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onlymistakenThe shuttle shook once, lightly, barely enough to make waves on the surface of Cally's safely-sealed drink; she compensated immediately with a nudge of one amber lever.
Predictable as rain at the seaside: "Ease up on the aft thrust there, Cally. It's a space shuttle, not an ore-carrier. She'll steady herself if you keep a light hand."
The slightly tinny voice of her instructor coming over the communication circuits was new and a bit distracting for Cally; he'd always been right there in the jump-seat before, his words sometimes spoken, sometimes round and rich in her head. Still, she had to fly solo eventually. Something she'd been all for - now she only needed to convince him it was the right decision.
"I'm not touching the aft thrust, Proctor Garlin," she said calmly, finger instead resting on the comm system's Live button for the moment it took to switch it to voice-activation. "That's external influence; probably residuals from last week's solar flare."
//Honestly, you'd think I hadn't been flying it for six months already...// No need to shut the microphone off for that; she hadn't said it aloud.
//Cally! Be careful.//
No need for that, either. Cally shook her head, concentrating on maintaining her smooth descent into orbit around the smallest of Auron's moons. There was only one person who could hear her thought this far away from the planet even if she hadn't been aiming it directly, and it wasn't Proctor CG-12 Garlin.
//He can't hear me, Zelda; only you can. That's your nutrient feed beeping, by the way.// On a good day, they could manage to see through the other's eyes if they were close enough; even this far apart, she could pick up what her sister was hearing in the embryonic ward of the replication plant.
The mind-voice that called back, so like her own that even their parents used to have trouble immediately guessing which of them was which, was only a little less peevish in reply. //Thank you. Still. The last thing you need is to get confused, say something you meant to think, and prejudice yet another instructor against you.//
"There's a mild energy fluctuation ahead of you, Cally," came the mechanically-augmented voice from the comm. "Steer clear, but see if you can get a good scan; it's too far into the dark side of the moon for Control to get a fix on it."
"Understood, Proctor; I'll run a sweep as soon as the craft hits shadow," came out at the same time as //Give me some credit, Zelda. I could talk to you while standing on my head and juggling apples with my feet.//
//You can't juggle apples, with your feet or otherwise.//
Cally smiled, sending back an amorphous mental... feeling that was the telepathic equivalent of sticking out her tongue. //Perhaps that's the next class I'll take, then, after I pass small spacecraft operations. Anyway, he's rating my skill, not my political opinions. //
//Unlike CA-1 Preva? You'd have finished your training a year ago if he hadn't decided you were too rebellious and needed to take revisional planetary history and Auronar civics again.//
//I'm not going to lie about how I feel. Not joining the Federation is the right thing to do, but not helping when others who want to remain independent aren't allowed to, at the point of a gun? When they ask for our help? You saw those vidcasts; there are people out there hurting. They may not be our people, but--//
// But that doesn't make them any less important. Yes, I have heard this before; you know I understand. I'm just saying... be careful, Cally.//
"Be careful, Cally; that energy fluctuation's shooting up again. That must be what's affecting your stabilisers. Forget the scan; we'll send a drone. Just pull out of the orbit and head back."
"I will." The shuttle shook again, harder this time, and Cally closed her eyes for just a second, that plus the two conversations throwing her concentration more than she cared to admit. //I am. The last I heard, though, our people weren't making their citizens disappear when they disagree with the government's stance on--
"Cally!"
//Cally!//
Her eyes flew open and it scarcely mattered which sounds came over the comm, or bleeped from the console, and which echoed in her head. What mattered was the shuttle pitching wildly as it rounded the moon. The supposed-to-be-dark side of the moon, which was bathed instead in violet light - writhing, almost boiling, coming from... what?
Cally clung to the pilot's chair with one arm just to stop from skidding across the deck like her drink had just bounced across the console, the other hand trying to do three things at once: stabilise, lift, and escape.
For a second, she felt like she had it - the shuttle was still, the warning sensors stopped screaming at her, and Cally had time to say //Zelda, I'm all---
Then the screen filled with light and something pulled at the shuttle, something so huge and dangerous that she could feel it out there. Not all right at all. She grabbled her kitbag from the jumpseat and scrambled for the escape pod, but she never made it.
The thing outside wasn't pulling the ship; it was pulling her. In a flash of blinding purple, she was tumbling. Plummeting. Gone.
Predictable as rain at the seaside: "Ease up on the aft thrust there, Cally. It's a space shuttle, not an ore-carrier. She'll steady herself if you keep a light hand."
The slightly tinny voice of her instructor coming over the communication circuits was new and a bit distracting for Cally; he'd always been right there in the jump-seat before, his words sometimes spoken, sometimes round and rich in her head. Still, she had to fly solo eventually. Something she'd been all for - now she only needed to convince him it was the right decision.
"I'm not touching the aft thrust, Proctor Garlin," she said calmly, finger instead resting on the comm system's Live button for the moment it took to switch it to voice-activation. "That's external influence; probably residuals from last week's solar flare."
//Honestly, you'd think I hadn't been flying it for six months already...// No need to shut the microphone off for that; she hadn't said it aloud.
//Cally! Be careful.//
No need for that, either. Cally shook her head, concentrating on maintaining her smooth descent into orbit around the smallest of Auron's moons. There was only one person who could hear her thought this far away from the planet even if she hadn't been aiming it directly, and it wasn't Proctor CG-12 Garlin.
//He can't hear me, Zelda; only you can. That's your nutrient feed beeping, by the way.// On a good day, they could manage to see through the other's eyes if they were close enough; even this far apart, she could pick up what her sister was hearing in the embryonic ward of the replication plant.
The mind-voice that called back, so like her own that even their parents used to have trouble immediately guessing which of them was which, was only a little less peevish in reply. //Thank you. Still. The last thing you need is to get confused, say something you meant to think, and prejudice yet another instructor against you.//
"There's a mild energy fluctuation ahead of you, Cally," came the mechanically-augmented voice from the comm. "Steer clear, but see if you can get a good scan; it's too far into the dark side of the moon for Control to get a fix on it."
"Understood, Proctor; I'll run a sweep as soon as the craft hits shadow," came out at the same time as //Give me some credit, Zelda. I could talk to you while standing on my head and juggling apples with my feet.//
//You can't juggle apples, with your feet or otherwise.//
Cally smiled, sending back an amorphous mental... feeling that was the telepathic equivalent of sticking out her tongue. //Perhaps that's the next class I'll take, then, after I pass small spacecraft operations. Anyway, he's rating my skill, not my political opinions. //
//Unlike CA-1 Preva? You'd have finished your training a year ago if he hadn't decided you were too rebellious and needed to take revisional planetary history and Auronar civics again.//
//I'm not going to lie about how I feel. Not joining the Federation is the right thing to do, but not helping when others who want to remain independent aren't allowed to, at the point of a gun? When they ask for our help? You saw those vidcasts; there are people out there hurting. They may not be our people, but--//
// But that doesn't make them any less important. Yes, I have heard this before; you know I understand. I'm just saying... be careful, Cally.//
"Be careful, Cally; that energy fluctuation's shooting up again. That must be what's affecting your stabilisers. Forget the scan; we'll send a drone. Just pull out of the orbit and head back."
"I will." The shuttle shook again, harder this time, and Cally closed her eyes for just a second, that plus the two conversations throwing her concentration more than she cared to admit. //I am. The last I heard, though, our people weren't making their citizens disappear when they disagree with the government's stance on--
"Cally!"
//Cally!//
Her eyes flew open and it scarcely mattered which sounds came over the comm, or bleeped from the console, and which echoed in her head. What mattered was the shuttle pitching wildly as it rounded the moon. The supposed-to-be-dark side of the moon, which was bathed instead in violet light - writhing, almost boiling, coming from... what?
Cally clung to the pilot's chair with one arm just to stop from skidding across the deck like her drink had just bounced across the console, the other hand trying to do three things at once: stabilise, lift, and escape.
For a second, she felt like she had it - the shuttle was still, the warning sensors stopped screaming at her, and Cally had time to say //Zelda, I'm all---
Then the screen filled with light and something pulled at the shuttle, something so huge and dangerous that she could feel it out there. Not all right at all. She grabbled her kitbag from the jumpseat and scrambled for the escape pod, but she never made it.
The thing outside wasn't pulling the ship; it was pulling her. In a flash of blinding purple, she was tumbling. Plummeting. Gone.
