by Jocelyn Han
“Are we stuck in the middle of that plume?” Tori said incredulously.
“We are.” Alen turned toward her. “But the expedition leader insists the pilot should make a landing.”
Mr. Barry, the pilot, looked anxiously from the controls to Mr. LaFleur and back. “I don’t know,” he faltered. “Maybe if I fly around it and try from the other side…”
“I can’t believe you’re actually considering this, Vick,” Alen snapped at the pilot. LaFleur was still hovering over Mr. Barry.
A shiver ran down Tori’s spine. She didn’t know what kind of power play she was in the middle of, but it felt wrong. “I’m not going down there,” she blurted out, surprising herself. “I’m sorry, but I won’t. If the Chief of Security says it’s not safe, I’m gonna trust his opinion on the matter.”
Jari, Alen and LaFleur turned around and all gaped at her. Jari nodded almost imperceptibly, LaFleur seemed about to explode with anger, and Alen… she couldn’t quite fathom what he was thinking, but his eyes weren’t so dark anymore. She knew that the landing wouldn’t happen if she pulled out now. It was too dangerous to send in a two-man team, and Alen wasn’t about to volunteer, that much was clear.
“I’m out too,” Jari spoke up. “I don’t feel confident enough to pull this off.” And just like that, he suddenly seemed a lot more sympathetic by showing his insecurity. It somehow made him stronger, not weaker.
“Turning around,” Mr. Barry said dryly, not waiting for LaFleur to give the order. He knew the plan was off the table. The spacecraft swerved to retrace its flight path back to Saturn.
Ernst had watched the whole exchange with bug-eyed interest. Tori hoped he wouldn’t mention any of this in his article. For all she knew, he would peg her as the heroine preventing the ship from crashing, and that would not go down well with LaFleur. She backed away from the cockpit, avoiding her boss’s angry eyes. She wasn’t going to stick around and become the target of his ire. Apparently, Jari and Alen were thinking the same thing, because they followed suit, leaving poor Mr. Barry at the helm with LaFleur fuming in the corner of the room.
Alen took up position at the left porthole, staring out in space. It took her a few seconds to gather enough courage to step up to him and mumble: “Thanks for that.”
He looked sideways. “No problem. I’m here to keep everyone safe.”
“Still.”
His lips curled up into a faint smile. “I’m not that much of an idiot, then.”
Tori gazed at the floor, her face hot with embarrassment. So he’d heard her yell at him last night. “Yeah, well, not today,” she replied reluctantly.
She was grateful for Ernst sidling up to her to ask her a few more questions. Hopefully, she’d survive the trip home without any more arguments with Alen Novak.
8.
“Girl, he’s got it in for you,” Shirley said, smiling up at Tori consolingly. Her friend was balancing three big stacks of hard drives in her arms.
“Gee, I wonder why,” Tori groaned.
Ever since they’d returned to the station, LaFleur had stuck her with the most mind-numbing jobs possible. Yesterday, after the failed expedition to Enceladus, she was asked to label containers of bacteria in the storage room for the remainder of the day, and she wouldn’t be surprised if she turned out to have run a marathon today, running up and down from the Astro Lab to Cartography to the Observatory to Commander Kelso’s office and back again. LaFleur had insisted his research data needed to be stored and edited physically, not just on the network, and so instead of sending his data by e-mail, he had asked her to copy everything onto a gazillion hard drives and hand-deliver them to the departments involved in his studies for his colleagues to comment on. It had been quite the workout so far.
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