“Where’s Alicia?” I asked Tim as we headed for the elevator to take us to the sports car portion. “And have you seen James?”
“Alicia saw the ship during the friends and family tour, and has no real interest,” Tim said. “I think it makes her nervous that I’m going to be on this, and she doesn’t want to think about it. She’s with the rest of the families outside. Commander Reader is inspecting Engineering and Weapons.”
These sections ran through the center of the ship, from aft to stern or whatever we were supposed to call it on a ship like this. I didn’t understand the reasons why, but those who did said it made the most sense, so I hadn’t argued. As with everything else, there were sections that could be locked down as needed. I didn’t plan to spend much, if any, time down there—weapons were normally fired from strategic areas that weren’t in the middle of the ship, and reality said that were I ever on this ship for any extended reason, what I’d care about were the guns, both big and small, so that’s what I’d paid attention to, inasmuch as I could via blueprints. Now that we were here, though, I knew better than to ask to see all the guns. Some arguments were better left to privacy.
“Why so formal about James all of the sudden? Did you two get into a fight or something?”
Tim grinned. “No. But James would really like to be on the mission, and because he can’t be, he’s going overboard in ensuring that he knows how everything runs. You know him—he likes to be the best at everything.”
“Which he always is.”
Jeff grunted. “Thank God he’s gay and married to Paul is all I can say.”
“I thought you were past jealousy these days.” Reader was my other best guy friend, the former top international male model in the world, all-around awesome, and handsome enough to be constantly mistaken for an A-C. Our joke that wasn’t really a joke was that if he was straight, or even bi, he’d have taken me away from all of this ages ago. But he was gay and was not bi, so we both had to make do with being married to awesome, handsome aliens with incredible stamina and regeneration powers. It was tough, but we managed to find the will to go on.
“I’m holding your hand. I can feel the lust and admiration for James, trust me.”
“Poor baby. So, who’s with James?”
Tim shrugged. “Chuck and Nathalie, because he’s interested and she’s doing the time-honored thing of pretending to be fascinated by whatever it is your sig-O is into in order to be a supportive life mate.”
“Well, it is time honored. I mean, I’m pretending to love being the FLOTUS and all that.”
“Yeah? You’re not doing a good job of it, and Alicia’s not following that plan anymore, anyway.” Tim laughed. “Which is okay. We’re finally ready to start talking kids, and what she’s focused on are everyone else’s. She’s with Amy, wrangling JR. On the other hand, Serene isn’t faking interest at all. She’s with them, too, because she’s as into this as James is. I know for a fact she lobbied to go and was shot down by her husband.”
“Glad I missed that fight,” Jeff muttered.
“Oh, trust me, you are.”
“Well, we need them on Earth,” I pointed out. “Having the Head of Alpha Team and the Head of Imageering off gallivanting isn’t necessarily a good thing. We need them here, protecting our world.”
“We do. I’ll try not to be offended that no one feels that they need me on Earth.”
“You’re the Head of Airborne. It’s kind of your thing to be going, isn’t it?”
Tim grinned. “True enough. I haven’t rubbed that in to James and Serene at all, either.”
“Much.”
We all chuckled as the elevator took us down. Until the elevator stopped and the doors didn’t open.
Possibly because the ship was lurching again.
CHAPTER 9
THIS LURCHING WAS DIFFERENT. Before, it had been side to side. Now it was more of an upward, pulling feeling.
“Are there communications in these elevators?” Jeff asked, Commander Voice on Full.
Tim nodded and hit a button. “This is Commander Crawford. Can anyone report?”
Heard some static that sounded like people speaking. “Think something’s damaged?” I asked as I dug my phone out of my purse and dialed.
“No idea,” Tim replied as Christopher answered.
“Kitty, is it my imagination or is the ship moving again? I’m the only one who can see it, from what I can tell.”
“You’re not imagining nor seeing things that aren’t real. It feels like the ship is trying to go up and Jeff, Tim, and I are stuck in an elevator. Belay any comments you want to make and get people off the ship and out of range in case it collapses or something. We have Charlie but I don’t know where Jamie, Lizzie, and Wasim are.” Managed to keep panic out of my voice. After all, this might be nothing.
“On it.” He kept the line open so I didn’t hang up, either.
The pulling feeling didn’t stop and neither did the static. Tim hit the button and turned the static off. Sadly, this didn’t stop the lurching. Or open the doors.
“Any way to get out of this elevator? I’m asking because it tends to be really bad to be stuck in one when a building collapses and such.”
“We’ll be fine,” Jeff said. He handed Charlie to me and went to the elevator doors. Realized what he was doing and handed Charlie to Tim.
“I’m really glad my wife isn’t here to watch this emasculation,” Tim muttered. “And yeah, yeah, you’re enhanced and I’m not. I’m protecting the small child, so that’s got to have some kind of hero points attached to it.”
“A lot,” I said, as Jeff started to pull the doors apart and I helped him. We got the doors open about a foot, so we could see that there was a floor just above our heads.
“Think we can get through that?” Jeff asked.
“Not sure. Charlie and my purse, yes. Me and Tim, maybe. You can’t, for certain, though.”
“One of us out is better than none, and if you and Charlie are safe, I’m good with it. Tim safe would be an added bonus.”
“I’m not crawling out and leaving you in here, however.”
Jeff looked ready to argue when the elevator lurched again. Tim pulled me back and Jeff leaped back using hyperspeed, which were good things, as the doors slammed shut and we continued downward.
“We’re not plummeting. I’m going to count that as good.” And I was glad I hadn’t decided to shove Charlie through the opening, let alone the rest of us.
“Is that some failsafe?” Jeff asked Tim. “Because we were going to be able to get the doors opened all the way and get at least some of us out of here.”
“I have no idea,” Tim said. “I didn’t study the elevator’s escape routes.”
“You’ve been with Centaurion longer than me and yet you let that slide?”
Tim rolled his eyes. “I’ve been with them a month longer than you, and I was focused on how to fly it, use the weapons systems, and handle other emergencies, like a shutdown in life-support systems.”
The three of us stared at each other. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”
“Kitty!” Christopher was back on his phone. “Are you guys okay?”