She pauses after that almost, which is what Abel had intended. “You can’t have piloted a ship through a minefield before. But you’ve gone through debris fields, right? Asteroid belts?”
The levels of programming within Abel go beyond any human experience. He doesn’t say so. Instead he replies with only the simplest facts. “Only in simulations. I’ve actually never had full operational control of a ship before.”
Noemi blanches. How satisfying.
As they dive toward the shimmering surface of the Gate, the ring seeming to widen around them as they approach the event horizon, Abel smiles. “Let’s see how I do, shall we?”
11
HE’S GOING TO KILL US BOTH.
Shocked back into alertness, Noemi clutches the armrests as if she can keep herself from falling into the Gate. And it feels like falling, now—the Gate shimmers brighter as they near the event horizon, growing more and more silvery until it looks like a pool they’re diving into. The silver surface of the Gate reflects the ship perfectly. For one instant, Noemi sees the mirror image of the Daedalus reflected there, like a raindrop. If she’d been at a window, she would’ve seen her own face coming closer until the two images melded into one—
Gravity shoves her against her chair, making her gasp. The increase feels as if it would press her flat, even as Abel smoothly says, “Entering Gate… now.”
With that, they surge out of normal space-time, into the wormhole.
Noemi has never heard a satisfactory description of how wormhole travel feels. Now she knows why. Words couldn’t capture this—the way everything seems to become translucent, including her own body—or how she remains motionless while feeling as if she’s turned into water swirling down a drain. Even light bends strangely, carving unnatural angles where none really existed, because it’s moving at different speeds and turning her perceptions into illusions. She and Abel seem to be fractals in a kaleidoscope, shifting every second. Nothing is real. Not even time. Not even Noemi herself.
I hate this, she thinks. In the same moment she also thinks, I love this. Both feelings seem true.
Gravity snaps back to normal, sending her rocking forward until her head nearly strikes the ops panel. Light is light again.
We’re through! Noemi feels a rush of relief and wonder—she’s traveled across the galaxy in an instant, to a whole new world—
—but as she lifts her head she sees the minefield.
The glinting green lights of the mines outnumber the stars. Her gut tightens as the explosives wobble in their courses, magnetic sensors drawing them toward the new intruder. Horrified, Noemi watches dozens of mines rush toward the Daedalus. Just one would have enough power to blow them apart into atoms.
“Abel!” she cries.
But he’s already reacting, both hands flying over his control panel. The ship darts through the maze of mines around them, swooping and swerving so quickly Noemi imagines she can feel every turn, every plunge. Nausea wells in her gut, and she grips both armrests so hard her fingers ache.
Abel shows no recognition of the danger. Mechs don’t care if they die. Probably he wouldn’t mind killing her in the process.
A faint shimmer keeps shifting around them, confusing Noemi until she realizes they’re the shields. While steering, Abel is simultaneously shifting shield strength from zone to zone, protecting the ship where it needs it most. No human could ever work at that speed. Not even close.
By now at least a hundred mines rush toward them like a swarm of green fireflies. There’s no way they’re surviving the next thirty seconds.
Maybe I’ll get to go to heaven after all, she thinks in a daze. If I die trying to save my whole world? That’s got to help.
The ship accelerates, roaring toward the mines. Noemi yells, “What are you doing?”
Abel never looks up from the control panel. “Did you know that even mechs concentrate better in silence?”
She bites her tongue, literally. Pain offers some distraction from the mortal terror.
But within seconds, Noemi realizes what Abel’s up to. Moving faster forces the mines to approach them in waves, which cuts down on the number of evasive actions needed for the Daedalus to stay in one piece.
One mine strikes the shields. Green electrical light sparks fitfully along the stern, and the entire ship shakes so hard Noemi nearly topples from her chair. How many hits like that can they take? One of the controls on her ops console glows red, warning her of danger she can’t even bear to check. It makes no difference. Abel will steer them through this, or they’ll die. The end.
“On my mark—” Abel says, finally looking up at the viewscreen—just as the Daedalus accelerates even more to outrun the few mines trailing behind. Now space is once again only blackness and stars. With a smile, Abel concludes, “—minefield cleared.”
Noemi manages to look at her console. The red light says the shields were below 10 percent. “One more strike and we’d have been killed.”
“Irrelevant.” After a pause Abel adds, “Congratulations are unnecessary.”
She actually might have congratulated him if she weren’t so astonished. Slowly her mind begins to accept that they’ve made it through the same obstacle that has stood between Genesis and the rest of the galaxy for the past three decades.
And that means she’s finally, truly, journeyed to an entirely new world.
Noemi rises to her feet and walks toward the viewscreen as the star field clears, free of mines at last. At the center of the screen blazes a star… no, not just a star. A sun, bluer and larger than her own. And there, the tiny amethyst jewel hanging in the sky—“That’s Kismet, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I suggest taking an indirect route there to better disguise our origin. It’s unlikely they’d expect anyone to come through from Genesis, but we should be safe.”
She nods, unable to tear her eyes away from Kismet.
The name means “fate.” Finding this world had been an accident—the result of a probe getting caught in a naturally occurring wormhole, popping into a system that might otherwise have gone undiscovered for centuries. Kismet is warm, blessed with a calm climate, and covered with water. It could even have been the world Earth hung its hopes on instead of Genesis, but for the near-total absence of dry land.
So Noemi had dutifully learned in school. But soon she’ll actually stand on this planet. Look up into a sky not her own. She’s dreamed of this, feeling guilty the whole time. Genesis is supposed to be enough. Yet her heart has always longed for this journey, and now it’s been given to her.
“Although it will take us the better part of ten hours to cross the Kismet system to the planet, there are preparations we should make for landing,” Abel says.