Page 16 of Doom Averted

Next to me, both kids were whooping with excitement, laughing and giggling when the ship dropped back out of its superspeed leap after a short minute. Da’vi had explained Faster-Than-Light jumps to me, but I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. Even if I understood that without those kinds of jumps, nobody would ever get anywhere in a timely fashion, the distances would simply be too great to cross.

Now that we’d finished the jump, it looked like we were just hanging still. On the screens, only black showed with only the faintest glimmer of stars in the distance. Deceiving, I simply couldn’t sense any kind of motion, but we probably were still moving forward.

“Shit,” the guy behind the weapons console said, I was pretty sure his name was Thorin. “They followed us.” That was really bad news it seemed, because the pilot shared another look with the Captain, his worry clear on his face even if it looked almost entirely like the head of a fox.

It was the navigator who spoke, the small human woman tapping a button on her console. “There’s not much out here in a dead zone that can hide our leaps Da’vi, you’re going to have to turn it on. Speed’s our only option.”

My guy could be heard swearing in that deep dual-toned voice of his. He still sounded angry when he responded and I couldn’t help but smile. This should make me feel scared, but after the miracle Da’vi had pulled off before, reaching me in time, I had faith that he could do it again.

“Akri and I calculated the risks, there’s a 68 percent chance our last jump caused catastrophic fractures in the engine casing. Another jump like that? Engine failure. We could end up dead in the water until I fix things,” Da’vi spoke with a deep rumble of discontent on the words failure and catastrophic as if those words personally offended him.

“Odds of escape without that speed, Chloe?” Abigail asked, she leaned forward in her harness to gently pat the other woman on the shoulder. Her amazing, big hair haloed around her head in an enviable way.

The younger woman responded to the gentle touch by squaring her shoulders, her chin firming. She looked at Abigail, then at her guy, and the fox-like male reached out to squeeze one of her hands gently, nodding at her in encouragement. Then her eyes flickered briefly in a very freaky way while the com blared again as the ship chasing us tried to hail us. “Odds of escape without an extra burst of speed are six percent.”

“Turn on your upgrade Da’vi, we’ll have to risk it. You heard those odds,” the Captain said. Da’vi didn’t respond beyond a growl that could be construed as an affirmative. I saw how the navigator, Chloe, focused back on her console, and star charts started flickering across her screen at a crazy speed.

“They are closing in, that’s a Raptor Class Vessel, they can outpace us outside of FTL,” Thorin announced darkly. The pilot’s body jerked forward before the man had even finished speaking, his hands moving the yoke.

“Hold on tight everyone, FTL in three, two, one…” he said and everything streaked across the screen, my hair catching another static charge. The kids were much quieter this time, and Aggy reached across to curl a palm over my tightly clenched fist, offering silent support. Maybe asking for some too, I could tell her eyes were as large and worried as my own.

I couldn’t tell how long this particular FTL jump was, the attempt I made to count in my head was soon disjointed and confused. It felt almost as if the seconds doubled on themselves, we were going faster than light, were we somehow going faster than time? It felt like that even more than during our last jump.

One moment, streaks of light filled the viewscreens, the next the curve of a silvery planet filled it. In the distance, I saw the shape of a second, bluer planet curve out behind the first one. Though my body didn’t physically feel any sharp kind of braking, my brain still tried to interpret it as a sudden lack of motion, and I jerked forward in the seat’s harness. I wasn’t the only one who jerked forward, only Chloe remained perfectly poised in her chair.

“Akri, scan for other ships, were we followed?” the Captain said and the voice of the AI responded that it was scanning now. So that was what it was called, they had given the AI a name, I wondered just how sentient it was. I mean, my phone could also be addressed by a name and perform searches for me, but it was definitely still a dumb machine.

When others were unbuckling themselves from their seats, despite the AI not yet announcing the all-clear, I followed suit. I wanted to rush to the engine room to check on Da’vi. He’d warned against this jump, worried it would damage his precious engine, I wanted to know if he was okay. Where we dead in the water now? The thought alone made me shiver, I wasn’t alone this time but I still didn’t like the thought of being stuck in space again.

Right as I was thinking of him, Da’vi’s voice came over the coms on the bridge, “Reporting extreme engine stress. I can’t confirm if FTL is out permanently, but I do not recommend another jump, the engine will explode.” Oh boy, that sounded bad.

At least Akri followed that up with some good news when the AI announced that it was not recording any vessels in the solar system.

Chapter 12

Arianna

We weren’t stuck, not exactly. I didn’t fully understand Da’vi’s explanation of what was happening with the engines. Apparently, we could still fly at cruising speeds and we’d set a course for the nearest solar system that had a planet with the kind of material we needed to make repairs. It was uninhabited, like most of the nearest systems, further making it clear that we were only just exiting the dead zone I’d been stuck in.

FTL jumps were allowed if we kept them to shorter than six seconds, he’d been very adamant about that. This meant that Chloe and Kitan, the pilot, had done a short series of them over the course of the past few days. Short little leaps with long intervals for the engine to cool down again.

Da’vi was extremely busy, working all day every day to fix up the engines, to repair the damage done to them from the extreme speeds. I’d listened to his grumpy, adorable mutterings about warped metal and stress fragments more than once. I wished I could have spent more time listening to him, keeping him company, but as soon as he’d noticed me he’d make sure to leave, no matter what he was doing.

The engine was a little crucial and while we had no indication we’d been followed, there was the fear that the Kertinal Raptor Class Vessel would find us again. So I’d postponed my plan to break down his walls for the sake of the ship. It was making me feel extremely lonely and a little insecure. Da’vi had been my security for weeks, it felt wrong not to have his presence to anchor me.

Sitting in the mess hall I watched as Aggy patiently taught her two boys how to read through some kind of fun card game she’d clearly hand-drawn. On one end of the large dining table, Fierce and Thorin were playing a complex alien game that probably most closely resembled chess. I thought that maybe Fierce was new to it because sometimes he’d ask his friend if he understood a rule correctly.

That was just the kind of thing I’d normally be all over, I’d try to learn the game, and strike up a conversation. I’d have these people I was suddenly stuck with figured out in no time at all. I didn’t feel like it this time, like all my drive to explore, and to meet new people was just gone. I just wanted to figure out Da’vi, but it was selfish to claim his time so I couldn’t.

“Hi, can I sit with you?” Abigail asked me and she indicated the empty chair across from me at the table. I gave her a bright, friendly smile, and a nod while I hurried to make some space for her.

Tori, the young woman with the tiny, alien baby, had dug out a whole pile of yarn from the cargo bay and I was sorting through the stuff, trying to decide on what to make next. I’d already made a top and a skirt with the crochet hooks Jakar had made me which I’d both given to the other girls. I probably had enough dark purple and blue to make a cute little romper for Tori’s baby, it would match her lovely skin tones.

“You and Da’vi, I don’t mean to pry but… Are you like… Attracted to him?” Abigail asked, she crossed her bare arms over her chest, the leather crop top she wore beautifully accentuating all her curves. I tried not to stare at her cleavage with envy, my chest was far flatter, and if I gained any weight, it always went straight to my hips, not my boobs.

Snorting with laughter, I focused on pulling the blue end from a ball of yarn. “Are you blind? What’s not to like about that man? He’s sexy as sin.” I grinned up at her and she smiled back at me, dimples popping in her cheeks. “Then again, I do not think there’s a single unattractive guy on this ship, is there? They’re all so… Manly.” As former gladiators, these guys still worked out every day and it showed. It was a favorite gathering spot for the women on the ship to sit on the sidelines in the gym and watch them work out.

Da’vi never missed a workout session, it was one of the only moments I could shamelessly ogle him so it was not surprising that Abby had picked up on my interest. She picked at some red yarn in front of her, stroking along the soft strands with her fingers. “Da’vi’s not the social type, he needs someone to shake him up. But…” Her eyes met mine squarely across the table, “He’s got a soft heart, I don’t want to see it bruised, you understand me?”