I maneuvered into position, turning my head away as I bent at the waist. A body slammed into mine, and I hit the floor with a grunt. My shoulder screamed from the impact and pain blossomed in my jaw from my teeth clicking together. But it was worth it.
I was so pleased with myself.
Until I realized that I’d just inserted myself into a fight wherehalf a secondwas an eternity.
Until I saw who was tangled up with me on the floor.
The road to Hell really was paved with good intentions.
As I’d scrambled behind him, Xelthar had spun out of Cair’s trap, reversing their locations on the bridge. I hadn’t tripped the Brakian. I’d tripped my only chance at getting home.
Cair’s murderous glare confirmed I’d fucked up.
I opened my mouth to explain.
The bridge tilted down.
I swung my gaze toward Xelthar, standing at the control panel.
Xelthar winked at Cair and me as we clambered up from the floor, struggling to maintain balance given the sharp pitch of the ship.
“What have you done?” I asked at the same time Xelthar offered us a wolf-like grin.
He held up the metal disc. “Thank you for this.”
Cair rushed the Brakian, who teleported off the bridge as Cair’s arms swallowed the empty space.
“Where did he go?” I asked.
Cair gifted me a look reserved for the supremely stupid and focused on the control panel.
A glance out the window startled me. Purple clouds and zig-zagging lightning flew by. The angle of the ship’s descent steepened.
“Wait.” Everything crystallized. “Are we crashing?”
Cair’s fingers flew over the controls on the console. I watched the lights change—pretty blues, greens, and yellows that mesmerized. Yes, I knew I was in major denial.
The ship’s vibrations intensified. The air took on a sharp, metallic bite—ozone and hot wiring—and the console lights began to flicker out of sync, like the ship couldn’t decide which reality to commit to. A sick feeling swamped me.
Was I going to die? Not in some dramatic blaze, not with meaning, but just slammed into a planet I couldn’t name. A stupid, bright flash of Earth hit me anyway: Andrea’s laugh on a hiking trail, the smell of pine and sunscreen, my phone in my pocket like the world was always reachable. I swallowed hard and couldn’t tell if the wetness in my eyes was fear or pure, furious disbelief.
“We’ve entered the planet’s lower atmosphere. Time to prepare.”
I snapped my gaze back to Cair at his shouted information and directive, then swung my head around the small bridge. “How?” The question squeaked out of me. Panic clawed at my chest, my body seizing with the ship’s sharp tilt. Instinct took over before he could answer: I stepped to the console, sank tothe floor, and braced myself against the cool metal. Not exactly heroic, but it was the best plan I could scrounge up under the circumstances.
Cair pressed a few more buttons on the control panel. The ship’s descent and tilt felt less vomit-inducing; this was somehow worse, like the ship was lulling me right before it broke. He closed the slight distance between us and stood over me, his hands planted on the control panel, knees bent. Loose, but ready to absorb the impact, I guessed. His chivalry in protecting me was surprising.
The ship bounced around like a rowboat in a hurricane. A scream stuck in my throat. My body rose and slammed hard on the metal floor, sending waves of pain through my tailbone. I pushed my back tighter against the bottom of the control panel’s console. With my arms wrapped around my bent legs, I moved my bare feet further apart, trying to anchor better to the floor. The futility of it hit me. We were almost certainly going to die in this crash.
If I were a religious person, now was the time to pray. Unfortunately, I wasn’t.
Any further unhelpful thoughts spiraling through my brain cut off.
A high-pitched whine flooded the bridge, climbing higher and higher, until it felt like it was inside my skull.
“Brace for impact!”
I closed my eyes, dropping my head between my knees. The sound of wrenching metal tore through the bridge. A moment of disorienting weightlessness as I lifted off the floor. My body crashed back down as the ship lowered again. More sounds of wrenching metal filled the small space. Were we bouncing on the surface of the planet?
