Willovitch looked up from her computer, owlishly blinking her large green eyes at Taryn. “There’s no telling that there will only be two jump gates, Captain,” she said flatly. That was the other problem with making jumps – you had to remember which gate you went through, because there was never just one. “There could be a third. Or an undocumented fourth.”
“But say there are only two,” Taryn leaned toward her. “Right? Or left? What are you feeling?”
“I have never had a feeling solely in charge of which direction I should take,” Willovitch replied blandly, already turning back to her screen. “Though when we come across them, I will be sure to run diagnostics as per the usual and give an educated guess.”
“Well, sure,” Taryn grinned. “I never expected less.”
“Captain,” Jeline interrupted them. “We’re approaching the gates.”
“Excellent,” Taryn left Willovitch to her own devices, just how the engineer liked it, and turned her attention to her pilot. “Jeline, where are we?”
“Two miles out,” she reported, clicking away at her desk. “Three gates.”
“First appears unstable,” Willovitch was already running tests, using protocol to count the gates from left to right. “Running tests for the second and third now.”
“No one has jumped here before,” Sherre chimed in. “None of my reports match these gates. First and third have some unusual markings with a flexible outer layer of green.”
“Agreed,” Willovitch nodded. “I advise the second gate for our next jump. It appears the most stable.”
“Well,” Taryn stood up, clasping her hands behind her back. “Let’s get to it then. Jeline, take us in. And Willovitch – put it up on the central hologram.”
Jeline typed away, sending command after command to the autopilot. Manually controlling a ship in space was always risky, especially during a jump, and Jeline had long learned to copilot the ship automatically, prompting – almost nudging – the ship in the direction she wanted while the autopilot remained online and compensated for any complications. It took Jeline seconds to align the ship with the middle gate, at which point she added speed, lightly rolling her fingers over the screen to give the ship a gradual boost.
“Is this it? Are we jumping?” Lyra asked, the doors whooshing open as she jogged into the room. One glance at the hologram sporting three ethereal gates in the middle of the room, and she knew that they were in the middle of performing a jump. She practically flung herself into the nearest chair, yanking the safety straps up and over her head as she buckled in.
Taryn laughed at her, grinning as she watched her pilot and navigator. “Jeline—”
“Taryn, what are you doing?” Lyra interrupted her.
Taryn didn’t make a move to sit down. “My job,” she answered dryly, her mouth twitching as she fought a smile.
“Standing? Before a jump?”
“Yes,” she said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Now, if you don’t mind, Medic Conrarson, I’ve got a jump to orchestrate.”
A strangled breath. “You can’t be—”
“Jeline!” Taryn shouted over her. “Are we a go?”
“Yes, Captain!” she replied from her station.
“So far so good,” Willovitch agreed.
“Initiate countdown!” Taryn ordered, her eyes on the hologram portraying the gate ahead of them, the jump imminent.
“Five,” Sherre began. “Four, Three, Two—!”
It happened before Sherre could even open her mouth to form the next number. One moment they were staring into the hologram’s best impression of the black abyss of a gate, and the next Taryn was stumbling forward, bracing herself on the bridge’s chrome railing. She laughed at the lightning igniting her bones and filling her veins, watching as the hologram grew to a vast black hole.
And then, something horrible happened.
The ground shuddered under her and seemed to flip, throwing her over the railing and onto the lower floor. Someone called out, yelling for her, but everything was moving too fast. She reached out a hand to grab a nearby chair, silently panicked as it took her three tries just to get a grip strong enough to right herself. The ship seemed to stabilize, gaining some semblance of solidity, and she pulled herself to her knees until she could get into a crouching position. Glancing behind her, she felt her heart sink at the sight of the broken hologram.
“Willovitch!” she barked. “Status report!” If anyone knew what was going on, it was her engineer.
“Captain,” she grunted. “We’ve taken a hit.” Even as she spoke, the ship bounced sharply, as if under attack. In fact, Taryn didn’t have any reason to believe that they weren’t.