Venturi, Complete Serial Parts 1-4: Alien SciFi Romance (Crashlander) Read online

  Venturi

  Crashlander

  Romance

  By

  Annie Nicholas

  Table of Content

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Part Four

  Other Books by Annie

  P artOne

  Chapter One

  Up until a minute ago, faster than light spaceships didn’t exist. Humans lived in our little solar system mining the asteroids, skimming gases off our giants, even colonizing the moon and Mars. Leaving Sol system was a pipe dream. One that Dr. Pherb had just made real.

  Through luck and skill, I’d been recruited from the Space Core to test-fly this baby. Well, not by myself. The ship needed a crew. I couldn’t manage everything.

  We rocketed through a vortex of darkness streaked with the passing light of stars. Trust me, it wasn’t as easy as it seemed. My eyes were glued to the mass indicator, my hands ready to shift our trajectory if it alarmed. Even at this speed, we couldn’t fly through planets or stars, but they were spaced so far apart I’d only had to nudge our trajectory twice so far.

  “System checks.” Captain Acorne ran a tight schedule. The bun on her head was so pulled back she’d never need a face lift.

  The crew sounded off, starting with the Chief Engineer, monitoring the new Pherb engine.

  “Wendy?” the captain prompted.

  “Mass indicator clear to our destination. Ready to drop from hyperwindow.” My scanners showed a binary star system way ahead, clear of any planets.

  This trip would be short. Jump a few systems, turn around, and listen to the cheers of humankind upon our return. We weren’t equipped to explore or study anything, so we wanted a nice, safe empty system for the first run. We were a one-trip mission to prove this could be done.

  The next ships… Now, I was really excited about those babies. I was promised a commission on the first fleet to explore the universe if this test flight worked. I couldn’t wait.

  “Dr. Pherb, would you like to do the honors?” Captain Acrone gestured to my flight dashboard.

  Yes, the great doctor had insisted on joining us along with a representative of his investors. The military manned the ship, but the public sector had to help pay the bill. This spacecraft cost more than Earth’s government budget could afford.

  I rose from my seat as the elderly doctor crossed the small bridge. This ship was ninety percent engine, no living space, so everyone onboard had a seat on the bridge.

  He sat at my console.

  “Press this button—”

  “I think I know how to fly my own ship, Major.” He shot me a glare over his shoulder.

  I raised my hands. “All yours then.” I didn’t know about anyone else but I was of the opinion that doing the math was very different than living the math in the real world.

  The captain smirked and shrugged her shoulders at my worried look as if to say, “How much damage could he do?”

  Doctor Pherb hit the right sequence of buttons and I started to breathe again. I watched the vid screen clear of the streaked stars as we slowed and dropped out of the vortex like butter on a hot knife. We coasted into an alien planet system.

  Ear splitting alarms cried a warning.

  I jumped at the sudden loud noise. “Proximity alert!” I shouted and shoved the doc out of my chair so I could avoid whatever we were about to hit.

  He landed on his ass and anything the doc said was covered by the blaring sirens.

  A huge green planet lay straight ahead and at our speed, it would fill our view screen real fast, which was a no no.

  Don’t scream. Don’t scream. I could keep my shit together. Planets were gravity wells. If something passed by them close enough, they got sucked in, and we were headed straight at this one. According to our readings, the planet shouldn’t have been here.

  “What the fuck? The mass indicator still says we’re in the clear.” Captain Acorne had access to my readings from the display at her chair and I could hear her clicking through the screens.

  The entire ship shifted to the side. Red emergency lights flickered on. Red was bad. We were losing power.

  My head pounded in time with increasing proximity alarms. “Oh no…” I breathed out the last word, hands gripping my console for balance.

  “Wendy, evasive maneuvers.” The captain snapped out other orders to other crewmembers. Things like activate the emergency beacon and dump the reactor.

  I focused on the big, green sphere looming in the viewer. Unlike the doctor, who scurried back to his seat, I lived the math. With the right trajectory and speed, I could have skipped us over the atmosphere like a stone on water, but we had neither. We were like a bullet shot from a gun at a target.

  Emergency power was on and that meant braking would be limited to thrusters only. Fuck. At this speed, there would be no sudden turns or we’d shatter to dust as we hit atmos.

  “Brace for impact!” My voice cracked with my shout.

  Could someone shut off those stupid alarms? We get the point. We’re going to die horrible, painful deaths.

  I twisted in my seat to make sure my copilot had pulled on her shoulder straps before I pulled on mine.

  “Major, can you land?” Captain Acorne asked me.

  “This ship isn’t designed for flying.” Dr. Pherb interjected.

  Like I didn’t know that. Seriously? “The engines aren’t strong enough to fight the planet’s gravity. We’re already caught in its well.”

  I yanked the release for manual steering. It folded out from under the console. A two-prong wheel with thruster controls. No nav comp was programmed to crash land.

  I let out a shaky breath. Neither was I.

  The ship shook as the atmos thickened. I pulled on the steering handles to bring the nose higher and let the underbelly take most of the heat. Chances were we’d all be cooked before we hit the ground.

  Turbulence increased as the wind caressed the sleek hull. Green, green everywhere. What was all the green? Grass? Slime? Acid? The Earth had many colors, from blue oceans to green land to brown deserts.

  Not this world.

  Where should I aim? A landing strip would have been real nice about now.

  The ship tilted, topsy-turvy, and the bridge filled with screams. Except mine. I was too busy fighting this slim bitch back into control. My back ached with the strain and black spots flashed in my vision as the inertial dampers strained to keep us from turning into pudding.

  Something wet splashed my arm. From the corner of my eye, I watched my copilot, Angie, heave and vomit. The droplets hung midair for a moment as we fell out of the sky.

  I focused on the flight gauges again. I’d never flown in atmosphere. Wind and climate were things I had read about, not experienced. I was a space station brat. Never been on a planet. Now I was going to die on one. Smooshed like a droplet of vomit on my arm.

  The steering controls fought my grip. Sweat made my palms slippery and my head spun. I couldn’t tell up from down. Was I aiming the ship’s nose for the ground or toward the stars? The only thing I had to really guide me was the vid screen that flipped from green to violet.

  But the sky should be blue. Everyone grew up knowing this.

  I ignored the gauges and glared at the screen, praying to any god who would listen we didn’t lose all our power. Using the thrusters and the manual steering, I slowed the spin of colors until I had the nose pointed in the right direction toward a mass of huge—holy mother of god—trees. I flipped the thrusters’ direction to slow our descent.

 
“Keep it steady, Wen—Major.” The captain sounded like we were on an afternoon joy ride. Calm, collected. Unlike Angie, who hung in her harness unconscious next to me.

  “Trying, ma’am.”

  We pitched again as the branches scraped our under belly and tumbled the ship through the air. The steering jerked from my aching hands and we flipped ass over kettle. I whiplashed against my harness hard enough to snap a strap and knock my head on the controls.

  Everything went black.

  “Wendy?” Angie whispered in my ear. “Wendy, wake up.” Panic made her words fall one upon the other fast. “Please wake up. Don’t leave me alone.”

  Slowly, I opened my eyes and blinked my vision clear. I groaned at the fierce stab of pain shooting through my head and rubbed the bump on my temple.

  Pushing from the control board, I gasped at the intense agony that fired through my right shoulder to the tips of my fingers. “Oh fuck. Fuck. My shoulder.” I grabbed my floppy arm where the harness had snapped, trying to support the dead weight. It throbbed with an uncomfortable sharpness. I met Angie’s stare. “Ouch.”

  She grinned back, her left eye already turning black and swelling shut. “You’re alive.” Her gaze darted to where I hugged my arm and she flinched. “That looks broken.”

  I stared in shock at my injury, fighting back a wave of nausea. With her help, I unfastened the harness but remained in my chair.

  I couldn’t move. The pain was too much. It flashed like a proximity alarm in my head. Pain! Pain!

  At least we weren’t jam spread across the planet surface. What a miracle. “What happened?”

  “We crashed.” She leaned against the now dead control board.

  “No way.” I batted my eyelashes at her then cringed. Even that hurt.

  “Medic, Wendy’s hurt as well.”

  I gave her a slow blink. “Who else is hurt?”

  “Most of us got knocked out on impact. Unfortunately, Commander Darren seems the least injured with just a cut on his forehead.” Angie and the second in command were like oil and water. So, of course, they had hooked up and become fair weather lovers. Their universe was full of storms, though. “The captain hasn’t woken up yet. Looks like she smashed her console with her head, but she’s alive.” Angie wiped away a tear. “Two didn’t make it.”

  “Who?” I tried to scan the dark room lit with the red emergency lights, but my shoulder wouldn’t let me.

  “Mr. Bezos and Dr. Pherb.”

  Shit, the doc might have been able to figure out how to fix the ship to zip off of here. “Mr. Bezos?” I asked.

  “One of the investor guys. You know—the ass who forced us to sign nondisclosure papers before boarding the ship.” Angie straightened to allow Tammy, our field medic, room to crouch next to my chair.

  She unzipped the front of my flight jumper, exposing my chest and abdomen.

  “Hey.” I tried to pull it over my sports bra one-handed.

  “Please, this isn’t the time for modesty. Unless you want me to cut off the suit.”

  “No, we’re good.” I hadn’t packed a spare. I hadn’t packed period. None of us had. This journey was supposed to take a better part of a day. “A warning would have been nice.”

  I swallowed a knot of fear as Tammy probed the sore spots. She slid her hands inside my suit and pressed along the vertebrae of my neck. “This hurt?”

  “Yes, but not as bad as my shoulder.”

  “Can you move your legs?”

  I kicked her. “Yes.”

  She gave me a lopsided grin and pressed on the joint of my shoulder. “This hurt?”

  “Motherfucker.” My back arched against the chair.

  “I’ll take that for a yes.”

  “Did I break it?” Crash-landed and injured on an alien planet. Nowhere near a hospital. Yeah, this would turn out fine. I mean, people had survived the dark ages with less, right?

  “It’s dislocated.” She patted my hand. “I think I can pop it back in place. I just need someone strong to help hold you down.”

  “Wait, what? You only think you can help?” I tried to catch my breath. “Haven’t you done this before?” My pulse drummed in my ears.

  She shook her head. “Honey, I’m just a field medic with a first aid kit. This ship wasn’t equipped with much. No one listened to my suggestions.” She continued ranting as she moved behind my chair, but I couldn’t focus on her words.

  First aid kit? Other side of the galaxy. Field medic. My heart raced faster and faster.

  Jerry, the chief engineer who was built like an Earth linebacker, slipped something around my chest.

  “What’s going on?” I shook my head clear. I must have hit it harder than I thought. “What are you doing here? Where’s Tammy?”

  “Easy.” He pressed my head back against the chair with one finger. “I’m giving her a hand.” Jerry limped as he moved. His bottom lip looked like he’d bitten right through it.

  Tammy knelt on my other side, grabbing my hurt arm.

  A jolt of liquid fire electrified my shoulder. “Wait.”

  There was no sign of Angie anywhere. The traitor.

  “On the count of three,” Tammy said.

  “I’m not ready.” I twisted but the pain stopped me cold. We were going to do this with me awake? “Can’t you knock me in the head with a wrench or something first?” I pleaded with Jerry.

  He frowned, taking hold of the silver emergency blanket they’d hooked around my torso like a halter. “Scream if you have to, girl.”

  “One—” Tammy counted, then jerked and pulled my arm toward her while Jerry leaned back with his weight, pulling me in the opposite direction like they were playing tug of war and I was the rope.

  With an excruciating pop, my shoulder went back in place. The sharp agony lessened to a dull roar and my numb fingers flushed back to life. Sweat soaked my flight suit and my hair.

  “What happened to three?” I sounded breathless.

  Tammy pushed the hair out of my face and wiped my forehead dry with a bandage. “We didn’t think you’d wait for three before throwing punches.”

  “You know me too well.” I also sounded hoarse. Had I been screaming that loud?

  Angie peeked around the chair, her face pale and her eyes pinched with worry. Yeah, I’d been screaming that loud.

  “You okay, sis?”

  “You’re sisters?” Tammy looked back and forth between us. “I should have seen it. That’s against regulations. Family members are not allowed to serve in the same—”

  “Stuff it, Tammy.” I moved in my chair experimentally, expecting the paralyzing pain to return. “Don’t quote regulations now. At this point, I don’t think they matter.”

  I gestured to the dead flight console. We were a long way from home. Where I should have left Angie posted on Saturn station, safe and sound with our mother. At the moment, we had more pressing things to worry about than me standing for court martial in an office light years away. I’d happily plead guilty if they would come here and get us.

  “Jerry, I need a hand down here.” The commander’s shout came from a tunnel at the back of the bridge, which led to the engine.

  The chief engineer rose. “Take it easy, Wendy. I have to go make sure that moron doesn’t blow us all to kingdom come.” He vanished around my chair.

  I leaned forward and winced. It still hurt, but not the kind of pain that left me breathless like before. This was more like a dull ache. My body remembering that I was both mortal and very breakable.

  Tammy pulled something out of her bag. “Here’s a sling. I only have one so don’t lose it.” She held my arm gently as she adjusted the straps. “It should feel better soon.” Her shoulders drooped and I finally noticed her swollen nose was crooked as if broken.

  I got to my feet with Angie’s help, wobbling, and gazed around in shock.

  The medic was using a skin generator on the communication officer’s laceration. Blood smeared her clothes.

  Jerry limped out o
f the tunnel with the Commander close behind.

  The investor and her assistant clung together in a corner—Cancy, the assistant, hugged her boss, trying to calm her, the latter choking back braying sobs.

  The captain lay sprawled on her back mid-bridge. She seemed intact except for a few scrapes. Two bodies were piled along the far wall.

  “Guess you won’t be flying the ship off this rock,” Leah, the comm officer, stared at my arm. “You should see my ankle. It’s all pretty shades of reds and purple.” She pulled up the hem of her flight suit pant leg. Her ankle looked…ugly.

  Jerry reappeared from the tunnel that led to the bowels of the ship with a hand full of long wires. They dragged on the floor as he made his way to the captain’s console. He pried off a panel and stretched across the floor so he could work on the inside of the delicate computer. He cross-wired the connections to the wires he carried.

  Commander Darren climbed out of the tunnel. His jumpsuit was torn at the shoulder and old blood was dried on the side of his face.

  “Try it,” said Jerry.

  Darren flipped a switch and the view screen flickered. The image cleared and the bridge noise faded.

  I stared at the green foliage and wanted to weep.

  So yeah, yesterday, I had a future as the first pilot to fly a faster than light ship.

  Today, I was a castaway.

  Chapter Two

  Over the next day, I figured out a few things about being marooned on an alien planet. Every ship carried emergency rations for one week for each crew-member and one week only. With little convincing, I had everyone agree to one meal a day to stretch our food supply to three weeks. Being hungry was better than being dead.

  Bathrooms didn’t work on emergency power. We had to manual pump the thing to flush and we honestly couldn’t afford to waste water, so I waited until the stink was unbearable before doing the dirty deed.

  Speaking of stink… People started to smell fast. We were only on day one of no showers and I had already considered tossing Jerry out of the airlock so the rest of us could breathe.