Page 45 of A Mate For Matrix
Matrix laid Jana gently onto the nearest diagnostic bed. The moment her body met the cushioned surface, she stirred.
A low moan escaped her lips. Her eyelids fluttered. Then she cracked one eye open and gave him a dazed, bleary smile.
“Hey, handsome,” she mumbled. “Are we dead?”
Matrix barely had time to smile back before her face contorted. She groaned, rolled onto her side with a pitiful whimper, and promptly vomited over the side of the bed.
He winced.
“I’m okay,” she croaked. “Just dying. Totally fine.”
She waved one hand at him without turning back around.
Matrix bent next to her, his fingers threading through her damp hair. “The nausea will pass. Just give it a few minutes.”
Jana curled into a ball with a miserable grunt. “Tea. I need tea. Or a black hole to throw up into. Either’s fine.”
“I’ll make you tea,” he said, brushing the hair back from her clammy forehead.
She mumbled something unintelligible as her eyes closed again.
Matrix straightened, pulling a blanket up and around her trembling form. Then he turned and strode out of medical with K-Nine at his side. Butter zipped between his legs, trailing a stolen rubber glove. Biscuit attempted to climb K-Nine again.
Matrix didn’t even flinch. His mind was already churning.
He waited until they were in the corridor and the door hissed closed behind them.
“Talk,” Matrix said flatly. “What aren’t you telling me?”
K-Nine paused, lowering his head. His mechanical jaw tensed.
“I was connected to the nav system during the jump. I felt it—when the energy from the gate surged….”
“What?” Matrix demanded, his voice low.
“A spike,” K-Nine said. “Massive. Unregulated. It fed through the ship’s engines like a power overload, distorting the gateway’s trajectory. I tried to compensate, but…”
“But what?”
“The numbers didn’t work out,” K-Nine said.
Matrix stopped walking.
His head pounded. His circuits still buzzed from the overload. “Just say it.”
K-Nine sighed, then firmly planted a paw on Biscuit’s tail to keep the kitten from chewing on his leg.
“Fine,” K-Nine said. “We’re not just outside Confederation-controlled space, Matrix. We might be in the wrong… century.”
Matrix blinked.
“Run that again.”
“We didn’t just jump across the galaxy,” K-Nine said. “There was a temporal distortion in the surge. Judging by star position, quantum decay rate, and the fragment signature from the gate… I’d say we’re somewhere between 800 to 850 years in the future.”
Matrix stared at him.
Silence stretched between them.
