The Lost Star Episode One (6 page)

She looked up as he paused at the doors.

Figures that she was so goddamn dumb she
couldn’t operate the lift controls.

He briefly considered using another lift and
taking a circuitous route back to his quarters. He knew a few of
the officers on the bridge were already casting curious glances his
way, though. So he pushed into the lifts.

The doors closed behind him.

He pushed past Ava and quickly typed
something into the control panel.

Ava took a polite step away from him.
“Thank you for your assistance in the bar, lieutenant.”

“
Harvey- Captain McClane was right – you
should have been able to defend yourself,” he snapped. He knew he
should hold it in. He couldn’t. He also knew he didn’t really have
a good reason to be angry at Ava – she’d been attacked. He was just
transferring his frustration at being at the beck and call of his
brother.

Still, he didn’t retract his statement.

“
You don’t need to feel ashamed that you
fell on top of me, lieutenant. If was my fault. I accept that,” she
said in an even calm tone.

Her direct statement cut right to the
core. Because yes, he was goddamn embarrassed at falling on an
ensign in front of a bar full of his crewmates. He’d flattened her,
torso-to-torso. If it hadn’t been for her thankfully soft
voluminous hair, he would probably have nutted himself on the
floor. And if it hadn’t been for her equally soft and voluminous…
other assets, he would have jammed the top of his chest against her
ribs.

He felt his skin redden at the thought.
Which was frankly pathetic. He hadn’t flushed like this since his
first date. And that had been a long time ago now. He had a
deserved reputation at the Academy, and men with deserved
reputations didn’t blush like school children.

Something about her must be irritating him,
he reasoned quickly. Probably the same thing that had irked his
brother.

In his current mood, it only took another
half second to conclude that Ensign Ava was untrustworthy,
pathetic, and deserving of any anger he felt towards
her.

“So thank you for your assistance once
more,” Ava finished.

“You don’t need to keep saying that,” he
snapped. “Once is enough. You want to thank me, learn to look after
yourself. We watch each other’s backs on a ship like this. If we
can’t rely on you, you shouldn’t be here.”

His words were vicious, his tone sharp.

Though he wanted to keep staring at the
doors, he couldn’t help but slice his gaze towards her.

She looked fine.

He’d just given her a verbal dressing down,
and she looked as if they were discussing nothing more offensive
than the weather.

And that right there – her lack of reaction
– made him all the angrier.

He knew he wasn’t controlling his
expression
. Any
self-aware ensign would be cowering in the corner.

She stared at him out of the corner of her
eye impassively.

As a kick of frustration flared in his
gut, he suddenly realized the lift was taking too long. “Why is
this—”

“Lift taking so long?” she finished his
question. “Because I think there’s a fault in the coordinate map. I
noticed it before you got on. I guess nobody’s tested the quarters
lift from the bridge yet. This is the ship’s first run, there’s
bound to be problems.”

“You knew there was a fault with the
coordinate controls and you didn’t tell me?” he snapped.

“I assumed you knew what you were doing when
you shoved me out of the way,” she replied evenly.

There wasn’t much he could reply to that.
Not reasonably, anyway.

“
Why is it that everything is going to tell
around you today, ensign? Are you cursed?”

“
Respectfully, sir, I don’t know how to
answer that. I can point out, however, that if you want to get out
of here, we need to make a call to engineering. I’m pretty sure
this lift is just going to circle around the shafts without a
functioning coordinate map.”

He dearly wanted to snap at her again, but
she was right.

Instead he tapped his wrist device and
cleared his throat.

She walked past him, a few locks of her
vibrant red hair brushing past his arm. She pushed a finger into
the communication link on the lift. “You’re wrist device won’t work
in here, lieutenant. All communications have to be rerouted through
the communication links for the next 24 hours until they complete
the installation of the communication guidance network.”

He knew that. He’d been at the briefing
where Chief Engineer B’cal had told all the officers that.

But he’d forgotten. Why? Because Ensign
Ava was irritating the hell out of him.

She kept her finger pressed into the link
button as she turned to him, her expression still impassive.
“Should I make the call, or should you, lieutenant?”

“I can make the call,” he said through stiff
lips.

Was she questioning his abilities? Sure,
he’d fallen on top of her rather than save her, had failed to pick
up this lift didn’t have a functioning map, and he’d clean
forgotten communications were offline.

But he wasn’t an idiot.

This was all her fault.

He cleared his throat. “Engineering bay,
this is McClane.”

There was a pause, then a gravelly voice
answered, “There’s two McClanes on board, you might want to narrow
it down, lieutenant,” Chief Engineer B’cal rumbled in his grating
voice.

Hunter
winced. “This is Lieutenant Hunter McClane. I’m in the
quarter’s lift that departs from the bridge. It doesn’t have a
functioning coordinate map.”

B’cal sighed. “Add it to my list. If we
actually depart this afternoon, I’ll eat my fist. This ship has a
long list of problems right now. It’ll take us a while to get to
you. I’ll inform your superior you’ll be out of action for a few
hours.”

“
A few hours,” Hunter nearly choked on his
voice.

“
Sorry,
lieutenant, we just don’t have the manpower. Lifts are a
non-critical system. Right now we’re working on life-support and
gravity control. I’m sure you can appreciate how important they
are.”

Hunter
gave an internal groan. “Yes,” he forced himself to agree
in an even tone, “I can. Do what you have to.”

The thought of spending another minute,
let alone a few hours, with Ensign Ava was murder.

Ava cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Chief
Engineer B’cal, I assume?”

“Yep, that’s me. Who’s speaking?”

“
Ensign Ava.”

“
You only got one name, ensign?”

“I am Avixan. My culture only permits single
monikers.”

“
Another Avixan, ha? That makes five aboard
now, ha,” B’cal noted with a gruff laugh.

Ava stiffened. From head to
t
oe, she resembled a
statue. “Five?”

“
I guess you haven’t been onboard long
enough to meet the others yet, ha? Anyhow, what do you want, Ensign
Ava?”

She looked pale. For the first time since
he’d met her, Ava looked thrown.

“
Ensign
?” B’cal prompted.

“
Wouldn’t it be quicker to return the lift
to its cradle and walk?”

“
Its cradle’s right at the bottom of the
ship. None of the other lifts in that section work. Hell, some of
the corridors aren’t finished yet. You’d have to travel by access
shaft for a whole deck.”

“But it would still be quicker than waiting
for technicians to fix the lift, right? Plus, wouldn’t it be easier
for your engineers to fix the lift once it’s back in its
cradle?”

“True. But like I said – that’ll be one hell
of a walk. But you’re right – it’ll be quicker than waiting. To be
honest, the rate new faults are coming to my attention, you might
be stuck in that lift half a day.”

“
We’ll walk,” Hunter snapped.

“
Walk it is. Though the coordinate map of
your lift is broken, Ensign Ava’s right – it’ll still be able to
return to its cradle with the automatic override. Lieutenant, if
you pry the primary panel back, the override switch should be
behind it. Press it, then get ready to become intimately
acquainted—” B’cal dropped off the line for a second as he mumbled
an order to someone.

Hunter
stiffened. What the hell was B’cal about to say? Christ,
people hadn’t been spreading dumb rumors about that dumb incident
in the bar, had they?

“
Sorry about that,” B’cal came back on
line, “What was I saying? Oh yeah. Get ready to become intimately
acquainted with the belly of the Mandalay – you’re about to trek
through the whole thing. Have fun,” he added before he signed
off.

Hunter
wasted no time in prying off the primary control panel and
thumbing the manual override.

The lifts groaned to a halt, shuddered
slightly, and slowly began to descend.

Normal lifts aboard a normal Coalition
vessel did not groan or shudder.

Clearly yet another problem to add to
B’cal’s list.

The lifts kept shuddering as they
descended. It sent a nervous worry plunging through his
gut.

These lifts were operational, right? The
numerous safety mechanisms that would stop the lifts from falling –
or worse, speeding up to their full velocity and slamming into a
wall – were in place, right?

He caught Ava looking at him.

He stiffened his jaw and subtly clutched a
hand behind his back, sure
that she couldn’t see it.

He hated not being in control. He hated
facing an enemy he couldn’t see, even if right now it was a goddamn
faulty lift.

Ava looked like she wanted to say something,
but clearly thought better of it as she turned back to stare at the
doors.

The lift gave a violent shudder and she was
pushed off balance.

She tumbled towards him.

On pure instinct, he grabbed her just in
time, lurching to the side to cancel out the momentum of her
fall.

She’d fallen towards him face-first, and now
that same face was pressed into his chest as he anchored her to the
spot.

Before he could push her away or become too
distracted by the soft touch of her hair along his arms, or the
press of her chest against his side, the lift lurched again.

“
What the hell?
” he barked.

“
Lift loosing integrity,” the computer
droned in an emotionless tone.

“Shit,” he swore. “Stop the lift in place.
Now.”

“Brakes are failing.”

“
What
?! How can they fail?”

Ava wriggled out of his arms. He’d been
holding her. Tightly. Without even realizing it.

She lurched towards the controls, yanked
back the panel, and pulled something out of it.

Before he could ask what she’d done, the
lift started to free fall.

He fell from his feet and tumbled into her,
knocking her to the floor. For the second time that day, he fell
right on top of her, chest-to-chest, face-to-face.

It didn’t count this time, though, because
he was about to die.

Just as true terror tore through his chest,
the lifts screeched to a halt, violent shudders ripping through the
cabin.

Without realizing what he was doing, he
pressed against her, fear locking his muscles in place.

With one more metallic screech, the lift
stopped.

He let out a tortured, trapped breath, and
it pushed Ava’s hair over her face.

Though his eyes were squeezed shut, as he
opened them, he realized she was staring at him. “We don’t have
much time.” She pushed into him.

It was then he realized he was still on top
of her.

He fumbled to his feet. “What did you do to
the lift?”

She was still holding onto the section of
neuro wiring she’d pulled from the control panel.

“I pulled out the primary safety
circuit.”

“You did what? Why?” he barked, heart
pounding faster than a drum.

“To force the shaft to engage its magnetic
brakes.”

He opened his mouth but stopped.

She’d just saved their lives.

The shaft had its own brakes to control the
lifts in the case of a hull breach. The harmonic resonance of a ton
of metal thundering down a damaged shaft could do untold
damage.

Usually the shaft’s mag brakes were
overridden by the lift’s primary safety controls. Controls which
were clearly faulty. If the mag brakes hadn’t already caught the
plummeting lift before Ava had yanked out the safety controls, it
meant they were sending inaccurate information to the
shaft.

By pulling out the controls, Ava had saved
them both.

Rather than point that out, he nodded at
the com link. “Put in a call immediately.”

“We need to get out of here,” she overrode
him.

“We’re fine now the shaft mag brakes have
engaged. They’ll hold us here until help arrives.”

“The mag brakes are groaning.” She pointed
towards the door. “Listen carefully.”

As he calmed his rocketing breath long
enough, he heard it.

Metal fatigue. There was a fine but
perceptible shudder vibrating through the lift floor.

“
We need to open those doors.” She pointed
at them.

“They’ll open onto a shaft wall.”

“There’s a chance they’ll open onto a
maintenance hatch or an open deck.”