Page 4 of The Highseer's Mate

But I do feel lucky—to be alive. I for sure thought I wouldn’t be. That none of us would have made it out of that wormhole.

But Ryan is right. What the hell are we going to do now?

Where are we? And what is there outside the battered walls of this ship?

I shove down the queasy and brace myself against the wall. I stagger down the corridor, focusing hard on each step before I finally make it to the autopilot control center. Thankfully, everything is still intact.

Lights flicker as I look through the buttons and the options on the main screen. “Guys,” I call out. Ryan and Lara keep fighting.

“Shut up, Paige!” Ryan shouts back. “You have no idea either!”

“I’m trying to figure it out over here,” I call back. That technically isn’t true. Right now I’m trying to locate the emergency contact line.

The command base on Earth needs to know what happened to us.

I flip through the settings, the general radio showing no connection, and find the emergency satellite communicator. Isuck in a deep breath and put in my traveling code to unlock it. There’s a short dial tone and then the line is open.

I yank the mic free and crush the button to connect.

“Hello? This is Paige Jackson aboard the TM 7612. We came into some debris and we were sucked through a wormhole. Do you copy?”

The bickering behind me falls to silence as we all listen intently.

My heart pounds in my chest as we wait. My palms sweat around the mic.

Seconds tick on.

I smash down the button and repeat the message, keeping my voice steady.

I have to hold it together. Command center won’t be able to understand me if I’m a crying, blubbering mess.

Down the corridor and on the other side of the ship, I lock eyes with Cristina who is wringing her hands in her lap. Fear is plastered on her battered face.

I look around as the rest of my friends wait with bated breath, leaning around the corner to see me from the corridor.

It’s on all of their faces. Fear.

I clear my throat and repeat the message. “Can you hear me? Can anyone hear me?” I ask.

We wait. The silence sucks us into a reality that is almost too heartbreaking to face.

I want to sink to the floor when Lara shakes her head, realization setting in. “We’re out of range.”

“No shit,” Ryan says.

“Keep trying,” Cristina says softly.

I wave her over and hand her the microphone. “Keep repeating the message every thirty seconds. If you hear anything let us know.”

She nods and I’m back to looking at the autopilot control. I click through the settings until I see a safety check. I run it, biting the inside of my cheek and praying that it does what I want it to.

Everything fails.

The exterior walls are breached. The electrical systems are almost completely down. The pods are offline, along with our medical monitors.

“Yeah, we’re fucked. We get it,” Ryan says.

“That’s enough,” Nicole snaps back at her. Our resident doctor is still hunched over Melina, slowly tugging her leg in the right direction and using the linens to wrap it to a metal pipe stint.

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