Of Stars and Secrets

Chapter 7

7

“Lay off the thrusters, Sid. She needs finesse, not brute strength,” Kiersten yelled to be heard over the howling wind, pounding hail, and the whine of the Lioness as she bucked and rolled through the hurricane.

“This is too big of a storm to not have come up on screen,” she complained as she muscled for control of her ship, flying manually through the atmosphere of Suma.

“We normally have a less radical trajectory,” Sid answered as he flipped switches to help correct the roll of the ship. “And we usually don’t try for a sneak landing on our home planet,” he said with a glare in her direction.

Kiersten ignored his attempt to blame her for putting them in the middle of this weather disturbance. “Override the computer. I can’t wrestle with the ship and its brains. And bring this b***h up on screen. I need to know how big it is.”

Sid complied by typing in a command on the keyboard. With all the shaking, the computer asked him three times to verify instructions to shut down the automation. Just as the colorful picture of clouds appeared on the screen that was part of the window in front of them, the cabin lights went off and the red emergency lights illuminated the suddenly darkened interior.

Kiersten scowled at the screen. The red showed the height of the clouds, the yellow rings, the lightning strikes. After gaining entrance from the patrol vessel, and bribing the captain to keep her arrival quiet, she had decided to drop more vertically than usual, and to come in over the ocean and mountains that surrounded the capital city on Suma. Apparently, they had snuck up on a hurricane blowing itself inland from the water. She knew most of the rain would dump in the mountains, and the wind would be considerably less by the time it reached the city.

“I believe we’ve got two choices. Either we ride this out and attempt to skip over the mountain’s summit, or we gain altitude and approach the port the way civilized pilots do,” Sid suggested, clearly conveying his preference.

Three beeps sounded before the computer fail-safe could be heard over the noise of the storm. “Impact with Suma’s lithosphere in five hundred meters.”

Kiersten stayed her course. She had hoped to land without her mother knowing, gather supplies, and be gone before anyone could detain her. Before her mother used guilt to force her to comply and marry this unknown Prince.

“Four hundred meters to impact.”

But now there’s this storm. If she landed “civilized,” her mother would be at port before the drives were cool.

“Three hundred meters.”

“Uh… Kiersten, I don’t think crashing the Lioness is the way to avoid your mother,” Sid commented as nervousness began to settle in his belly.

“Two hundred meters,” the computer informed her. The red emergency lights blinked.

Sid attempted another strategy. “How awful could the groom be?”

“One hundred fifty meters.”

“I’ll distract the Empress while you obtain the vaccine,” Sid offered as a last effort to encourage Kiersten to rise above the storm.

“One hundred meters.”

Kiersten scowled and pulled all the switches back towards her. She growled through gritted teeth as the ship fought the wind pushing it sideways and gravity pulling it down.

“Engage quarter hyperdrive!” she yelled at him.

“The thrusters will work—”

“Not at this close to the summit. Sid, now!”

The nose of the ship was angled upwards. Sid adjusted a dial and flicked a switch. They were both forced back into their seats as the Lioness shot straight up through the clouds. Sid fought the G-force to move his hand forward and power off the hyperdrive. The ship responded immediately, and they floated briefly just on the edge of the atmosphere.

Kiersten eased off the manual switches and leveled the ship. The Lioness held together for a moment, then both the drives and thrusters went offline. If they were outside the gravitational pull of Suma, it would have an easy adjustment to bring them back online. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

“Drive system overload. Drives are offline,” the computer calmly informed them.

“No! Come on, don’t do this,” Kiersten muttered as her hands flew over the board in front of her, shutting down and restarting the systems that supported the drives. The pull from the center of Suma brought the Lioness down like a stone through the air.

“Sid, bring the computer pilot back on automatic. Reengage the thrusters. If the drives don’t restart, the thrusters will be enough to slow our crash. I hope.”

Sid typed in the command to bring up the automated flight pilot, then pushed the button to engage the thrusters. The shaking and shuddering weren’t caused by the storm this time. The thrusters pushed them forward as gravity pulled them down.

“Autoflight back online,” the computer announced.

“About damn time. Bring drive system online,” Kiersten yelled to be heard over the rattling of the ship.

The regular lights glowed steadily, the air flowed from the vents, and the quiet hum of the drives ceased the shaking of their plunge to the surface.

“Drives online,” the voice continued.

“Thank the Source,” Kiersten muttered.

Sid placed the thrusters on standby and took a deep breath. “Damn fine flying, girl.”

Kiersten c****d a brow at his verbal slip. “We’ll be in port in a few minutes. Control will see us land at the hangar. We’ll have to verify our identities and complete the forms. You take care of that in the office. Use your wrist com to inform me what else we might need.”

She rattled on as if they hadn’t just been through a harrowing experience. Sid reached over and placed his hand on her arm. It had the desired effect of silencing her babbling.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“I’m alright. I’ll catch my breath by the time the hatch opens.”

“I meant what I said. That was damn good flying.” He held her gaze to judge for himself that she was settled and to let her know she had just saved both their lives.

“I learned from the best,” she answered with a half-smile.

“That was more than just learning. That was knowing.”

Kiersten held his gaze and nodded once.

She looked through the window in front of her and acknowledged the Landing Officer on his hovercraft. Once the gear was down and the Lioness safely on terra firma, Kiersten unbuckled her belt, then turned to look at Sid.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“For what?”

“Empress Charlotte. You volunteered to distract her so she doesn’t have the opportunity to detain me.”

Sid squeezed his eyes shut and rested his head against the back of his seat.

Kiersten smiled and stood to make her way to the hatch. Sid’s eyes shot open as he snatched her wrist.

“You had it planned all along. You waited to pull out of that storm until I gave you what you wanted.” He saw the mischief dance in her eyes.

She raised a brow and said, “Really, Sid, we could both have been killed.”

He released her arm, and she moved to the middle of the ship and opened the hatch. Sid closed his eyes and shook his head. The manipulated just became the manipulator.