Of Sea and Stars (Partners Book 3)

by Melissa Good

  He followed her. “That’s at least one useful jelly onboard.”

  Jess stopped and looked back at him.

  He met the stare for a moment, then he lifted both hands, shoulder level, palms out. “Okay. There’s Drakes and then there’s Drakes. I like your tech. I just don’t understand why you brought the rest of them.”

  “Neither do I,” Jess responded honestly. “But sometimes, with my kind of Drakes, little voices in our heads make us do things.” She walked over to the cockpit and went inside, closing the panel firmly behind her.

  “OKAY, WE’RE LOOSE.” Doctor Dan rested his elbows on his knees. “Back off, Dev.”

  Dev gently triggered the maneuvering jets and felt the motion as the craft responded, pulling back away from station at a surprisingly fast clip. In the front screen the stanchions and supports of the shuttle bay moved away and got smaller, and they could see more of the area.

  The next bay, where the enemy shuttle had been was full of damage. Frost covered lumps were caught on the platforms and bays, and in some cases had drifted out of the station rotation and were in their own independent orbits now.

  The rest of station seemed surprisingly intact. Dev could see the arrays, the upper still inactive, but the lower fully articulated and turning to catch the rising sun coming up over the edge of the planet. Her body likewise lifted as they lost grav and were in null.

  “Uh, oh,” Doug muttered. “Hope April has her chuck bag.” He tightened his restraints and watched what Dev was doing. “How in the hell do you know how to do that?” he asked. “You told me they didn’t tell you guys anything.”

  Dev was busy scanning all the panels, watching the readings. “Well,” she said, “it is flying, sort of.”

  Behind her the door opened and a quick glance in the reflection of the screen showed Jess entering. That made her feel better, even though Jess still looked upset.

  Jess edged up behind her chair and found a jumpseat lashed up against the wall. She unfolded it, sat down, and pulled the restraints over her tall frame and fastened them.

  All in silence.

  “Okay, now, thrust forward, Dev.” Doctor Dan’s voice sounded sureally normal. “We want to come around the station and take a course counter to the planet’s rotation.”

  “Yes.” Dev made the adjustments with only a bit of hesitation. “Would you prefer to do this, Doctor Dan? I really don’t have any programming for any of this.”

  Kurok shook his head immediately. “I have a good handle on the theory, Dev, but I’d rather trust your instincts with the actual reality.”

  “Me too,” Jess said.

  “Me three,” Doug offered.

  Dev gave all of them a quick look. “Thank you.” She cleared her throat. “I think.” She paused then looked around as she felt a warm pressure on her shoulder, only to find Jess just resting her cheek there.

  Jess looked so unhappy. Dev felt like she wanted to hand off this shuttle thing to someone else and just concentrate on resolving that unhappiness. “Jess?”

  Those pale blue eyes looked up at her and for a long moment the shuttle was on it’s own. Then Jess’s lips quirked and she winked one eye, exhaling audibly.

  “Dev?” Kurok said quietly.

  “Yes?” Dev returned her attention to her mentor. “Twentyseven degrees to the angle of planetary inclination. Acceleration point two four.”

  “That’s not bad for not having any programming, Dev,” he said.

  “I am spooling the checklists into my comms.” Dev glanced at her screens. “They have been somewhat helpful.”

  It was right then, Jess decided, that Kurok got a gut shot look at what he’d actually done with Dev. She could see the look in his eyes and the faint motion as he kept his jaw from dropping, and she was glad. It took her mind of her own troubles.

  He’d known, at an intellectual level. Now he knew from being smacked in the face with it, and it almost made Jess smile, that look on his face. “That’s my Devvie,” she said. “I’ve got more guts than brains. Good thing you made her the other way around.”

  Dev cleared her throat again. “I suggest we wait to see if I can successfully do this before continuing with this type of discourse.”

  That did get a smile from Jess. She reached over and gave Dev’s bicep a squeeze.

  Slightly comforted, Dev went back to her input pad, listening to the instructions in her headset. Just bare pilot’s checklists, but as she scanned the vast array of controls, some of the names started to match.

  Much more complex than the carrier. Two sets of engines, one for space and one for atmosphere, and thousands of systems readouts she wasn’t familiar with.

  She felt uneasy and squirmy in her guts as she acknowledged how much responsibility was on her shoulders. Her throat was dry and she licked her lips, wishing for a cold container of kack.

  The shuttle dropped below the station. It was now in it’s own orbit above the planet. She reached over and tapped an inquiry into the pad, the systems requiring no login. “We can allow three orbits with the existing fuel.”

  Kurok sat over another pad, scrunched up in the jumpseat, tapping rapidly. “Hang on there, Dev. I’m trying to remember my basic astro navigation to figure out when we need to retro.” He studied the results.

  Jess looked out the viewscreen. “Are we supposed to be upside down?”

  “Yes,” Dev said. “I have to fire the rockets to slow us down and bring us out of orbit. That has to be at a pitch angle against our forward momentum. It’s not like air. There’s nothing to push against.”

  Jess eyed her. “You really are scary sometimes.” She reached for her restraints. “Do I have time to go check and make sure no one’s freaking out?”

  Dev scaned the controls, an unusual pucker between her brows.

  “Devvie?”

  Doug unbuckled his restraints and let himself float up over the chair. “I’ll go check. I got used to this no gravity thing on the way up.” He maneuvered his big body toward the hatch. “Doc you really can take my seat. I’m not gonna touch any of that stuff.”

  Kurok waited for him to clear out then unbuckled and shifted into the other chair, which had more space and better access to the panels.

  Dev inspected the aerodynamic controls, her shoulders moving in relief. The planar surfaces and the in-atmosphere engines were more familiar to her, though the size of the shuttle was almost overwhelming.

  After a moment, she glanced to her left to see Jess just sitting there, looking down at the console. She reached out and put her hand on Jess’s knee and slowly those blue eyes lifted and met hers. “Are you...” Dev paused. “Okay?”

  “Not really,” Jess responded. “I feel like crap in a handbasket.”

  Dev made a face. “Me too,” she admitted.

  Jess sighed and stretched herself out a little, drawing back when her boot impacted a bag strapped to the side of the pilot’s seat. She edged to the side and reached out to open the bag. “Maybe there’s an instruction book in here for ya, Devvie.”

  Dev looked down into it. “I don’t think so, but there is something more useful.” She dug into it and removed something. “Two protein bars.” She handed Jess one. “It’s too bad there isn’t a drink.”

  “Thirsty?” Jess refocused her attention to something she could potentially do something about. “On it.” She released the straps and pushed herself up. “We all could use something wet.”

  “Probably in the section between this and the crew strap downs,” Kurok said. “Thank you, Jess.”

  “Thank me after I find some.” Jess maneuvered out of the hatch and then it was quiet.

  Below them, the planet turned in it’s gray roiling way.

  JESS FOUND THE water canisters in a slim space to one side of the cockpit. It wasn’t quite where she’d been told, but close enough. She was glad to find a relatively large supply. She picked up three and sorted through the rest of the supplies.

  Not a lot. The water, some more p
rotein bars, some powdered seaweed for tea. Jess kicked off the edge of the wall and headed back for the cockpit with her burden. She got to the hatch and bumped it open with her shoulder, just as Doug returned from the other direction. “Water back in there,” she said.

  “Yeah, found it.” He indicated a tube in one of his pockets. “This floating stuff is all right.” He followed her into the cockpit, and they both settled on jumpseats to either side of the pilot console.

  Jess found a drink holder and pushed one of the water tubes into it. “There ya go, Devvie. It’s just water.”

  “Excellent.” Dev removed the container and opened up the sip tube. “Thank you, Jess.”

  Jess looked out the window, still seeing the planet turning beneath them. Near the top of the spinning globe she saw a huge twisting cloud, and it churned across the surface in a circle. “Look at that.”

  “It’s what a cone looks like from the top, I think,” Dev said. “I am glad we’re not flying through it.”

  “Wow.” Jess watched the storm. “Me too.”

  Kurok looked over from his screen. “Okay, Dev. To get back in the right area, we need to retrograde for twenty seconds, twenty minutes from now.”

  “Excellent,” Dev said. “There is an autonomic routine for that. It will start the return from orbit.”

  “So we have twenty minutes to just hang out here?” Jess asked. “Nothing else to do?”

  “Yes.” Dev sucked at her water tube, washing down a mouthful of the protein bar. It tasted of seaweed and honey and had a chewy substance at its core that tasted like plants. Just swallowing some of it made her feel better.

  “Okay.” Jess rotated onto her back and just hung there in space, holding on to the back of Dev’s seat with one hand. “Warn me before you push the button.”

  Kurok spared her a brief wry smile. Then he unclipped himself and pushed up from the seat. “Let me see how everyone is doing.” He tucked and rolled and went to the hatch. “Likely to be a bit of a rough landing.”

  “Likely?” Doug stayed where he was in the second jumpseat, his long legs extended. “Lucky that pad near your place is clear area, Jess.”

  Jess regarded the ceiling of the shuttle that was covered in instrumentation softly blinking and shifting in her vision. “Yeah.”

  “Do we have a plan?”

  “Yeah,” Jess answered after a moment. “After Devvie lands us, I’m going to surrender.” She glanced around after that was answered with absolute silence, to see both Doug and Dev staring at her. “Fastest way to get me into Bay ops,” she explained.

  “What does that get us?” Doug said.

  “I see,” Dev said at the same time. “Is that the location we could not get scan of?”

  Jess nodded. “Interforce shielding technology comes from there.”

  “Really?” Doug said. “I don’t remember hearing that in school.”

  “No, you didn’t. In fact, I didn’t,” Jess said. “But you didn’t learn about the military genetics programs there at the end of the world in school either did you?”

  “No,” Doug answered, after a pause. “Um...did you?”

  Jess smiled grimly. “The hard way, yeah.” She watched a tie down string drift past her peripheral vision. “No time for that story now.” She glanced at him.

  “Good,” he said, with a wry smile. “I’m already scared shitless.”

  DEV FLEXED HER fingers and settled herself into the seat. “We’re a minute from firing,” she announced, giving Jess a little nudge in the ribs. “You said to warn you.” she added as Jess opened an eye and peered at her.

  “So I did.” Jess reversed her position and settled back down on the jumpseat, using her knees to keep her in place until she fastened the restraints. “Didja warn everyone to sit their asses down?”

  “I did.” Kurok said. “Ground is trying to contact this shuttle. I recommend ignoring them.”

  “Yes,” Dev agreed. “I am sure discussing what we are doing will be pointless and also non-optimal.” She reviewed the controls and settled her hands on the pads. “I am ready.” She took a deep breath and let it out.

  Jess squared herself in the seat and pressed her shoulders back against its surface. The ride up had been less than eventful, rumbles and shaking, and at the end, the surprise and delight of null gravity. This, she understood, would be something else.

  “Heat shields are online,” Kurok announced. “Let’s hope we didn’t damage them at station.”

  “Light the rockets, Rocket,” Doug said. “Let’s go home.”

  “Stand by.” Dev hit the pre-ignitors, and they heard a soft, ethereal whine through the cockpit along with a soft rumble. “Engine bells are clear of residual gas. The firing script has started.”

  A moment later, they felt the motion as the rockets fired and the vibration went through every surface in the cockpit. It went on for what seemed like a very long time and then trailed off, as the shuttle altered its position, swinging in an arc as they flipped end over end and traded a view of clouds for stars. “Burn is complete,” Kurok said. “We should start insertion momentarily.”

  A faint buffeting started. “That’s the atmosphere,” Dev said. “I hope.”

  “Bye space,” Jess said. “You sure were creepy.”

  “Got that right.” Doug took hold of his seat. “Never diss the ground again.”

  “I THINK WE’RE on target,” Kurok said, after a long period of silence, as the buffeting got worse and the forward view was obscured with a thick haze of pinkish cream.

  Dev’s hands were still on the console as she watched the automatic processes work. It seemed very strange to just be a spectator, though she was happy enough to let the systems work on their own for the moment.

  She took a breath and picked up her water, sucking at the tube and then putting it back into the holder at her side. She glanced to her left to see Jess with her hands folded over her stomach, her eyes closed.

  Amazing, and excellent really, how Jess could rest when she was able to. Dev expected there would not be much of that going on once they were back downside. Much incorrectness was in their future unless she was very much mistaken.

  Stand by for inception of gravity.

  The voice in her helmet intoned the words. “I am going to activate the atmospheric systems. We are expecting grav,” Dev said, touching the pads and tapping several keys. Thirty or forty seconds later she felt the first tugs of weight on her.

  “Yes, here we go,” Kurok snugged his restraints a little closer.

  The pressure against the craft increased, and they were moving in a side to side motion. Dev got her hands on the controls and watched the status boards for the in-flight engines. She took a quick look to her left and found one blue eye open watching her.

  It winked, and then Jess pushed herself back into her seat and tightened the belts around her. Then she let her hands rest on her thighs, her thumbs tapping against the thick black fabric of her suit. “We have scan?”

  “Not yet,” Doug said. He had his scanner in his hands. “Too much interference.”

  Stand by for engine cutoff.

  Dev almost jumped, then realized the voice meant the space engines, and she looked at the status board for them, seeing the intermittent impulses cutting in and out. She could sense enough air around them to act against the surfaces of the shuttle.

  She took control of the planar surfaces and made some small adjustments, feeling the craft shift faintly around her in response and felt that little bit of exhilaration that came with flight. With more confidence she altered the angle of descent just slightly, and the mist around the cockpit cleared.

  Now beneath her she could see clouds, much closer, and knew them for the upper level she occasionally flew the carrier up through, if only very briefly. “Stand by for scan.”

  “Got it,” Doug said. “We’re clear, Rocket.”

  There were a few thumping noises, as gravity took full hold, and she prepared to ignite the standard engin
es while listening to the systems checklists in one ear. “Environmental systems are switching over.”

  “Yes,” Kurok said, in a bemused voice. “The air intakes just opened.” He looked over at Dev then shook his head a little.

  They could smell it, suddenly, the sterile nature of the created air invaded by a fresh, clean, cold scent that held bits of cloud and rain in it.

  “Mmm.” Jess rumbled softly. “Tell everyone to hold on back in the back.”

  They dipped into the cloud layer, and as they sank through it, Dev triggered the engines, a deep and skin tingling rumble that passed through the cockpit, a thrust that altered their forward motion, and she felt the craft come alive around her as an aerodynamic construct.

  “Devvie?”

  “Yes?” Dev didn’t turn her attention from the controls.

  “You truly are a rock star.”

  “Thank you,” Dev responded. “At some point. You will need to educate me on what a rock star is. But I always assume you mean that as a compliment.”

  “I do. But do us all a favor and don’t fly this thing upside down,” Jess said. “Those yonks in the back are gonna turn into a people parts milkshake with a scrambled brain topping.”

  In the silence that followed, they heard the rising hum of engine power clearly from outside. “That’s actually really gross,” Dev finally said.

  “It is,” Doug agreed. “Like really.”

  Jess chuckled.

  “But an accurate request,” Kurok said. “The tie downs will be very damaging, if they even hold. So please do take care, Dev.”

  “This is not a carrier. I had no intention of flying it upside down,” Dev said in a dignified kind of way. “Especially since I have no way of knowing if these restraints we are wearing will hold.”

  Jess bumped her with her head, “Sorry Devvie.” She folded her hands together. “Didn’t mean to diss ya.”