“W-we’ve entered a meteor storm, Captain,” Jeline announced distractedly, her eyes on the screen in front of her as her hands danced over the keyboard.
“A meteor storm…?” Taryn shook her head, trying to clear it even as things banged and crashed all around them. Doing her best to stay close to the ground so as not to fall off-balance again, she half-crawled to where her pilot and navigator were furiously working.
“Sherre,” she hooked her arm around the girl’s armrest. “Talk to me.”
Sherre didn’t even look at her, her eyes wide as they glanced repeatedly between the print and the screen. She was relying on two different media, shifting through the papers and online accounts at her fingertips. “I-I don’t know,” she finally muttered. Papers were falling to the floor around her feet, and those that she was clutching in her hands were becoming wrinkled and damaged. “I have no idea where we are. We’re in an unprecedented jump, and I can’t see anything!” She gestured to the hologram, quiet and useless in the center of the room.
Taryn opened her mouth to tell the girl to focus, but before she could someone else laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Calm down,” Lyra said, her amber eyes calm as she appeared beside Taryn. “The last thing you want to do is panic.”
“Lyra!” Taryn cursed. “What are you doing? Get back to your seat—”
“Says the woman who stood up during a jump!”
“Says the Captain who is relying on her only medic to be alive and kicking!” Even as she yelled at her, the ship rumbled all around them.
“Sorry,” Sherre piped up, her head down.
“Why are you apologizing?” Taryn huffed, still glaring Lyra down.
“No, I mean…” she shrugged, throwing a hand to indicate her cluttered desk.
“You can do this,” Lyra insisted, squeezing her shoulder. “I have faith in you. So does the captain. Right?” she glanced at Taryn.
“Of course,” she agreed. “Why else would I have allowed a rookie to join my crew?” Not that any of it was her choice, really – every citizen was required to serve four years in some sort of space-related occupation. After that, they were free to continue in their field or lead a life where their foot never had to fly outside of a planet’s atmosphere again. Sherre’s service had just begun, which made her status as a navigator all the rarer.
Taryn turned to Willovitch as another bang erupted near the back of the ship. “How are we holding up?”
Willovitch just shook her head, the ends of her short dark brown hair swishing to brush her cheeks as she moved. She was muttering in her mother tongue, the scowl on her face making her appear even more intimidating than usual. “It’s bad,” she finally ground out. “We’re taking hit after hit – this is not good, Captain.”
Taryn sighed, looking around at her crew. Sherre was bent back over her work station, flipping through her papers while Lyra whispered words of encouragement in her ear. Jeline, her hands forever moving, was tense, her back straight as she stared, unblinking, at the screen before her in an attempt to try correcting the ship. Willovitch, back to muttering to herself, was glaring at her screen as she furiously typed away.
“Alright, that’s it.” Taryn said it to herself, first, but then she shouted, “Okay, everyone get in a pod!” When they all just stared at her, baffled, she growled, “Now!”
Sherre moved first, even if it was just to give a jerky turn as she did a double-take at her captain.
“Let’s go, ladies!” Lyra chimed in, yelling as she gripped Sherre’s chair to stand up in the trembling ship. “Move out!” she said, urging Sherre and Jeline to get to their feet.
Willovitch gave Taryn a frustrated look, as if irritated at being interrupted in the middle of her work, but Taryn simply shot her a look right back. Willovitch eventually huffed a sigh, standing with a grip on her chair as the ship took another jolting hit. That made Sherre stand up out of her seat, which left Jeline as the only one not moving.
“Pilot Montias!” Taryn ordered, grabbing her arm and yanking her up by it. Jeline frantically moved her hands, trying desperately to keep control of the ship. “Please,” she pleaded. “Captain, I’m so sorry. If you just let me; if only I had—”
“What?” Taryn asked angrily. “If only you had the ability to see into the future and predict the meteor shower?”