Stranded in Space

by Rinelle Grey

  Breathing heavily, Kugah pulled with all his considerable strength, and the door slowly conceded defeat. Once he’d pulled it about half way, it gave up completely, and slid open.

  The space behind was empty, and for a second, Kugah teetered on the edge. Amelie gave a panicked gasp, and clutched at him more tightly. Her weight almost pulled him over. A few sweeps of his wings dragged him back, and he grasped the edge of the door with one hand, the other around Amelie. He breathed heavily, before peering into the darkness below.

  He could just make out the elevator, two floors down. Not moving.

  Luckily, he only needed to get down one floor. He examined the narrow space carefully. The cables down the middle meant he wouldn’t be able to open his wings enough to fly, but he didn’t need to. He wrapped his arms around Amelie, spread his wings just a little, adjusting the many flight surfaces to get minimal lift, and jumped.

  He could feel Amelie’s heart thumping against his chest and her breath hot in his ear.

  His wings slowed their descent just enough that his joints could take the impact as he landed on the top of the elevator. Now that he knew how the doors worked, it was easy enough to force them open and climb out onto the level he needed.

  Luckily, the second elevator worked perfectly.

  As he headed down the final corridor to the engine room, the darkness and silence only made Kugah’s concern worse. Was the engineer even still alive?

  Amelie didn’t say anything, but she must be wondering the same thing.

  Ahead of them, at the entrance to the engine room, something sparked. It flickered, then the brief light disappeared. A few seconds later, it did the same thing again. Kugah lengthened his stride, then almost paid for his eagerness when an unexpected lurch sent him crashing into the wall.

  His armour absorbed most of the impact, and a quick glance down at Amelie showed she was fine too, if a little pale. Kugah pushed off and continued down the hallway as fast as he could.

  When he reached the doorway to the engine room and swiped across the open button, sparks rained from the mechanism. Kugah exhaled. Great. Another door that he was going to have to force open.

  To his surprise, just as he reached forwards to do so, it slid open.

  The engineer called out something in a panic.

  At least he was alive.

  Ignoring the indecipherable warning, Kugah stepped through the open door.

  “Kugah, stop!” Amelie shrieked.

  Before he’d taken more than a single step into the room, he felt electricity arc up his legs.

  Chapter 8

  Amelie gave a shriek as the electricity arced all around her. For a moment, she thought this was it.

  But somehow, it didn’t touch her. Kugah adjusted slightly, his arms wrapped tightly around her. His armour must be keeping the electricity out.

  Amelie heaved a sigh of relief, and looked around her, trying to assess the situation. She’d heard Nerris call out, so he must be alive. Where was he?

  She found him sitting on a leather chair, his feet drawn up. Thank heavens he was okay, because she was pretty sure she couldn’t fix whatever was wrong with the engine without him.

  “Gengine. Stop.” Kugah told him, with single minded purpose.

  “I’d love to stop it, but I can’t do anything from here.” Frustration laced Nerris’s voice. He waved to where the cobbled together mechanism from Folly’s ship had been wired into the ships computers on the other side of the room. Wires connected the two pieces of equipment, and the electricity issue seemed to originate there, before escaping into the metal surroundings.

  That explained why he hadn’t closed the wormhole already.

  Kugah stared at Nerris, and for a moment, Amelie was half afraid he would set her down and carry Nerris. Even if logic told her that she’d be fine sitting where Nerris was, she didn’t want to leave the safety of Kugah’s arms.

  “What do we need to do?” Amelie called out.

  “The AWP needs to be shut down properly,” Nerris shouted over the buzzing electricity and clanking machines. “If we kill the wormhole before we’ve exited, I don’t know what will happen.”

  His voice was high and panicked, and it set Amelie’s heart thumping. She’d never heard Nerris be anything but calm and slow. If he was terrified, then she knew the situation was bad.

  “How do we do that?” She asked. She peered past Kugah’s wings, but only just. Her voice shook, and what she really wanted to do was get out of this room and hide in med bay, where she knew what to do. But there was no one else, so she straightened her back.

  “I need to know what’s on the screen,” Nerris said, his voice laced with frustration.

  Amelie waved to the console. “Kugah, go.”

  Kugah stepped over all the wires and a few strides put them in front of the console.

  A big, red warning flashed on the screen. Kugah frowned and before Amelie could say anything, he touched the screen. Amelie winced, half expecting something to explode. But all that happened was a blue box popped up over the top of the red warning one.

  It was filled with what looked like code, letters and numbers all mixed up in a jumble, with two buttons at the bottom saying, “OK,” and “Cancel”.

  “I don’t know what any of this means,” Amelie called back. “It says ‘OK’ and ‘cancel’, but I don’t know what I’m cancelling!”

  “That’s the emergency shut down code,” Nerris called out in relief. “Press OK.”

  Amelie turned back to the console, hoping Nerris was right. “Press that one,” she told Kugah, pointing. No actual electricity sparked on the machine itself, but there was still no way Amelie was touching it.

  Kugah pressed it.

  Another box flicked up on the screen, this one with a number pad.

  “We need a code,” Amelie called out.

  Nerris called out the code, and Amelie bit her lip. How was she going to walk Kugah through entering the six-digit code?

  Kugah’s finger hovered over the centre number, and he looked at her, waiting.

  “Up,” Amelie said, pointing.

  Kugah lifted his finger to the number above, then stared at her, waiting. “Left,” she said next, pointing again.

  It was slow and tedious, but they eventually managed to get the code entered.

  The message, “Initiating shutdown,” flashed up on screen, and Amelie sagged into Kugah’s arms in relief.

  Hopefully it had worked.

  The ship continued to shudder for a few moments. The consoles in front of them still sparked.

  Maybe they hadn’t done it after all.

  The ship gave one, final lurch, and it all stopped.

  They were still moving forwards, but smoothly now.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the sparking. “What now?” Amelie called out.

  Nerris pointed to a large switch on the wall. “That’s the main power, pull it down, and it should shut everything off.” He pointed.

  Amelie pointed too, and Kugah strode across the floor. “Down,” Amelie said, pointing, and to her relief, Kugah seemed to understand. He pulled the large lever down, and mercifully, the sparking stopped immediately.

  Nerris stared at the floor doubtfully for a moment, but when Kugah motioned to him, he put one foot gingerly on the floor. When nothing happened, he followed with the other.

  Nerris looked over at Kugah. “Thanks. I think you might have just saved us all.” He turned to Amelie. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded weakly. It was hard to believe it was over. And that they were all safe. For now, anyway. “I think so.”

  Kugah opened his arms slowly, but Amelie didn’t really want to leave. She felt safe there. A kind of safe she hadn’t felt since she was a kid. But she was an adult now, and she couldn’t just hide from everything. So she stepped out of them and onto the floor. Her legs felt weak though, so she kept hold of Kugah’s arm for support.

  Nerris watched her for a few moments, but when she seem
ed okay, he turned back to the console, examining it with a frown.

  A few wires still smoked, and the floor around the console was darkened with soot. Her relief from stopping the machine faded a little. “Is it still going to work?”

  If the AWP was damaged, then that could be a major problem.

  Nerris looked up at her. “I’ve fixed worse,” he said bracingly.

  Amelie suspected that his comment was designed to reassure her, and that she probably shouldn’t believe it. But since she was a doctor, not an engineer, there was nothing she could do to help anyway. So she nodded, and accepted his words at face value.

  Nerris took one last look at the damage, then turned to Amelie and Kugah. “We’d better get up to the others then, and find out where we are and what’s happening next.”

  Amelie nodded, glad he was making decisions, since she had done more than enough of that for one day.

  Kugah’s stride was sure and determined as he and Nerris hurried back up to the control room. Amelie trailed behind them, not feeling the same urgency. They’d escaped from General Harrington and they’d managed to avoid dying in the process. She let herself have a few moments of feeling like they’d achieve something.

  She held onto that feeling, since she was pretty sure it wouldn’t last for long. There had to have been damage to the ship with all that turbulence, and she had no idea where they were now. Knowing their luck, they’d probably made it just far enough to be out of range of the Colonies, but not near any habitable planets.

  Good feeling—evaporated. That didn’t last long.

  The bridge was busy when they arrived. “The first thing we need to do is make sure everyone is safe. Those who are able need to be making sweeps of the corridors and each room,” Tyris was saying.

  Kerit and Aleck nodded.

  “I can take care of that,” Kerit assured his brother.

  Folly had a worried frown. “I’ll come too. And can everyone keep an eye out for Chicken? I haven’t seen her since before we entered the wormhole. She’s probably scared stiff.”

  Amelie hoped the little creature was safe, but right now, she was more concerned with human injuries. “Send anyone who is injured down to med bay,” she instructed. She needed to get down there. Just as soon as she heard what had happened.

  Tyris looked up as she spoke, his eyes sharp. They focused on Nerris, behind her. “What happened? How much damage did the engine take?”

  “I’ve only had a cursory look,” Nerris said, “But since the anysogen engine wasn’t running at the time, I don’t think it was damaged. Most of the wiring I did on the AWP is fried, but the engine itself doesn’t appear to be damaged. I won’t know until I hook it up again and test it. Either way, something was definitely wrong for it to malfunction like that. We don’t want to fire it up again until I’m sure we’ve figured out what went wrong.”

  “No, we definitely don’t,” Tyris said, a little too quickly.

  Amelie was glad he’d learned some caution, if a little too late.

  “It wasn’t the engine’s fault,” Folly pointed out. “We’ve already proved it works. It didn’t do anything like this for Kerit and I. It must not have been adjusted properly for the size of the ship.”

  Kerit smiled gently at Folly. “We all know that, Folly. Nerris will get it working, I’m sure.”

  Nerris nodded. “I did my best, but there wasn’t enough time to fine tune it. Hopefully we’ll do better next time.”

  Amelie wasn’t too sure she wanted there to be a next time.

  Tyris turned to Nerris. “How about the rest of the ship?”

  Nerris came across to him and checked the console Folly has been sitting at, his fingers flying over the board. He was silent for a few minutes, then smiled. “There’s minor damage, stress and strains, but nothing serious. No hull breach, and no structural damage.”

  “Looks like we got off lightly then.” Tyris gave a sigh of relief.

  “I don’t know about that,” Glesin said, looking up from the tablet he had been staring at. “There’s only one star-system within easy reach of the anysogen drive, supposing it’s working, and its atmosphere looks minimal. Any of the other systems nearby will take weeks for us to reach at normal FTL. This section of the galaxy is relatively sparse on viable star systems…”

  His voice trailed off, and he stared at the tablet he held.

  His silence was not reassuring.

  “What is it?” Tyris demanded.

  Glesin looked up. “Oh, nothing that should bother us. There’s a star about twenty light years away that seems to be in the iron fusion stage, which means it could go supernova. It’s impossible to tell how long that would take. It could be weeks, or it could be years. More likely it will be years though.”

  Amelie’s heart rate sped up. Glesin’s words were even less reassuring than Nerris’s had been.

  Tyris ran a hand through his hair. “How much warning will we have if it does go supernova?”

  “A couple of days,” Glesin informed them.

  That was at least better than Amelie had thought. She took a deep breath. Really, what were the chances that the star chose this moment to go supernova? Either way, it was yet another problem she couldn’t solve.

  Tyris frowned. “With any luck, it won’t take long for us to get the AWP working properly.”

  Just because the ship hadn’t torn itself apart, didn’t mean they were safe yet.

  “How far from Colonial space are we?” Amelie asked. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear that they were close enough to make it back, or far enough away to be out of their reach. Neither was a good option.

  “About five months normal FTL travel,” Glesin said. “The Colonies will never find us here.”

  Marlee heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”

  Amelie felt better too. She might not have a baby to worry about, as Marlee did, but she was glad to be far away from any chance General Harrington would try to court martial her for her actions on Urslat.

  Best that they were far away. She’d far rather take her chances on a planet without optimal atmosphere, or even a star going supernova, than have to live under Colonial rule again.

  She’d have to worry about that later though, right now, she had other things to take care of. “I’d better get down to med bay, I expect I have patients lining up outside my door.”

  Chapter 9

  No one noticed when Kugah slipped away from the bridge and headed back down to his room. The language barrier meant he couldn’t help them, even if he’d wanted too. He might as well stay out of their way.

  After the excitement of the morning, first making a breakthrough in understanding Amelie, then the wormhole disaster, everything seemed flat. Kugah sank down on the edge of the bed, staring around the room.

  The screen on the wall opposite him caught his attention. It was similar to the tablet Amelie carried and the screen he had used on the bridge. The thought intrigued him enough to rise and cross over to it. He touched the screen, but nothing happened. It wasn’t powered up.

  He looked around and found several buttons below it. One of them probably turned it on, but which one? And what did the others do? Would they cause a problem if he pressed them?

  It was only a computer. How much harm could the buttons do?

  Determined, Kugah pressed them one by one, waiting a short time in between each to see if they did anything. Of course, it wasn’t until the last button in the row that the screen flickered and started up.

  It did a few things, text flickering across the screen, until it settled on a picture with blue and green swirls. Kugah stared at it for a moment. The combination of colour and line was satisfying, even though it represented nothing that he could determine.

  He wasn’t here to admire a picture though. He was looking for information. Exactly what sort he wasn’t sure, but in his experience, you could never have enough data.

  He stared at the screen, wondering where to start. Down the side were
several little pictures. Amelie had used these earlier, and so had he. So he knew the picture with stars represented the star maps, and the little ship represented schematics of the ship. That was a start.

  He pressed the ship, and the diagrams came up. Even though Kugah couldn’t read the labels, the layout was instantly recognisable, and he knew what each room was. He pressed on the label for the bridge, but nothing happened. Kugah pressed it a couple more times, and then a voice said, “Would you like me to read this out to you?”

  The tone and intonation indicated it was a question, even if Kugah didn’t recognise the words. He nodded his head, but the computer didn’t respond, so he pressed the label again.

  “Bridge,” the voice said.

  He recognised the word. It was the name of the bridge.

  This computer could teach him words. He pressed another label, and the computer read it out too.

  This was the sort of information he could use. If he could understand the human’s language, then he had a chance.

  A chance of what, he really wasn’t quite sure anymore. All he knew was, he had to know more.

  *****

  Kugah paced the room, waiting. It was past the usual time the guards took him to see Amelie. Maybe she’d forgotten. Maybe she was busy with patients.

  Maybe she didn’t want to see him.

  No, he didn’t want to believe that. In the last few days, he’d come to think something more of her. She was different to the others, and he needed to keep believing that, or he’d have nothing left to believe.

  He hadn’t, for a very long time.

  Kugah exhaled deeply. He needed to be cautious of those thoughts. He couldn’t afford to need someone else. That was the way to disappointment.

  He didn’t need Amelie, what he wanted was a way to use his newfound understanding of the human’s language. He’d spent hours last night getting it to read out every word he could find, and trying to analyse the meaning and sentence structure. He thought he had a handle on it, but there was only so much he could do just by repetition.