Page 44 of Hooded

“Won’t we be affected like the Tormelek?” Narlix says with alarm.

Fern’s face is set. Her skin is paler than usual with a blue tinge I dislike.

“We’re small enough a nebula of this size won’t disrupt our systems like theirs,” she says. “This is the quickest way out, and the one place they cannot follow.”

“They’ve locked on pulsars.” I drop behind the weapons console.

“They won’t fire. They risk blowing themselves up if they do,” Fern says. “They can’t trust their systems to correctly discharge any pulsar bolts.”

We spin into the dense black heart of the nebula as it lights up around us with pulsar fire.

“I got that wrong,” Fern mutters to herself. “I knew our luck couldn’t last.”

“Are they following?” I ask.

She peers at her console. “No.”

“Then we have all the luck in the galaxy, even more so if they attempt a second firing, because that may be the one which…”

All around us, the gasses of the nebula change color, as the entire structure of the ship shakes violently.

“They didn’t…” Fern gasps, her fingers flying over the console which seems like it was made for her.

“They did,” Narlix says with a shake of her big head. “They fired twice.”

“They have destroyed themselves?”

“I…I think so,” Fern says. “The nebula and the pulsar discharge are affecting my instruments, but there has been a large implosion.”

The shaking of our ship ceases, and as suddenly as we were in the nebula, we are in dark, star studded, clear space. My wings flare involuntarily at the change.

“A ship filled with Gryn must be an interesting place,” Narlix says, studying me.

“It is.” I shake out my feathers at her. “One I will show my mate in time.”

“There’s an inhabited planet within a nova-day from here,” Fern says, working her way through the star charts. “Fenes.”

She turns to look at me.

“I go wherever you go, my mate,” I say. “I am yours to command.”

FERN

I am absolutely drained beyond tired. The planet, Fenes, is highly advanced compared to Earth, but compared to the rest of the galaxy, it’s an agricultural backwater populated by a species of aliens who look like otters.

Their reaction to Klynn wasn’t exactly positive. But given they usually trade with the rest of the galaxy, they had no reason to deny us landing, and now we’re here, all I want to do is sleep.

Klynn paces up and down the bridge.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, even though I’m not prepared to deal with any more problems today…or in fact probably the rest of my life.

“Can we stay here?” he says.

“The Fenere say we can.” I reference the otter aliens. “Or rather, they didn’t say we can’t.” I sigh.

“I have seen other species in their port,” Klynn says.

He went outside once. Growled a lot and then came back in. I get the feeling he doesn’t do change well.

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