by Calista Skye
She got ready and went to the kitchen. She was hungry. She ate quite a lot, despite the taste, and afterwards spent some time in the gym running Target Game 3.
She had just managed to get to the second level when the ship shuddered and dipped and the holograms froze for a second and flickered. She waited to see if there was any danger but everything returned to normal quite quickly. She went back to her game.
Minutes later, however, it all happened again.
She went out into the corridor and started making her way towards the cockpit.
Behind her, Lanek stepped out of his room.
“Helen” he said. She turned around.
“What’s going on?” She asked.
“I’m not sure”, said Lanek, “The intercom kept cutting out as Eyanis was speaking”.
Just then, the lights above them dimmed again and everything began to shake. The ship gave a huge jolt, throwing Helen against the wall. She slipped along the corridor, half stumbling, half falling. Holding onto one of the side panels in the wall, Lanek reached out and caught her waist. He pulled her close to him.
The ship continued to tremble, tilting first this way, then that and the lights blinkered with ever longer intervals in the dark.
Helen didn’t know what was going on, but she was scared. It was almost as though something outside were trying to break through into the ship.
Finally, the lights went out. It was totally dark now. She had no idea how much force a Serl-Vogad ship could take but it seemed to her, at least, that it was at its limit and soon would be decimated. These were her last moments. She was going to die. In space.
Just as she started to resign herself to the notion of her death, the violent shuddering stopped abruptly and moments later, all the lights in the corridor came back on. She looked up. She realised she was resting against his chest with her arms round him. She could feel his heart beating, feel his torso expand and contract as he breathed.
Lanek looked back down at her. His dark hair was strewn about his face. There was something about the look, about the fact that he was staring at her, holding her close to him, that made her own heart beat faster.
Not for the first time, she felt as though they had a connection somehow. However, unlike that on the first day, this was not an unspoken agreement that he wouldn’t harm her. It was more a sort of attraction.
As usual, Lanek’s expression didn’t betray his thoughts but he had to feel it too; she couldn’t be the only one.
“Are you guys all right?” came Eyanis’s voice over the intercom.
Neither of the them attempted to move or look away.
“We’re fine” said Lanek, “What happened?”
“We got caught briefly in the solar wind from a nearby star”, said Eyanis, “Everything seems to be back to normal but I think we should recalibrate, just to make sure”.
Lanek slowly let go of Helen and without any further acknowledgement that she was there, walked down the corridor and disappeared into the cockpit.
Helen watched him go. She rested against the wall and sighed in annoyance. Pull yourself together, she scolded herself. He’s an engaged alien prince and soon, you’ll be on your way back to Earth.
Chapter 12
Helen walked into the cockpit looking for Eyanis. Only Lanek was there. She saw he was bathed in a luminous blue glow, which splashed across the whole interior of the room. The lights in the cockpit had all been switched off but the glow wasn’t emanating from Lanek. Instead, it came from the screen.
She rushed to the front of the ship. They were stars. Millions and millions of stars, looming just ahead of them, suspended in swirling plumes of purple-blue nebulae.
“Wow”.
“This is Rigna”, Lanek said, “Eyanis told me to call you when we got a bit closer but since you’re here now…”
“It’s beautiful” she said, mesmerised and for a while she just watched in silence. Lanek didn’t say anything either. He was watching her and her child-like fascination with the galaxy.
After a while, in which, she’d also taken pictures and recorded a clip of it on her phone, she brought herself back to reality and the real reason she’d come to the cockpit in the first place.
“Is Eyanis around?” she asked.
“No. He’s asleep” said Lanek.
“Well…maybe you could help me instead? I can’t get the drinks machine to work in the kitchen”. For some reason, it had started throwing an error message, which, of course, written in Asiraan, she couldn’t read.
Lanek pressed a short sequence of buttons on the virtual screen, before collapsing it and standing up. He skulked past her and left the room. Helen followed.
In the kitchen, he glanced at the message.
“It says it’s replacing the water canister” he said.
Helen watched as he opened a panel on the machine.
“But there’s no canister there” said Helen.
“It melts down when it’s empty and collects in the tray at the back to recycled”, Lanek said, “Then, the new canister comes down and you can use the drinks machine again”.
“Oh, right” said Helen.
She watched as lo and behold, a new, full water canister descended into view. That was all the problem was. Helen marvelled at its simplicity.
Lanek closed the panel
“Where’s the dispenser nozzle?”
The dispenser nozzle… She’d removed it when trying to see why it wasn’t working. She gave it to him now. His fingers brushed against hers, and she felt their softness. He took the nozzle and placed it on the machine.
“There” he said.
“Thanks” she replied. He went to walk past her but instead of doing so, he suddenly stopped and held her by both arms.
She looked up at him. As usual, his eyes were a deep blue, but unreadable.
“Helen” he said.
Then, suddenly, he was kissing her. It was fierce and intense and the force of it ploughed her into the wall behind. Seizing his shirt, she pulled him closer, feeling feverish and dizzy. She could feel the masculinity oozing from him, taste his yearning for her and somehow, it thrilled her. Her hands tore through his hair, clutching desperately, as though she might melt into the floor if she didn’t hold onto something. She was aware of everything. She could even feel the muscles of his abdomen ripple as his chest rose and fell against hers. She felt as though she were falling, swirling, losing herself to him.
He pulled away abruptly. For a second, he looked at her, his eyebrows furrowed in irritation. Then, he turned and stormed from the kitchen.
Still resting against the wall, Helen was confused. What had just happened? The way he looked at her, spoke to her said he was indifferent. But the way he’d kissed her clearly said otherwise.
And she knew he was starting to grow on her but the way she’d kissed him back also told her that she maybe – no, that she definitely – had some kind of stronger attraction to him.
Or, she thought to herself, she could have just been caught up in the moment. That seemed like a much more acceptable alternative. However, if she really had just been caught up in the moment, it was a moment that was refusing to pass, even now. When she thought of what had just happened, it made her heart race all over again.
* * *
Dinner was awkward. There was no reason it wouldn’t be after earlier. It seemed like they had managed to stay out of each other’s way during the day. However, there was only so much they could avoid each other on such a small ship.
When she walked into the kitchen and saw him again – and in the same place they had kissed – her heart fluttered. As she sat down, she noticed he looked as he always did, as though nothing had happened between them at all. All the same, there was a sullenness about him. Under normal conditions, he didn’t say much but this evening, he said even less.
“We should arrive at Rigna Base 4 tomorrow, or the day after and then we can hire a service to take you back to Earth”.
“Thanks” said Helen. Her voice sounded pre-occupied. She was trying so hard to appear unaffected that it was backfiring.
Eyanis looked from Helen to Lanek.
“What’s wrong with you guys?” he asked.
Helen looked across at Lanek. He returned her gaze before eventually looking away.
“Nothing” said Helen.
Meeting a dead-end with Helen, Eyanis turned to his friend.
“Well, Lanek?”
Lanek glowered at Eyanis . His answer was ‘nothing of consequence’.
“Okay then” said Eyanis. He gave up with the pair of them, for now. But Lanek was going to get the mother of interrogations later.
* * *
“Okay, so what was that this evening?” he asked when they were back in Lanek’s room.
“Look, just drop it” said Lanek. He was looking out the window at the stars drifting past.
“Not until I get an answer”, said Eyanis, “Tonight was way beyond awkward and if I’ve got to be on a ship with this level of awkward, I want to know why”.
Lanek turned to Eyanis.
“I kissed her, okay?” he exclaimed.
“What?” asked Eyanis, “You kissed her?”
“I think that’s what I just said”.
“What possessed you to do that?”
“I just… I don’t know”.
“And how did she take it?”
“She kissed me back. It was pretty intense”.
“This shouldn’t have happened”.
“I know, but it already has”.
Eyanis sighed and paced the room in silence for a moment. He turned back to Lanek, running a hand through his hair.
“So, you like her?” he asked finally.
“Look, Eyanis, it’s just something that happened, okay?”
“But what if you develop the evanedth with her? You know it will be dangerous”.
“That’s not going to happen”.
“How can you be so sure?”
“I just know”, said Lanek, “It wasn’t meant to happen and it won’t happen again”.
He got into bed.
“So, drop it” he said and turned off the light.
Chapter 13
Helen couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was Lanek. Perhaps it was the fact that she’d be going home soon. Perhaps it was something she hadn’t even realised was an issue. It didn’t really matter what it was; all that mattered was that try as she might, she couldn’t sleep.
She lay there for a while – for a very long while – feeling the now familiar movement of the ship though space. It was a strange feeling. Consciously, she couldn’t really feel anything, but there was something, some sort of vibration or sound that told her subconscious that she wasn’t stationary.
Eventually, she gave up on trying to get to sleep and decided to make her way to the kitchen to get herself something to drink.
Lanek looked up as she walked in. Of course he’d be there. If there was one thing she had come to expect from life, it was that if there was anything awkward, embarrassing or unlucky going round, she was sure to pull the short straw.
“You can’t sleep either?” she asked.
“No” he said.
Helen wanted to leave the kitchen, but that would make it obvious that she found this uncomfortable. She thought it better to play it cool and get what she came for. She went over to the drinks machine, at first glad she could turn her back on him. However, seeing it, she thought of the water canister. And everything that followed. Oh dear. Neither thought was helping her right now.
“Helen”.
“Yes?” she said, turning round reluctantly.
“The other day”, he began, “shouldn’t have happened”.
“No, of course” Helen agreed.
“Our destinies are not meant to align”, he said, “This is the way things must be”.
“It was a mistake”, she said, “I think we’ve just been on the ship for a long time and we both just got a bit caught up in the moment and carried away. But yeah, let’s pretend it didn’t happen”.
She looked at Lanek. A subtle expression crept into his eyes. It was so slight that she couldn’t tell for sure but it seemed to be either relief, or disappointment.
Chapter 14
The huge gates of Rigna Base 4 rolled open as they arrived. Helen watched them descend into the widening chasm. They were admitted to a large cylindrical chamber, all bathed in a violet light. Further in, was a black, rotating disc.
“Wow” said Helen.
“Wow?” asked Eyanis. He smiled, bemused.
“Well, I’ve just never seen anything like this before. It’s so other-worldly”.
“It’s pretty standard fare”, said Eyanis, “Grofen technology. You can tell by the simplicity of the design. They go in for sturdy and minimalist. Not so into anything too fussy or creative”.
They landed on the rotating disc.
A voice rang out over the intercom.
“Welcome to Rigna Base 4. Please select your atmosphere type and gravitational intensity”.
“Any preferences?” Eyanis asked Helen but it was all Greek to her.
“I have no idea what any of that even means”.
Clearly her translation device had contextual limitations.
“Well, obviously, we’ll select oxygen”, said Eyanis, “And you seem fine with the gravitational intensity we have on board right now”.
He turned to Lanek just to be sure.
“What do think it felt like on Earth?”
“Probably a 450”.
“So, quite similar”.
“Yeah”.
“Okay”.
The intercom sounded again.
“Welcome to Rigna Base 4. Please select your atmosphere type and gravitational intensity”.
“Oxygen, 400”.
“Your preferences have been recorded”.
The disc continued to rotate a quarter of the way and then stopped.
“Please remain in your ship until you are alerted it is safe to disembark”.
“What’s all this?” asked Helen.
“This space station is full of different atmospheres and gravity strengths for different people. They just want to know which deck to allocate us to so we can survive fairly comfortably. Obviously, it’s not perfect. You might feel a bit light headed depending on the concentration of oxygen you’re used to”.
“Have you ever been to a different deck?”
“Yes” said Lanek, curtly. His tone said he didn’t want to talk about it.
Eyanis laughed. The glint in his eyes said he was going to talk about it anyway.
“One time, when we were on Rigna Base 16, we lost a bet to a couple of Slobaveps and the penalty was spending an hour in level 600. That was intense, like you’re being crushed. It had oxygen but it was difficult to breathe. Anyway, somehow, I lost Lanek when we were in the bar and when I found him again, he was wandering in some alley, delirious and naked—”
“I was wearing clothes”.
“What, the rug from the jax meat restaurant? Because that was hardly covering anything”.
Lanek glared at him.
“Okay, okay. He was delirious and partially clothed”.
“What happened?” asked Helen.
“To this day, he won’t even say. Luckily, no one in level 600 recognised him”.
Helen looked at Lanek. He was always so uptight, she had a hard time imagining him losing control enough to be delirious.
The intercom sounded again.
“You may now disembark”.
“It’s time to go” said Lanek, gruffly. He got up and opened the door to a cupboard in the wall of the cockpit. Inside were two black vehicles which vaguely reminded Helen of motorbikes without wheels.
Eyanis came up and took one. As soon as he lifted it out, it hovered above the ground.
“What are they?” asked Helen.
“They’re ti’eygas”, he said, “That�
��s how we get around inside”.
Lanek pulled out the second one. It hovered just like Eyanis’s. He pushed it towards the door of his ship and disappeared through it.
Helen hesitated. She turned round and looked at the control panels, the screen, the chairs, and even the ceiling, observing the way it joined the walls.
“What’s wrong?” asked Eyanis.
“This is my last time on this ship” said Helen, “I want to remember how it looked, what it felt like to stand here and travel through space”.
Eyanis nodded and waited for her to finish. After a few moments, Helen made her way to the door.
Outside was different from how she had imagined it. She stepped into a long black tunnel. It looked as though it was made of metal but when Helen stepped on it, it felt springy beneath her feet and left the imprint of her shoes on its surface. She got out her phone.
Eyanis caught her taking pictures of the material.
“Cool, eh?” he said, pressing his fingertips into the wall, “It’s a bio-metallic tunnel. There’s no oxygen in the landing dock so it moulds to the shape of your ship door and creates a safe pathway to the deck”.
“Cool” she said, reminded of the gym on the ship, “Is it Grofen technology?”
“Yep. You’re learning”.
They walked to the end of the tunnel. The door slid open and they stepped inside.
“Welcome to Rigna Base 4” said Eyanis gesturing to their new surroundings.
“Wow” said Helen. She wasn’t exactly sure what she had been expecting – perhaps an alien rendition of a service station with some sort of place to eat, a motel-style inn and a somewhere to refuel. But she hadn’t expected this at all. It was like a mini metropolis, with roads and black cylindrical buildings that rose high up into what might have been the night sky if she didn’t know better. Some seemed to be suspended from above, without even touching the ground. From all around her, thousands of pink, blue and purple lights spilled out from thousands of tiny windows, casting an enchanted glow over them.