1: CORINTHIAN BLACKSTONE
The chaos entity
Deadman’s star collided against Omega Superstar at angle ninety. It is a wandering star, drifting slowly with no urgency.
Deadman’s stars are malevolent rocks you never see coming until they hit your spaceship.
‘Get your seats buckled.’ Mum steered the control against the impact.
We were spiralling three-sixty degrees per minute.
The seats jousted for about an hour or less and stopped. I threw away my safety helmet for a clearer view of the spacecraft travel screen.
We were floating at the surface of The Swallow, a bottomless void.
‘No…’ Mum hit the control keys. ‘Absalom, the buttons are jammed!’
Dad unbuckled himself from his seat, rushing to the back, where the control system was situated.
‘What do I do mum?’ I asked.
‘Wear your helmet. I told you the screens crash. It’s a safety hazard.’ She frowned down at the screen, listening and responding to Soph, the AI.
Soph controlled everything on the ship. Currently, her voice buzzed in the interface, marring mum’s high eyebrows.
We had been trained for this, especially mum who claimed to have grown up in a spaceship.
‘Evna, it’s a mess back there.’ Dad hung from the door. ‘The ship has been cut in half.’ He wheezed.
‘I have never had such misfortune with a deadman’s star until now.’ Mum pressed a hand against her chest. ‘We’re going to die.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Dad replied. ‘We have the painting and the scroll. This mission is nearly done – done and over with when we reach HQ.’ He said.
‘Are we going to die?’ I pulled off my helmet.
I hated the way it made me sweat buckets, despite the central air-con installed in Omega Superstar, but then again dad said the ship had been cut in half.
The control system must be on the other side drifting with the rock.
‘No son. The ship is not entirely ruined. It’s just slightly damaged.’
‘Okay’ mum wiped her face, shuffling through the emergency gear.
She pulled out a tablet and plugging the cord into the system.
The tablet beamed onto a replica of what was on the travel screen; moving objects and maps presented were swabbed aside by mum’s fingers.
‘I’ll look for a safe place to land and let the intergalactic bots fix the ship.’ She said. ‘We still have some energy to move.’
‘Pentagon Umbra is close enough.’ Dad quipped.
Mum gave an exasperated gasp. ‘Counsellor Coldfeet declared war on Earth last week.’
‘Isn’t that convenient son?’ dad, angled to look at me.
I was fighting with my belts, trying to remove them but I was stuck.
Dad wasn’t seating securely anyway so the rule didn’t apply to me as well. ‘There… a black ball with a soft red glow like the Lexogan forges.’ Dad stooped over what the screen presented.
Underneath it was Malavent, a planet.
Mum elbowed him.
‘This here is Pentagon Umbra and this little thing is Malavent.’ Dad pointed out.
YOU ARE READING
SHIFTER BLOODLINES
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