Lost Change

Chapter 91

"Ready to go?" A voice from up front asked as Minna adjusted the straps holding her to the seat and looked up towards the front of the shuttle.

I could tell she was not happy about being a passenger instead of the pilot.

It had been a week since Ivy talked to me about the massive cargo ship. Minna had actually seemed excited about it when Trenil filled her in, so I had been growing curious as to what it would be like, and it had apparently arrived at some point during the night. I had tried to spot the ship in the sky after the Morning Song, since it sounded like it would be big enough to see from the ground, but I hadn't been able to spot anything.

We had headed to the spaceport like we had every other workday, and had met up with Minna's guards... and then we had waited.

And waited, and waited, and waited.

And then I had caught a nap on Minna's shoulder. And when I woke up, just to switch things up a bit, we had waited some more.

It was nearly noon when a large shuttle landed near us. The pilot had waved us over, and Minna's father had led the way. He seemed to be unusually cautious today, and had been the only one that hadn't relaxed while we were waiting.

But we were finally ready to leave.

Everybody nodded or otherwise confirmed they were ready. Minna reached to her shoulder and picked me up, moving me to her lap and holding me firmly, then nodded back to the pilot. "We're good."

The pilot nodded and began messing with the controls in front of him. Nothing happened for a moment except for the sound of the engine growing louder... then the shuttle lurched under us, and I felt it tilt around us.

I bent my neck around Minna's hand to try and get a view through one of the windows. The buildings of the spaceport were already falling away, and with each second they were moving faster and faster.

That wasn't very unusual - this wasn't my first shuttle ride, though usually Minna didn't care if I sat on her shoulder or even flew around the cabin. So I was more than used to the sight outside the window. It didn't seem like anything special so far...

The sound of the engines grew suddenly louder, and the entire shuttle tilted again. I flattened my ear tufts in annoyance at the sound, then squawked as gravity suddenly pulled me towards the back of the shuttle, instead of the bottom. It was completely sudden and there was a lot of force pushing on me, and I would have fallen out of Minna's lap if she hadn't been holding me. The engine whined for another second or two... then it roared loudly, and the shuttle began rocketing upwards.

It took me a few seconds to get used to the tremendous force pushing at me. I realized I had been digging my claws into Minna's armor and forced myself to relax. I glanced back out at the window.

Empty sky was all around us. There wasn't anything to focus on to tell how fast we were moving. I squirmed a little in the hands holding me to try and get a view of the ground, but no amount of wiggling or bending my neck showed me anything.

I thought I heard Minna saying something, but the sound of the engines drowned everything out. A moment later she said something again, but it was still drowned out.

The engine was very loud, and there was nothing to see anyways. I gave an annoyed warble that was lost in the roar of the engine and tried to settle down in Minna's lap.

After what felt like forever - but which was probably only ten minutes - the sound of the engine grew quieter. It didn't feel like we had slowed down, though. I peeked out around Minna's hand to look out the window.