Page 149 of Homebound
“I used to when I piloted. That’s what they want to see, if I’m who I said I was.”
“Let’s try it.”
“No.”
“But it’s our only chance!”
He shook his head with finality. “Gemma, assuming the pattern hasn’t changed, I am eight years out of practice. But even in top form, I wouldn’t dream of broaching the Rix shield in a barrel with no fuel that only turns at wide angles. This is suicide. I can’t do it to you. To us.”
An unnatural calm descended on Gemma. Her heart swelled with love for this male. She turned and moved her body through air to float behind him. Twining her arms around his neck, she pressed her cheek to the top of his head.
“Do it, Simon. There’s nothing left for us here. If we have to die, let’s die fighting, not sitting here waiting for the air to run out. It is a chance, and by God I want you to take a stab at it. We’ve come so far. Don’t give up on us now!”
“You’re scaring me,” he whispered.
It made her smile. “You’re silly.”
He was still for several minutes, the time they could ill afford to lose, but she sensed he had to take it to come to a decision.
Finally, he stirred. “Buckle up.”
She chuckled. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I want you to stay safe. To stay alive.” He sounded disoriented.
Pressing her lips flush with his ear she enunciated each word clearly, “You. Can. Do it.”
His eyes glittered, no longer dull. He placed his hand over the lever, his palm swallowing the instrument designed for a smaller species of a pilot. Gemma shivered. As always, Simon exuded extreme capability and perfect control. Their crappy ride and desperate situation changed nothing. He was still the ‘it’ boy.
He angled the lever to the left. The gossamer glow of the station in the windshield twirled and dropped from view. The monitor showed them pulling away.
“Ah, Simon? I think you’ve got the directions wrong. The station is that way.” She tapped her finger on the screen. “You’ve got us going back, to the pirates.”
“Now, who’s the pilot?”
“You, of course. But I thought I’d mention it.”
He suddenly grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head down to plant an open-mouthed kiss on her lips. “Noted.”
He executed a 180-degree turn. The station reappeared in their window, farther away and above them. Their new vantage point allowed a full view of its armored underbelly with two sets of docking bay hatches sealed shut and engulfed in the protective glow of the lasers.
Butan’s thrusters whined, weak but without sputtering, and the rattletrap began spinning. They accelerated, too, and Gemma wished she could absorb the sensations with her body like she would have on Earth, and relish in the sudden burst of speed, in centrifugal force from the spin of their vehicle as it plowed through nothingness toward the beautiful, shimmering, ultimate light.
The imagined sensations coursed through her, almost real in their intensity. Her heart beat faster and faster. The station grew and loomed in front of them, wiping away the darkness, filling their cabin with its multicolored light through the windshield. The thready alarm came alive and wouldn't stop. Gemma squeezed Simon’s neck tight and pressed her face into his hair, closing her eyes.
“I love you,” she whispered. Her chest kept moving but no air was entering her lungs.
Buzzing din filled her ears. All hairs on her body stood up on end. An indescribable pressure formed around her, like magnets pulling her apart yet balling her organs together. The sound of the alarm faded away, failing to penetrate her eardrums. Her limbs lost all control. They were heavy, weighed down, her arms dropping from Simon’s shoulders. She was floating away from him, speared from all sides by currents of stinging energy, relentless and forceful and final.
Oh, but death was a strange experience.
???
Gemma woke up floating. Her head felt woozy but it didn’t hurt. She was breathing deeply, filling her lungs to capacity. Her body virtually thrummed from the overabundance of oxygen.
She heard soft sounds coming from above, a melodious chirping that was not quite music but pleasant nonetheless. Overall, she felt quite comfortable, which was amazing.
She savored the bliss of comfort for a few short moments before her mind rewound to the last minutes she remembered - the dingy interior of Butan’s cabin, it getting colder as the air emptied out, the nerve-wracking sound of the collision alarm, and Simon’s burning eyes.
