One Between the Stars

Chapter 21

 When the asteroid hit the ship lurched dangerously, Arthre's heart seized as he heard Carson give a shout of panic.

Carson never panicked.

Half a second later the ship was hit again and something went off on the computer's system. Arthre went airborne.

"Warning, artificial gravity system has been damaged."

Stars and galaxies... He grabbed for something - anything - and his fingers just barely reached the pilot's seat. He pulled himself down, strapped himself into his seat, and went to work trying to figure out the status on the artificial gravity.

"What just happened?" Ionia yelped through the comm. "Arthre?"

"Working on it!" he said. "The artificial gravity is down. Are you okay?"

"Fine," she said. "Just floating, but the lifelines are fine."

"Carson?"

No response.

Arthre's stomach dropped.

"Carson!"  Ionia screamed.

Nothing.

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Ionia floated through the room, one hand on the tether, the other on her stomach. She was going to be sick if Carson didn't respond. There was a window on the outer gate, so she could see the Great Nothing and all its terror. She prayed to the stars that he was okay. 

He had to be. 

So she and Arthre kept calling out, "Carson, Carson!"

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Carson called out to Ionia and Arthre. He needed them to be okay, he needed them to just talk to him, if only to keep him from going insane. "Art, how are you? What are the oxygen levels like?"

No response.

"Ionia, are the tethers intact?"

Nothing.

And then he realized. The intercom broke when he'd hit the side of the ship.

Fear like nothing he'd experienced before gnawed at his insides. He now clung to the side of the ship, unable to think straight.

No, he thought. I can't be alone...

But he had to remember that he wasn't. Ionia and Arthre were there, he just needed to repair the ship, and then he could go back inside.

So even though the fear threatened to shut him down, he swallowed it and breathed.

In, out. In, out.

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Arthre thought things couldn't get worse. He checked through the systems while listening to Ionia call out to Carson. She was near hysterics, but before she could break down he shouted over her, "He's not responding! But I can still pick up his movements on the external sensors. His intercom must have busted."

"But how do we know he's okay?"

"Because we do," he said helplessly, not sure how in the world he could reassure the princess. In these kinds of situations, you just believed your friends were alive and okay enough to make it back. You had to, or fear would consume you and then you were dead. "Just worry about those lifelines, nothing else. Okay?"