“Klowix? What’s happening?”

“Quiet!”

Bethany craned her neck, trying to see. Klowix’s fingers were frantic on the controls. The ship lurched violently and she screamed, kept in place only by the straps on her seat.

“Klowix? What’s going on?”

“Not now. They’re shooting at us, Bethany, I need to concentrate.”

Bethany gulped and made an effort to keep quiet. The last thing she wanted was to distract Klowix when he was literally dodging bullets.

The ship lurched again and Bethany pressed her hands over her mouth, shaking in terror.

“Nearly there.” Klowix seemed to be muttering to himself. “Ha!”

He leaned his whole body forward, pressing on a large lever. Nothing happened. Klowix paused, staring in confusion. “No, surely not…”

A bang so loud that it hurt Bethany’s ears jerked the ship, causing the straps to cut harshly into her flesh. Klowix was thrown to the ground.

“Right, forget that, defensive maneuvers.”

She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to himself, so she thought she’d better be quiet just in case. She couldn’t help letting out a gasp as the ship proceeded to twist and turn, sometimes even flipping upside down, in what was clearly a hot chase through space.

Finally, they settled somewhere. Everything seemed still. Bethany held her breath, waiting for the next bang. Nothing came.

Klowix didn’t look at her. “Wait here.”

Bethany’s fingers fumbled with her straps and she stumbled into Klowix’s arms, shaking. He held her to his chest for a moment before pulling away.

“The ship is damaged. I need to go outside and see to it before it gets any worse.”

“Go outside?”

“I’ve landed in a crater on one of the smaller moons surrounding Telion. It’s a classic defensive tactic, so it won’t be long before they find us, but Telion has a lot of moons to search, so we should have at least some time. Watch the monitors while I’m gone. If anything starts beeping or blinking red, call for me. This is the coms button; you can reach the coms in my suit with it.”

Bethany nodded, wishing Culip was there. The screens looked completely incomprehensible to her. A quick scan at least showed that there was nothing blinking red.

Klowix pressed some buttons on a panel, which opened to reveal a space suit. Bethany had never seen one before; she’d never been in a situation serious enough that required a person to go into open space.

“Don’t we have a bot we can send?” She didn’t like the thought of Klowix out there with just the suit to protect him.

“I had to disable the bot. They all have automatic tracking mechanisms. I could try to get the tracking device out, but that would take hours, and we don’t have any time to waste.”

He didn’t give Bethany time to bring up any other objections. She followed him to the air lock and watched as he stepped inside. Watching the opposite end of the airlock open was terrifying. Klowix carefully attached his line to the outside of the ship, then stepped out.

He was soon out of Bethany’s sight, and she was left with nothing to do but worry about the various hazards of craters and moons.

She went back to the control panel to watch as Klowix had told her to. He seemed to be gone for hours, but from the clock on the panel, Bethany knew that it had been less than forty-five minutes. The minutes dragged by until she finally heard the airlock opening again.

Klowix stepped through, and Bethany was relieved to see that he was ok. She rushed to help him take off the bulky suit.

“Is everything ok? Did you fix the damage?”

“For now. We’ll have to get it looked at properly sooner rather than later, but what I’ve done is enough to get us a few solar systems away, at least.”

“Great, then let’s go.”

Klowix grimaced. “It’s not that easy. That’s the first thing I tried when they attacked us – going into hyperspace. It seems the king has activated the hyperspace block. It’s something that hasn’t been done since times of war. No ships can enter or leave hyperspace from this area until he removes the block.”

Bethany struggled to contain her panic. “Then what are we going to do? What will he do to us when he finds us?”

Klowix did his best to sound calm. “It won’t come to that.”

Bethany took strength from his confidence as the two of them walked back to the control room.

“We’ll have to fly to the edge of the solar system at sub-light speeds, then jump to hyperspace from there.”

“That would take weeks, though. With the army looking for us!”

“I know.” Klowix grimaced. “It’s going to be tough. It’s the only option we’ve got, though. I knew the king wouldn’t be happy, but I underestimated just how much such a betrayal would sting him. Clearly, he’s not going to stop until he has us.”

Klowix took Bethany’s trembling hand in his. “Do not worry. I didn’t become Commander of Telion’s army by being bad at what I do. I will get us out of this.”

“Do you promise?”

He didn’t hesitate. “I promise. Now, you should probably get some rest.” He checked some of the blinking numbers on the panel. “It’s four hours until this moon will be at the optimal position for us to leave – facing away from Telion and its major space stations. There is a bedroom that way.”

Bethany held out her hand; she could use the comfort of snuggling into Klowix and having him hold her. He shook his head.

“I have work to do. If we’re going to make it out, I’ll need to increase the power and sophistication of our shields. The army is too big to fight; we’re going to have to make sure they can’t spot us.”

“Do you know how to do that?”

“No, but I know how to set up a secure line that can’t be traced.”

Bethany took a guess. “Culip?”

Klowix nodded. “Even if she can’t do it, she’ll be able to learn the process and walk me through it in a matter of hours.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

“You must. It’s going to be a harrowing few weeks. I’ll be relying on you to monitor everything for a possible approach of enemy ships while I rest. We can’t let our guard down for a moment.”

Bethany tentatively wrapped her arm around his waist, looking up at him.

Klowix smiled as he realized what she wanted, and put a hand on the back of her neck. Bethany moaned softly as the essence went out of her. She could feel Klowix’s heart rate increase as he took her into him.

Feeling a little more relaxed, Bethany tottered to the bedroom. It was nothing like the fancy rooms she had with Klowix back on Telion, but there was a bed and a small bathroom. It was a step down from what she’d had, but it was better than anything she’d grown up with.

The bed was cold and alien. She turned on the heating, not because she was cold, but because she desperately needed comfort.

A hand on her shoulder made her jerk awake suddenly. Bethany’s eyes focused on Klowix.

His voice was soft. “It’s been four hours. We need to leave. You can’t stay here while we travel. You can come back to the passenger chair, or I can put you in one of the secure sleeping chambers, if you’re still tired.”

“Secure sleeping chambers?”

Klowix opened yet another panel in the wall. It looked like a coffin, just big enough to hold a human body, with foam on all sides.

“The foam molds to your body to keep you still and safe, rather like the straps on the chair do. There are oxygen vents here and here.”

“I’ll take the chair, thanks.” Bethany eyed the coffin-like device mistrustfully.

“You’ll get used to it eventually.” Klowix closed the panel. “There will be times when we can’t stop moving for days at a time, and we’ll both have to sleep. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

“I’ll take my chances trying to sleep in the chair.”

Klowix shrugged. “Well, that won’t be a problem today. We’ll be stopping and starting until we’re a better distance from the planet. If it helps, I can sedate you the first time.”

“Is that supposed to be making me feel better?”

“Well, it always helps with new recruits.”

Bethany rolled her eyes and led the way to the control room.

Klowix stepped up to the controls. “This is the critical stage. The farther we get from Telion, the wider the area they’ll have to search to find us. The positions are right. We have the best chance of slipping away now.”

“Did you talk to Culip?”

“She’s helped me do as much as I can to increase the shields in the limited time before our window. While we’re travelling, she’s going to find out as much as she can about engineering the shields to hide us better. Once we’ve arrived somewhere safe, I’ll contact her again.”

Klowix went quiet, focusing on the ship. Bethany could hear the ship’s engines revving up to go. She hoped Klowix was right about being able to slip away. She didn’t know much about spaceships, but even she realized that being outnumbered by multiple warships was not a position they wanted to find themselves in.

At first, her nerves were on edge, expecting every second to hear alarms blaring and shots firing. Nothing happened.

“Is everything ok?”

Klowix only murmured a response, his eyes fixed on the screens. “So far.”

Bethany fidgeted. She wanted to do something helpful, but she had no knowledge of space travel. She wished Culip were there to teach her.

The minutes seemed to drag by; soon they turned into hours. Bethany didn’t want to break Klowix’s concentration, but the nervousness was fading into boredom.

“We’ve been travelling for ages; we must be nearly there.”

Klowix burst out laughing. “You really don’t know much about interplanetary travel, do you? Space is enormous. With the warp drive, we could get where we wanted to relatively quickly, but at sub-light speeds, the distance we’ve covered is like an acorn to an oak tree.”

Bethany felt her face going red and didn’t say anything.

“Don’t worry, all new recruits struggle with the concept.”

“I’m not a new recruit, though.”

He sounded serious now. “You’re going to have to be. This is a difficult path we’ve chosen. We’re both going to have to work hard and learn fast.”

Bethany knew well the dangers, but despite that, she couldn’t bring herself to regret her choice. Somehow, she’d rather be here than back home in the backlands, living the same dull cycle over and over again.

After what seemed like forever, Klowix motioned her to the controls.

“I need you to watch everything. I’m going to get us something to eat. If there are any red blinking lights, call me at once. See here, the trajectory line? That should always be green. If we stray off it, it will go yellow, then red. You can correct it with this control stick here.”

Bethany eyed the controls as though they might bite her. “Is that likely to happen?”

“Only if we encounter interference of some kind. It’s unusual, but there are many things in space. Fortunately, they are spread so far apart that they mostly aren’t a concern to us. Here, you can monitor life support. The optimal numbers are on the right, and the operating numbers are on the left. If the numbers deviate, you can run a diagnostic like this.”

Bethany nodded, trying to remember it all.

“That’s enough for now. I’ll teach you some more tomorrow. By the time we’ve arrived, you’ll be a pilot.”

Bethany smiled; she liked that idea.

As Klowix went in search of food, she carefully watched the numbers, colors and lines. For everything Klowix had explained to her, there were a dozen that meant nothing to her. She tried to focus only on what she was meant to be watching and ignore the rest.

After they ate, Klowix said he was going to get some rest, and she should keep monitoring the ship. Everything was quiet. Bethany was beginning to get hopeful. Maybe they’d gotten away after all.

It was the fifth day of flying when something out of the ordinary finally happened. Klowix was in the back working on the shield, but the connection to Culip was patchy from this area, so it was slow going. Bethany’s eyes roamed the control panel. She understood a lot more of it now.

She did a double take as a flash of red replaced the mass of green. She looked at the section, and her heart seemed to stop.

“Klowix!”

Not trusting that he’d heard her, she took off running. “Klowix!”

He came out of the engine room on a dead run, a spanner still in his hand.

Bethany gasped. “Red lights.”

Klowix didn’t ask any questions, but dropped the spanner and went for the control room at full speed.

Alarms began going off as his fingers flew over the controls. Bethany recognized the shield controls as he put shields on full strength.

“Strap yourself in!”

She was already ahead of him, buckling the last of the straps in the passenger seat.

“How did they find us?”

Klowix shook his head but didn’t say anything, his entire focus on evading the enemy ships. He’d told Bethany that it would be weeks before they were truly safe, but after five days of nothing, she’d begun to get hopeful. The ship lurched violently as Klowix dodged a blast.

“Klowix? What’s happening?”

“They’ve managed to override the primary system.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that they have control of the ship. They’re bringing us in.”