Chapter 5
SEBASTIAN
Gunnar smelled so good. I tried to ignore it, not wanting to alarm him. Thankfully, my console readings and the trajectory headings kept my attention on work.
One false move up here, and we would both end up dead.
Could wolves survive in open space? I didn't think so.
We still had to breathe. I'd shredded my flight suit when I'd shifted into a wolf the first time, but my helmet had stayed on well enough to supply much needed oxygen.
Bunting had called it a state-of-the-art static shield that used my wolf fur as an energy conductor to form an airtight seal around my neck.
If Gunnar turned wolfy up here, I hoped he had enough common sense to listen to me and remove his flight suit. He would need a working suit to return to earth's atmosphere.
Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult as Gunnar's scent permeated the small space.
I'd known I was a wolf for six months now, and this was the first time I'd ever experienced a scent so overwhelming.
He still smelled like sunflowers and sage, but beneath that was something sweet and savory, like steak and honey.
I wanted to strip him out of his flight suit and lick him from his neck to his toes.
When I imagined kissing him, I shut that shit down.
As the most experienced astronaut on this shuttle with all of one mission behind me, I knew the odds for disaster were high.
On my last mission, we'd veered outside the protective range of the Lagrange points, which Dr. Bunting had credited for my shift.
If Gunnar was a shifter like me, he would probably need the same catalyst to shift for the first time.
So far, all the tech read-outs were normal. The flight simulation said we would make our trip around the moon without any problems. Side calculations matched.
I couldn't prove it, but my gut told me we would be getting furry before we headed home. That feeling kept me on high alert, even as I tried to rest up before we conducted our experiments.
I drifted in and out of sleep over the next few hours. An unfamiliar alarm woke me. I turned to find Gunnar unbuckling his seatbelts.
"It's time," he said.
Wordlessly, I unstrapped from the chair and followed him into the small airlock behind our seats.
The airlock was already colder than the cockpit, though still filled with air.
We locked our helmets into place, closed our face shields, powered up our oxygen tanks and prepared to open the airlock to the lab in the back of the shuttle.
Pressing the button did nothing. No countdown to open. No voice over the intercom telling us to stay calm.
The message would've been futile. I was not calm.
I tapped the red button three or four times, hoping it had malfunctioned or something.
Behind me, Gunnar tapped the red button to re-enter the cockpit.
Instead of sliding open and returning our access to the shuttle's controls, the doors remained shut.
"This is bad," Gunnar said. "It feels like we're drifting off course."
"We're not drifting." When we entered the airlock, the ship had shaken, almost like we'd hit something.
The shuttle had sensors everywhere to alert us to incoming asteroids or space junk, but no alarms had gone off.
Whatever had shaken us had been triggered by the resealing of the airlock.
Someone back on earth, either my father or Dr. Bunting, knew exactly what was happening to us.
I wasn't taking any chances. While we still had breathable air, I removed my flight suit and folded it neatly.
"What are you doing?" Gunnar asked.
The room had bench seats that folded up when they weren't in use. I tucked my suit behind one, hoping it would hold if we lost semi-gravity. I didn't know what to do with my helmet, so I lowered it to cover my crotch. "Remember when I said to do what I do?"
He nodded.
"Trust me. You're going to need your flight suit."
He unzipped his suit, still glaring at me like I'd lost my mind.
After a beat, I stripped out of my compression wear, too, standing only in my stretchy boxer briefs. I doubted they would stretch enough for my wolf, but Gunnar looked scandalized enough.
I turned my back on him in the six-by-six space. Two full-sized wolves could fit, but it would be tight.
"Whatever happens, remember we're friends, all right?"
"I wouldn't go that far," he said. "What do you think is going to happen?"
We both felt it at the same time, the strange sensation of leaving our stable atmosphere. The shuttle shifted a few degrees my way, and Gunnar stumbled into my arms.
"Sorry," he mumbled. "I don't feel so well. I think I'm gonna throw up." He fell to his knees.
The sense of disequilibrium hit me, too, but I didn't fear it this time. "Relax and let it happen," I said.
I thought I said the words aloud, but the change came over me so quickly. One moment, I stood in the airlock. The next, I was on all fours, tail wagging at my delicious smelling mate. In my wolf form, I was certain Gunnar belonged to me.
He sat back on his haunches, his human face contorted in anguish. The change started at his hands, his fingers cracking and popping in agonizing slow motion.
"Let it happen." I nosed his hand, and his eyes snapped open. Instead of their usual hazel, they were now gold. I saw my reflection there, my golden eyes matching his.
"What is this? What are you?"
"We. This is what we are." I didn't know if Bunting had done something to us, or if we had always been predisposed to turn into wolves.
Gunnar shuddered, and suddenly, a wolf stood in his place, shaking his fur. He dropped down on all fours and crawled to me, butting his head under my chin.
"Alpha. Mate. Mine. Claim."
He was handling his first transition a lot better than I had. At least we still had breathable air and didn't need the helmets. "Not so fast," I said. "We need to switch back to being humans with opposable thumbs, and then we need to find a way out of the airlock."
"What about the experiments?"
"Experiments be damned. Those fuckers will have to send up two more astronauts."
"Will they be wolves like us?" He nosed at my neck. "Are they all wolves like us?"
I didn't know the answer to that. I'd only been a wolf for six months, and this was only my second shift.
I didn't even know if I could shift back on earth.
Dr. Bunting had run all sorts of tests on me, but he seemed disappointed when he discovered my genetic markers were all the same, even after the intense radiation and the trip to space.
The shuttle listed the opposite way, and my head cleared a little. Instead of fighting the urge to bite and claim Gunnar, I sensed my humanity near the surface, rather than trapped in my mind.
I reached for my skin and it obliged, wrapping around me and returning me to my human form. I chuffed a laugh and sank down on my folded arms.
"How did you do that?" Gunnar's wolf whined and licked my face.
"Reach for your humanity."
"I can't feel it!" He tried to pace, but the airlock was too small for him to turn around without climbing the wall. He put his paws up on the airlock door and yipped. "The light's blinking. That means it's about to open, right?"
"You have one minute before the airlock door opens."
"Shit! The air will be sucked right out of my doggy lungs!"
I grabbed him by the ruff and shuffled beneath his giant paw, very aware that I was practically naked. "Listen to me. I need you to shift back."
"I don't know how!"
"Take a deep breath."
He did it with me, in for six, out for eight.
"Find your humanity."
He closed his eyes and leaned forward, his body shrinking slightly.
"Come back to me so we can get your suit back on."
He tossed his head back in a soundless howl. His fur rippled and shrank into his perfect skin and chiseled human form. I wanted to hold him against me, to kiss his forehead and tell him everything would be all right, but the countdown had reached the final seconds.
"Ten. Nine."
"Here." I handed him my helmet, tethered to the folding bench by the inner strap. "Where's your helmet?" I asked when I couldn't see it.
He handed it to me as she continued to count down. "Three. Two."
"Hit the override switch on that door at the same time I hit this one," I said, yanking the helmet over my head. It would only work for a few seconds before the outside space mingled with our air.
"Now," I said as the light changed from red to green and the door shifted with a shudder. It moved less than an inch before it reversed and returned to the locked position. The light returned to red.
"Cockpit access will be restored in five minutes," the female computer voice said.
"Fast thinking with the override," Gunnar said as he tugged on his compression shirt. I'd missed my chance to see him naked. He'd pulled on his pants with lightning speed.
I dragged on my compression pants, happy to find my underwear had survived, the front, anyway. From the draft, they must have split in the back to make room for my tail. Still, I would take that as a win.
"Now what do we do?"
He pulled the flight suit up to his knees and stepped into his boots, and then snapped at me when he caught me staring at his knees. "Sebastian?"
I loved hearing my name roll off his tongue. It sounded foreign and dangerous.
The danger sense snapped me back to the present. "We'll see how far off course we are, and how much fuel we have left."
I hoped we had enough to return to the space station. I planned to go through every line of code in the shuttle's motherboard before I trusted her to take us home.
The airlock opened into the cockpit again, and we resumed our seats. For several minutes, we talked math, code, and logistics. Once we'd set our course for rendezvous with the space station, Gunnar removed his helmet and raised both hands to massage his neck. "What the hell happened back there?"
"We turned into wolves."
"No shit." He gave me wicked side eye before continuing to rub his neck. "How did you know?"
"I've been up here before." I shrugged, but the movement barely registered in my flight suit. I removed my helmet, too, and tucked it between my thigh and the seat.
"You turned into a wolf then, too?"
I nodded.
"My grandma used to say we descended from wolves.
I was born with lanugo all over my body.
She said that was the sign of the wolf." He slumped in his seat.
"She died shortly after my mom gave up on us.
When I didn't wolf out during puberty, Teen Wolf style, I figured she was just like every other adult in my life who had lied to me. "
He looked as heartbroken as the scent rolling off him. I didn't know how I could smell his emotions, but I could. His sorrow stung my nostrils like wet concrete.
"She was right," he whispered, looking at his hands as though he'd never really seen them before, the callouses and palm lines, the ridges and valleys of his knuckles. He curled his long fingers into loose fists and brought them down on his thighs. "How often do you shift?"
"So far, I've only done it outside the effects of the Lagrange points."
"We have to come to space each time?" He glanced over his shoulder at the airlock. "Can we do it again?"
"We need to get back to the space station so we can fix the shuttle." There was no way I was following my dad's flight plan back to the cruise ship now. I wanted to chart my own way home, one that didn't drop us right in his lap.
Gunnar stood up and peeled off his flight suit again.
"It's too small in here," I said. "You'll break something." There was barely three feet from the front console to the airlock door, and only two feet of space between our bucket seats.
"Not if I'm careful," he said. He pulled off everything but his cartoon-cat-covered boxers and kneeled on the floor with his palms on the tile. He closed his eyes and the shift came over him again, replacing his human body with his wolf's. He cocked his head to one side and his tongue lolled out.
"See? I told you I could do it."
We were back inside the Lagrange points, too. "Showoff," I said. "Shift back so I can try."
He leaned forward and rested his warm chin on my thigh. I couldn't resist a few ear scratches. His fur was far softer than it looked, especially around the ears.
"Come on," I pleaded. "I want to try it, too, and again when we're back on earth."
Satisfied with the head scratches, Gunnar leaned back on his haunches. In one fluid motion, he went from a wolf sitting on the floor to a human on his knees.
Then, it was my turn. As I stripped out of my clothes, my wolf waited in calm anticipation.
I reached for him, hoping he would heed my call.
In a rush, the change swept over me. One moment, I was me, and the next, I was overwhelmed by my wolf senses, especially the feel of the cold tile beneath my paw pads.
I lifted one to my mouth to lick it warm, and Gunnar laughed.
"It's cold." Without thinking, I hopped up onto my seat, wedging my tail against it at an awkward angle. I yipped and hopped back down, careful to avoid the console and the delicate instruments along the wall. Gunnar had the right idea, sitting on the floor.
I'd learned all I needed to know. I could find my wolf inside the Lagrange points, same as Gunnar. Now, we would see if we could shift again when we returned to our blue planet.