Heath blinked his eyes open some undetermined time later. His limbs were sprawled out, and took a few seconds to respond to his command to straighten himself in the chair. The Loon was flying – great news. A repeated thump came from the engines. Not a good sign, but they were moving. Heath could work with that.

  Turning his head to the right caused a blinding spike of pain behind his eyes. He clenched them closed, breathing carefully to avoid vomiting all over himself while he was still strapped into his seat. When he thought it was safe, he opened them again, taking a survey of the bridge. Parts of the ship were charred and burnt, black streaks breaking the white and chrome motif he was so used to. The acrid aroma of burning metal filled his nose, threatening his stomach’s complacency once again.

  Around him the crew was waking up. Groaning and muttering about shield-dampener costs and how many runs it would take to afford them, but alive.

  Bracing himself, Heath turned to the left. This time he tried moving slowly, to sneak around the pain as it waited to pounce. It mostly worked. His head ached but he didn’t feel like passing out as he looked over the rest of his makeshift family. Things weren’t going well on that half of the bridge. His uncle was still unconscious, slumped forward and being held upright by the harness. Carter had burns matching the walls spreading across his chest, his breath coming in pained gasps.

  “Uncle Walt,” Heath grunted. “Wake up.”

  When his weak entreaty had no effect, he cleared his throat and tried again. “Loon, are we clear of the storm?”

  Nothing. But Carter was sounding even worse than he was a moment ago, so Heath made a choice. His arms flailed a bit, until he controlled them enough to reach the manual release for his harness. Freed, he got to his feet, legs shaking. Leaning on his seat to stay upright he surveyed the route. First stop, he stumbled to the wall and released a med pack.

  There he had to take a break. Why was he so weak? What happened? Questions without answers. All that mattered was Carter’s breathing. While they were often on different shifts, the two men spent time together when they could. Heath considered Carter one of his closest friends, he wouldn’t let him die out here.

  Wisely avoiding the center of the bridge, with the worst burn marks and no support to speak of, he edged around, leaning on the wall or command stations to stay upright. Most of the crew was awake now, calling out to one another and checking for injuries.

  A lifetime later, he reached Carter. Thankfully his uncle refused to skimp on healing supplies, even on those runs when they had a dedicated Doctor on board. They cost an arm and a leg each, but it meant Carter would live. He popped off the lid and stabbed the needle-point of the medpack into Carter’s thigh.

  The healing potion and mana-constructed nanobots would do the rest, dissolving into one last boost when they finished their job. Heath looked back across the dimly lit bridge, up the stairs to the command area, and almost whimpered at the idea of getting all the way back to his own station. On second thought, he decided he was very comfortable sitting next to Carter and waiting for him to heal.

  From this angle, he could only sort of see his uncle, who still wasn’t waking up.

  “Uncle Walt!” he tried calling again, this time loud enough for the rest of the crew to hear him. “Wake up, we need you to talk to the Loon.”

  Raquel, the first mate, got up and made her way to the captain’s chair on wobbling legs. Even with the pained moans of the rest of the bridge crew, Heath could hear a string of vicious cursing.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The world came into an eerie kind of focus. He could feel every ridge of the floor he was sitting on, the puff of air on his neck as it was stirred by Carter’s breath. He could see the flecks of ash and fried circuitry that would cost a fortune to repair or replace once they reached port.

  His mind wandered down that path, trying to remember if their target system had a yard they trusted. Probably not, this far out. Uncle Walt only took the Loon to a few people for enhancements or repairs he couldn't do himself or with a Class power. The hyperfocus wasn’t fading, but he couldn’t get his mind to drift back to the center of the bridge where Walt was still not waking up.

  “Heath,” Raquel’s soft voice filtered through the odd feeling. “Can you go check on the others? I think we’re out of the storm, so it should be safe. And you’re the most mobile right now.”

  “What about Uncle Walt?” He could hear the hollow sound of his own voice, but he couldn’t remember forming the words.

  “Heath, go, please.”

  He stood, using Carter’s station to climb back to his feet. The change in angle was just enough to see the truth. He wished he’d crawled away. Or better yet, stayed on the floor forever.

  His uncle wasn’t waking up, wouldn’t wake up. The front of Walt’s chest was covered in deep burns, still tinged violet. Walt’s eyes were closed, and that was a small mercy, but no part of him was moving. The marks on the floor made it clear that whatever freak magic that had reached them from the storm had centered on his uncle. He couldn’t say the words, even in his head, but he couldn’t leave either. He just stared. Uncle Walt was not gone.

  He couldn’t be gone. Not with how much he’d seen, and the adventures he’d had. It couldn’t end with an unlucky storm in the middle of nowhere.

  “Heath!” Raquel’s voice wasn’t soft anymore. “Process later. Act now.”

  Right, later was good. He followed orders on shaky feet. The Wandering Loon never kept that big of a crew. Enough to deter pirates or any beasts they came across, and keep the ship running, but not much more. Their cook/Healer had retired a few months back, leaving them down to fifteen or so people to check on, besides the bridge crew. They were fine. A few burns, a lot of bruises, and one broken wrist, but that was it. The damage had been concentrated. Probably some would say that was a good thing. But Heath was sure everyone on board would rather have traded a few burns for his uncle.

  His numb circuit of the ship brought him back to the bridge. He stared at the door and contemplated turning around. Going back to his bunk and going to sleep, hoping the next time he woke up the nightmare would be over.

  Raquel needed to know what was going on. That provided the drop of motivation necessary to pry the doors open enough to squeeze through. The ship AI was still unresponsive then.

  “-- totally fried. Can’t get anything.” Raquel said. She was talking to Masterson, the man pulling at the short strands of his gray beard like he was going to rip it out.

  “What’s fried?” Heath said.

  The other two shared a look, deciding who had to coddle him, he was sure. Whatever, he could use some coddling right about now.

  “The Loon’s AI, we can’t get any response.”

  Heath frowned. “Have you tried a rolling reset?”

  “Who taught you how to work a ship, boy, of course we tried,” Masterson said. “Sorry,” he added after an elbow from Raquel.

  “Our only option left is a full cycle, even if all the oldtimers spam every [Ship Maintenance] variant at once, that won’t jog the AI,” she said. “But we can’t do that out here. We’re locked on the course and settings Walt ordered before…” she trailed off, not willing to finish the sentence. “The settings he put in. Minimal systems and a straight shot to the Madrigan system. If we’re lucky, we’ll get some of the sensors back working before then.”

  His mind scraped for something to latch onto. “What about food, comms? Can we jump like this?”

  “We’ll make it to port, plenty of supplies for that. Probably they’ll have to tug us in when they realize comms are down. As for the jump, nothing we can see so far says the drive is broken and these are easy gates.” Raquel had served on the Loon for almost eight years, longer than anyone besides Walt, by a wide margin. If she said it was fine, Heath would have to believe her. Or she was placating him.

  Nothing was fine, or would be. But the smaller questions distracted him from the bigger ones. He peppered them with a few more, which systems were the most important to get back on, how could they do that when the main AI was non-functional.

  The pair humored him, Raquel’s warm eyes full of pity Heath didn’t want to notice, Masterson’s beard twitching as he struggled not to scowl.

  “What now?”

  Another speaking look passed between the two veteran spacers. They’d been flying these routes since before Heath was born, on the Wandering Loon and plenty of other ships between them. The two of them combined knew the best step in any situation.

  “Now, we rest. Bring Carter to and try to get some sleep.”

  Dipping beneath Carter’s arm Heath managed to haul his semi-conscious bunkmate to his feet. Together, they staggered towards the still-open hatch. The murmuring of the senior bridge crew faded into the background but one line lingered with Heath as he stripped and got into his bunk.

  “I’m telling you Raquel, astral storms don’t just come out of nowhere like that.”