An Imperfect Princess by Blakeney Catherine

Author:Blakeney, Catherine [Blakeney, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-07-15T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The ship was exactly as they had left it the week before, except there were no holes in the side or the windshield anymore, and the stubby fins were whole. The entire contraption looked like a flattened carriage without the wheels. He marveled again at the technology that allowed her to simply place her palm on a smooth section of wall and have a door handle appear in the side. Like magic.

“Sit there,” she directed, pointing to the seat on the right side of the vehicle where he had sat previously. “If you were a co-pilot you could help run the controls, but this little shuttle was meant to fly solo.”

He stared at the beachhead before him, holding his breath. This was the moment... he could chalk everything up to now as a sign of their collective madness. But if this little vessel could float in the air like she described, he would never doubt another word she said.

She sat primly on the edge of the leather seat. Aijo, the fairy, was lounging on the dash, but she had transformed from a hair ornament to a crew member, and the laziness she had previously exhibited was gone.

Eneria placed her palm on a panel again and was rewarded a hum from the ship. The lights came on, and numbers and flashes began to dance across the dash.

Magic.

She reached one dainty foot, clad in a brand new slipper, toward a pedal on the floor and pulled a stick on the dashboard toward her with a flourish. But nothing happened.

“Uh oh,” she said, trying not to panic. James could only watch helplessly as she started to mash buttons and pull levers, to no avail.

“Emergency brake?” Aijo suggested dryly, and Eneria whipped her head to where James was sitting.

“Emergency brake!” she confirmed, a little embarrassed. “James, could you push down the lever that is on the floor beside you?” He did as she instructed, but it wouldn’t budge. “You’ll have to press the button on to–p!”

Freed from the moorings of gravity, the shuttle shot straight into the air. Everyone was thrown about for a few horrifying moments until Eneria shoved the joystick on the dashboard back down.

“Whoops, forgot about that,” she said sheepishly. “That’s what caused me to crash, you know. I pulled it too late. This ship was not designed to descend from orbit to surface unaided. Had I pulled the brake ten seconds earlier, I would have landed gently and floated to the beach instead.”

James was too stunned by the view outside to answer. They had risen only a few hundred yards above the land, but he could see nearly the whole of his estate, the village at St Ives in the distance, and several miles of the coastline in either direction. The view was breathtaking. He leaned forward, noting each outline in the beach head that marked the edge of his land.

“Can it... go higher?” he said, devouring everything he saw.

“Of course.” She pulled the joystick again and this time they rose gracefully into the air, further and further.

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