Her island had an earthquake when she was a little girl. She’d been in the closet, playing with the action heroes her grandpa had carved out of wood. She liked hiding in the small closet because no one could bug her, or make fun of the adventure stories she made up on the spot, every figurine playing its own part. When the earthquake hit, she’d been flung about, the wooden heroes scattering and clunking off each other and her head. It had seemed to her endless, and as if the tiny room in which she’d been playing had been lifted by a god and tossed across the ocean.

That was exactly how she felt, now, and the childhood memory flashed across her mind as she and Miyoko and Dominic jostled and jounced, their bodies banging into one another just as her wooden figures had done. The others fared no better.

If it hadn’t been for Minho’s warning, they might all be dead. Eyehole rivets, handles, railings—there were enough small things to hold on to that prevented the group from truly bouncing from one end of the room to the other, cracking skulls and breaking limbs. But even as each of them gripped whatever had been closest, they still flopped this way and that as the Berg rolled completely upside down then right again, three or four times. Jackie’s legs and torso slammed into Dominic’s and Miyoko’s in turn, feet flying up to the ceiling then slumping back to the floor. It took every last slice of her energy to maintain that grip on the railing of metal she’d found near her head.

Screams and shouts filled the room. The piercing shriek and groans of crumpling, twisting metal, the roar and sputter of engines. The thumps of their bodies hitting this and hitting that. The lights had gone out almost immediately, so Jackie could barely see, adding to the terror. She squeezed her fingers around her lifeline of steel, prayed they’d survive. Somehow.

Get me through this, she called out to the universe. Get me through this and I’ll get us back home.

The ship jolted hard. Someone slammed into her then locked their arms around her legs. She made out just enough of his silhouette to know it was Old Man Frypan.

“You okay?” she yelled.

“Hell, no!”

“Well don’t let go!”

He squeezed harder, pinching her legs together, and she felt it as a comfort.