“Treto! What happened? We just overshot you,” an accented female voice says over the comm.
I’m still only wearing half the harness, so I finish unbuckling it before reaching across the control panel and pushing the button I’d seen Treto push before talking to his people.
“Um, hello? Are you there?” My voice sounds high-pitched and strained to my ears. “We—something happened and we dropped out of light speed.”
There is a long moment of silence, and I begin to worry I did something wrong. What if I turned the comm off instead of on? I’m about to push the button and try again when the voice returns.
“Who is this? Where is Treto?”
“This is Bela. Treto is… he’s here, but he can’t talk right now.”
“What?” the female voice yelps. “What have you done to him?”
“Nothing! I swear. He—he’s unconscious. I think.”
I can hear mumbling, like she’s talking to someone but not loud enough for me to understand what’s being said. Then she finally comes back. “Stay put. We’re coming to get you.”
“Like I know how to go anywhere, anyway,” I mutter. Everything is shaking as I turn my attention to Treto’s still form. Great, his friends—I hope they are his friends—probably think I hurt him. Reaching out, I press my fingers to the side of his neck, then let out a long sigh of relief when his pulse thrums against my fingertips.
What an absolute fuck-all this has turned into.
Even unconscious, Treto looks tortured. His brow is pinched, and his lips are pressed into a tight line.
“Bela?” Skylar’s small voice breaks through my thoughts, and I twist in my seat so I can look back at her. She still looks a little green. “What’s going on?”
I rub my fingers across the space between my eyes. Where do I even start? I’m not entirely sure what’s going on.
“I think Treto’s friends are coming to get us.” At least, I hope they are friends, or friendlier than the female sounded. “What about you, are you okay?”
She wrinkles her nose at the mess she made on the floor at her feet. “I’m better now that we’ve stopped.”
I look over at Treto, who hasn’t moved except to breathe, and then back at Skylar. “Let me see if I can find something to clean that up with before they get here.”
No sooner have I wiped up the worst of her sick with a shirt I found in one of the closets at the back, than a shudder rocking the entire shuttle announces their arrival.
The door slides open, and a tall blue woman bursts inside. Her large eyes land on Skylar first, who shrinks further into her seat. Then she turns to look at me and finally Treto.
“How long has he been out?” She kneels beside his chair. When she reaches out and tenderly cups the side of his face, I catch myself clenching my hands into fists. Because what right doesshehave to be touchingmy—
Whoa, down girl.Where did that even come from? She’s here to help us. Still, the urge to shove her out of the way is strong.
“Um, not long,” I tell her instead. “Maybe five minutes?”
“Rovos, bring a stretcher,” she says into a cell phone-type device she pulls from her pocket. “Anna will want to have a look at him.”
My ears perk at the verynot alienname, but before I have a chance to question her, a large gray, striped alien storms into the shuttle carrying a backboard. When he sets it flat, it hovers, and then he and the blue woman work to remove Treto’s harness and lift him onto it. Before I can even open my mouth to ask questions, the blue woman is taking him away, and I lurch to follow her, only to be stopped short by the stern look the gray alien is giving me.
“You are Bela?” he asks me.
I nod.
“Then hurry. He will want to see you when he wakes.” Without waiting for me, he jogs off after Treto and the blue woman.
I help Skylar fumble with the rest of her harness before we hurry after them, only to come to a sudden stop just inside the ship that’s docked with ours. The entrance splits into two directions, and I have no idea which one to take. Skylar and I exchange looks, and I shrug before going to the right.
We haven’t gone far, though, before I have a terrible feeling I chose the wrong direction. When I glance back at Skylar, she only shrugs, so I keep going, pausing at the end of each corridor before choosing the next direction at random, until I realize I’ve gotten us hopelessly lost.
“Who the hell designed this ship?” I grumble as I take another left. “This is worse than a fucking funhouse!”
