Mother of Stars

Stranded - Skylar

My jetpack fired at full thrust. The acceleration was slow as the three drones trailed behind me. They had magnetized themselves to my armor. I spared a glance behind me, still in disbelief at what I'd witnessed. Connor had been right there, and now he was gone.

The oblong void in the background stars grew steadily, the ship's general features outlined by my interface. Two out of the four warp rings were shattered in several places. Little else was damaged, though the exterior lights were turned off for some reason.

I attempted to connect to the ship's computer again, but it rejected me. Several of the Defects' oval-shaped cruisers silently zoomed past me. The bay doors to the middle hangar opened before the ships settled gently inside.

Lieutenant Thayre flew up next to me, his draconic form streamlined like a torpedo. He contacted me. "Be prepared when we arrive at the ship, Skylar. The fight is apparently far from over."

"Yessir," I replied timidly. He had much more bravado than me, and I got the feeling I would never understand how he did it.

The ship's silhouette was growing fast now, so I cut my engines. My eyes widened as I realized my mistake. "How do we slow down!?"

"I'm not sure, but let's try this." Thayre cut his engines and held his hands in front of him. My interface drew a network of lines that flowered out from both palms, indicating a strong magnetic field. He began to decelerate.

I threw my arms in front of me and activated my mag-palms. A soft force pushed back. It grew in strength as we neared the ship. The drones were performing the same maneuver, but they didn't slow down as quickly as me or Thayre. I found that I had some control over my trajectory as I angled my hands up or down and steered toward the open bay doors the Defects had entered. The drones arrived before either of us. The bay they landed in shut its door immediately. Perhaps Kyrom wanted access to the drones as soon as possible?

I glanced at Thayre. "What are we going to do now?"

"We gotta investigate what the hell is going on," he said, his voice determined. "The Defects obviously deceived us into thinking they were allies. Who knows what their plans are at this point?"

Both of us steered toward an adjacent open bay door. As soon as we drifted inside, our feet clanged to the floor. At least the artificial gravity still worked. The airlock door blocked us from the inside of the hangar, so we stood there, waiting for the bay door to close, but nothing happened.

I searched for a contact inside the ship again, and Kyrom's frustrated voice sounded in my head. "Stay where you are. These 'Defects' have taken control of the ship and the drones. I am completely powerless at the moment."

"They took control already?" Thayre exclaimed as he advanced toward the airlock door. I followed his gaze and found a patch of faint red moving across the metal of the door. It was Kyrom's heat signature. He was stalking around in the hangar, deep in thought.

"How many of us are left?" the Lieutenant asked.

"I count five Drakes. The others were too late to escape," Kyrom said, his words heavy with regret. "I couldn't track the ships' escape vectors. They could be on the other side of the galaxy at this point."

"What about the onboard crew?"

"I attempted to confront the Defects in the hangar, but they ignored me and trapped me here. Nylis is trapped in one of the hallways. Doors don't respond to any of our commands anymore, so you will be stuck in the bays unless the Defects feel like letting you in."