerimon stood next to her with a cup of something resembling very stale chicken soup. “Want some?” His look challenged me.
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. I found a ration bar, ripping off the brittle wrapper as I crossed the four steps to the pilot station.
Jasyn shifted to the nav chair.
“How has it been?” I sat, running a hand lightly over the indicators. Mostly yellow, but nothing too far out of balance.
“Not as bad as that stretch from Viya to Tebros,” Jerimon answered. “We don’t have Leon locked in the bathroom.”
“Who’s Leon?” Jasyn asked.
Jerimon finished his soup then chucked the container into the recycling port. “Good night, ladies,” he said as he closed the door to the bunk cubby.
Jasyn raised one eyebrow. “Are you two feuding again?”
“No.” I punched buttons, running a check of the engine pressures.
“What’s eating you?”
“Nothing.” The engine readings came out too far in the negative. I adjusted the fuel feed, then ran it again.
“I’d leave you alone to sulk but there isn’t anywhere to go.” She swung her chair side to side, waiting. “What’s the matter, Dace?”
“It’s nothing, Jasyn, just nerves. I keep remembering the crew of this ship.”
“They died a hundred years ago, you can’t remember them.” Her tone softened.
“I still have Sessimoniss memories in my head. I can see them die through the priestess’ eyes.”
“That must be tough.” She tucked her bare feet underneath her. “If it would help, you could change out of the shipsuit. My dress is still in one piece, except for the bottom ruffle.”
I stifled a laugh. I’d look ridiculous in her dress. “I’d rather have the suit. I threw my dress away.”
“It needed it. Another couple of inches in the back and it wouldn’t have been hiding much of anything.”
“Another inch lower in front and I wouldn’t have to hide anything there either.”
She laughed, a quiet chuckle.
“You do know what we’re facing when we get back,” I said.
“Multiple charges of just about everything, yes, but we’re going. It feels good to know we’re on our way to civilization.”
I adjusted a temperature slider. “If the ship makes it.”
“I picked a course that should put us into regular traffic lanes within a few days. As regular as they get out here anyway. Even if the engines die completely, we can just hold out and wait. It shouldn’t be more than a week or two.”
I wanted her optimism. I still worried over the life support.
“Want me to read to you? We found a great book in that stash. Star-crossed lovers meet doom and certain death,” she read off the back cover.
“Sure.” Another light flickered yellow. I adjusted the coolant slider.
“‘The lights of the saloon glowed through the dark night like warm stars to a homebound spacer,’“ Jasyn read.
“That is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It gets better. ‘Brisa polished a glass, watching the door, waiting for the one man she had ever loved to enter. But he never came. Not since Ula lured him away with her siren call of treasure and adventure. Brisa cursed Ula under her breath as she filled glasses with foaming brew for the thirsty spacers lining the bar.’“
“That’s better?” I stood.
“Where are you going? I just started.”
“The coolant pump isn’t working. I’m going to see if thumping it will help.”
I avoided the puddles of hydraulic fluid still spotting the floor around the engine. I wormed my arm through the nest of tubes to the coolant pump.
Jasyn followed. “‘The door suddenly opened, flung wide to bang against the wall. A stranger, dark and handsome, stood framed against the night outside. A breeze stirred his thick mane of wavy hair. Brisa felt her heart speed up. It wasn’t Brandon, he was blond.’”
I wiggled the hose fittings, looking for a loose connection.
“‘His muscles rippled under his shirt as he closed the door and crossed to the polished bar. He leaned on the aged wood, fists planted wide as his eyes slowly stripped Brisa’s uniform from her shapely body.’”
“Does she dump a drink on his head now?” I tugged at a kinked hose. Coolant fluid gurgled under my hand.
“How did you guess?”
“I saw the vid.” Brittle flakes fell from the hose. I wiggled it gently, hoping the hose wouldn’t split.
“‘Brisa had never been so insulted in her life, stared at like a prize animal on display for sale.’“
I eased the kink from the hose. The high whine of the engine dropped to a lower pitch.
“‘Beer, he ordered brusquely. She filled the glass, foam spilling over the edge. She lifted it over the stranger’s head and poured. He grabbed her hand, his dark eyes menacing her. The glass tumbled from her fingers to the floor, crashing into a thousand pieces. The stranger slowly licked beer foam from her wrist.’”
“What do the gauges show now?”
She paused in her reading, tracing the row of gauges mounted on the outside of the engine. “Which one? Engine pressure is showing high. Temperature is now firmly in the yellow. Coolant pressure is borderline too low.”
“That should hold it for a while.”
We retreated to the cockpit.
Want to hear more?” Jasyn offered, settling back into the nav chair.
“No,” I said, then relented. The terrible book was still better than my own thoughts. “Yes.”
“Thought so.” Jasyn opened the book. The story didn’t improve. Brisa, the idiot, couldn’t keep her hands off the dark and handsome jerk. Jasyn eventually closed the book and yawned.
“My voice is going to crack if I read more. Want a drink?”
“Sure.”
She wandered back to the galley. “Do you want water or water?”
“No beer?”
She laughed, handing me a cup. The water tasted of too many cycles through the filters. We watched hyperspace ripple past on the viewscreen.
“How bad is the situation, really?” Jasyn asked.
I shrugged. “You know our chances as well as I do. If we’re lucky, the engines will hold until we reach destination. If we’re really lucky, the sublights will work, too. Air and water are the least of our worries. Read me more, please?”
“It isn’t quite so entertaining when it’s too close to real.”
“Brisa is anything but real.”
“You just want to hear who wins that zero-g wrestling match,” she teased.
“With the heart-pounding descriptions, who could resist?”
She opened the book.
Tayvis exited one of the tiny cabins, yawning.
I remembered why I felt so rotten. I turned my back, hunching my shoulders.
Jasyn shot a glance at Tayvis. She leaned close to me. “I think I know why you’re so upset. Dace, it isn’t what you think.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m not stupid or blind, Jasyn.”
“Think what you want then.” She dropped the book into the nav chair. “Maybe Brisa can teach you a few things.”
She traded small talk with Tayvis before taking over his bunk.
I tucked my feet under me. Maybe our partnership wasn’t going to work out.
“Passion Among the Stars?” Tayvis opened the book to a random page. “‘His hands touched her, possessing her with a power she couldn’t fight. She trembled in his arms, wanting him.’ What drivel is this?”
“It’s pretty bad, but it passes the time.”
“How’s the engine holding out?” He tossed the book onto the galley table.
“Not too bad.” I made the mistake of actually looking at him. My heart fluttered. I dropped my gaze to the controls.
Tayvis shifted his weight. “I’ve been wanting to talk with you.”
“Morning,” Jerimon mumbled as he joined us.
Tayvis snapped his mouth shut.
An alarm buzzed on the board. I said a bad word and flipped a switch. The gravity field twitched, sending Jerimon tumbling before slamming him to the floor. He said his own set of bad words.
“Power fluctuation,” I said. “Can you take the board, Jerimon?”
We traded seats.
The engine buzzed, knocking tubes around. I stared at it, wrench in hand. This had gone beyond my knowledge. I tightened everything I could think of. The engine rattled. I swore and hit it with the wrench.
The gravity field shut down entirely. I tumbled in freefall. I grabbed a pipe and pulled myself to the engine, then clonked it with the wrench again. The gravity field came back on, full power. The engine stopped buzzing. I hit the floor, knocking my breath out. I lay gasping, while the engine whined up and down the scale for a few minutes. The whine faded out. The engine gave a last hiccup, then started purring.
I rolled onto my back and giggled breathlessly. First mechanic’s rule from my time at the Academy and a certain junk ship dealer that I spent weekends with: hit it with a wrench. I thought he’d been joking.
“What did you do?” Tayvis leaned over me.
“Hit it with a wrench.” I giggled again.
“Did you hit yourself at the same time?”
I sat, still not quite able to breathe. “Is Jerimon good on the controls for a while? I need to check the air filters.”
“Jerimon, you want to take watch for a while?” Tayvis called over his shoulder.
“May as well,” Jerimon answered. “Nothing else to do.”
“There’s a good book there,” Tayvis said, acting a shade too innocent.
“I already read it, at least the better parts.”
“What am I missing?” Tayvis muttered. “Want help with the system? I’m beginning to feel useless.”
“You can scrub filters.” The filters were sure to be gummed up with all sorts of crud. Tayvis pulled the first one from the duct. “Use the sink and rinse it out, but watch the water usage.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered.
“You offered.”
“So I did.”
I took apart the water filters, and scraped old algae loose. Water gurgled through pipes when I turned it back on. Tayvis whistled while he scrubbed filters. I checked that he’d put the clean ones in right.
Everything looked good.
“So how bad is the news this time?” Jerimon asked.
“Water is up to about twenty percent. We shouldn’t have any problem with that. And the air scrubbers seem to be working.” I leaned over his chair. The lights on the board showed more green than before. Jerimon tapped a dial.
“Whatever you did to the engine really helped. Power is up to seventy-eight percent, instead of about forty five.”
“Then we’ll get back that much faster.”
He shot a glance over his shoulder at Tayvis, then lowered his voice to a whisper.
“How much trouble are we in? He’s a sector commander. Why is he really here? He followed you halfway across the Empire. He’s risking his career, at the very least. And that commander on Tebros, Lowell, he just let you walk away. Something doesn’t fit, Dace.”
I leaned closer, whispering in his ear. “I’ve told you the truth, Jerimon. I had no idea Tayvis was a sector commander. I don’t know why Lowell let me go. He wants me to join the Patrol.”
“That’s the truth, Dace?”
“All of it, I swear on Lady Rina’s cards.”
A grin spread over his handsome face like a sticky puddle. “You believe in Lady Rina’s cards?”
“No.”
“I do.” His grin faded, replaced by his scary intense look. “Deny it all you want, Dace, but we were meant for each other.”
“Have you been reading that book, Jerimon?” Tayvis asked behind us, his voice carefully neutral.
“No more than you have,” Jerimon caught my eyes.
Tayvis shoved the filter into the vent over my head.
“I think I’ll just go check the engine.” I squeezed past Tayvis. “Alone,” I added sharply. I wanted time to think, now that I didn’t have the Eggstone cluttering up my mind, watching every thought and emotion. I went into the engine room, shutting the door on the two men staring after me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jerimon and I traded sitting in front of the control boards for the next four days. I had a great excuse to avoid him. The ancient ship needed almost constant adjustments to keep running.
I dodged Tayvis, too. The tiny ship gave me claustrophobic nightmares. Four people crammed in a space made for two people tested to be very psychologically compatible didn’t make it easy to avoid anyone. We were not compatible. Jerimon and Tayvis traded insults, cold stares, and grunts. I hid from them both.
Jasyn did her best to keep the tension down. She played cards, told jokes, and read the stupid book about the stupid Brisa and her stupid strangers to anyone who would listen. Her version kept changing, growing wilder with each retelling.
I was sound asleep when everything changed. Alarms sounded, sudden and shrill. I scrambled out of bed, falling to the floor just as the gravity cut out. I bounced off the floor, rising to the ceiling where I bashed my head. The lights flickered off. The gravity field came back, just enough to land me on the floor headfirst, fading quickly to freefall. I lost my balance and smashed into the edge of the bunk.
The door opened. The emergency lights outlined a figure in the doorway that could only be Tayvis.
“What broke?” I rubbed my shin and my head. I couldn’t decide which hurt more. The gravity field shifted to normal strength. I tumbled forward.
Tayvis caught me, warm hands on my arms. “What hasn’t?”
The emergency lights flickered. The engine whined, growled, then died. I shoved Tayvis out of my way, then ran into the engine room. The stench of fried engine parts filled the ship. “Shut it off! Everything!”
“The board’s dead,” Jerimon shouted.
I scrambled for the manual resets, flipping the whole row. Reality twisted sideways as the ship plunged through the interface into normal space. I grabbed the bin handles, fighting back nausea. “Jeirmon?”
“Nominal control,” he said. “Scans show a brown dwarf nearby. We could use the sublight engines now.”
“I’m trying.” I hit every reset button. The engine remained dead. “Start, blast it!” I slammed the wrench against the main coolant pump. Nothing happened. I swore loud and long as I banged at the engine. Nothing helped.
I hit the reset buttons again. Nope.
“Dace, we need the engines. Now!” Jerimon’s voice cracked.
I scrambled for the dead man’s switch at the front of the engine. If it failed, we were about to become a comet. The switch stuck, rusted in place. I yanked. It didn’t budge. I hung my full weight on the lever with no luck.
Tayvis put his hand over mine. He slid his other arm around me, his hand closing over the switch closer to the engine. “Ready?”
If we weren’t about to die, I would have been very distracted.
“On two. One.” I braced myself. “Two!”
We both slammed our weight against the switch. The corrosion broke free. The switch dropped down, flakes of rust showering around us. Everything shut off, including the emergency lights. I counted to five. Tayvis’ breath stirred my hair. “Now.” I shoved upwards on the lever.
Tayvis pushed, muscles bulging. The switch ground back into place.
The lights flickered then came back on. The gravity field stabilized. I squirmed away from Tayvis, back to the manual start switches. I didn’t have time for distractions. The sublight engine coughed before dying. I flipped the switches again. The engine caught, but ran rough.
“It isn’t going to run long,” I shouted over the banging and rattling of the engine.
Jerimon hit the braking thrusters, slamming them fully on. The engine squealed, spewing black smoke. I stumbled as the ship slowed violently. Tayvis caught me again, pulling me from the smoking, grinding sublight engine. The engine died. I pushed away from Tayvis, shutting off the switches for the last time.
My leg ached. I limped into the cabin.
“We made orbit,” Jerimon said, “just barely.”
I slumped into a chair. “The engine is dead. I don’t have the parts or the experience to fix it.”
“Then let’s hope the emergency beacon works.” Jasyn pushed the button. The light blinked on and off, which could mean just about anything.
“Where are we?” Tayvis leaned in the engine room doorway. Smoke still drifted through the ship.
“I can find out.” Jasyn flipped switches on the scanning board. The screens fuzzed to static. She frowned and flipped the switches again. Static.
“I think they’re dead,” Jerimon said.
“I can see that,” Jasyn snapped, her calm rattled. She hit the com button. The speaker crackled, then went silent. Sparks danced over the board. She jerked her hands away.
“Can you fix those?” Tayvis asked me.
I shook my head. Replacing modules? Yes. Rewiring circuits I didn’t know anything about? Impossible.
“It looks like we’re stuck here for a while,” Tayvis said.
