He gaped at the controls. “Why is my ship talking back to me?”
“It’s me, you idiot!”
He cocked his ear toward the speaker. “Cinder?”
“Listen, the auto-control system has a bug. The power cell is on the fritz too. I think it can make it, but you’re going to have to take off without computer assistance.”
The words, too dry in the computer’s tone, were punctuated by another round of bullets against the ship’s closed hatch.
Thorne gulped. “Without computer assistance? Are you sure?”
A short silence was followed by the voice again, and Thorne thought he could detect Cinder’s screeching despite its monotone. “You do know how to fly, right?”
“Uh.” Thorne scanned the controls before him. “Yes?”
He squared his shoulders and reached for the controller that was attached to the ceiling. A moment later, a slash of sunlight cut across the warehouse as the roof opened down the middle.
Something pounded against the ship’s side.
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you.” Thorne jabbed the ignition.
The lights across the dash dimmed as the engine thrummed to life.
“Here we go.”
Another crash echoed from outside the hatch. He jogged a few switches, engaging hover mode, and eased the ship off the ground. She rose up smoothly, the magnets beneath the city pushing the ship easily as a dandelion seed, and Thorne exhaled a long breath.
Then the ship warbled and began to tilt.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t do that!” Thorne’s pulse raced as he leveled the ship.
“The power cell is going to die. You have to engage the backup thrusters.”
“Engage the backup wha—oh, never mind, I found them.”
The engine flared again. With the sudden jolt of power, the ship lurched to the opposite side and Thorne heard a crunch as she rammed into the next ship. The Rampion shuddered and started to slip back toward the ground. Another rainfall of bullets beat against the starboard side. A drop of sweat slid down Thorne’s back.
“What are you doing up there?”
“Stop distracting me!” he yelled, gripping the controls and righting the ship. Overcompensated. The ship tilted too far to the right.
“We’re going to die.”
“This isn’t as easy as it looks!” Thorne leveled her out again. “I usually have an automated stabilizer to take care of this!”
To his surprise, no sarcastic comment was spat back at him.
A moment later, another panel lit up. MAGNETIC CONDUCTORS STABILIZING. POWER OUTPUT: 37/63 … 38/62 … 42/58 …
The ship settled calmly beneath him, once again trembling in midair. “Right! Like that!”
Thorne’s knuckles whitened on the controls as he arched the ship’s nose up toward the open roof. The engine’s purr became a roar as the ship soared upward. He heard the last ricochet of bullets and then they fell away as the ship broke free of the warehouse and was flooded with the light from the yellow sun.
“Come on, darling,” he murmured, squeezing his eyes shut as, without resistance, without wavering, the ship left the protective magnetic field of the city behind, drew on the full power of her thrusters, and speared through the wispy clouds that lingered in the morning sky. The towering skyscrapers of downtown New Beijing dropped away and then it was only him and the sky and the endless landscape of space.
Thorne’s fingers stayed clamped like iron shackles around the controls until the ship had erupted from Earth’s atmosphere. Light-headed, he adjusted the thruster output as the ship slipped into natural orbit before prying his hands away from the controls.
He slumped, shaking, back in the chair. It took him a long time to speak, waiting for his heartbeat to slow to a manageable pace. “Good work, cyborg girl,” he said. “If you were hoping for a permanent position on my crew, you’re hired.”
The speakers were silent.
“I don’t mean a lowly position, either. First mate is available. Well, I mean, pretty much every position is available. Mechanic … cook … a pilot would be nice so I don’t have to go through that again.” He waited. “Cinder? Are you there?”
When still there was no response, he pushed himself out of his chair and stumbled out of the cockpit, past the cargo bay, and into the corridor that split off to the crew’s quarters. His legs were weak as he reached for the hatch that led into the ship’s lower level. He clomped down the ladder into the tiny hall between the engine room and the podship dock. The screen beside the engine room didn’t offer any warnings of space vacuums or unsafe compressions. It also didn’t say anything about a living girl inside.
Thorne tapped the unlock icon on the screen and twisted the door’s manual bolt, then shoved the door open.
The engine was loud and hot and smelled like melted rubber.
“Hello?” he called into the dark. “Cyborg girl? Are you in here?”
If she responded, the words were lost in the engine’s thrumming. Thorne gulped. “Lights, on?”
A red emergency light brightened above the doorway, casting gloomy shadows over the enormous revolving engine and the masses of cords and coils that sprawled out beneath it.
Thorne squinted, spotting something almost white.
Sinking to his hands and knees, he crawled toward her. “Cyborg girl?”
She didn’t move.
As Thorne came closer, he saw that she was on her back, dark hair sprawled across her face. Her robotic hand was plugged into the port of an exposed computer panel.
“Hey, you,” he said, hovering over her. He peeled up her eyelids, but her gaze was dark and empty. Craning down, Thorne placed an ear against her chest, but if there was a heartbeat it was drowned out by the roaring engine.
“Come on,” he growled, reaching for her hand and working the connector out of the port. The nearest computer panel went dark.
“Auto-control system disconnected,” lilted a robotic voice overhead, startling Thorne. “Engaging default system procedures.”
“Good plan,” he muttered, grabbing her ankles. Thorne dragged her slowly into the hallway and propped her up against the corridor wall. Whatever her cyborg parts were made of, it was a lot heavier than flesh and bone.
He pressed an ear to her chest again. This time he was met with a faint beat.
“Wake up,” he said, shaking her. Cinder’s head slumped forward.
Sitting back on his heels, Thorne screwed up his lips. The girl was horribly pale and filthy from their trek through the sewers, but in the hallway’s brightness he could tell she was breathing, if barely. “What, do you have a power button or something?”
His attention fell on her metal hand with the cord and plug still dangling from her knuckle. Grabbing her hand, he peered at it from every angle. He remembered a flashlight, a screwdriver, and a knife in three of the fingers, but he wasn’t yet sure what her pointer finger was hiding. If it was a power button, he couldn’t see any way of getting at it.
The connector cable though …
“Right!” Thorne jumped up, nearly toppling into the wall. He jabbed at the screen that opened the door to the podship dock. White lights flared overhead as he entered.
He grasped Cinder’s wrists and tugged her into the dock, dropping her in between the two small satellite ships that sat like toadstools among a mess of cables and service tools.
Panting, he reeled the podship’s charging cord out of the wall, then froze, staring at the girl’s cable, at the ship’s cable, at the girl.… He cursed again and dropped them both. Two males. Even he could tell that they wouldn’t connect.
Knocking his knuckles against his temple, Thorne forced himself to think, think, think.
Another idea flashed and he squinted down at the girl. She seemed to be growing paler still, but maybe that was a trick of the lighting.
“Oh…,” he said, a new idea dropping into his brain. “Oh, boy. You don’t think … oh, that’s disgusting.”
Shoving away his squeamishness, he gently pulled the girl toward him so that she collapsed over one arm. With his free hand, he searched around her tangled hair until he discovered the tiny latch just above her neck.
He looked away as he opened it, before daring to peer inside from the corner of his eye.
A jumble of wires and computer chips and switches that made absolutely no sense to Thorne filled a shallow compartment in the back of her skull. He let out a breath, glad that the control panel completely hid any brain tissue from sight. At its base, he spotted what appeared to be a small outlet, the same size as the plugs.
“Ouch,” Thorne muttered, reaching for the podship cable again and hoping that he wasn’t about to make a huge mistake.
He wiggled the plug of the recharging cord into her control panel. It snapped into place.
He swallowed a breath.
Nothing happened.
Sitting back, Thorne held Cinder at arm’s length. He pushed her hair back from her face and waited.
Twelve heartbeats later, something hummed inside her skull. It grew louder, and then fell silent altogether.
Thorne gulped.
The girl’s left shoulder jerked out of Thorne’s grip. He dropped her onto the floor, letting her head lull to one side. Her leg flailed, nearly catching Thorne in the groin, and he shoved himself away from her, planting his back against the podship’s landing treads.
The girl sucked in a quick breath—held it for a couple seconds, then released it with a groan.
“Cinder? Are you alive?”
A series of milder spasms worked their way out of her robotic limbs, then she scrunched up her whole face as if biting into a lemon. Eyelids twitching, she managed to squint up at him.
“Cinder?”
She eased herself up to sitting. Her jaw and tongue worked silently for a moment and when she spoke, the words were heavily slurred. “Auto-control defaults … almost drained my power system.”
“I think it did drain your power system.”
She frowned and seemed momentarily uncertain, before reaching for the cord still plugged into her brain. Yanking it out, she slammed the panel shut. “You opened my control panel?” she said, her words a little clearer with anger behind them.
He scowled. “I didn’t want to.”
Her expression was sour as she peered at him—not entirely angry, but not grateful either. They stared at each other for a long time, as the engine hummed across the hallway and a light in the corner started to go out, flickering at random intervals.
“Well,” Cinder finally grumbled. “I guess that was pretty fast thinking.”
A relieved grin filled up Thorne’s face. “We’re having another moment, aren’t we?”
