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CHAPTER ONE

-Clay-

“IS IT SUPPOSED to do that?”

An arc of light lanced from the swirling blackness, reaching far across the emptiness of space. I looked up from my position, slouched in the pilot’s seat, and shrugged.

“I don’t know, man, I just fly the ship,” I said.

After five days of sitting here while the experts on board analyzed the wormhole anomaly, I was more than ready to go home. When I signed up for this job on the ISE Explorer—an exciting opportunity to explore uncharted space—I’d envisioned skilled piloting through asteroid belts or dodging enemy fire. I didn’t think it would consist entirely of staring out of the window at a big, black, wobbly blob while keeping the small craft and its crew of fifteen in one place. I mean, it’s space, it’s all black and blobby. What made this particular part of it so interesting?

I slouched down even further, my legs over the armrest. Caldwell lolled in the co-pilot seat next to me, and I nudged his arm with my foot.

“What are you going to spend the money on when we finally get out of here?” I asked. “You know, if we don’t die from boredom.”

He tilted his head in thought, but before he could reply, Martinez leaned between our chairs, arms resting across both headrests, his tanned face lit up with a dreamy expression. “I’m going to take my wife out, tell her to dress up fancy, and buy her all the desserts she can eat.” He smiled. “And I’m going to get a new cruiser. Got my eye on that X50 five-seater with extra collision protection. Gotta keep my new arrival safe. Plus, heated seats.”

A family cruiser; very domestic, very Martinez. I preferred something with a bit more go. I hummed vaguely in agreement, not wanting to get him started on the topic of his incoming baby again. He’d gone off four times already since breakfast, and there was only so much domestic bliss I could take without braining myself on the flight console.

Caldwell sat forward. “I’m going to take my ma on holiday, one of the hot planets with white sand,” he said, and Martinez nodded approvingly. “What about you, Clay?”

I thought for a moment. “I’m going to get incredibly wasted and let some hunk I’ve never met pound me into oblivion.” The dreamy calm look on Martinez’s face fell, and I grinned. “I mean, like, really let him completely ruin me. I don’t want to be walking straight for a week at least.”

Martinez frowned and Caldwell threw his head back with a sudden bark of laughter, slapping his hand on the armrest.

“Eww. Come on, man, TMI,” Caldwell said, but then held his hand out for a high five. I reached over and slapped it.

“And what about the rest of the money?” Martinez asked.

“I’m going to do it a lot,” I said.

“Wow.” Martinez pulled a thin-lipped face and stood up straight.

Caldwell stopped laughing. “What happened to that guy you were seeing? I thought he really liked you.”

I grimaced. Ah, yeah. Craig was an engineer from Space Station 105, our regular dock. He was…nice. He was hot—engineers always were for some reason—and funny. Clever, too, and the sex had been fucking intense.

I shrugged dismissively. “Him? We were just messing around, I wouldn’t say I was seeing him or anything. It was just a casual thing.”

“That’s a shame, he seemed kinda serious about it,” Caldwell said.

Tell me about it. The last time I saw him, Craig had mentioned making plans for the holidays. He wanted me to come and stay at his place, maybe even go meet his family. I had smiled, given him a noncommittal answer, we’d had some fun, and I left his place.

After that, I stopped replying to his messages. I felt bad ghosting him, but it was best for everyone. He really was a nice guy. To my relief, he had stopped trying to message me four days ago.

“Yeah, nah. Not really for me,” I said.

Martinez leaned back in, apparently still lingering behind us. He had a face on; the one that meant a lecture was coming, as if having a wife and sprog on the way made him the wise, old mentor. The guy was only three years older than me.

“Look,” he started, tone at its most patronizing. “I’m not saying you can’t do what you want. Sure, sleep around all you like, but at some point you’re going to have to stop messing with people and actually give someone a chance. You could be missing out on something really great.”

I laughed, making him frown deeper. “Thanks for the advice, but I’m fine with the way I do things.”

He shook his head. “I mean it. Having an actual relationship with someone is the most rewarding thing you can do. I’m serious.”

“And I’m serious about getting wasted and destroyed by unknown hunks.”

Martinez rolled his eyes. It was just too easy getting a rise out of him. He opened his mouth to lecture me some more, but snapped it shut when a shrill alarm cut him off. I jumped and we all looked up as one. Red lights flashed across the consoles, blinking an urgent Morse code, and the alarm kept blaring overhead, ear-splittingly sharp. I dropped my legs to the floor, sat up in my chair.

“Shit, what’s happening?” I said.

Across the bridge, an officer hunched over her display, desperately scanning the readout. “The wormhole is unstable,” she said, loud enough for the five of us on the flight deck to hear over the blaring of the alarm.

I looked around wildly. “What does that mean?”

At that moment, the doors hissed open and the captain strode onto the bridge. “It means it’s time to leave. Clay, Caldwell, get us out of here.”

I almost smiled. This was more like it, finally some excitement. This was what I signed up for.

“Yes, sir,” I said. My fingers moved across the controls, and beneath my feet the familiar hum of the reverse thrusters kicked in. I nodded at Caldwell, who returned the gesture. We’d be out of here in no time.

After a few moments of engine burn, I realized the anomaly didn’t appear to be getting any smaller. That wasn’t right. By now, we should’ve been putting distance between us and it, but we weren’t moving.

I increased the power gradually, but we still didn’t move. I pushed the reverse thrusters to maximum capacity. The vibration rattled through my boots and made the little vintage hula girl figure on Caldwell’s console jiggle toward me.

“Why aren’t we moving, Clay?” The captain called from his chair.

I shook my head, bewildered, and checked over the controls. Everything was working fine, there was no reason for us not to be traveling away from the wormhole at top speed by now. Caldwell looked at me, the question clear in his eyes.

I glanced over my shoulder at the captain. “I don’t know sir, we should—”

The ship bucked violently, knocking me back in my chair. Another siren joined the first and the flashing red lights sped up their frantic pace. The captain shouted something that I couldn’t make out over the noise. What the hell was happening? I checked over the controls and saw that we were moving now, but in the wrong direction. Despite the roar of the reverse thrusters, we were moving towards the wormhole at steadily increasing speed.

Shit shit shit.

I didn’t know much about the big wobbly blob of black, but I knew that this wasn’t good. In fact, I had a feeling that this was probably very, very bad.

The crew burst into frantic motion the moment they realized what was happening, but I blocked them out, focused on the controls as the ship continued its mad rush through space toward the huge black mass of the wormhole. There had to be something I could do. I tried to pull the ship around. We were moving fast now, but if I could alter the trajectory enough we might shoot straight past it…

I switched the controls to manual and they detached from the console. I took them in both hands and steered the ship to the side as hard as I could. Our course didn’t change.

“We’re approaching fast,” the navigator called, just loud enough to hear over the continuous alarms.

The engines and thrusters were already in reverse on full power, the ship wasn’t responding to manual controls, and we were hurtling headlong into an anomaly that none of the crew fully understood.

I didn’t know what would happen when we hit that thing, but I could hazard a guess that it ended with dying in a big ball of flames or frozen in the depths of space, and that was if we weren’t crushed by a singularity in the wormhole first. Or was that black holes? Either way I didn’t want to find out. I know I wanted excitement, but not like this. I should have just gone for the Lunar cruise job; they were always looking for temps during the holiday season. They were dull, but at least they didn’t explode or send you spinning off into uncertain death.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit. SHIT.

I gave up uselessly pulling on the controls and clung to the console. There was nothing I could do to stop the ship now. All I could do was try my best to survive whatever was coming. I was panicking, my brain skipping every few seconds as I tried to recall the crash protocol. I’d been in a few crashes before—not many because I was a good pilot—but this was something else entirely.

What do I do? What do I do?

I closed my eyes and forced my brain to dredge up the safety drills I’d been forced to sit through at the start of the job. Why hadn’t I paid more attention?

Ok, right, first get your safety straps on. Then oxygen backup.

I sat back in my chair and fastened the safety straps that hung by my sides as quickly as I could, clicking the buckles into place. Then I pulled the fastening tabs so the straps were tight across my chest, shoulders, and hips, holding me snug in place as the ship juddered and shook. They dug into my sides, pinching the skin—but that was good, I reminded myself. The instructor said they needed to be tight to stop injury on impact, or getting thrown loose.

Beside me, Caldwell cursed, drawing my attention to him. I looked over to see him fumble with his own straps, following my example. He had the lap one in place already, but he tugged on the shoulder restraints with growing frustration.

“Hurry up,” I shouted. “Get them on.”

He kept tugging them frantically and shouted back, barely audible over the blaring alarm and the chaos going on around us. “I can’t. They’re stuck.”

At that moment the voice of the ship’s computer came on overhead, sickeningly calm in the noise and panic, and informed us that impact was imminent. For a dizzying moment, I wondered if you could impact with a hole of nothingness.

Caldwell managed to get one strap over his shoulder, but it was twisted and too tight to reach the other buckle. He fumbled with the other arm and dropped the strap as the computer started an unhelpful countdown.

“Hurry up,” I shouted.

“I’m trying,” he said, snagging the strap again as the computer chimed in.

“TWENTY SECONDS TO IMPACT.”

Caldwell was panicking so much that he dropped the strap again and twisted, diving after it, but the restraint across his other shoulder pulled him short. He wasn’t going to get them on in time, not in that state.

I wavered for just a second before I unbuckled myself, threw my straps off, and clambered out of my chair. The ship was swinging around and I clung onto the arm of his chair to stop myself from being thrown off my feet.

He looked up at me, eyes wide. “It’s this top strap,” he shouted. “It won’t extend.”

“FIFTEEN SECONDS TO IMPACT.”

I grabbed it in both hands and yanked on it, giving it my full weight. It was stuck. Holding tight to his chair, I followed the strap to the top of it, then down to the base where it disappeared underneath. I crouched to follow it. Underneath, a short piece of metal stuck out that worked as a lever to adjust the position of the pilot’s chair. The strap was twisted and wrapped around it, forming knots and stopping it from fully extending. I got down on my knees, holding myself steady with one hand, and fumbled with it; my hands felt numb with adrenaline. Finally, it came loose.

“TEN, NINE, EIGHT—”

“Now,” I shouted, and Caldwell gave it a final pull. It came away from the lever and fully extended. As I heaved myself up, Caldwell pulled it over his shoulder and, this time, slotted it into place with no difficulty. I gave it a tug to make sure it was buckled and tightened properly, before I spun back to my chair. Before I could sit, the floor bucked beneath my feet and I tipped precariously to one side.

“SIX, FIVE—”

I managed to shift my weight at the last moment and launched myself at my chair, landing awkwardly in it face down. I scrambled around and snatched up the straps, relief washing through me as I pulled them over my shoulders to buckle them. As I did, I caught a glimpse of the wormhole out of the screen, huge and all-encompassing like the mouth of a monster.

“FOUR—”

I tugged the straps together, but they stopped short a few inches apart, and the buckles wouldn’t meet. Shit . The straps were too short; I hadn’t loosened them when I took them off, and now they were too tight to fasten.

“THREE—”

I tugged on the tabs. Yanked them longer. Brought them together again.

“TWO—”

My shaking hands missed the latch. Once. Twice.

“ONE.”

The buckle clicked into place.

The straps hung loose over my chest. I reached for the pull tab to tighten them, and the black hole swallowed us.