Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,101
bleeding away beneath us, and Delos’s landscape blurs together at the edge of the cockpit windows.
“Yeah?”
“You ever flown in zero-g before?”
There’s a too-long pause. Her lack of an answer is all the answer I need. I scan the dashboard on the copilot’s side for something—anything—that will save our skins the second this goes sideways, but all I have is guns filled with blanks.
I let out a long, resigned sigh. Even though anxiety hums at the base of my skull, I know there’s little I can do to stop her. “Well, no time to learn like the present.”
“That’s the spirit,” Wen mutters, and spurs the Cygnet until we see stars. The rush of air fades away, first to a whisper and finally to the silence of the void. Wen spins down the main engines—they’re no longer needed with no drag to tear us back. As our acceleration fades, we drift out of our seats against the harnesses. I sneak a sidelong glance at Wen. An unfettered grin has overtaken her lips, one I know all too well. You never forget your first time in orbit. For a moment I’m back above Rana, the lone still point in a shuttle packed with cadets quite literally bouncing off the walls, unsure how to handle the fact that for the first time in my life, my birth planet’s gravity is no longer dragging me back down.
“Okay,” I say, once I’ve given her mind enough time to process the emotion and her body enough time to get its bearings. My eyes stay fixed on the navigation in case any other traffic starts to brush up against our flight path. We’re out over an open area, clear of any cities and too close to the planet to be a bother to any of the orbiting satellites. “Now, adjust our vector fifteen degrees to the right.”
Wen punches the attitude thrusters on the left side of the ship. Our nose tilts against the black, but our vector stays the same, sailing us crooked along it. Wen frowns.
“Engines,” I remind her, forcing my voice to remain steady. With no gravity to tug us in one direction, the ship only goes where pushed. The attitude thrusters have the force needed to rotate a craft, but to change its vector, we need a contribution from the Cygnet’s actual firing power.
Wen gives the main engines a boost, and our course skids sideways. I watch our vector on the readout, but I don’t dare urge her to go any faster. Caution trumps speed when a new pilot’s testing the vacuum for the first time.
“How was that?” Wen asks the moment we’ve locked onto the target vector.
“Could be better. Use the gyros to point us, not the attitude thrusters. It’s more precise.”
Her lips purse, and she falters on the controls, probing the gyro stick like she’s not sure what to do with it.
“Gently—” I warn, but it’s too late.
Wen spins the Cygnet like a top, the forces jamming me back in my seat before I have a chance to rip her hand off the stick. The last thing I see is her fingers flailing, scrabbling, trying to claw their way back across the dashboard as the force of our spin throws her into the side of her harness. Then my vision goes dark.
My head smashes sideways, my helmet digging into my cheek as my jaw does its best to make contact with my gel-seat. I fight with everything I have, arms straining, fingers reaching, fumbling over the unfamiliar controls on my side of the craft.
You’ve endured worse in your academy training, my mind screams. Remember the centrifuge? Remember the stress tests? My body screams back that all of my blood is pooling in all the wrong places.
I find the weapons panel. The ship’s loaded with blanks, no actual firing power in any of our guns, but maybe blanks are enough. Blanks will have to be enough, because I’m starting to feel like I could take a nap. I root through what’s left of my brain until I get the calculation right. Spinning one way. Fire the other. Slow the ship.