The Gender End (The Gender Game #7)

Unfortunately for her, we didn’t have time for that. I looked over at Kathryn, who had gone back to staring frozenly out the window. “HEY!” I shouted, stomping loudly on the floor. Kathryn whipped her head back round to look at me. “We need to get this thing out of the way of that storm. You’re the pilot. What. Do I. Do?”

Her terrified eyes blinked, and she took a deep breath, seemingly pulling herself together. “Right,” she said, her gaze going back to the bubble window and the wall of storm clouds looming ever closer, her tongue darting out to swipe at her dry lips. “Right,” she repeated, her eyes tracing the lines of damage.

“There’s a panel there,” she said, pointing to just behind where her uprooted seat used to be. The panel was clearly delineated in the floor, with some sort of chrome around the edges and a half-ring handle sitting on its side in a slotted space, so it lay evenly on the floor.

I slipped my fingers under the ring, prying it up so I could get a better grip. At the same time, Kathryn began to speak. Even though her voice was loud, her words seemed more directed at herself. “No displays. The column is heavy, indicating loss of hydraulic fluids. No response in over half the controls. How’s it coming on that panel?”

Grunting, I pulled at it with my left arm, which was considerably weaker than my right, and began to lift the dense panel up, coming around it so that I was directly behind it and pulling. “It’s been better! Belinda!”

Belinda was still standing there, her hands loosely clutching the magazine and single bullet I had handed her. “What’s the point?” she asked numbly, her brown eyes staring out the window. “We’re in The Outlands. Nothing ever comes back from The Outlands. We’re screwed.”

“Excellent defeat story, but I’m shooting for a happier ending. So get your butt over here and help me. RIGHT. NOW!” I wasn’t sure how I managed it, but for an instant, my voice sounded exactly like Ms. Dale’s—firm, uncompromising, and filled with an edge of superiority that surprised even me. It seemed to jolt Belinda from the fugue she had fallen into, and she moved toward me, a bit robotically.

I almost sagged in relief as she took some of the paneled door’s weight from me. We heaved it over and looked down into the cavity we had opened up. Four blue glowing cables as thick as my wrist ran through it, held in by steel brackets. Dozens of other wires shot off from them, and an array of buttons, levers, and switches decorated all four sides.

Belinda and I exchanged looks, and she gave me a wide-eyed head shake. “This wasn’t in the field manual,” she said shakily.

“It’s open,” I shouted at Kathryn, ignoring Belinda, dropping to my belly and pointing over at where I had left the toolkit earlier—on the holotable in the center of the command deck. Belinda stood laboriously with a defeated sigh, but went to fetch it as Kathryn turned and examined it.

“Pull the red wires, and tell me what happens to the third cable from the left,” she ordered, and I began yanking the wires from the plugs on the panels.

“The cable is flickering,” I said as I finished. “It’s rhythmic… What is that…?”

“It’s the heart of the ship,” Kathryn supplied, squatting down awkwardly. “It’s the computer, or part of it, and if it’s flickering, it means we have more control than I thought. If we can interface with it. I’m glad we got a response, but that’s not super critical right now.” She sounded relieved—well, as relieved as could be expected. “Now that you’ve pulled the red, flip those two switches—those two—the green and the yellow.”

I followed her instructions, and something clicked overhead. The pilot stood up, wobbling slightly, and nodded up at a square panel that had just dropped from the ceiling. “Hydraulic hoses are going to be in there. I need you to pull that panel down so I can check the pump.”

I stretched for it, but it was just out of reach. Looking around for something to stand on, I was rudely pushed out of the way as Belinda shoved me to one side. I balled up my fist and whipped around, expecting her to go for the gun, but she just rolled her eyes at me and reached up, easily pulling down the panel I needed. Four square metal rods extended from it as it came down. Inside were several thick plastic tubes attached to a cylindrical black metal device. The tubes were clear, save for several large dots of bright green liquid, clinging to their insides.

The pilot stared at the tubes, her eyes moving, and she cursed. “The pump is cracked. It must’ve happened when that thing yanked out the seat.”

“His name is Solomon,” I said sharply.

She gave me a hard look. “Your friend broke my arm and my hand and is responsible for this mess,” she reminded me coldly, but I didn’t feel ashamed for defending him. He wasn’t fully in control of his actions. I fought off the urge to inform her of that, knowing we didn’t have time. It wasn’t relevant—but if they tried to hurt him, I’d throw them off the ship faster than they could say what.

Kathryn continued. “Belinda, there’s a can of hydraulic fluid in the back. You, Violet, I need you to manually feed the fluid in. You’re going to have to pour some into the tube and then blow, so we can get it into what’s left of the steering column.”

I nodded, a flash of lightning out the window catching my attention. “Awesome,” I replied dryly, turning away from the storm and directing my attention back to the pump. Thunder clapped, and the entire heloship shuddered with it, setting my teeth on edge.

I yanked the feed tube, as Kathryn called it, off of the spout leading to the pump, and turned to the bay, watching Belinda as she effortlessly dangled from one of the cargo bay’s roof beams, extracting a can from the red netting strung up over the bay. She dropped down with a clang and raced toward us.

“Excellent, Belinda,” said Kathryn. “Grab a funnel from the tool kit and give it to Violet, then take what’s left of the steering column and pull hard, to the left. It’s going to fight you, so you have to keep pulling.”

Belinda nodded. “Keep pulling,” she repeated as she stooped over to grab the funnel. She helped me place the tip of the funnel into the tube and open the can of hydraulic fluid. If she felt any resentment for having to help me in my one-handed state, she managed to keep it to herself.