Page 1 of The Highseer's Mate

Chapter 1

Paige

Year 3024: First All-Female Civilian Transport Ship to Mars

I’m dead to the world, or rather, the universe. Nestled in my pod like a comfy little caterpillar, snoozing until the autopilot on our ship gently wakes us up with the good news.

Congratulations. We have arrived on Mars!

Except, that’s not how I wake up.

A bone-rattling shake yanks me out of an unconscious state and I suck in a deep breath. My eyelids weigh a thousand pounds and my body is stiff from the trip. God knows how long I’ve been in my pod. A few days? A week?

Another massive shake rattles the very delicate technology surrounding me and I realize something is very wrong.

I yank open the latch from the inside of my pod and push the glass door open. It’s an effort to drag myself from the comfortable linens and force myself up on shaky legs. My sensesare on overload. Sensors are blaring, ringing in my ears from the autopilot command center in the front of the ship.

I look around the passenger chamber. Six pods. All still closed.

We’re nestled in the back portion of the ship in a rounded room attached to the corridor that takes us to the command center. Our elongated capsule pods line the wall in two rows of three facing each other. I’m the last pod on the left and I check each pod as I pass to check on my friends.

Cristina.

Melina.

Lara.

Nicole.

Ryan.

They are all still asleep and I blow out an easy breath. Maybe I was making up all the commotion.

It’s only the six of us on the ship. Six women chosen from hundreds to help start civilization on Mars. We have no pilot, just the promise of scientists far smarter than us that we wouldn’t need one. If everything went to plan, the next time we were supposed to wake up, we would be nestled safely on Mars and ready to meet our new neighbors.

The ship lurches and I nearly fall onto the steel mesh flooring. Two of the medical monitors start to beep, Melina and Ryan. This is definitely not normal.

My heart races as I head down the corridor to look around the ship. Red alarm lights are flashing where the walls meet the ceiling. I head to control to see what’s going on, not even sure if I know what I’m looking for.

Another pod opens behind me and I still. Melina.

“What’s happening?” The obnoxious alarms almost drown out her soft voice. Her dirty blonde hair is teased aroundher head like she was thrashing in her sleep. She clears her throat and stretches like a house cat.

“I’m not sure,” I answer. I wobble a little on the bridge to the autopilot command center, gripping every solid surface as I go. “I’m going to check it out,” I call back to her.

Inside the command pod, buttons are blinking and the radar is all jumbled, showing little dots scattered around in front of our ship. Everything is flashing, blaring and I don’t need to know how to fly a spaceship to know something is wrong.

Very wrong.

The entire ship lurches to the side and I hear another pod open in the passenger chamber. I run back, gripping the wall as the entire ship works to stabilize itself.

Ryan and her fiery red hair pops up from her pod, her ever grimacing face searching mine for answers.

“What the fuck?” she calls out.

My mind whirls, processing everything.

We weren’t on Mars yet. We’d been sleeping long enough that we probably weren’t even close to Earth either. I nearly go flying as the ship takes a hard left turn.

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