by Rebecca Pond
“Commander, is there any word on the rest of us being allowed to go down to the planet’s surface to retrieve our mate’s belongings?” Emma edged closer so that she could see who had asked the question.
“Not yet, but I am expecting an answer any time now when the council convenes.” Emma stared at the commander. He was one of the largest men she had ever seen in her life. She really didn’t get a good look at him in the rain the other night, because she had been hanging upside down for most of their run through the rain.
“That’s all I have to talk about now. Does anyone else have any questions?” No one else did as she heard the sound of chairs scraping across the floor as the men rose to leave the room. Another voice that she recognized came from somewhere in the room, but she couldn’t see where.
“Commander, may I speak with you for a moment?”
“You can drop the commander, Brylon,” the Zeb said, “What’s up?”
Brylon leaned against the table shaking his head, “Man, are you having problems with your mate?”
The commander threw his head back and laughed, “Am I having problems with my mate? Put it this way, Avery started to throw things at me last night. Her attack on me escalated to the point that I had to call Zane for a sedative. She nearly took my head off with the plant,” he laughed again while shaking his head, “What’s yours doing? Throwing knives at you?”
“Gods, I hope it never gets to that point, but no. Emma just won’t talk. She ignores me for the most part, but when she does speak to me, it’s to insist that I bring her home. I went to get her stuff and something that I said pissed her off again and…”
Zeb interrupted him, “Don’t tell me you went down to the surface without letting anyone know.”
“Sorry, it was right after you and I had gotten Avery’s things. I thought that maybe if I got Emma’s things, she would warm up to her situation here with me.”
“You should have informed me, or at least asked me to help you, you fool. What would you have done if something had gone wrong and no one knew where you were?” The commander looked annoyed with Brylon.
“I had it all under control, Zeb. Nothing went wrong anyway. I don’t know what I should do to get through to Emma?” Brylon was pacing back and forth in front of the table.
“Brylon, I hate to say it, but I think we are both in the same situation. I think our mates need time to accept their new lives. But for now, let’s go have a drink.” Zeb slapped Brylon on the back.
“That sounds like an excellent idea. I’m buying.” Both men walked out of the room leaving Emma alone again in her hiding spot above the room.
She pushed herself away from the vent cover and laid still for a little while as she thought about what she had just overheard. Brylon was seeking out advice on how deal with her. She knew how to deal with Brylon’s problem quite easily. They could just put her back where they found her. It was a very simple solution.
“If he thinks that I am just going to accept this so called new life, he’s got another thing coming,” she was talking to herself again as she moved back and to the left. She would stay in the vents for as long as it took her to find the damn docking bay even if it killed her.
****
After having a couple of drinks with Zeb, Brylon headed back to his quarters. He wanted to have a talk with Emma about where things would go from here on out. He was more than willing to give her the time that she needed to adjust. That is, if that’s what she wanted, but he was going to open up the communication lines between the two of them.
Inside their quarters everything was quiet. The door to his office was open so he thought she was in there with the lights off. As he entered the office, the lights automatically came on as they usually did, but something was not right. He looked around to see why his things looked out of place. That was when he noticed that several of his books were missing from the bookshelf.
“What the hell?” he walked to the shelf and stared at the empty spaces. “Why the hell does she want books that she can’t read?” He was really perplexed now because all of his books were written in the Theron language. Maybe, she just wanted to look at the ones that had pictures in them. He tried to convince himself, but wasn’t succeeding. Leaving his office he went straight to the bedroom and flung open the door. Again she was nowhere to be found. His heart jumped just before he stormed over to the bathroom door to go in, but the door was locked.
He softly knocked before asking, “Emma, are you in there?” He waited for the reply, but none came. He knocked harder in case maybe she had fallen asleep in the tub, “Emma, open the door.” His voice was growing louder as he continued to knock. Still no answer came from within, so he took a few steps backwards and kicked his leg at the door frame instantly causing the door to fly back and slam against the inside wall.
“Emma…,” he was shouting now. He pictured her drowned in a tub of water as he rushed in towards the tub. Upon finding the tub empty, he swung around frantically taking in the entire room. The shower stood empty, the relieving station was vacant, but on the vanity and the floor in front of it were the missing books from his office. He bent to pick up the books on the floor and sit them on the vanity. He looked at his self in the mirror wondering where the hell she was. That’s when he finally noticed the vent cover sitting in the sink.
“What the hell,” he said to his reflection in the mirror, “She’d better not have gone into there.” He easily jumped up on the vanity and put his head to the vent shaft and shouted, “Emma!” as loudly as he could, “Emma!” He shouted her name a few more times before giving up. What in the hell would possess her to go into the vent system of the ship. It wasn’t safe in there. Some of the shafts in the ductwork dropped off without warning if one wasn’t paying attention to where they were going, and she could be seriously injured if that were to happen to her.
He reached for his communicator to inform Zeb of what the little Earth female had managed to do, “Zeb, we got a small problem here.” He waited for Zeb to reply while he stood on the vanity with his head through the vent.
“What kind of problem?” Zeb’s voice boomed through the speaker.
Rubbing his hand over his eyes before he spoke, Brylon shook his head replying, “My mate has managed to escape into the vent system.”
“What? How in the hell did she do that?”
“It appears as if she pried off the vent cover, and used some of my books to stand on so that she could crawl into the vent.” Brylon jumped down in one fluid movement then stormed out of his quarters. “I am heading to the engine room. Hopefully, I will be able to track her heat signature in the vents from the computers there.”
“I will meet you there.”
Brylon was furious with Emma. Did she feel the need to escape so badly, that she had to endanger herself by entering the ship’s ventilation system? This was not good. Not only could she hurt herself in there, but in certain areas of the ship there weren’t any access panels to the ducts where she or anyone else could get in or out. His only hope of finding her was by looking for any heat signatures within the vents that shouldn’t be there.
He got to the engine room in record time. A couple of his valued staff members were working on one of the air handling systems that needed repairs. They stopped what they were doing and looked at their anxious boss.
“Is something wrong, Sir?” Roran, one of the senior crew members asked while walking over to where Brylon had sat down at the computer work station.
“Well, for starters my mate has crawled into the vent system,” Brylon replied to the question as he started his search.
“Are you kidding me?” Roran said as he looked back at the other crew members who were slowly closing in around the computer station. “Boss, she can really hurt herself in there. I don’t even like going in there.”
Just then the door to the engine room slid open and in walked the commander.
“You find anything yet, Brylon?” Zeb walked up behind Brylon and watched
the screen that Brylon was working with. “You need to find her as soon as possible.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“Just focus on finding her,” Zeb said.
Brylon franticly programmed commands into the computer. The vent system finally came into view on the screen. Shafts and vents crisscrossed throughout the ship as freshly generated air was circulated within the ship. The air system was designed to circulate and filter the air to the best possible quality standards throughout the ship.
The computer was scanning each and every shaft as it made its way through the diagram of the system. Nothing yet unusual was to be found.
“I am going to…Hell, I don’t know what I am going to do to her when I find her,” Brylon was speaking to himself as he watched the screen with his eyes wide and his fingers on the keyboard that was on the desk. He was keeping this façade of anger in front of the other crew members when inside his heart was breaking. Emma wanted so desperately to leave him that she tried an escape route that she had to know might bring about her death. Was he such a bad guy that she would actually choose death rather than spend the rest her life with him?
“You can worry about what you do to her after you find her, my friend. But, for now you need focus on how to get her out of there,” Zeb said to Brylon in the voice that all the ship’s crew knew a direct command.
“I am doing the best I can, commander.”
****
Emma was extremely tired now. She had no idea how long she had been crawling through the low ceilinged vents and realized that she hadn’t passed an access vent or panel for a very long time now. All she knew was that she was thirsty, hungry, tired, and hopelessly lost. This was one time she wished she hadn’t followed one of her hair brained escape ideas.
Continuing forward was her only hope at this point. Going back wasn’t an option since she already knew there wasn’t any kind of exit. She told herself that she would take the first vent cover or access panel she found in order to get out of this seemingly endless journey. A huge gust of cold air came toward her, causing her to close her eyes against the force of it. Suddenly, without warning, her hand, which should have landed on the cool steel floor of the vent, went further downward then she expected causing her to lose her balance and pitch forward. She opened her eyes just in time to see herself slip over the edge and fall head first down the shaft. She opened her mouth and screamed, but in the vent her screams sounded like a disembodied voice. Her body continued to fall until the vent curved into a more horizontal direction, making her body then go head over heels a few times. While she flipped, her wrist bent backwards with a crack that she heard over her own scream. She slid to a stop when her body hit the side of one of the walls as the vent turned to the right. She immediately pulled her wrist against her stomach as the tears of pain fell down her dirty face.
“Son of a bitch,” she shouted out, as the pain radiated outwards from her broken wrist. Her stomach was flip-flopping as the pain coursed through her body. She rocked back and forth hoping that all of the pain would stop. Never in all her life, had she felt anything this painful, not even during all her years in foster care.
She inhaled deeply and slowly let the air leave her lungs as she eased her wrist away from her chest and saw that it was swelling considerably. Her situation was dire now. She let out a sob as she looked at her wrist then back to the direction she had just fallen from. She definitely wouldn’t be able to go back that way. She looked at her wrist and wondered how in hell was she going to be able to crawl now?
Chapter 6
“I found her!”
Brylon was on his feet in a heartbeat and heading out of the engine room door. Zeb was following close behind, along with two of the crew members that knew the air system. They were all running towards the crew elevator down the hall.
“Where is she?” Zeb said to Brylon as the elevator opened in front of them.
Brylon pushed the level 14 button and leaned on the wall for support as the elevator began its descent. “She is in the maintenance shaft on level 14. There is only one access panel in the zone, and it leads directly to the turbines. What complicates the situation is that there are several sharp drops in that area. If she happens to fall into one of shafts, she can end up falling into one of the fans. She will never survive if that that happens.” Brylon’s voice was shaking with emotion as he relayed the information to his commander.
“Is there any way to turn the fans off remotely?” Zeb asked
The door to the elevator opened and Brylon shot out in a dead run, “The only way to turn it off is at the turbine itself.”
The four men ran as fast as they could to the access panel that was located in a small room about five hundred feet from the elevator. The panel was roughly three feet by three feet and had more than a dozen screws to hold it in place. Without being told to do so, the two crew members rushed forward and started the agonizing process of unscrewing each one. The screws fell to the floor with a clatter as one by one each of them was pulled from the panel.
Finally, when all the screws were out and the door was lifted off the wall and set to the side. Brylon moved in to the vent space and shouted, “Emma! Emma, can you hear me?” He squeezed his large frame into the confines of the shaft and continued to shout. He turned to Roran and the other crew member and said, “The two of you need to go to the turbine access panel on this level and get ready to shut it off if necessary. We may not have much time to do this if she is moving in this direction. As soon as I find her, I will let you know if you need to shut it down. Now, go.”
Roran and the other member of Brylon’s staff ran down the hallway in the direction of the turbine and Brylon focused his attention on the now opened vent with Zeb standing right behind him.
“Emma, answer me,” Brylon inched forward, “Emma!” Behind him he heard someone crawl in and follow behind him.
Zeb called out to Brylon as he caught up with him, “Brylon, we are going to get stuck in here, you fool.”
Brylon wasn’t listening to the voice behind him as he kept crawling forward, deeper into the maze of ductwork. He was determined to find his mate, before she accidently fell into one of the turbines. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if that happened.
“Emma!” he shouted every few feet. He stopped when he thought he heard the sound of crying. He slowed his breathing to hear the faintest of sounds.
“Emma, can you hear me? Where are you?” He listened quietly for the reply to come again. Sure enough he could hear the faintest cry for help. “I’m coming Emma. Stay where you are.” He crawled as fast as he could through the duct work until he came to a junction. He looked around the corner and at first saw nothing in the direction he was searching. Turning his head the opposite way, he could make out dark figure at the far end of the shaft.
“Emma!”
****
Emma was startled when she heard her name being called from somewhere inside the duct. She wasn’t sure which direction the sound was coming from and really wasn’t sure if she had heard it or if in her panic imagined it, so she stayed very still and waited for the sound to make its way to her again.
“Emma!” She heard it again and let out the cry of relief that she had been holding on to while she sat there with her wrist cradled into her chest.
“I’m here,” she shouted back. She heard some sounds of movement coming from down the shaft close to where she was, but she was too frightened, and in too much pain to move. Not to mention, she was so afraid that there would be another drop that she would fall into if she started to move toward the sound of the person shouting her name. She decided that she would just sit still and wait for the rescuer to come to her.
Slowly she could see the shadow of a figure that filled the shaft as it moved toward her. Emma knew immediately who it was, Brylon. Hours ago, he was the one person she didn’t want to find her. But now, given her current situation, she was so very happy to see him. She closed her eyes in relief, kn
owing that she was finally going to escape this maze of an air conditioning system. A little while ago she was starting to believe that it would become her tomb. When she opened her eyes again Brylon’s face loomed before her. She looked directly into his copper eyes and whispered, “I’m Sorry.”
She flinched when his hand came up to her face and caressed her cheek. She was surprised with his gentleness with her since she had gone to great lengths to escape from him. She waited for some kind of reprimand or scolding, but none came. His hand remained on her cheek while he spoke to her,
“Come, little one, let’s get you out of here.” He grabbed for her arm that she had bent towards her body and she screamed out in pain. Once she recovered from the wave of pain that radiated from her broken wrist, she told him what had happened while she in the ducts.
“I think I broke my wrist when I fell down a duct that had suddenly gone vertical.” She lowered her eyes in shame and waited for him to say something, anything. She couldn’t look him in the face any longer. She was embarrassed for causing him so much trouble. Now, of all things, she had injured herself and she would have to depend on him for care.
She heard him let out a long slow breath before he commented, “I will have to bring you to the clinic and have Zane look at it as soon as we get out of here. Now, come on, we’ve got to move.” He took the transmitter off of his belt and spoke into it, “Roran, I have found her and we are leaving the duct system.” He looked at Zeb and said, “Let’s get her out of here.” The gentleness of his voice appeared to have left him as he started to guide her in the direction he had come. She knew she had screwed up, but she would not have been able to live with herself if she hadn’t at least tried to escape. Way deep down, she knew she would never have made it off the ship.