Chapter Text
“Did you feel that?”
Sage sighed, a martyred sound that was totally at odds with the airy whisper she spoke with, “You’re being paranoid again, there’s nothing wrong.” As a therapist, Sage was used to soothing the most frayed of nerves, but Selene wasn’t nervous, she was fed up with being gaslit.
“Relax, this rocket is sound as a pound,” Cosmo assured her, leaping in as always, convinced that if he said something, that automatically made it true.
Selene’s disbelieving snort was less than enthusiastic. Sure, the rocket looked alright from the outside, a bit scuffed and dirty maybe but with enough shiny metal to look the part, but the inside left a lot to be desired and, as she was well aware, a pretty package could hide a multitude of sins. “This rust bucket is so old I’m surprised it even got off the ground. I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
“You’re too tense,” Sage soothed, pushing her glasses further up her nose as she peered at Selene like she was trying to work out just which underlying trauma tick boxes she could check off. “Shall we breathe together?” She reached out and grabbed Selene’s hand. “Deep breath, in…” She sucked in a breath, held it for a count of four and then exhaled noisily, reminiscent of a dragon trying to breathe fire, “And out. There, doesn’t that feel better?”
Gently, Selene retrieved her hand. “I’m breathing just fine, thank you. But none of us will be if something actually is wrong.”
“You can trust Cosmo,” Meadow, who so far had said very little, butted in, rolling her eyes at her friends dramatics. “He’s never steered us wrong before.”
Selene begged to differ, she could name several times that he had steered them wrong and she was about to do so when she felt the same ominous shudder run through the metal under her feet.
“See? That! You felt that, right?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Meadow started but cut short her arguing when the rocket jolted as if it were a car hitting a speed bump, which was ridiculous since they were in space with no such roads or even an air current to cause it. Something was wrong, really wrong, and Selene wasn’t about to sit there and do nothing.
“Nope! Sod this, this isn’t right.” Selene fumbled with the buckle of her seatbelt, a stiff contraption that looked like it had seen better days. “Open, damn you!” The buckle gave up the fight and she got unsteadily to her feet, catching herself with a hand on the back of her seat as the rocket lurched again.
“Where are you going?” Rain asked, her fingers white on the arm of her chair as she gripped it tightly. “You should stay here where it’s safe.” Always nervous, with a permanent deer-in-headlights look about her, Rain had not been doing well on the trip before they had even left the ground, but now she was clinging to her chair like it was the only thing between her and imminent death.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to talk to the pilot,” Selene answered, already heading for the cabin door. “I want to find out if he knows what’s going on. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”
“We aren’t allowed up there,” Cosmo called after her, fumbling with his seatbelt which had been shortened so much to fit snuggly over his narrow lap that there was no give in it.
Selene took advantage of his predicament, continuing without a backwards glance.
“Come back here!” Cosmo yelled, yanking at the stubborn buckle. “You can’t do that!”
“Watch me,” Selene muttered under her breath as she slipped out of the door, booking it down the centre aisle of the rocket as fast as her feet would carry her.
It wasn’t that big a rocket, just the tail end where they had entered through the airlock, the centre aisle with doors on either side leading to the cargo and passenger bays, the small bathroom facility, the cupboard that passed as a refreshment area and, at the top of the rocket, the flight cabin. Yet it felt like it took her an age to reach it, the rocket seeming to shudder with each beat of her heart.
The flight deck door was open. Was it supposed to be? Was that right? Not that she had time to worry about it as a quick glance into the cabin had her screaming over her shoulder for help.
She rushed towards the fallen pilot, his head and torso lolling over the arm of his chair, his fingers brushing the ground.
“Oh my gods, are you okay?” she babbled as she attempted to lift him upright. He was a solid man in his middle years and too heavy to shift on her own, his deadweight and odd angle making it impossible. Giving up she placed two fingers against his throat, sagging in relief when she felt the steady thumping of his pulse. He was alive.
Footsteps pounding on metal alerted her to her friends racing up the aisle in response to her call. They stopped dead in the doorway, all three thumping together like a scene from a slapstick comedy as they tried to look over each other's heads into the cabin.
“What happened?” Meadow demanded, pushing her way through the pack, shoving Cosmo and his friend Atlas, out of the way.
“How am I supposed to know?” Selene snapped, checking the man’s airway as best she could in the awkward position. “Don’t just stand there, help me!”
“Oh, right!” Meadow nudged Cosmo and Atlas, nodding towards the pilot. “Get him up.”
With an awkward heave the two men got the pilot upright and then, under Meadow’s direction, manoeuvred him out of the chair and onto the floor where Selene rolled him into the recovery position.
“He’s passed out cold,” Cosmo announced to no one in particular, obviously liking the sound of his own voice too much to not have his say. “But I can’t see any blood or anything.”
“We’ve got to get him some help, he might need medication or something,” Meadow said, gently lifting his eyelid to check his pupils. “We need to land this thing somewhere we can get him some medical attention.”
“Only one problem there.”
Meadow turned her sharp eyes on Selene, “And that is?”
“If he’s out, who’s going to fly this thing?” Selene asked, stating what should have been obvious.
“My god!” Meadow gasped, her hand muffling the sound of the whimper that followed.
Atlas shrugged, not seeming that concerned. “It should be on autopilot. Hopefully, by the time we need to land, he’ll have come to.”
That wasn’t the answer Selene wanted to hear. That was the plan? Just wait around in the hopes that he would wake up and be well enough to land?
She shook her head. That was a gamble she wasn’t prepared to take. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the man her friend had dragged along with them, still unable to figure him out. She’d only met him twice before this trip but each time he’d made her uncomfortable. Something about him had sent warning tingles up her spine, her creeped-out meter going off the charts, but how could he be so blase about this?
“Did you notice anything amiss when you went to the bathroom?” Selene asked him, he was the only one that had left the passenger area the entire flight.
“No, nothing,” Atlas said, shaking his head, the action making his already dishevelled hair stick up at all angles. “But then, I did not come in here, I went straight to the bathroom and then rejoined you all.”
Something about his answer, or at least the way it was phrased, with such emphasis on his actions, had a little alarm bell ringing in her head. Something didn’t add up. “Why would you?” she mused out loud.
“Why would he what?” Meadow asked, confused by her question.
“Why would he come in here? None of us implied that you did, so why say it?” Selene elaborated, studying his face as she waited for his answer.
“Maybe because he knew you’d do this?” Cosmo accused, jumping in to defend his friend.
Selene shook her head in disgust. Exactly as she had suspected, Atlas wouldn’t answer for himself, he never did, Cosmo would always speak for him.
“You’re always picking on him and I’m getting tired of it,” Cosmo continued, but Selene ignored him in favour of leaning over to check that the pilot’s airway was still clear and his pulse steady. She wasn’t in the mood for a fight, she was too tired, too stressed and too worried to care about soothing their feelings as she usually would.
“What could knock him out cold?” It really was strange, they had all met the pilot before the flight and he’d appeared to be perfectly healthy as he’d run through their flight plan and told them where to sit.
“I don’t know, I guess we’ll have to wait until he comes round,” Cosmo said, his tone far too casual for Selene’s liking. She knew they all had a tendency towards laid-back hippy, but this wasn’t something as benign as missing the train or losing their concert ticket and trying to blag their way in, this was them stuck on a rocket in space.
“I could get Sage to keep an eye on him,” Meadow suggested, trying to defuse the tension choking the small cabin. “She used to be a nurse before she set up her therapy practice, she’ll know what to do.”
Selene knew her friend too well and refused to allow her attention to be derailed. “And if he doesn’t come round?”
Uncomfortable silence was all the response she received. The rocket, as if listening to her every word, gave an ominous shudder, its engines spluttering for emphasis.
“What if he doesn’t come round?” she asked again, pushing her point home. “What will we do then?”
“What’s happening? Is he dead?” a small, nervous voice asked from the direction of the doorway where Sage and Rain now stood, Rain wringing her hands, her wide eyes locked on the pilot. “Is he dead?” she asked again.
“No! No, it’s okay,” Selene rushed to reassure her. “He’s just passed out, that’s all.”
“Then who’s flying us?” Rain whimpered, her eyes swimming with unshed tears as she fished around in the pocket of her cardigan for her handkerchief. “Are we going to crash?”
“Atlas says the auto-pilot will get us there,” Cosmo explained gently. He’d always had a soft spot for the diminutive Rain with her baby doll features, cuddly demeanour and softly nervous way of speaking. It made them all feel protective over her, especially in times like this.
“There’s an auto-pilot?” Rain sniffled, sounding more hopeful now.
Cosmo nodded and pointed towards the console. “Of course, all ships have to have them. I’d assume it's like a car, so there should be a blue blinking light over there somewhere.”
As a group, they all obediently looked in the direction of the controls. They didn’t see anything, no blue light, blinking or otherwise, just yellows and reds. And to Selene, yellow and red anything was never a good thing.
“Erm…do you see the light?” Selene asked, giving voice to everyone's thoughts but apparently being the only one brave enough to say it out loud.
Cosmo started, his head snapping around to look closer. “Why isn’t it on? It was on when we came in, I’m sure of it.”
“It’s not on?”
“No.”
“Then do it! Put it back on!” Selene demanded, aware that her voice held a note of panic but unable to hide it.
“I…I’m not sure how to,” Cosmo admitted before turning to Atlas hopefully. “I don’t suppose you…” he trailed off as Atlas shook his head.
“We’re going to die!” Rain wailed, bursting into fresh sobs.
“No one’s going to die!” Selene yelled over the sound of her friend’s hysterical crying.
“How do you know?” Sage whispered, looking almost as scared as Rain, her hand holding the pilot’s tightening involuntarily.
Selene paused, not wanting to lie to her friends. They were all staring at her as if they were expecting her to magic up a new pilot out of thin air. Her mind whirled like a spinning top, scrambling to think of something, anything that could help them. Eventually, she stuttered out the first thing she could think of, “I guess we…we could call someone?”
A disgusted scoffing noise had her rounding on Atlas, her hands landing on her hips as she levelled a glare at him that by rights should have killed him on the spot. How dare he come into their group, organise and then drag them onto this dangerous journey and then have the audacity to publicly dismiss her suggestions and concerns? Well, she wasn’t going to back down to someone like him.
“I don’t see you coming up with a better solution,” she challenged, her eyes locked on to his, her chin stubbornly high. She moved closer, not caring that he was so intimidatingly tall that he could look down on her 5ft 9 self. He had the coldest eyes she’d ever seen, deep dark portals of blackness without a hint of light in them, no softness, no care. She shivered as he took a step closer, his face hardening as his eyes drilled into her own, but held her ground, refusing to step away first.
“Selene!” Meadow yelped, grabbing her arm and dragging her away. “What are you doing?”
“Who invited him?” Selene hissed out in a harsh whisper. “Where did he even come from?”
Meadow shrugged. “Cosmo brought him, he said they go way back. Plus he was the one that found our transport.”
“A fat lot of good it’s done us, this crate is practically falling out of space,” Selene retorted, fed up to the back teeth of everyone defending someone she thought was extremely unpleasant and in no way deserving of their misplaced loyalty.
“Did…did you say it’s falling?” Sage asked, overhearing their conversation.
“We’re all gonna die!” Rain shrieked, her voice rising to a near-hysterical pitch. “Call someone!”
Losing her patience, Selene slapped her hands down on her thighs, the sharp sound startling Rain into silence. “Who?” Selene demanded. “Who do you suggest I call? Because I’m pretty sure they don’t do roadside recovery where there are no roads!”
“International Rescue.”
“What did you say?”
“Call International Rescue,” Atlas repeated.
“We can’t do that,” Cosmo argued.
“Why not?” Selene asked, thoroughly confused. She’d heard of the famous rescue organisation, who hadn’t? Famed for being the only chance of survival for those who found themselves in a hopeless situation, and pulling off the most daring of rescues in the direst of circumstances, they seemed like the obvious answer.
“Are you forgetting the little fact that we’re not exactly engaged in legal activity here?” Cosmo drawled in a tone that implied he thought she was being deliberately stupid just to annoy him.
“Who cares?” she argued. “What do you expect us to do, sit about and wait to crash and die?”
Sage scowled daggers at Selene before moving over to Rain, pulling her into a comforting hug and leading her out of the cockpit, her voice echoing down the corridor as she repeated over and over that no one was going to die.
Selene didn’t even wait to watch them go before she reached for the radio. Cosmo moved as if to stop her but her glare froze him in his tracks. Selene in a stubborn mood was scary at best and downright terrifying at worst, and even he wasn’t stupid enough to keep arguing with her. Besides, she did have a point, even though they might get in trouble, he still didn’t relish the thought of dying that day.
Still fuming, Selene snatched up the transmitter but after a few seconds she was forced to admit defeat, she didn’t have a clue what to do next. “How do I do it?”
“Just put out the call,” Atlas instructed, his voice maddeningly calm, “use any frequency, they’ll pick it up.”
“Alright,” she agreed dubiously as she held down the transmit button. “Erm…this call is going out to International Rescue. I guess we need help. You know, if you’re up to that sort of thing. Is anyone listening? International Rescue, are you there?”