She pulled the sticks towards herself until the nose of the ship pointed high into the sky, then she shoved them forward.
They shot into the air at a near-vertical tilt.
Gravity pressed against her, peeling back her lips and keeping her pinned to the backrest. Cannons boomed, and warplane artillery shrieked. Zane bellowed curses. Smoke and fire danced through the sky, wind screamed, and blast after blast battered the ship’s thick metal walls.
Kalie shut it all out.
She lost track of Zane, of the warplanes, of everything but the levers she was forcing forward as far as they would go.
The levers clicked, capping out at max speed. She kept pushing into the sky. Metal groaned. Alarms screeched. Fires ignited on the viewport’s edges, curling around the corners and licking down the sides of the ship. The blaze swept across the viewport, snapping and hissing.
Still, Kalie strained, pressing all her weight against the levers.
They crashed through the clouds, through a faint blue haze, into the fathomless darkness of space. Warnings trilled from the radar. Lighting down, navigation down, fire suppression down, shields down, engines and thrusters on override. She clenched her teeth and kept barrelling forward.
Her pulse thundered.
This had to work. It had to.
The stargate loomed in the distance, a circular behemoth of shining metal. Kalie’s heart dropped. The ring’s center was dark and inactive.
The transceiver crackled. “Incoming shuttle?—”
“Override code four-four-two-six!” Kalie bellowed.“Four-four-two-six!”
The overtaxed levers clenched in her fists pushed back against her. She didn’t let up. The gate was inactive, so shooting through it wouldn’t send her anywhere, but she had to hope. It was a desperate chance. It was heronlychance.
Breathless seconds passed, and the gate stayed empty.
Flickering blue light sparked in the core. Kalie’s heart leapt into her throat.
The pulsing light crackled outward, expanding into a teal ring within the stargate. Blue lights led away from the other side like a tunnel.
The gate was opening.
Warplanes screamed after them. As Kalie closed her eyes and pushed into the ring of light, they collided with the blinding aura.
Spots swam in the white light consuming her vision. Something boomed, and their ship shuddered as they made the jump.
“Close the gate!”
Though her lips formed the words, the ringing in her earsdrowned out her voice. She cracked her eyes open. A fathomless white void surrounded her.
Sputtering vibrations shot through her legs. The control sticks spasmed and went limp in her hands. Blood rushed in her ears as she blindly fumbled with the controls, searching for an anchor, something to orient her in the unseen room. Hot metal met her fingertips. A ridge, a button, a cool glass screen. But no images, no sight.
Pain blossomed in her chest as she struggled for air.
Her lips moved.Zane.The sound didn’t reach her ears.
A warm palm covered the back of her hand.
It could’ve been seconds. It could’ve been hours. Slowly, spots appeared in her vision. They danced through the white void before zipping away, taking holes of light with them. Dark, endless space appeared through those little windows, growing until the white light was just an aura at the edges of her vision.
Blue shafts of light surrounded them, forming an illusionary tunnel through space. The radar’s light shone in the dark cockpit. There was nothing behind them. Just their ship, careening forward at an impossible speed.
Kalie let out a choked sob. The gate had closed in time. They’d escaped.
In the aftermath,the only sounds in the lightless cockpit were their harsh, gasping breaths, mingling with the sputtering roar of overtaxed thrusters and the near-silent hum of the drained heating unit. Kalie rested her head in her hands. Her chest was so tight, her ribs so sore, that trying to breathe deeply was impossible. She didn’t think she could speak if she tried.
