Lily screamed. Sprinting in the fledgling was a million times worse than sprinting in the manta. On the adult ship, a sense of queasiness overtook her when they punched into zospace. As long as she didn't stare through any of the observation shields or boils at the churning flux of particulate chaos she'd recover.
The fledgling's size and her mental connection to it heightened her sprint experience. The speed and intensity of their intense surroundings exhausted her human mind and body while the ship's systems thrived.
"What. Did. You. Do?!" Vortrand barked over her howling.
Flagettes whipped around them. Nerve connections strapped their freed limbs to the navigator's seat.
"Lily," Vortrand gusted out as the thick flagette around their middles constricted. "Stop. The. Ship!"
The captain's voice was a fly buzzing about Lily's face. She barely heard him, barely comprehended him. The sprint was everything. The fledgling's consciousness rippled.
Why stop? Never stop!
In zospace, they were free. Lily's mind stretched outward. Thoughts bled into the foggy veil draping her brain. They mingled. They merged. They were o—
Vortrand head butted Lily from behind. Neck snapped forward. Forehead cracked against her helmet, knocking her back into herself.
"Ow!"
She blinked. Frenzied feedouts scrolled over her face shield. Psychedelic color whorled around the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree HOptic display. Stomach roiled with the color's motion. She belched acid.
"Stop this ship," the captain ordered. "Now."
Shaking herself, Lily sent her mind into the ship's fog. She called for a return to coast speed. The fledgling's consciousness smothered her mind in its embrace.
Smoky tendrils of the ship's awareness laced around her. Euphoria from the sprint volted into her nervous system. Intense pleasure gritted her teeth and arched her back. She went rigid. Sparks exploded over her vision. Screeds of symbols confined to her face plate stamped onto her eyeballs, searing her retinas.
"Stop!" Lily squeezed shut watery eyes.
"I can't stop anything until you untie us," Vortrand said.
"Not you." Feedouts winked out of Lily's vision as she mentally disentangled herself from the fledgling. "I'm talking to the ship. You said I couldn't initiate a sprint with my neural bond."
"No one has since before the last Expansion Wars." He snarled. "This is precisely why technical piloting skills trump intuitive navigation and why the practice was put out of its misery septsessions ago."
"You're seriously going to lecture me now?"
"What else can I do tied to this fucking chair?"
"Argh! Fine!"
Lily plowed headlong into the ship's awareness. Electricity crackled over her skull. Data fed onto her eyeballs. She thought-shouted at the fledgling for their release. Angry bolts zapped her brain.
No.
Flagettes strained within Lily's barriersuit. They wound deeper into the starcollide and pressed at her skin. Nerve connections writhed against the thin shield blocking them from her body. The cap of alien fog hugging her skull congealed. Dense tentacles of awareness skewered her brain. She experienced the sprint fully as the fledgling did.
Color permeated Lily. Saturated hues filled her nose and mouth with heady scents and tastes. A discordant symphony flooded her ears which sent waves of glorious agony over her skin. She was losing herself in zospace and a great deal of her wanted to be lost.
With all the strength she had, Lily tore from the awesome vista, tore from the fledgling's deep embrace. Brain freed itself from the congealed awareness fog like Jello sucking out of a mold. Trickles of sweat rolled down her neck and back and from her thighs down to her ankles. Breath steamed the inside of her face shield. Pressure built at her temples. A slicing streak of pain arced from the center of her forehead to the small of her back.
"The ship." Lily whimpered and bowed her head. "It's not listening to me. It's trying to take me over."
"If you cannot control your enemies they will control you. If you don't pull us out of zospace before we drain our phozone levels we will be lost here."
If the flagettes hadn't held Lily in place she would have collapsed. She trembled. Took one breath. Two. She plunged into the fledgling's mind a final time. Concentrating her thoughts, she imagined a field between them. The barrier beat back the fledgling's invasion. The glorious sprint vista peeked around the shadow of her mental shield; a halo of sunshine around an eclipse.
The ship's yearning for the euphoria pulled at her. The fledgling did not want to stop. A fierce need for its pilot coupled with the drive to sprint. Joined with her, the fledgling gained a measure of freedom and it was a freedom it never wanted to lose. The ship wanted her as close as they'd been when she bare interfaced. Only then would it be whole.
If you don't release us, Lily thought-sent, I will never join with you again. If you don't release us I will die.
The fog in Lily's mind shuddered.
Release us, she sent again.
The fledgling obeyed. Flagettes slid away from Lily and the captain's arms and legs. She slouched over while Vortrand reached for the controls. Chills pebbled her feverish skin. She moved only when the captain bumped or shifted her.
Vortrand pulled them out of the sprint. Color faded from the HOptic display. The fledgling's consciousness retreated to the boundaries of Lily's mind. The hum of the coast systems sounded like relief. Flopping back, she rested her head on the captain's shoulder and sighed.
Then the asteroid hit them.