(Or: How to Wake Up Wrong in Space)
Captain Tim Symbles lives for that perfect moment — the first breath after jump, when time resets, the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet, and the universe hasn’t gone wrong. Just a heartbeat of peace before reality crashes in.
He didn’t get it this time.
Instead, he wakes up face-down on the bridge. The restraints have failed. The power is flickering. And the ship — his beloved, barely-functional freighter — is not where it’s supposed to be. Again.
This is not unusual.
FTL travel plays dirty with biology. The medics call it jump sickness. The crew calls it the usual. And Symbles? He bites down on his emergency painkiller and waits for his neurons to catch up with the disaster already in progress.
Welcome back to the Astra. Things are off-course, something is broken (again), and no one has answered hails. So, naturally, the ship is headed straight for a planet with no working traffic control and a population that probably holds a grudge.
The Trunk Line universe doesn’t do “serene.”
But it does do chaos, coffee, and crash landings — with style.
Read on for a free snippet!
Tim Symbles liked that moment just before waking where all was good with the world. Ideally not waking up, as was more typical, from a stressful dream involving a test he had not prepared for and which he had attended naked, or one where his teeth had all fallen out. There was a serene moment before the aches, pains and general stress of life resumed.
There was no serene moment this time.
Nobody knew what caused it, but Faster-Than-Light travel did nasty things to the human body. If entering Jump was like being hurled through a plate glass window; waking up from it was like waking up in an acid bath after.
The medical profession called it jump sickness, mumbled wisely about the dehydrating effects of FTL transits, but seemed to do little to prevent it.
He was lying face down on his console, levering himself up, he managed to get the capsule he’d placed in the compartment in his chair into his mouth. He bit down. He was still for another moment. There was something wrong. His eyes stayed closed, waiting for the painkiller to reduce the livid throbbing to a dull ache as he mentally ticked through the possibilities until synapses clicked, and the relevant neurons fired.
The seat restraints had failed.