An Unforgiving Desert – Chapter 5

The cruiser shakes violently, my teeth clacking and chest vibrating, as we ascend through the mild afternoon clouds of Sonoma. I grip the armrests in my co-pilot’s chair, desperate to reach out and adjust the stabilizers, but I know better. That’s not my job.

Glancing over at Kalvin, his forehead is creased as his right hand adjusts nose angles and his left hand works the acceleration stick. Come on. Just get this over with.

Here’s the thing about Kalvin — he’s not a horrible pilot by any definition. He’s done well in the sims and training flights. Other students have flown with him and said good things about his skills. He has every right to be confident and attain this license with high marks. I don’t know why he would be so perturbed about me somehow cheating.

I glance over at him again as the ship begins to quiet, and his features smooth out. Any other person I’ve flown with would get a thumbs up from me, maybe a smile and a compliment. I’m keeping my mouth shut around him.

“Good job, Kalvin,” Damian says, raising his voice over the last of the turbulence. “Let’s check on our tandem team.”

Damian leans forward in his harness and taps the screen in front of him. Sweat rolls down his face and lands on the console. Did he think Kalvin was going to crash us? “Beta team, how was your ascent?”

Bella, the other flight instructor on the beta ship, smiles at us. “Smooth as ice. Amira gets top marks for this one. And we were right on your port side the entire time. No deviation.”

“Great.” Damian’s face is one wide smile. “Let’s proceed to the rendezvous point for a quick rest before we head down again.”

He sets the coordinates and puts the cruiser on auto-pilot before turning around to face us. His eyes flicker over the consoles, and he taps his foot for a moment before sighing.

“Okay, Skylar. What would you have done differently?”

Shit. Put on the spot.

I clear my throat and don’t look at Kalvin. “Well, sir, Kalvin’s descent and landing were great. I see nothing in his flying that I would do differently. But the ascent to orbit was a bit bumpy. It’s a fair day, weather-wise, and Sonoma doesn’t use weather control like Ossun and Palo Alto do. This planet is known for its hotter climate and warmer updrafts because of the large desert area. This affects air pressure and density, making the climb harder and in need of more power than usual. I would have eased the stabilizers to eighty percent to counteract the increased engine output.”

Silence. I look at both men, waiting for a reply. Damian’s face continues to sweat, and Kalvin closes his eyes.

“What? Am I wrong?”

Damian’s grin grows slowly. “No. You’re not wrong.”

“Shit,” Kalvin spits out. “We learned that for our Class Two license.” He shakes his head, angry with himself. “I checked the weather for today, and I forgot about the air pressure.”

Damian responds to a ping on the console. “We’ve mostly been flying in and out of Palo Alto and Avenal. Don’t beat yourself up too much about it. It was just a little bumpy. Otherwise, your performance gets top marks as well.”

Kalvin makes eye contact with me and looks away. I shouldn’t have said anything.

“Get up and stretch your legs. Grab a snack from the galley. Use the facilities. We’ll meet back here in ten minutes for rendezvous.”

We’re dismissed.

Kalvin and I run into each other at the bridge’s door.

“After you,” I say, waving in front of me.

He mutters some thanks under his breath and heads straight for the head. I sigh. I’ll go find one of the other dozen or so bathrooms in this gigantic ship, and then I’ll avoid him in the galley.

My plan works, and I’m alone for the break time, able to walk around this gorgeous new ship and see it for myself. It’s kind of creepy, though, being in this big ship meant to carry a hundred people, but it’s almost as empty as space.

Well, empty except for the one guy who hates my guts right now.

But there’s no use in delaying the inevitable. It’s time for me to get my final flight of the class over and done with. Done and dusted, as my mom likes to say.

I return to the bridge, and my instincts race with danger. One console is flashing red, and out the front display window, two smaller ships are between us and our other student vehicle.

“What’s happening?” I run up next to Damian. His face is stony, his eyes bouncing from screen to screen as his hands hover over the controls. His fingers shake, and that worries me more than anything. Besides a few displays of anxiety, he has always been a rock, imperturbable.

“The whole system is locked out.”

“What?” I slip into the pilot’s seat and find the controls locked in auto-pilot mode. I tap the screen, and nothing happens. Raising my voice, I say, “AI, bring the ship out of auto-pilot.” No answer. “AI, emergency procedures.”

“Don’t bother. We turned off the AI earlier today for the training exercises.” Damian sits back and levels his eyes at the ships.

“It’s supposed to boot up for emergencies,” I remind him.

“What’s happening?” Kalvin asks, entering the bridge.

“All systems are locked out. Auto-pilot’s been engaged. I can’t hail anyone.”

We all turn to the window, and the two ships between us and the other training vehicle are splitting off.

“Are we?” He swallows. “Are we being hijacked?”

“Looks like it.” Damian’s face is grim and resigned.

Fucking hell. Didn’t Vivian just tell me that Ken needed people to help him with this very problem? And then those news stories…

Hijacks are supposed to be a hypothetical problem. I swallow down the fear that rises from my belly. How many people actually survive hijackings?

“What do we do?” Kalvin asks, looking at Damian. “We’ve never covered hijackings in class.”

I bark out a laugh. “You’ve never owned a ship, have you?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve only ever flown for other people.”

Damian looks at me, and his face drops into a frown before he lowers his eyes to the console. He knows my history and that I’ve dealt with this before. It did not end well for either me or my ship. It’s the reason my ship has been in spacedock for over a year now.

“We don’t let them take the ship. We shut it down, all of it.” My eyes dart back and forth over everything on the bridge. A new ship like this will have safeguards, and we have very little time to make decisions.

“Are you sure?” Damian asks, and I widen my eyes at him. He raises his hands. “I just think they might be more forgiving if we don’t fight them.”

“Fuck that,” I spit out, and Damian’s face tightens before he nods once.

“A full shut down will reboot the computer and AI. We might be able to gain control and shake them.” Damian rechecks the window.

Once we draw close enough to the ships, they’ll dock and decompress us. We need to prepare, or we’ll be dead. We have five minutes at best.

I turn to Kalvin and put all of our past differences aside.

“How well do you know engines?”

—-

The quickest way to the engine room is through the top deck and then down the service ladder at the rear. I take the ladder like a fire pole, shoes on either side, down like a rushing waterfall. When I step off, Kalvin is right behind me.

“I flew an Alpha Core ship before I came here to school. This ship is newer, but I think I can figure it out.” Kalvin looks me up and down. “Do you know anything about engines?”

“Very little about Alpha Core. My mechanic knows a ton about them. Not me.”

“Your mechanic…” The way he says it curls my toes with anger.

“Yeah, my mechanic. I’m twenty-fucking-eight years old, I own my ship, and I employ people to keep that ship running. What’s your problem?”

I huff out a breath as he pulls back with wide eyes.

“Fuck this.” I point down the hall. “Get to the engine room. Now. Find out what you can do.”

I turn to the right to search out the decompression gear, not bothering to acknowledge him when he asks where I’m going.

A ship this big would typically have a full engineering crew, and so the zero grav and decompression gear storage should be… yes, right here.

Lights pop on and illuminate rows of spacesuits and face masks. I hesitate between grabbing full suits or face masks. Complete decompression with a loss of air pressure is hell on a body. Even with face masks, other problems would impede our ability to live and function.

I check two suits, and they’re charged with full tanks of air. They’re heavy, but I can carry them, so I grab them and run back to the engine room.

“I can’t shut it down from the consoles,” Kalvin says, stabbing at the screens with his fingers. “They locked them out, too.”

My eyes dart around the room, following the conduits along the walls.

“If we shut down main power, we’ll lose life support.”

“But not air,” I remind him. “We’ll still have what’s in here. And heat, too. It won’t bleed off right away, not with the insulation they have.”

“How do you shut down main power?” His eyes are doing the same dance mine are. We’re both searching for answers in a giant void of a brand-new ship with no AI. If this were a normal day, I would just raise my voice and ask the ship.

Today is not a normal day.

The ship’s speakers crackle. “We’ve got three minutes, tops. What’s your status?” Damian asks. His voice is strained and frantic.

“Trying to find the main power cut-off. We can’t access anything else down here. Do you have a pressure suit?”

“Uhhhh… Yeah. There’s three here in the back of the bridge.”

“Put it on,” I say to Damian over the ship’s comms while thrusting one at Kalvin. “I’d give anything for Vivian to be here,” I mutter under my breath.

“What’s that?” Kalvin asks, lifting his head.

“Nothing.” I force my feet into the pressure suit. I should switch into a heated coverall and specialty boots, but I am not changing my clothes. No time.

“Manual power shut-off is on the port side wall,” Damian’s voice echoes over the cavernous room. “Open the panel, flip the master switch to the left. Prepare for a blackout. Emergency lights should come on.”

Kalvin is farther along getting into his suit than me, so he scrambles to the port side wall as he pulls his arms into the sleeves.

“I think I found it!” He stands in front of an open panel. “Skylar?”

I run up next to him. “What?”

“You really have your own ship?” His bottom lip is in his teeth as he stares at the power switch. It’s labeled ‘Main Power. Shut off only in emergencies.’

“Throw the fucking switch, Kalvin,” I growl.

He raises his eyebrows, his hand on the knob.

The floor vibrates, and a loud clang makes me duck my head.

Kalvin throws the switch, and everything plunges into darkness.

“Did you hear that?” I force myself to breathe slower. There will only be so much air in here until we get the engines going again.

“Yeah. You think it’s the other ship docking?”

“Yeah.” I lick my lips. “If they haven’t sealed yet, we may be able to pull away.”

I can barely see him in the red emergency lighting, but Kalvin’s head bops up and down.

“Let’s power up and get the hell out of here.” He throws the knob back to full power.

Nothing happens.

“Kalvin, what?” I force myself next to him.

Everything looks right. I reach out and touch each knob and switch, hoping that one of them is just a little out of alignment, enough to cause a failure. But…

A breeze against my face snaps me out of my head. Breeze?

I lock eyes with Kalvin.

“Suits on.” His eyes are serious as he seals up his suit and pulls his helmet on. My hands shake and fumble at the seals.

Is today the day I die? No. I have not been properly laid in months, and I will not go out without some good booty.

“Here,” Kalvin says, steadying my hands as I try to pull the helmet on. “I do a lot of EVAs. I don’t have my own ship, but I’m in and out of them all the time.”

I look back at the main power. Why didn’t it work? Air rushes past us, and a decompression alarm blares through the ship on emergency power. That’s it. These hijackers were looking to kill us before we could act.

Another loud bang outside makes us both jump back.

“Let’s get out of here.” I pull Kalvin away from the engines. “We should see if we can evacuate the ship before we’re boarded.”

“Evacuate the ship?”

“Yeah. Let’s go grab Damian and get the hell out of here. Our lives are not worth saving this ship.”

Kalvin grabs my arm as we skirt around the corner. “Don’t you think… Isn’t that dangerous? That sounds riskier than waiting this out.”

“Well, then, Cool Kalvin, what do you suggest?”

His expression is so frosty it chills me. Cool Kalvin was the right nickname for him.

“I suggest we not be cowards and run away.”

My jaw is tight with anger. “Running away will save our lives.”

“No one is going anywhere,” pipes into my suit.

A man steps out into the hallway in front of us. I yelp and skitter backwards, tripping over Kalvin’s legs.

I wait a moment as the man stands there, stone still and not a blink. And also, he’s not wearing a pressure suit.

Shit. It’s an android. I’ve seen enough of these to last a lifetime, and seeing another one right now does not fill me with glee.

“It’s good to see you again, Kalvin,” the android says, his mouth moving, but his voice tapped into our comms. It’s a vacuum on the other side of the suit.

“Ricardo Nine?” Kalvin asks, and when the android nods, Kalvin sighs. “Ah, fuck.”