The blur of hyperspace crystallizes into stars, a large pale blue planet beside us, and a blazing yellow portal ahead of us. We’re with ABR and the tour for three seconds before they’re gone, and our momentum has launched us into a blazing realm of orange planets.
Ahead sits a fleet of white ships, ghosts that are rumored to leave ash skeletons in their wake. Yellow missiles race toward us from a nearby ship.
“MONA, portal!” Elix shouts, maneuvering us away from the blasts.
Another blaze opens at the ship’s nose. It coats the ship in icy greens and blues and plunges us into a different world, one of frosty winds and dark continents.
Alerts blink and flash all over the dash. I find myself dizzy and finally remember the inhaler. It doesn’t clear my mind the way I wish it would, but I get some breath back. “Elix?”
“We’ve lost an engine’s power cell on the port side. They shot it out.” His hands dance over his screens as he tries to reroute power and regain control.
“They wanted to cripple the ship,” I say.
“They did.” He tries to stabilize our trajectory. “We’re going to crash. The planet’s gravity has us. I can’t get us out with a downed engine. I’m going to try and fix this so we can crash with some control.”
“Crash?” I gasp.Damn it!
Of course, the moment I find happiness is followed by the moment I die. That just seems to be my kind of luck.
“Do you trust me?” Elix gets out of his seat and crawls his way to me.
“More than anyone. But where are you going?”
“To try and give us a chance to live.” He kisses me with passion, but it is too brief. “I love you, Zariah. I always have.”
Then he climbs into the back. I stare ahead at the frozen planet we plummet toward, the ship shuddering in the turbulence of reentry, and hope he knows what he’s doing. I hope he can get us out of here because I don’t want to lose the best thing I’ve ever had in my life.
19: Elix
Alerts batter the cabin with a racket of noise. We’ve lost an engine power core on the port side that I didn’t see coming until it was too late. But the ailerons are intact, the structural wings and hull integrity, too. We’re still lucky.
My Scintilla cants sideways and falls toward a familiar world of ice and misery. No one will look for us here for some time. But I’m already regretting my decision.
The portal closes behind us. No one else makes it through.
Zariah calls out from the chair. “Let me help!”
“I need to reroute power to the remaining port engine. That will help us level out and have some control. Can you do that?”
She’s weak from her recent encounter with SoulStealers. But she swipes through the screens and starts working on it. “Why can’t your AI do it?”
“I am medical AI, not designed for battle, Zariah,” MONA replies.
“Great,” she mutters.
“You should eject in a pod,” MONA states. “That is safest.”
“Should we?” Zariah tries to twist and look back at where I lug out a power cell that supports the extra rooms. MONA locks the doors at my request.
“No. I don’t want us separated from the ship. There’s no one to help us here. This planet is completely abandoned. We only have a chance to survive if we land inside the ship in one piece.”
“Why this planet?” she asks.
I walk to the side access of my fuselage and see the port’s remaining engine glowing hotter. She redirected power. I thinkshe’s done it before. “I don’t know. The coordinates were fastest to input.”
“Not a spaceport or literally any area of space that has security?”
“I was trying to save you.”
