Page 70 of Red Scale Daddy
Her hand snaps to the control array. “Port vane authority reduced to twelve percent.”
“Zero.”
“Twelve keeps roll reference.”
“Zero keeps us in one piece.”
She swears under her breath, sharp and human and wonderfully filthy, then kills the vane.
The Lamplight drops like a thrown blade.
For half a second, everything goes light and loose. My stomach floats. A diagnostic stylus lifts from the console and spins between us. Roma’s braid rises off her shoulder. The alarms stutter as the ship loses the force that had been draggingher sideways, and suddenly we are not being torn apart, only falling through an unstable corridor with a damaged hull, failing ballast, and insufficient time.
Much better.
Roma grabs the primary controls again. “Manual thrust redistribution.”
“Good.”
“I do not require encouragement.”
“You’re getting it anyway.”
“Be useful.”
“I am large and inspirational.”
“Be differently useful.”
The forward display flashes terrain.
Not ship debris. Not wake distortion. Terrain.
A field of dark bodies floats ahead, irregular asteroid fragments caught in a slow, ugly orbit around some invisible gravitational compromise. Most are small enough to pulverize us if we hit them wrong. One is large enough to land on if the universe briefly develops a sense of humor. Its surface is black-gray rock veined with pale mineral lines, spinning lazily beneath a ribbon of charged dust. Thin atmosphere clings to it according to the scan, which is impossible enough to be insulting.
Roma stares at the reading. “That should not have atmosphere.”
“File a complaint after we use it.”
“We are not landing there.”
“We are not flying much longer.”
She pulls up engine status. The drive alignment finally slips from green to amber, then flutters near red. The cockpit lights flicker. A burnt smell threads through the filtered air, acrid and hot, and this time it is not nerves inventing taste. Something in the aft power routing is cooking.
Roma’s voice stays tight and controlled. “We can clear the field if I regain thrust balance.”
“You have twelve seconds before the starboard ballast overheats.”
“I can bypass.”
“Can you bypass before we become art?”
She does not answer.
That is answer enough.
I point toward the large asteroid. “There.”
