Page 141 of Homebound
Sweat broke all over Gemma’s body. The air got thin despite the supplemental feed she was getting through the mask tube.
“Fifteen, fourteen,” she moved her lips to stave off a severe case of hyperventilation.
“Thirteen, twelve.”
Something pinged against the side of the ship.
“They’re shooting at us,” Simon’s voice was tight, the first sign that he was nervous.
She gripped the chair handles tighter, her back drawn taut as a bowstring.
“Eleven, ten, nine,” she kept counting, the correct sequence of numbers critically important to maintain. If she stumbled, she’d lose it.
Butan’s frame was shuddering faster and faster as the spinning engines gained the maximum velocity, and then the rumble evened out, became a fine-tuned whine. The shakes in the walls smoothed out to a whizzing vibration.
“Eight, seven, six.”
She registered the ship’s outer layer being peppered by lasers and bullets. She prayed the sheet metal was thick enough to remain intact.
“Five, four, three.”
Something large hit them, making the entire contraption wobble. Simon swore in his language, rough and guttural. Gemma closed her eyes.
“Two…”
Butan lurched as if a solid kick was applied to its backside, and left the ground.
I haven’t finished counting,was Gemma’s fleeting thought before acceleration sucked all concerns from her brain except for one: breathe. Her chest felt pressed inwards as if an elephant suddenly came and sat down on her. She couldn’t move, couldn't even cry out in distress. All she could do was stay plastered to her seat by laws of physics and rattle along this hellish carnival ride.
A bone-tingling scream of slipstream outside the cabin added a fitting soundtrack to the infernal experience.
When her body could take no more of this torture, the invisible band that was holding them earth-bound popped, and the pressure disappeared. The slipstream wail vanished. She was falling, falling…
“Easy, Gemma. We’re fine. We made it. You’re fine,” Simon’s words penetrated Gemma’s crazed brain, and she stopped screaming. The touch of his hand on her knee grounded her like no words ever could. She peeled off her hands from the armrests and clutched his fingers like they were life itself.
He briefly glanced at her, all his attention focused on the task of piloting. “You aren’t falling. You’re weightless.”
He gently tugged his hand away, needing it to operate the ship. She breathed through the mask, in and out. She felt weird, queasy. Taking stock of her surroundings, she found things inside their confined space to be normal, except that the stash of food supplies she’d piled on the floor but had never gotten a chance to secure was now suspended in the air. Simon’s body was, like hers, strapped to the chair, but his braid was floating level with his head.
He emanated tension.
“What’s wrong?” she spoke into the mask. Her voice worked. She hadn't been sure until she spoke.
“We almost hit one of Earth’s satellites.” He sounded outraged.
“Why? What happened?” Gemma had no idea they needed to watch out for satellites.
“Our navigation system has a margin of error in the angle.”
“How big is the error?”
“Not huge, but even a fraction of a discrepancy can result in a major course shift.”
Gemma digested that information, a bit distracted by rising nausea.
Simon typed a series of commands on the protruding keyboard decorated with unfamiliar symbols.
“The collision warning doesn’t seem to be working. We were almost upon that satellite when I realized it wouldn’t self-correct. This ship is a piece of junk.”
