Ellie Quin Book 01: The Legend of Ellie Quin by Alex Scarrow

bruises on her hips and the scrapes on her shins and elbows proved an effective aid in teaching her the layout of the cabin area and, more importantly, where all the sharp edges and corners were. She found herself quickly adopting the bizarre duck-and-swerve movement patterns of Aaron as he frequently made trips up and down the length of the claustrophobic assault course, either searching for a misplaced cup of coffee or making desperately for the toilet.
    By the second day aboard she decided to carve herself a useful role and nominated herself as the ‘Ship’s Cook’. The role actually extended itself to no more than bringing Aaron a fresh mug of coffee every half hour and programming the FoodSmart to spew out something interesting to eat three times a day. Aaron had only gotten round to programming about half a dozen different meal templates into the protein converter and he had been dining on just these six different meals aboard the shuttle for as long as he could remember. Ellie swiftly picked up the coding language and tapped in another dozen meal templates. The pale, turd-like protein-paste the FoodSmart squeezed out still tasted pretty similar, but at least the new turds looked and tasted slightly different. It wasn’t a lot, but it made her feel less like a spare wheel, and a bit more like a useful crew member, earning her passage on some exciting adventure.
    During the fourth night Ellie awoke with a start. She felt one of Aaron’s huge hands grasping her shoulder and shaking her in a way he must have thought was gentle.
    ‘Wake up dozy,’ he said in a deep rumble.
    ‘I-I-I’m a-a-asleep,’ she muttered, her voice warbling as he shook her.
    She opened her eyes. The cabin was dark and she could only just see the silhouette of the big man leaning over her.
    ‘Get up!’ he said. ‘Quickly, you need to see this.’
    ‘Wha-a-at?’ she asked, tired and reaching for his hand to remove it from her shoulder.
    ‘Ellie, shift your lazy buns before I tip you out,’ he said with a hint of exasperation in his voice.
    ‘O-o-okay, okay…I’m up.’
    Aaron stopped shaking her and moved off into the darkness of the cabin towards the front of the cockpit. Still half asleep, she pulled herself up into a sitting position and then swung her feet down onto the cold metal floor.
    ‘Why are the lights off?’ she called out. ‘I can’t see a thing in here.’
    He shouted back. ‘Just get up here as quick as you can!’
    She climbed off the bunk and headed cautiously towards the cockpit. She fumbled in the dark desperately trying to avoid the hazardous clutter, holding her arms out in front of her to feel her way forward.
    She caught a hip on a crate full of tools and grunted painfully. ‘Can you turn on a light back here? Before I shred myself.’
    ‘No, dozy-girl…you’ll need your night-eyes.’
    ‘For what? I can’t see anything anyway!’
    ‘Just stop messing around and get up here now!’
    She finally made her way up towards the cockpit, pulling herself into the co-pilot’s seat. But not before barking her shin on the repair bench. The instrumentation on the control panel cast a faint amber glow onto his face. He looked excited.
    ‘Look out of the window and tell me what you see.’
    Ellie wiped the sleep from her eyes and turned to look out of her side window. It was dark outside. She checked the time on the data screen above her seat. It was still four hours from daybreak
    ‘I see…night. It’s dark, so…a whole lot of darkness is what I see,’ she replied irritably, still rubbing her shin.
    ‘Just keep looking ahead.’
    She saw him glance at the navigational display. The orange patchwork of wire frames meant nothing to her, but they grew dense towards the top of the screen, and slowly these tightly packed lines were drifting downwards.
    We’re approaching something.
    She looked out at the dark landscape ahead. She could just about detect the rugged, flat line of the horizon; a black