Status Updates From Falling (of the Stars #3)

“Okay . . . Not what I wanted to hear,” Max said, pinching the bridge of his nose and blowing out a breath. “Aid, don’t make me use my mom voice on you. I will, then we’ll both feel very awkward afterward.”

Currently expecting to finish this series by the end of this month, if not before. Congratulations, P.D., for writing a series that has made me break my habit of reading series installments weeks or months apart. <3

“Even after they’ve been declared unfit for duty?” Max asked, raising an eyebrow. “There was an accident. I don’t know the details, but he almost lost his leg and still has problems with it. Why would they decide he was fit for duty again after over a decade?”

Aidan just needed to find something that was broken, and considering how often things in these places seemed to break down, he doubted that was going to be a hard thing to find. 

Aidan tilted his head as he thought over what she’d just said. “You’re space pirates? That’s original.”

The thought that he wouldn’t be seeing Terra for a long time to come was a little bit disconcerting. The only time he’d left the solar system was by accident, and he didn’t have to deal with this annoying feeling that he’d forgotten something.

He supposed the fewer people Aidan was around, the less likely one of them would want to kill him. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be someone. After all, Aidan seemed to make enemies no matter where he went, even among the Terrans.

Blowing out a breath, Max felt like he’d been through the wringer. Glancing over at Aidan, Max realized he looked like he felt the same way. “You okay?” he asked, moving and dropping back into his seat.
Aidan looked at him and blinked. “No, not really.”

The Queen’s gaze shifted to Aidan, and she instantly stood a little straighter as her eyes narrowed. “Bomick!” she spat. “Secure him, I will send one of my lieutenants to retrieve him. Well done, Joota.”
With that, the hologram flickered out.

He was out of breath by the time he reached the part of the city with the malfunctioning stabilizer. There was over six-hundred of them scattered throughout the Ark in three group clusters.
Unfortunately, if one cluster went down, it caused a chain reaction and took down its section of the ship. And without all cluster working properly, the ship wouldn’t be able to stabilize enough for them to fire back at the Novans

“Is that in question?” he asked. “Because I have no intentions of crashing this thing.” He swallowed. “I would imagine it’s not exactly cheap.”
Wilcox snorted. “No kidding,” he muttered, shaking his head as he glanced at the time. “Well, we’ll be launching soon so I’ll be heading to my quarters to catch some Zs. I’ll be back in three hours to take over.”

“Oh…? Well, at least we know now who to blame if something happens to the ship,” Max said, giving Aidan’s arm a nudge.
But Aidan didn’t roll his eyes like Max expected, instead, he turned his attention back to his tablet as he turned it back on. “Yes,” he mumbled. “The same person you’ll be expecting to fix it.”

“It’s an escape pods, not mini shuttles,” Aidan huffed, pulling a bundle of wires apart. He grabbed two of them and stripped them with his teeth. Spitting out the plastic, he contacted them. “There! Try the thrusters now, Anya. Get us off this stupid little ledge before gravity decides to do it for us.”

Becoming familiar with the outside of their starship hadn’t exactly been something Max wanted to do, but it seemed as if that was going to be a likely outcome.
Shaking away that thought, Max started the climb.

Then before he even realized what he was doing, Max jumped up and slashed his Friction-Cutter through the center of the drone as the two pieces clattered to the ground and the lights turned back to full strength.

The silence between them while they ate was almost worse.
Who knew that a human being could so accurately replicate the sound of a slug getting its daily nourishment?
Aidan did his best to block out the sound, but it wasn’t as easy as he’d have liked. And unfortunately, he hadn’t grabbed his headphones. So after another five minutes of sluggish noises, he couldn’t take it any more.

Chuckling, the Defender slung his arm around Aidan’s shoulders, causing the Mentalist to flinch, though that didn’t seem to deter him. “Don’t worry,” he said, grinning. “What I’m doing has nothing to do with you this time.”

“Yeah, sure,” Aidan scoffed, reaching out toward his Gauntlet. His finger tips were still a foot away when the Gauntlet started to shift around almost like a liquid. Then, without warning, it leapt from the Captain’s palm and wrapped itself around Aidan’s forearm. “Don’t take any offense if I don’t believe you.”

The design of the alien Starship was… interesting. There were a few improvement he could see they could make as they passed through the corridors, but there was also several things he found himself curious about.

Aidan smirked. “Ready to break out of a Space-Bubble without a thruster and do something that’s only theoretical? Sure, why not?”

“Permission granted. Welcome, Mentalist and Defender,” came the robotic voice of the ship automated system as the doors slid a part. Aidan was moving and slipping through them before they were even fully open.

Max wasn’t sure what time it was when he was awoken by the sound of static, or electricity, or something like that, he wasn’t sure. He groaned and opened his eyes, realizing the lights in their quarters were on.
Rolling over, Max peeked over the edge to where the strange sounds were coming from. “What are you doing?” Max mumbled, rubbing at his face as he pushed himself up onto his elbow.

The Star-Thrusters activated, and Max could hear the slight hum of the ring around the ship started to turn, going faster with every cycle.
The next second, Max felt his stomach drop. But other than that, only the holo-monitors would have told him anything had changed. There was a movement where the only sound in the room was the sound of the techs working.
“Entry into Warp Space is successful,”

Aidan was engrossed in whatever he was doing on his tablet, and thanks to whatever he was listening to, he didn’t seem to notice Max as he came up behind him. As soon as he was within arm’s reach, Max reached out and yanked one of the headphones out of Aidan’s ear.

“Because it should only be able to actually identified it unless it’s in close proximity to it.”Aidan slid his finger across the screen and zoomed in, and he felt his stomach drop. “Okay, not so strange then.”