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One thing was certain: Chernifile was where the most dangerous intergalactic scum were kept under lock and keycard, never to be seen again.
So, what despicable crime had the prisoner in the cargo hold committed to win a one-way ticket to Chernifile?
Whatever. As long as Miya got her ass to System 6 and back in one piece and got paid as much as agreed upon, nothing else mattered.
“Here we go,” she said on the comms and engaged the hyperdrive.
The thing emitted a crackling sound but began purring like a kitten shortly after, allowing Miya to accelerate yet again. That pressed her back into her seat from where she calmly kept accelerating until the stars visible through the viewport became a blur, a rain of sparkles, and then a river of whiteness.
“Hello, hyperspace,” she told no one in particular. Sinking her fingers deeper into the holowheel, she steadied her hands for the hard part.
The tricky moment was when the space around them was trying to tear the ship apart. Making the metal groan under the immense pressure, causing everything to vibrate and shake to a brain-rattling point, and putting the nerves of any pilot to the test. Allow the ship to shift even slightly, and there would be no ship left to pilot. Give in to the temptation of letting the autopilot maneuver the ship, and risk the thing fizzling out halfway like complex electronics tended to do in hyperspace.
Some pilots had tempted fate like that and had lived to tell the tale, but Miya liked to play it safe. Safe-ish. After all, one could never guarantee the ship would hold regardless of what the pilot did.
As the time to decelerate finally came and the ship returned to the blackness of regular space in one piece, Miya allowed herself to breathe out the air she had been holding. Today was not the day hyperspace would get her.
“Wow, sugar. Youaregood at this.”
Were Miya not wearing her seat belts, she would have jumped in her seat. She had completely forgotten the Cordalian was there with her. She tended to become one with the ship in hyperspace, completely oblivious to everything else around her.
“That was the smoothest hyperspace crossing I’ve had,” he added, and she heard him unbuckle one seat belt. “Not a single hiccup in–”
A vibration ran under her boots.
Then the whole ship started tilting to the right, as if someone had hit them from the side.
Or as if something had caused an imbalance at the back of the ship.
As Miya struggled to right the ship, she thought she knew which of the two reasons it was. “Everything is secured in the cargo hold, my ass.”
“What’s going on?” the Cordalian asked three minutes later, once Miya could finally let go of the holowheel. “Why have we stopped moving?”
Miya wiped her sweaty palms on her thighs. Had the imbalance occurred while they were in hyperspace…
She allowed herself a few seconds to steady her shaken nerves before she unbuckled her seat belts and got up.
“Where are you going, sugar? The Commander said–”
“Precisely.”
Mia sighed as the soldier jumped to follow her through the doors. Just great. She would be fixing the mess in the cargo hold in the company of the grumpy Commanderandthe horny Cordalian.
And let’s not forget the mysterious prisoner.
This was going to be a long day.
4
Impressively Defined
Contrary to what she expected, Miya did not have to deal with a commander extra pissed at the further delay. She did not have to give a little speech about how she was not restarting the engines until everything aboard the ship was as firmly in place as the prisoner.
Another piece of good news was that the scattered container boxes had not caused hull damage. Upon inspection, Miya concluded the magnetic mechanism must have failed during the jump in hyperspace, then one of the hooks over the containers had broken off. The mechanism must have kicked back in before the boxes, now free from the ropes, could hit one of the walls. Had that happened, the major repairs needed would surely have given the Commander an aneurysm. As things were, Miya could fix the problem in the cargo hold herself.
The bad news? The flying containers had smashed the leg of one of the guards. On her way to the cargo hold, she had seen the semi-conscious Aldebian being supported by a human soldier and the Commander toward the ship’s small infirmary. The amount of pale pink blood left after them along the corridors…
Hopefully, the AI doctor would be able to patch the unlucky guy up, because the Commander had made it clear in passing that they had to stay on course. No going back to the space station, which was much closer than their destination and better equipped to save one of the Aldebian’s three spider-like legs. Though he had sounded worried about his soldier, the Commander clearly put the mission first.
