The bridge of the ship was empty.

  It was three times the size of The Kennel’s, with glass that surrounded us on all sides offering us sweeping views of space. Polished metals covered all the surfaces and leather chairs that begged to be sat on rested in front of consoles.

  The whole area had the feel of a showroom.

  “Well, la de fucking da! Will you look at all this shit! The sweet baby Jesus would be turning in his grave, if he could see what sort of excess and money was being wasted by these fat cats.”

  I ignored Willis and made my way to one bank of controls, which had an array of buttons, instruments and controls that blinked and flashed my way. I tried to find a button or control I recognised, but I had no idea what I was looking at.

  Willis stood beside my elbow and whistled softly’ “Get to it then.”

  I gave him the stink-eye and returned my gaze to the panel, lost for words.

  “Get out of the way, Willis,” Poppy said, moving him to one side, as she began pressing and twisting dials, but nothing happened. “It appears all the controls are locked. I can’t access them, which means we are sitting ducks.”

  I racked my brains over what to do when an idea came to me. “Is there any way I can input my security details into the ship database? Most Xcorp devices need to scan an employee before the device can be used.”

  They both looked at me as if I was crazy.

  “What?” I asked defensively.

  “Do you also need to tell your masters when you need to take a piss as while?”

  “Well, I mean it’s just standard policy that all staff need to clock in and out of the toilets otherwise people could just spend—ah, fuck off!”

  “I think I’ve found what you’re looking for,” Poppy said, drawing my eye to what looked like a slightly raised palm reader. “Place your palm on here and it should recognise you.”

  I did as I was asked, and felt a slight vibration through my palms as the displays on the consoles came to life.

  “Alright,” Poppy said, clicking her neck, “let’s see what this baby can do.”

  * * *

  The planet we were meant to meet The Lady on was fast approaching.

  The once blue ball the size of a marble I had seen back on The Kennel was now so large it filled the whole viewing screen of the ship. I could see the whirls of blue were mixed with greens and browns, almost as if they were finger smudged by a painter.

  It looked beautiful to behold but the space around it was clustered with signs of battle. Bits of ships floated aimlessly in the void, while bodies frozen solid flew past our screens.

  The Kennel was nowhere to be seen, but the same couldn’t be said for Arun’s ship. It floated on its side, gaping hole exposed to space, metal and debris surrounding it.

  “Looks like José fucked Arun’s shit up before he made it to the planet. Any signs of life on the vessel?” Willis asked.

  “There appears to be,” Poppy replied.

  “Let’s blow the—”

  “No,” I said firmly, “we don’t have time, plus José is facing two enemies down there. The remainder of Arun’s forces and Gregory. We need to keep on moving.”

  Willis stared my way but I refused to lower my gaze. He turned away grumbling under his breath.

  “Full speed ahead then,” Poppy said, increasing the speed.

  The planet fast approached us, growing larger by the second.

  I had travelled off-world for work many times, but it was always in some commercial ship in the budget seats with no windows and not enough legroom for a five-year-old child. This was my first time seeing a planet while we were coming into its atmosphere.

  It took my breath away. I tried to formulate some kind of response but couldn’t.

  I caught Poppy giggling at me while she watched me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Sights like that is why I believe in religion,” Willis said, looking up at the screen. “This is just too perfect to be created by chance. To be created by random. A divine hand had to create everything we see around us so that just looking up at the stars at night inspired man to want to learn more, do more, grow beyond his physical and mental limits till he became like a god himself.

  “People mock religion yet if it weren’t for the faith humans had in a higher power then we would have never set foot on other worlds.”

  I allowed Willis’s words to sink in and looked at him with newfound respect. Maybe I had judged the foul-mouthed ginger Irishman a tad harshly.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  I had just returned my attention to the viewing screen when the ship shook violently under my feet and threw me halfway across the bridge. Dazed and confused, I stared up at the ceiling while I tried to blink away the white dots that had formed before my eyes. Getting up to my feet I looked around me and saw that Willis and Poppy had somehow remained standing.

  “How the fuck did you two manage that?”

  Poppy smiled in my direction and said, “After your first ten ship battles, crashes and the like, you get used to staying on your feet.”

  Another shudder tore through the ship but this time I stayed standing.

  “What is going on?” Willis yelled.

  Poppy’s fingers danced in front of her while she nibbled her bottom lip. Face masked in shock she began to move between consoles, expression growing graver by the second.

  “It looks like Quinton’s authorisation triggered some kind of self-destruct that is breaking up the ship piece by piece.”

  They both turned my way, anger simmering on their faces.

  “Look,” I said holding my hands up, “you wanted the ship to get moving and that’s what I did—how did I know they had removed my clearance from the database?”

  “Maybe when your cunt of a boss tortured you!”

  “Yeah, in hindsight I should have seen this coming, but you live and learn, right? Right, guys? Guys?”

  They both turned away from me as Poppy kept on pushing buttons.

  Another violent shudder had me grabbing for something to keep me upright.

  “There goes the second engine. We’re down to two from four.”

  “Well, at least that’s something…”

  Less than friendly faces turned towards me.

  “I mean, we’ve still got two engines; think of the glass being half full, guys,” I said, looking from face to face.

  Another violent shudder swept through the floor underneath my feet.

  “We’re down to one,” Poppy said, her tone flat.

  The planet was coming towards us much faster than I would have liked. Not knowing anything about entering a planet’s atmosphere still I knew damn well this wasn’t good.

  “Pop, how likely can we make a safe landing with no engines?”

  Willis looked at me as if I were a fool and shook his head with a laugh. “I’ll answer this one, Poppy, because Sir fucking Einstein here is too stupid to comprehend what is about to happen. We are travelling at seventeen thousand and five hundred miles per hour with no engines to stabilise our descent, which means we are basically just free falling into a planet’s atmosphere.

  “Once we enter said planet’s atmosphere that’s when the fun really starts—the ship will spin wildly, with us unable to do anything to stop it. We shall be tossed from pillar to post, where we shall either lose consciousness or die from internal bleeding. Hopefully, our deaths come soon, so we aren’t alive when the ship crashes to the ground like a fiery comet.

  “So, dickface, is that a clear enough picture of what sort of safe landing we are going to get?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek as I tried to think of something to help. I hadn’t come this close just to die in a fiery ball. I would not allow Gregory to win. I would not allow him to have the last laugh.

  “Poppy, can you at least point the ship in the general direction José is located on the planet?”

  “I guess, but I don’t see how that’s going to—”

  “The ship we used to board this one, the Pit Bull, is made of a special alloy which allows it to ram into other ships; that means it can withstand a fuck ton of punishment without it getting destroyed. I think our best bet is to point this ship towards the general direction of José and board the Pit Bull and hope for the best.”

  Willis and Poppy looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Could work.”

  “Fucking best thing I can think of.”

  “For this plan to work,” said Poppy, working between consoles, “I’ll have to stay onboard the bridge as long as possible, so I can course-correct the ship to the best of my abilities. You two make your way to the ship, I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

  “Fuck that! I’m not going anywhere,” I said, coming to stand next to her.

  She looked at me with a smile, “Quinton, I know you want to help but—”

  I kissed her on the lips. “I’m staying. Willis, you make your way to the Pit Bull and make sure everything is ready for us because we’ll be coming in hot.”

  Willis looked between the pair of us and shook his head. “Bat shit crazy, the both of you.”

  I watched him depart and turned towards Poppy, who was busy concentrating on the consoles in front of her. I looked up and could see that any minute we would pass through the planet’s atmosphere; her brow furrowed in frustration.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m trying to pinpoint José’s location but it’s moving everywhere,” she said, as another shudder tore through the ship. I didn’t need to ask what it meant.

  “It doesn’t have to be to the exact mile, Pop! Just get us as close as you can to his general direction!”

  “If I do this wrong then we could be out by a mile or two.”

  I grabbed her and turned her towards me. “Are you kidding me? A mile or two? Pop, I don’t care if we’re a hundred miles away, just hurry up and point this thing in some sort of direction so we can get going.”

  The ship shook as it entered the atmosphere and I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. She resisted my movements and shocked me with how strong she was; it was like moving a statue.

  She tapped in a few more instructions then nodded my way. We exited the bridge at a full sprint and had to leap over a piece of falling debris from the ceiling.

  I moved as fast as I could but movement was becoming difficult, as the ship shook and shuddered, throwing my footsteps off and causing me to slam into the walls that surrounded me.

  “The suit you’re wearing has clamps on the bottom of your feet, we use them when we need to walk in Zero-G—activate them!”

  I did as I was told and felt my feet instantly stick to the floor. It made running harder but at least now I was moving in a straight line.

  “I hope you know the way!” I said, legs pumping.

  Poppy smiled but said nothing as she sprinted ahead of me. I tried to catch up but she was setting a pace I couldn’t match.

  “Hurry up, slowpoke, or I’m going to leave you behind!”

  We kept on running as the ship collapsed around us, she leading the way and me trying to keep up. She moved around falling debris like a cat while I did my best to take the blows I got on body parts I could live without.

  “We are nearly there,” she said, pointing to the Pit Bull.

  It lay up ahead. Willis stood at its entrance, waving us onward with a manic grin plastered on his face.

  Heads down we sprinted for all we were worth.

  Looking up I saw a piece of the ship’s ceiling fall towards Poppy; her gaze was locked on the Pit Bull. She failed to recognise the threat. Deactivating the clamps on the bottom of my feet I sprinted forward and jumped, pushing her out of the way. I hit her square in the back and we tumbled forward out of harm’s way.

  Dazed, she looked at me in shock, then her eyes lit up when she realised what I had done.

  “You shouldn’t—”

  “No time!” I said, helping her to her feet and pushing her forward.

  We were within spitting distance of our ship. I was riding high on my acts of bravery and heroism. Maybe that was why I failed to see the exposed electric wire that swung in from my left and slapped me on my face.

  I had expected to feel pain; instead, it felt like insects were crawling on my skin. A tingling went through my body as my legs grew numb and weak, and I fell forward, my face slammed onto the floor and my vision darkened.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. What felt like water began trickling down my leg.

  Oh, God!

  I had peed myself!

  This was the only thought that kept spinning around my head as I lost my grip on the little consciousness I had.