Page 51 of Swept By The Alien Pirate Prince

“Yes, please come in here,” Carmela instructed.

Silver followed Carmela’s instructions with loyal obedience that I’d never seen her display before. I watched in awe as she interacted with Carmela in a way that offered mutual respect from both females.

I wasn’t even sure that Amada and Silver had exchanged this type of friendly dynamic before, and they had been close.

As if thinking the same thing, Nix looked at me and I gave him a subtle nod, acknowledging that I too saw the respectful way they worked together and welcomed it with wholehearted optimism.

“I’m going into the mainframe of the unit,” Silver said.

“Good thinking,” Carmela mentioned. “I’m going to work from the panel directly while you do that.”

The engines began to twitch and putter. I stiffened.

Carmela noticed, glancing my way with a smile of reassurance spread across her lips. “Don’t worry. It’s just a short. We can fix it.”

“The engines aren’t going to give out on us, are they?” I asked.

Carmela shook her head with enough confidence to pacify my rapidly drumming heart. “No, it's just a minor glitch.”

For now it was just a minor glitch, but what if it turned into something much more desperate? I didn’t dare voice my opinions aloud. We needed morale, and we weren’t getting there if I was vocally voicing my ever increasing concerns.

Amada was the one who normally handled all the pressure of the engineering. She was behind the scenes, but she wasn’t here anymore. I had to let the idea go that we had to work through these kinks on our own without her, and that we were better off anyway because we could trust each other.

Not to mention, none of us had the bear of a personality that Amada had that brough evenmoreunwanted stress to the picture — stress that we didn’t need added to our already overflowing pot.

“Oh no.” Carmela’s face fell as if she’d just been told she had a terminal illness. Her face drained of color and her mouth opened into a circle of shock.

“What is it?” My heart fell as far down as her jaw was hanging.

Carmela didn’t answer. She started pressing buttons on the control panel, things that Amada would do too whenever she was locked in concentration.

The red lights had ceased blinking but began again a few moments later.

“Silver, do you have the feedback?” Carmela asked, keeping her eyes locked on the screen.

“I’ve got it,” Silver declared.

“Can you switch it to the monitor?” Carmela asked, licking her lips as if she was trying not to panic. “So, I can see it pulled up bigger on here?”

“I’m doing it now,” Silver assured.

“What’s going on?” I leaned closer.

Carmela’s eyes narrowed. “Just a little issue.”

“A little issue?” I asked. “A fixable issue?”

“As soon as the data downloads from Silver’s panel,” Carmela said. Her voice was hard to read. She wasn’t freaking out, but her demeanor had changed as if she were paranoid about something.

Whatever it was, she was hesitant about sharing it.

Robots began to shuffle into the bridge, along with a few other crew members.

“Good,” Carmela chirped. “Reinforcements. We need all the help we can get.”

Silver began handing out instructions to the robots while I did my best to direct the crew based on what needs Carmela had at the time.

“We’re approaching orbit,” I told after we had to manually steer for about half an hour.

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