Your Focus Determines Your Reality

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Vortrand spat curses. Hands flew over the dedicated and HOptic controls. The rock they struck pin balled them sideways and directly into the path of a much larger formation. Asteroids and ice chunks littered all sides of the ship's panoramic display. They coasted further into the hazardous field; a halo of debris ringing an enormous pink and orange planet.


"Move it, Abadie," Vortrand shouted. Circling his arms around her made him clumsy at the controls. They barely squeaked out of the large formation's path.


Another rock smashed their side and sent them spinning. They whipped away from the ship-obliterating chunks, but further into the field which grew increasingly dense. Snarling, the captain wrenched at the thick flagette wrapped around their waists.


"Abadie—"


Blam!


Lily shrieked at the impact. A level chart next to the phozone gage imprinted on her face shield depleted.


Another pitted mountain loomed large on the display. Lily screamed again. One of Vortrand's hands shot out. He slapped a glyph on the dash. The fledgling swerved sickeningly. They clipped the rock. The collision toppled them end over end. Stars and ice and stones whirled around and around like nauseating spin art.


Stomach flopped and floated to Lily's throat. She gagged. The fog of the ship's consciousness thinned and rippled. The disoriented fledgling lost control of some of its faculties. Flagettes tethering them to the navigator's seat and to each other loosened. Vortrand freed himself from the bonds at their middles. He had more maneuvering room, but couldn't work the controls while they flipped.


"Stabilize the ship before we hit something else. We're losing oe and ie-ampoules. Without them the ship will be destroyed."


Stabilize wasn't easily pictured. Lily needed a clear image to thought-send the fledgling.


"How," she cried out.


"Exporate sprint end then nose then both simultaneously."


Picturing the rapid fire of the external port fissures in the correct sequence, Lily directed it at the ship. Phantom tendrils snatched the thought. The fledgling performed the maneuver. Abrupt orientation pitched Lily's motion sickness to the vomit point. Cheeks puffed and lips puckered.


I will not puke in this helmet, she repeated to herself over and over until sickness receded.


Vortrand started shimmying out of the navigator's seat. The big body moving behind her thrust Lily forwards. Disorientation-slack flagettes connected to her barriersuit fell away. Unmoored by most of the nerve connections, she floated upwards in the MSac fluid and when it sensed the loss of its pilot, the fledgling panicked.


Hundreds of flagettes shot from the navigator's seat. They twined around Lily and yanked her back. Before Vortrand slipped out of the way, her butt smacked his chest. A loud oof filled her helmet as she smashed into him, her rear pinning him to the seat. Hate vibes buffeted her bottom. Vortrand shoved at her backside but couldn't budge it. He hissed.


"If I die like this I swear to you wherever it is we go, in whatever form we take, I will find you and annihilate you."


Their nauseating detour brought them to a thinner area of the field. Dozens of pebble sized impacts depleted the last of the oe-ampoule and ate away at the ie-ampoule. The inner energy shield wouldn't stand up to the larger debris in the distance. Lily stared at the complex control dash then at Vortrand's struggling lower half sticking out from between her legs. Jaw set and lifted.


"How fast are you?"


"Very," Vortrand said.


Lily licked her lips, "I'm going to merge with the fledgling. I'm going to make it release us. It might take me over. If you hurry and rip out the flagettes," she touched the thick cords attached to her chest, "will that give you control or will the ship power down without me?"


Vortrand hesitated. "If I leave one central connection that should work."


"Then here I go."


Lily plunged into the fledgling's awareness. The fog eagerly subsumed her. Misty warmth touched her mind. Deep in the fledgling's consciousness, her awareness muzzed like she hovered on the verge of sleep. She thought-sent to it before the ship rallied its strength.


Untie me.


Flagettes loosened and retreated. Vortrand shoved out from beneath her. A helmeted face swam in front of hers. Starcollide tugged away from her chest as the captain disconnected one of the two central nerve connections.


Powerful shocks flashed over the backs of Lily's eyelids. Lightning seared and sparked through her neural network. Every pore dotting her scalp became a white point of agony. The scent of burning fat and singed hair filled her nostrils. She heard herself scream. Vortrand froze, his face a mask of fear. The fledgling reacted to its pilot's enemy.


Flagettes wound around Vortrand's neck and his arms and legs. Nerve connections jerked him out of Lily's field of vision. Absent his weight and most of the flagettes connecting her to the ship, she drifted again. The last central connection at her chest tethered her like an umbilicus to the dash. Below her, the captain was half-mummified by flagettes.


Strained grunts came through her helmet. The fledgling's ropey appendages squeezed tighter and tighter until Vortrand's eyes bulged and his grunts became a stifled howl. If the ship didn't stop, the captain's insides would become outsides and with no one controlling their direction the fledgling collided with every rock and ice chunk in its path. Jolts rocked them. The ie-ampoule gage dropped. If this went on much longer they were going to die.


Lily probed the extent of her access to the fledgling's mind. Very little of the ship's fog touched her. A single, wispy tendril darted out at her presence. She focused on it and flung her inner self at the ghostly appendage. The tendril caught and curled around her, dragged her over the tenuous bridge connecting them. An alien awareness immersed her. This was deeper than she'd ever been in the ship's psyche without bare interfacing.


Lily's vision split.


Space, as the fledgling perceived it, filled the upper hemisphere of her doubled sight; a panoramic vista of stars and a deadly maze of geological debris. Below lay the ship's interior from her own narrow perspective. On the floor, the captain struggled as more and more flagettes bound him.


Let Vortrand go.


The depth of her presence confused the ship. It clamped tighter around the captain who choked out a gurgling groan. She needed more control. Quick.


When the fledgling overtook her it solidified its awareness and attacked. If the ship could do it she could. Expanding her presence, she made a net of herself and rolled over the ship's mind like it had hers. She wound tendrils of her own into the thick mist.


Let. Vortrand. Go.


Fog bubbled beneath Lily.


Attacked us. The ship's response came as a tangle of instinct.


We'll die unless you let him go, Lily thought-sent.


The fledgling didn't respond. A humongous asteroid was ten cezins away from mosquito-splatting them.


No more pilot. No more sprints. Lily sent out all the horrific gorey images she could.


A subtle release of pressure at the fore of Lily's skull signaled the ship's acquiescence. Flagettes unwound from the captain.


Vortrand heaved out breaths. He started floating. Lily thought-sent more commands.


Secure his legs.


Flagettes anchored the captain to the spot. Catching hold of the dash's ledge, he lowered himself into piloting range. Hands blurred over the manual controls. Activation of the ship's technical components created a bright web between Lily's consciousness and the fledgling's. Threads of that web flicked and flared with the captain's imputed commands which twanged different segments of Lily's brain. Limbs twitched in response. The fledgling wove clear of the massive rock bearing down on them.


Pow!


A freezing shock wave rolled over Lily's middle. The space-scape in the upper half of her senses whirled. Dots of stars became loops and squiggles of white light. The ampoule gage dropped to an infinitesimal amount. They'd hit an ice chunk the captain couldn't avoid. Vortrand steadied the fledgling and brought them back on course in a cezin. Growling, he directed them through a demanding series of maneuvers.


Precise turns, narrow passages, and nauseating swoops ricocheted Lily's heart off her ribs. The captain started to slump at the controls. Reaction time slowed.


Swooping wide to avoid a gigantic ice shard, he drove them straight into a dense cloud of tiny debris. Hundreds of small fists pummeled Lily's side. Red flashes blossomed in her vision. She gasped and clutched her waist. The hundred-and-fifty move combo obliterated the last of the ie-ampoule. One more big hit and the game was over.


What can I do? What can I do? Lily thought.


Her Dad's voice travelled to her from over who knows how many light years.


When you're reacting, Lil, you've already lost the battle.


Of course. The asteroids and ice were big and scary. And distracting. Large debris traced the contours of the field, but what they needed was a path through it. Negative space should be their focus. Not positive. As soon as Lily formulated the thought, the fledgling sucked it up and fed her a dozen different trajectories. She latched onto one. The ship jetted along her selected vector.


A violent jerk flailed them off course. It felt like someone grabbed the long ends of Lily's hair and swung her around. The fledgling's sprint end scraped over a rock Vortrand's myopic perception didn't detect. It was as though someone dragged her bare back over a bed of gravely concrete. Teeth squeaked when she gritted them. The captain fought her command at the manual controls.


No, you don't. Lily plunged through the bright control web's gaps. The fledgling looped in a wild arc, just missing a fatal collision out of the captain's sensory range.


"Whatever you're doing, Abadie, stop it." Vortrand programmed the ship's upcoming maneuvers.


Lily saw his error. The vector he set cleared several large formations then placed them right in the middle of another debris cloud. They'd be whittled away chunk by chunk instead of annihilated head long.


There was one way out. The single clear path at their current position dwindled as debris they upset shifted position.


"Trust me!" Lily shouted. "You can't see what I can."


After the captian coughed out his standard condescending dismissal, Lily did the one thing she could.


At her thought-transmission, flagettes swam around Vortrand's arms and waist. Nerve connections yanked him from the manual controls and bound him to the floor. Splayed on his back, arms and legs akimbo he thrashed against immobile bonds. An alligator hiss leaked from his chest.


"Abadie, if you don't free me right now I will—"


Lily tuned him out. She and the fledgling moved as one. They zoomed through the debris maze. Dust clouds swirled over them. Ice shards too small to do them damage exploded against them in puffs of glittering particles. Bolts of excitement crackled through the fledgling's awareness. The sensation itched at Lily's hands and feet and sped her heart.


When they zipped free of the planet's ring, she cheered her triumph.

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