Alred didn't answer her immediately. Even on his faceless head, she could read the surprise that she’d inquire as to everyone else’s wellbeing.
“They’ll be fine,” he finally said. “The shelter-”
“That’s it? They’ll be fine?! What’s happening? Where is everyone? What are the pirates doing?”
“If you get to the shelter-”
Garnet turned, snatching up the mop. She ripped off the mophead and tossed it away. With the other hand, she grabbed the cleaning fluid. It was a nozzle, like the kind used for an airbrush gun. The force of the spray wasn’t particularly high, but there was a warning on the bottle about spraying directly into the eyes, and that was good enough for her.
“Tell me what’s happening, Alred,” she ordered, pointing at him with her mop handle like the sturdy metal was a staff. “Or I go looking for myself. Where’s my sister?”
He flickered again before answering. “Rok has already met up with her. They’re locking themselves in the shelter now. He’ll look after her in the worst case scenario. They’re just waiting for you to arrive, and I will unlock the door and let you in with them.”
“What about-agh!”
She fell forward, right through Alred, barely managing to get her legs under control before she went falling into the opposite wall. The entire ship had started rocking.
“They’ve opened fire,” Alred explained, his light form blinking in and out. “I cannot stay. I have to focus on the fight. Garnet, please, at the end of this hall, take a left. Go down halfway and take a right. The shelter is the only door there. Knock three times. Rok will alert me to let you in.”
He spoke quickly and vanished. He was a computer, but he was still one person. It must be hard to focus on everything he had to be doing right now. Which meant Garnet was unsupervised.
But she wasn’t weak! And she wasn’t going to go and hide. She’d never hidden from anything in her life, she certainly wasn’t going to start now.
Turning, she ran through the ship. She didn't know where the others had gone, but she just spent five days learning the layout and room locations. She knew there was a room on the second floor, deep in the ship away from the exterior walls, that was used as a secondary, protected bridge in the event of attack. Alred told her that when she first found the door, after telling her he couldn’t let her in to clean it without someone supervising to make sure she didn't touch anything.
That was where she headed.
It wasn’t an easy journey. Though she couldn’t feel the ship’s movements usually thanks to the artificial gravity, she could apparently still feel it whenever the ship suddenly pitched to one side or another from some outside force hitting it. They were taking fire. Would the ship be ripped apart? How many hits could it take? She didn't know and now she wished she’d asked Alred more questions.
The door to the inner bridge was already open when she rushed in. She expected Tanin to be there, but he wasn’t. Instead, Sorbet, Tebros, and Trove were all inside. They were all at different seats, operating what appeared to be turrets on the outside. They didn't have 3D holos floating in the air, but flat screens more like what she was used to. There were still light holos projected up off the console and they weren’t totally flat, but curved around their heads, giving them a greater field of visibility. They also came with targeting information, warnings, and a great deal of other data she didn't recognize.
Not one of them turned her way as she came inside. They were all focused on the ship she could see in all three curved screens.
Garnet didn't really have anything to compare their ship to. She knew what human spaceships looked like. She knew what the ship that brought the aliens to Earth before looked like. However, she didn't know if either of those were similar to what she was seeing. She also had no scale for what she was looking at.
But it looked big. The general shape was like three claws, all attached at a central base. The point of each claw was a weapon that was firing at them even as she watched. The ship itself was gray and a muted, ugly green – though the paint was peeling and scuffed in many places. There was writing on one side, but it wasn’t written in Standard, so she couldn’t read it. There were also a few, flashing exterior lights.
But she was mostly surprised by how dark it was.
The ship wasn’t brightly illuminated like on TV. It wasn’t glowing by itself out there in the darkness. The exterior flashing lights and what little they illuminated were the most she could see.
Because therewasn’tany light out there, she realized. They were out in space, far from any star. There was nothing at all to illuminate this enemy ship except its own lights. The lines defining its shape that she could see on the screens weren’t from the ship itself, they were put there artificially so that the twins and Trove could see what they were returning fire at.
A chill went down her spine. She didn't know why it was so much more disturbing knowing that it was justblackout there. She was used to seeing the spaceships on TV, but those were always perfectly visible, like they were shining from nose to tail. But they weren’t near anything that would light them up out here. It was like they were at the bottom of the ocean and a monster was stalking them out of the abyss.
The ship pitched again, and she caught herself on the door frame as Trove cursed.
“Harpoon impact, rear stowage,” Alred said, his voice sounding more robotic than usual.
“We’re getting pulled in,” Trove cursed.
The twins didn't respond, focused as they were on returning fire.
Garnet’s eyes moved between them, watching as the enemy ship got closer. Closer.
Trove cursed, turning. “You two, go back up Tanin. I’ll cover guns.”
The twins still didn’t respond verbally, but they both closed their consoles before standing. They gave her a look as they rushed past, jogging down the hall.
