Page 252 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Arianna

Pushing off with my feet from the partially opened bulkhead, I squeezed myself through the narrow opening.

I went head over heels, careening through the open space beyond it from the lack of gravity.

My heart was pounding, my palms sweaty, as I sought to stabilize myself.

My stomach was revolting, nausea flooding my system. At least my stomach was already empty.

Gripping the edge of a metal desk—covered in buttons and blinking lights—I managed to halt my crazy flipping through the air. Panting, I fought with my body until the queasy feeling finally subsided enough for me to focus on what I’d come here for.

This had to be the bridge of the ship. I mean, what else could it be?

I’d been through the corridors and up that terrifying shaft to get here, searching everything I could access in this place.

I’d looked out of the portholes along one of those hallways and knew without a shred of doubt that I’d somehow ended up in space.

Just thinking about that had me gasp a few times in panicked breaths.

I was in space! Me, the school dropout, the black sheep of the family.

If my family could see me now, they would probably scoff and laugh, pointing out that this was not anything to do with me; I was just the idiot who’d gotten snatched by aliens.

At least, that’s what I figured must have happened.

Still, I was firmly trying to look on the bright side—there was no time to break down and cry about it.

Looking around at the many panels with blinking lights and buttons, I drew in another breath of the slightly stale, musty air.

This wreck had power, at least, and air, and I’d found a crate of crumbly, dry food bars of some kind and packaged water.

I had what I needed to survive. For a while.

I’d come to this bridge hoping I could figure out how to call for help.

There had to be someone out here who could come to my aid, right?

With hands that had been oddly stripped of their normal callouses, I touched the panel I was closest to.

Could I figure out what each of these was for?

Darting my eyes around the dusty area, I took in a chair in the center of the room, just behind a bank of consoles and two more chairs.

Both consoles had a yoke, like you’d find in an airplane, sticking out in front of the chair, so that was where the pilots had to sit. See, I had this.

Ignoring the Captain’s seat and the pilot area, I appraised the other banks of buttons.

It looked like there were several more ‘stations’ to work at.

The one I was dangling from, in the zero-gravity situation, had a big, grid-covered screen at the center, something that looked suspiciously like crosshairs in the middle.

I yanked my hand back the moment I spotted it.

“Shit!” Had I pressed any buttons accidentally?

I was pretty sure this was some kind of weapons console, and the last thing I wanted was to set off a gun or bomb.

From the big windows at the front of the bridge, I could see broken pieces of a ship floating around.

I was pretty sure I couldn’t afford for anything to blow up.

Those looked like they might be chunks of the ship I was on.

Letting go of the console was a bad idea; I’d sent myself into another tailspin.

Seriously, being weightless had gotten old within minutes after I’d crawled out of that glass and metal coffin a couple of hours ago.

It was a constant struggle to get where I wanted to go, to not spin madly out of control, and to battle nausea on top of that.

Nobody told you about that when you watched science fiction movies.

Somehow, I managed to point myself in the right direction, and I floated over the pilot chairs and past the captain’s chair.

I was getting the hang of this! Then I overshot the console I’d aimed for and scrabbled gracelessly in the air to course-correct.

I crashed into the wall on the other side of the bridge with my arm, sending myself down to the floor, feet first.

“Yes!” I whooped when I somehow managed to land with my butt in the chair in front of the console.

I nearly bounced back out, without gravity to keep me in place, I would just float away.

There were handy metal loops at the foot of the chair that I could tuck my feet into.

Huh, clever. They were probably there for just this reason.

The console looked like gibberish to me, but it resembled a computer, with tons of buttons and a few screens that were turned off. At least this one didn’t have a grid with a crosshair on it, so I was fairly certain that ruled out weapons.

I needed to do something—anything—instead of sitting here and slowly starving when I ran out of food.

I ran my fingers over the nearest screen, and it fluttered to life with a low beep.

I still couldn’t read anything on the screen, but I was pretty hopeful that the green, larger icon in the bottom right was some kind of call button.

It looked almost like a Wi-Fi signal icon.

What baffled me was how it sounded almost exactly like I was ringing someone up with a phone, down to a dial tone beeping every second.

This had to be it, right? This had to be the way to call for aid.

I wondered whom the system had started trying to reach out to.

This wreck was pretty old, with dust coating many of the surfaces.

The strips of lights that lit the corridors were covered in grime that dimmed their glow, and even the light fixtures on the ceiling were yellowed and grimy.

How long had I been floating out here in my scary glass coffin before I woke up?

I was overwhelmed with a sick feeling of despair.

Nobody was going to answer my call; there was no one on the other side of that line.

This was exactly what my family had predicted would happen to me, stuck somewhere with no way to call for help, because I was such a rash, impetuous soul.

I shook myself out of the negative spiral of thoughts as fast as it had come upon me.

No, of course this wasn’t what they’d predicted would happen.

I doubted my boring, stoic father could even conceive of such a fantastical thing as being kidnapped and stuck out in space.

The thought alone actually made me snort with laughter.

No way, he wouldn’t be able to wrap his small mind around it.

Nerves struck again as the dial tone kept going—on and on—a beep ringing out in the quiet ship.

It was starting to make me look over my shoulder.

What if I wasn’t actually alone? I’d explored what I could, but many bulkheads were firmly shut, some parts of the ship inaccessible because debris blocked the way.

Could there be someone else out here, hearing this tone, drawn to the bridge? I really hoped not.

I shouldn’t be so negative. What if it was someone else stuck in the same predicament as I was?

What if there was someone here who could help me?

There, those were better thoughts. Still, I nibbled on my dry, chapped bottom lip, worrying it between my teeth.

Please, someone just pick up that call, please.

My mind had just started contemplating the possibility that this tone didn’t mean I was calling someone.

What if it was just some kind of waiting noise, indicating that I should enter the number I wanted to call?

Geez, what if I couldn’t manage to reach out?

I had absolutely no idea what any of these buttons did.

The screen flashed orange and then pale blue, crackling static issuing from the speakers. I inhaled sharply. Had it? Had it actually connected with someone? “Oh, thank God, finally! Whoever you are, I need a rescue, please!” I said in a rush, holding my breath as I desperately waited for a reply.

Colors flashed again, and then I heard one long beep, and the screen turned red.

Silence reigned the next moment, and I felt myself deflate on the spot.

Nothing—nobody—had answered. Maybe the call had just gone through to some kind of answering machine, but at that moment, I was inclined to think that nothing had happened at all.

That was always my bad luck, wasn’t it? It never turned out the way I hoped.

Shaking myself, I flipped my floating hair over my shoulder, only for the dark brown locks to float straight back into my face.

“No, I need to have faith. I’ll just have to try again.

” I eyed the console, which had remained lit, its green icon that looked so much like a Wi-Fi signal beckoning me.

Should I just call again, or should I wait to see if someone called back?

I calculated how many food bars I had left in the crate I’d found, how much water I had.

Would that last me a week? A month? I thought that if I was careful, if I only ate two meals a day, I could probably last a month.

I hadn’t looked in every closet and room yet; there were still more places to explore. Maybe there was more food to be found.

That made up my mind: I’d wait for an hour, or maybe two, and only then would I try again. In the back of my head, I heard my uncle berate me for being impulsive, so today I was going to use my head and be careful. I’d rein in my impulsive tendencies. I could do it. I could survive this.

It didn’t even matter that I didn’t know how I’d gotten here in the first place.

I was going to put my head down, make smart choices, and survive.

I’d prove to my family that I could function without killing myself, that I wasn’t a complete walking disaster.

Then I shoved away the thought that I was probably never going to see them again anyway, so why try to prove myself to people who didn’t even like me?