Callum took the pilot’s seat and rubbed his hands together. Tannis took the seat behind him and fastened the safety harness—she had no clue what Callum was like as a flier. But it was a pretty safe bet that he hadn’t done it for a while, and she didn’t want to die just now.
Venna had very wisely disappeared. She’d obviously realized her chances of being “liked” were about zero in the present company. Tannis rested her head against the back of the seat and watched Callum as he familiarized himself with the controls. After a few minutes, when she’d assured herself he was competent enough to head in the right direction, she closed her eyes and let herself drift off into sleep.
When she opened her eyes, he was sitting in the seat next to her, watching her.
“We’re on automatic,” he said.
He stretched his long legs out in front of him, folded his wings close against his shoulders, and sat back as best he could.
“You know,” he murmured, “I’m tired. I can’t remember feeling tired in a long while. Fed up, bored, but not actually tired.”
“Sleep then. Find a cabin and sleep.”
“Can’t. I’m too wound up. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up so you can talk to me.”
“About what?”
He shrugged. “Anything.”
She thought for a minute. There was something she would like to know. “How about you talk instead?”
“What about?”
“Tell me about Meridian. About how you found it, what happened when you landed on Trakis Seven.”
“We didn’t actually land as such—we crashed. Machines don’t work well on Trakis Seven.”
“So how will we get down?”
“You have to shut down the engines and let the planet pull you in, then switch them back just before landing. I’ve not done it—but I had a crash course before I left.”
“What about getting off again?”
“As long as you’re quick, there’s time to make safe distance before the engines cut out. Just no dawdling on takeoff.”
“Great,” she muttered.
“It will be fine.” He settled in his chair. “Okay—so the story of my life. Are you sitting comfortably?”
She nodded.
“When we reached the Trakis system, each ship was allocated a planet to check out for viability. We’d already lost contact with the Trakis One—we know now that she disappeared into black hole, but back then she just went dead.”
Tannis shuddered. “Holy moly. What a way to go.”
“I’d forgotten. You’ve been to Trakis One, haven’t you?”
“When we broke Jon out of the prison.”
“You were lucky to survive.”
“No, not lucky—Rico’s a brilliant pilot. Even so, it was a little hairy.”
“Anyway, the crew was already on edge. And the planet was far from inviting—as you’ll soon see.”
“How many of you were there on board?”
“Awake? Twenty, plus ten thousand or so in cryo. We orbited the planet for a while, then, when I couldn’t put it off any longer, we went in. I lost control almost immediately. I remember thinking this is it. And what a way to end after five hundred years in space.”
“What happened? Obviously you all survived the crash.”
“Something slowed us down, some force field before we hit the ground. We still sustained a lot of damage, but the main systems were repairable. So we set about doing the repairs and exploring the planet.”
He stared into space for a few minutes obviously remembering the past, and if his expression was anything to go by, the memories were not happy.
“We’d heard from the other ships by then. The Trakis Four and Five had found habitable planets. We knew we had a safe place to go if we could get the ship fixed. So I made the decision to wake some of the Chosen Ones. There were scientists, including an environmentalist. While I was sure Trakis Seven wasn’t suitable for colonization, I wanted to find out if there was anything we could use in the future. It was a mistake.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“Maybe not. It seemed fine at first, the planet actually has a breathable atmosphere though it’s a little thin, tiring for doing anything physical. But it was good to be off ship even on that hellhole.”
“How long had you been captain?”
“Ten years. It wasn’t too bad. There was space on the ship. Books to read, plenty of entertainment, which was just as well as the ship ran itself. I was redundant except for in an emergency. And when we did have one, I very nearly failed.”
“But you didn’t.” Why the hell was she trying to comfort him? What was it about Callum Meridian that touched her as no man had before?
“Well there are relative stages of failure. People died because of decisions I made, and back then I wasn’t nearly so comfortable with that idea as you believe me to be now.”
“So what happened? How did you find Meridian?”