Chapter 14
Tim twisted his body, so that Rinna fell on him and not on the metal flooring or on any of the others tumbling around them.
The lights flickered and he registered another side swipe singe them by whatever it was the entity was firing on the planet. The shuttle rocked, causing more of their passengers to emit cries of distress.
One arm around Riina, he grabbed the arm of someone sliding by him and stopped their movement.
He couldn’t tell if Lt. Dish was okay, but when the lighting steadied, he saw her sitting on the lap of a man who did not look sorry to find her there.
Dr. Walker had a grip on the one he called Lira. Tim tipped his head to the side. The grip was what he’d call one of intent. And the look in their eyes also indicated intent.
He looked back at Riina, wondering if his gaze betrayed intent? He felt it. But did she feel the same intent for him? He met her gaze and his brain stalled. He hated to assume too much, but it rather looked like…intent.
The shuttle rocked from side to side again.
“We need to get people secured before someone gets seriously hurt,” Riina said.
He told himself he heard regret in her tone and saw it filter into her gaze when he released her.
He shifted her to the side, got up, and helped her up.
They both turned to the task of helping their passengers get into seats and strapped down.
Tim noted that Harold, who hadn’t been tumbled in any direction, was also lifting people into seats and securing straps with detached efficiency.
Having been a robot himself, he wondered what Harold thought about all of this. But this was not the time to get a report from it.
Rinna directed Lt. Dish to get the first aid kit and then he suggested—also with intent—that both females return to the cockpit and strap in. He would finish up here.
Drun rose up in his face. If he’d been strapped in, he’d figured out how to get loose. Now he rocked with the shuttle’s movement, grasping an overhead handle.
“I wish to monitor our progress,” he stated with belligerence.
Tim nodded and pointed him toward the cockpit, then knelt in front of a woman who’d cut her head. He extracted materials to help. The woman next to her assisted him.
Their curious gazes made him uncomfortable, and he finally said, “What were you doing out here?”
They both looked surprised. “We came to meet aliens.”
“Really?” He twisted to look at Dr. Walker. He’d understood from the briefing that no one knew they were coming except Dr. Walker, Lira and her father.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Dr. Walker said. “They picked up our transmissions and well, you heard her. They wanted to meet aliens.”
Tim rose and looked around. One of the passengers had taken the first aid kit from him while he was working and passed it along the line, so that each injured person was able to tend their wounds.
Damage appeared to be fairly light. This was a relief. It could have been much worse. But Trac had tried to mitigate evasive action effects as much as possible. He was a better pilot than he would admit to. Of course, he very much disliked being at the helm. Tim did not know why. He liked piloting.
But since Trac didn’t like piloting, he should relieve him.
Before he could act on that thought, he noticed that Lira had released her face plate and there was a bird head next to hers. He blinked, almost asked, then wasn’t sure he wanted to know if she had two heads.
He made his way to the cockpit, stopping in the doorway and looking around.
Riina, or possibly Lt. Dish, had directed Drun to a seat at the small science station.
She was back at navigation and Rinna was in her co-pilot seat.
Fred was back in his place around Trac’s neck.
Tim noticed that Drun was staring at the skitterfin with wide eyes.
“I can relieve you,” Tim said. He stepped forward and the hatch slid closed. If this bothered their passengers, he didn’t have to see it. He was already tired of them.
He’d been on missions gone wrong, more times than he cared to count up, but this one felt like it was just at the beginning of going wrong. His now human gut was twitching a wild and insistent warning of more trouble incoming.
Trac rose without complaint, surrendering the pilot seat to him. He continued to control the shuttle through his cybernetics until Tim was settled and able to take over, then transferred control—just in time for another round of extreme dodging.
He hadn’t used to care about days or nights, but now he knew what the humans meant when they complained about how long the day had been.
It had been long and looked to only be getting longer. But…he almost smiled. He’d held Riina in his arms for several whole seconds. And she’d looked like she didn’t mind.
Out of the corner of her eyes, Riina noted Drun shifting in his seat. Well, he’d wanted this view. She could have told him that seeing what was incoming wasn’t much fun, particularly when one lacked the power to control the dodges. Just when she’d start to relax, the firing from above began again.
“Were you injured?” she asked. That was also a possibility.
“Only a few bruises,” he said, somewhat dismissively. His gaze flickered sideways to Trac and Fred. She wondered which bothered the man more. The cyborg or the skitterfin? He shifted again.
A few bruises, in the right section of his anatomy, could be as bad as a broken bone. It was only because of Tim’s quick action, she wasn’t sitting on some bruises. He’d cushioned her very…nicely.
She felt warmth suffuse her again. At the memory of being held. Of the way he’d looked at her. At the very human, very male way he’d looked at her.
She felt a sudden impatience for the mission to end, for them to be alone, for…
talking. For clearing the air. She tended to forget how very inhuman it must have been for him to live for so long as a cyborg robot.
How could he know the longings of her heart?
How could he recognize them enough to act on them?
She hadn’t wanted to take advantage of his, well, innocence, but that look he’d given her? That had been far from innocent.
Even as the shuttle was expertly steered into a wrenching dodge, she felt her lips edge up in a tiny smile.
A girl had to get her good moments where she could find them—especially one who’d spent a very long time frozen in stasis. She’d returned to life. She should be able to return to LIFE.
She looked at Tim and then stiffened. His muscles were bunching, as if he were struggling to control the shuttle.
“Trac,” Tim gritted out.
“On it,” Trac said.
Warning lights flared on every panel that Riina could see. The ones she couldn’t see? She heard.
The cacophony was unpleasant and made it impossible to ask what was happening. She thought Drun might have tried. She saw his mouth moving.
The weird part? The shuttle wasn’t lurching anymore. Their flight had smoothed out. And they were proceeding in a manner both level and…
She studied the controls.
She’d had some training as a pilot, but the readings exceeded her training. She’d almost have said they weren’t proceeding at all. But that wasn’t possible. No transport, not even a lowly shuttle could go from traveling at speed to stopped without the occupants feeling the transition.
The only useful thing she could think to do was to shut off the various warning sounds. One by one, they quieted until there was no sound left, just frantically blinking warning lights.
“What is happening?” Drun demanded, though his voice sounded less authoritative than it had.
“That is a good question,” Lt. Dish said. There was a distinct quaver to her voice.
“We do not know,” Trac said. His tone was of one stating the profoundly obvious.
Tim didn’t speak, but Riina noted the slow lessening of tension in his shoulders. There was no lessening in the lines of his face.
He glanced at her. He didn’t have to say it. She saw it in his eyes.
They were in trouble.
“Something is happening,” Veirn said.
It had been so long since something had changed, that Nevv Kellen had allowed himself to be distracted. One could only study the same data sets for so long and not risk drifting off.
He glanced at the mission clock, noting how long they’d been out of touch with the shuttle.
“What?” Kellen asked.
“I believe the entity is contracting. It is very slight, but it is reading as smaller,” Veirn said.
If they were preparing to leave…
“Should we try to make contact with them? With it?”
Veirn was silent for longer than was typical for the AI. Kellen knew it was running the various possible scenarios, so it could provide Kellen with a statistical analysis of which might be the best option.
But this time it was taking longer than usual. Much longer. As the seconds ticked by, Kellen began to see the shrinking of the entity on his screens as well.
If it was preparing to leave, they’d need to attempt contact soon.
While he waited, he tried to contact their team. If the entity’s presence was lessening…
Nothing. Not even a slight ping.
Veirn actually sighed.
“There are too many unknown factors for me to give you a recommendation for or against attempting contact. You will have to go with,” there was a pause like a human might make, “your gut.”
Veirn hadn’t liked saying that. Kellen would have grinned if the situation weren’t so serious.
Kellen paused to try to read his gut. It felt as conflicted as Veirn.
“I’m going to try,” he finally said. “We’ve tried sitting here and watching. We need to do something.”
“I am attempting to open a channel with the entity,” Veirn said.
The AI didn’t mess around when a decision had been made.
“This is Captain Nevv Kellen of the Garradian ship the Quendala,” he said, when he got the go ahead from Veirn. Kellen spoke, even while he noted that Veirn wasn’t sure the connection had been made.
He was, quite literally, broadcasting into the cosmos.