“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand to stay his movements. “Can I just have a minute?”
“Take as long as you need,” he said, settling back in his chair.
Krystal took some long breaths, counting backwards from ten in her head, trying to locate things she could sense with her senses, all those tools she had learned to help with her anxiety. Gradually, her tense shoulders loosened and her heart rate steadied.
“OK. I’m good.” She scrambled into the smaller seat next to T’arq, brushing against him as she reached to fasten herself into the seat with the straps he had shown her how to use.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing at the straps.
“Yes.”
He worked the straps tighter around her. Over her shoulders. Across her chest, squashing her breasts uncomfortably, around her waist, and over her thighs. Her lower legs could move freely, as could her arms, but her torso was strapped solidly into the seat.
“All right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He smiled reassuringly. “I’m going to talk to you while I go through the pre-flight sequence, so you know what I’m doing. If you want me to stop at any point, let me know.”
“OK.” That sounded fine. She focused on T’arq’s voice, the deep tones soothing her frayed nerves as he ran through the sequence of checks before their craft would be ready for the test flight.
“T’arq?”
“Yes, little mouse?” He shot a grin at her, his lilac eyes warm, fine lines crinkling at the corners. His hands still worked the screens in front of him with the ease of oft-repeated patterns.
“Nothing bad is going to happen to us, is it?”
She hated she felt she had to ask.
“Of course not. I’ll keep you safe. It’s just a test flight. We’ll go out as far as we need to make sure the cloak works like you want it to.”
She breathed out in a rush. “And if I want to come back?”
“We’ll turn right back.” He held her gaze until she nodded and smiled a small, nervous smile.
“All right. I just need to check that I’ve uploaded everything, and then we can go.”
T’arq nodded and continued his checks, the sound of his voice filling the cockpit.
“Now for the cockpit hatch. Ready?”
Krystal forced her shoulders to relax. “Yes.”
A mechanical whirring sounded as the hatch slid into place, not unlike a jet fighter that she had seen in an old movie. They were now enclosed in the small cockpit; the hatch rising from waist height to continue over their heads.
“It’s designed to allow for visual confirmation. They used to have view screens only, but pilots like to use their senses, even if they don’t work as well as the displays.”
He passed her a headset, and tapped the right side of the headset near her ear, a small display screen emerging to slide over one eye. She struggled to focus on it, one eye looking out of the cockpit window and the other on the translucent display. She blinked, her vision finally clearing to see streams of data flashing before her eyes.
“Whoa!” She swallowed, fighting nausea. Her hands gripped the armrests tightly, fighting the need to rip the headset off.
“Sorry,” T’arq said, his hand touching her headset and brushing her hair as his fingers moved over the earpiece. He smoothed his hand over her hair. “I’ve changed the settings, so it should be better. Open your eyes and give it another try, OK?”
She nodded, tentatively obeying.
“Is that better?” he asked.
Thankfully, the stream of information flooding her vision had reduced significantly. She nodded. “Yes, much better. How do you stand it? I almost wanted to vomit.”
