“You okay?” I asked. She just nodded, a distant look in her eyes.
I checked on everyone, and when I got to Mae, I knew it wasn’t good news. She was already so banged up from the other day, and now her head was bleeding from a scalp wound on top of it. We’d been tossed about like rag dolls.
“I think we made it through,” Mary said. “But the link to the viewscreen is broken.”
“Mae,” I whispered. Her chest rose and fell lightly. She was alive. “Where the hell is the Doc?” I asked, remembering he wasn’t on the bridge at the time. He must have been in the bunks.
Footsteps clanged from the hall, and he emerged, holding his arm up in a makeshift sling.
“Everyone okay?” he asked. “Thanks for warning me we were about to be tossed around like a sack of potatoes at the harvest festival.”
“We didn’t know it would do that. How could we?” Clare asked. “Help Dean get Mae to the medical lab, and I’ll work on the inertial dampener. I’m hoping the connections just loosened and it didn’t fry.”
That explained the flying around the ship. I made sure Mary was really okay, and headed with Mae down the hall, propping her up between Nick and me.
“I take it we found the wormhole,” he said, voice thick with sarcasm.
“I’m sorry we didn’t wake you. It just happened so fast. One minute we didn’t think it was there, the next we found it.” I felt foolish even saying it like that. He was right. We should have woken him.
We laid Mae down on the bed, and Nick went about looking over her. When he lifted her eyelids and shone a light in them, they darted around, and her leg kicked out at him.
“Mae! You’re fine! It’s just Doctor Nick,” I called in an effort to calm her. She stopped flailing, and I stood by her head, holding her hand.
“All the blood is from this small scalp wound. Their bark is far worse than their bite. I’ll have to stitch it up. You’ll be good as new, but with your other injuries, we’ll have to keep an eye on you for a concussion,” Doctor Nick said. I appreciated his bedside manner, especially after nearly being kicked by his patient.
“I’ll be at the bridge. Mae, let him do his job. We need you healthy,” I said. She nodded softly and squeezed my hand before letting it go.
I closed my eyes in the hall, trying to determine my own injuries. I could feel some pain in my knee, but I hoped it was just a bruise from landing on it. My left shoulder was a little tight, but again, that could be from falling on it. Nothing seemed too serious or broken.
A quick stop in the kitchen, and I was heading to the bridge with an armful of water bottles for everyone.
Slate stood, looking no worse for the wear, and Clare was absent, talking to Mary through her console speaker. “How about now?” her voice asked, and the viewscreen flickered, cut out, then stayed on, showing up the view before our ship.
Black sky, stars in the distance. Yep, pretty much what we had been looking at before, only I knew it was far different. No one from Earth had ever been this far out, and when we brought the map up, it zoomed in from tiny specks to large blinking icons. We were right on their tail.
The icon had moved trajectory since we’d last seen it, and to my non-spatial, linear mind, they were heading deep south in the 3D map. At their speed, it was evident the FTL drive was back up and running. As if she read my mind, Mary said, “Our drive will be good to go in twenty minutes. We were still holding a charge.”
I slumped down onto the console chair to the left of Mary, staring into the blank space outside, the blip of our target getting ever so farther away with each beat of my heart.
I wondered how long this journey was going to take.
Two weeks later, we were settling into a routine. I’d become more of a scheduler than anything, shifts on manning the bridge swapping between all six of us. We took turns making meals and sleeping.
Slate had a great idea for training sessions, which not only allowed us to get in shape, but let us learn the ins and outs of every weapon on board.
I headed into the storage area, which had become a makeshift gym, mats layering the floor in a square. Mary and Clare were inside, doing push-ups with Slate counting them off.
“Time for hand to hand,” he said, grinning at me. If there was one thing Slate loved, it was hand to hand combat. He lit up every time, and I was sure he wished there was some competition aboard for a man his size. There wasn’t anyone close. I’d been at the bruising end of his moves a few times, but he had taught me a lot, and for that I was thankful. Now the smaller Clare was up, getting ready for some basic combat techniques against the better-trained Mary.
Watching Mary sweating like that, getting ready to kick someone’s ass, was a turn-on. I wondered where that primal emotion came from.
Clare was thin, and her glasses were off to the side of the room. As an engineer, she said she hadn’t spent much time worrying about athletics, but Slate said she was a natural. Mary wasn’t the biggest fan of the upbeat nerd, as she called her, but was willing to admit she was a useful addition to the crew, especially since she’d helped convert some of the alien technology on board to better suit our human needs.
The two women strapped on gloves, and Slate made sure their headgear was on firmly. Mary tugged her ponytail and planted her feet. Clare moved hesitantly, a feint, before attacking from the left. Her kick hit Mary in the side, who grunted and jabbed with her right, catching Clare in the head.
The smaller woman went down, and Mary was on her, two quick shots, before Slate stepped in and pulled her off.
“She’s down,” he said angrily. Clare was down on the ground, turtling her head, and Mary moved back, hands in the air.
“I’m sorry, got a little too into it.” She reached her hand out, and a heavily-breathing Clare grabbed it, letting Mary help her to her feet.
“No sweat. I’ll get you next time,” Clare said before guzzling some water.
Slate looked at me and raised an eyebrow, as if to say he was impressed with their cordial behavior. Frankly, I was too.
Mary grabbed a towel and started for the washroom, where I knew she’d take a quick shower. I still couldn’t believe we had a Kraski ship with a human shower and toilet on it.
“Everything okay?” I asked, when we were out of earshot of the others.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You just about took our engineer’s head off back there.”
“I just got a little too into it. And honestly, since you’re asking, I’m getting a little frustrated. I’m a pilot, but I usually get to leave my jet, not follow a bogey across an unknown universe. To top it off, I’m tired of Clare giggling at every little joke you say and batting her eyelashes under those Buddy Holly glasses she wears.”
The truth came out. “I get it about the ship. We’re all getting restless.”
She sighed, closing the door behind us, and started to take her workout clothes off. I didn’t want to be presumptuous, so I hung back, thinking I might be reading the room wrong.
She stepped into the now-steaming shower and stuck her arm out, wiggling her finger for me to join her.
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said, shucking my uniform in record time.
There were still some things we could do to ease the tension, and it wasn’t easy on a small ship with very little privacy. We chose our times carefully. This time, she just didn’t seem to care. She was taking what was hers.
Fifteen minutes later, we heard the speakers throughout the ship. It was Mae. “They’re out of the FTL drive. You guys are going to want to see this.”