“Kyle, the rope is secure and ready to climb down,” I say in a hushed voice. He turns over and looks at me.
“Why are you doing this? You have a nice warm house now, and it’s so cold out there. We’ll be safe here,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “Come on, we don’t have much time.” He stands up like he believes me and reaches for something under his bed. A moment later, he pulls out an overstuffed suitcase. He reaches behind his pillow and grabs the picture frame and the device I gave him.
“What’s this?” he asks me.
“Oh that. That’s a communication device that I used with my partner, in case we got split up or lost. I wanted you to have it, in case we get separated,” I tell him. He looks at it and turns it over in his hands.
“Cool,” he says with enthusiasm. Then he looks back up at me. “Let’s go.”
As we climb down the rope made of clothes and reach the ground, I realize this might be harder than I expected. I climb down first to make sure it’s safe. There are a couple of dimly lit street lamps across the road from us. That’s the only source of light.
“Okay,” I softly yell up to Kyle. At first I don’t see anything, and I think maybe he chickened out. But a couple of seconds later, Kyle emerges from the window two stories up, clinging to the handmade rope with all his life.
“Come on, you’re doing good,” I call up to him. “Just don’t look down. Look at the pretty snow that’s falling.” He looks out at the snow and then, for some reason, looks down at me. He’s so far up that if he fell at this height, he would die. I push the thought aside.
Kyle secures the rope between his hands and crosses his legs around it. He jumps from the window and swings out, away from the house. If he hits the house, at this speed, he’ll fall. I grab the rope to keep him from hitting the house. After he’s secure, he slowly lowers himself down the rest of the rope. As soon as he’s landed safely on the ground, I grab him by the shoulders and pull him into a hug. A rescue mission failed, not an option. That’s what my partner always said.
“Would you let go, I didn’t die,” he says.
“Sorry,” I say and let go.
“It’s fine. Now let’s get on with this night. I’m cold and kind of hungry,” he tells me. I laugh.
“I know a place where we can go,” I say. “It’s not too far from here. It’s where my ship came in before I came to the house.” He nods and starts walking. We take a left down the road, the same way I came, and walk toward the landing pad I was at. I check my watch to see what time it is and find it’s 3:00 am.
Great, I don’t know any place that’s open at 3 am. I should have brought some food. At least I have my satchel. If only I could have sold that Stoneard….
“Why are we doing this?” my brother asks.
I roll my eyes. “I’m sorry, but do you really want to stay in that prison cell?” I ask him.
“At least that prison cell had food,” Kyle mumbles under his breath. I roll my eyes again and then laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he asks me.
“Nothing,” I say and laugh some more. He looks down at the ground and kicks some snow. It creates a flurry, and the wind carries it high up into the sky. I laugh again and he looks at me.
“What is so funny?” he practically yells. I stop laughing.
“Nothing. You’re just funny. That’s nothing bad. At least this trip won’t be boring,” I say and keep walking.
“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry I yelled at you.” I look back at him.
“Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t laugh at you,” I say back. He just smiles up at me, and we continue walking in silence.
The landing pad is only another four blocks up the road. “We have been traveling for almost an hour now,” I say as I look down at my watch.
It’s not an hour’s walk, but we keep stopping because Kyle needs to catch his breath. The walk should only take about twenty minutes, it’s only like ten blocks, but I know it can be tiring, especially in the snow and sleet.
It begins to rain, and I realize this is even worse. The rain weighs us down and makes us shiver. I look back at Kyle and realize he’s in an even worse condition than me. His lips have turned a shade of blue, and he’s shivering a lot. I wish I had thought to bring an extra coat, but in the split-second decision to leave, I didn’t think about it.
“You can do it, we’re almost there,” I yell back to him.
The rain is so loud it’s hard to hear anything. He doesn’t say anything, probably too cold. I look back at him only to find him on the ground in a heap.
“Kyle!” I scream. He doesn’t move and doesn’t even make a noise. I run and crouch down beside him. He groans and rolls over. I pull him into a hug, mostly to keep him warm. I stand up, with Kyle still wrapped in my arms, and keep walking.
The rain, which has now turned to sleet, starts blinding me, so I turn my head and keep pressing forward. I still hold Kyle in my arms, mostly to keep us both warm. I feel like if I let go, one of us will be blown away. We only have a few more blocks to go, but I can’t see two feet in front of me and keep tripping over snow banks.
I finally see the landing pad only fifty yards away. I know we can make it, we have to, if we want to be warm. They have fires inside the building and food. But they only offer it to people who will pay for a flight. So technically it’s not free.
We make it to the landing pad about ten minutes later, and with the sleet out of our eyes, I wipe my face and cup my hands over my cheeks. Kyle and I walk over to the nearest bonfire and sit down to rest or legs. “I’m going to go and get us a flight. I’ll be right back,” I say to Kyle and walk toward the main office.
The landing pad is huge. It has fourteen hangers for the different ships that come and go. The front office is off to the side of the main landing strip. I open the giant glass and steel door and walk into the small room. The room barely contains a long desk with papers stacked high into the air. There is a chair that sits behind the desk that also holds stacks of papers. On the left side, next to the desk, there is a small chair, outlined in velvet, and next to that, a tall, fake plant that’s about three times the size of the chair. I walk in a little further and ring the bell on the desk. “Hello?” I call out. Nobody answers. The main office has a hall on the far side of the room that leads into another bigger room where you can fill out the paperwork to get a flight. I decide to walk back there.
The hall is dark, and I can only see a dimly lit room at the end of the hall. I start to get nervous, even though I’ve been here before. The man who runs everything here is tall and kind of scary.
The first time I saw him, I almost started crying. But I didn’t because I knew he wouldn’t take me seriously if I did. I sat up straight, looked him in the eye, said what I needed to, and got out of there. Being the insecure little twelve-year old I was, I couldn’t have lasted in that room more than ten minutes. I think he could tell I was a little on the edge, so he spoke in a soothing voice and then told me he would assign me a partner. He pressed a button on the phone that was on his desk.
Then he said, “Daniel, can you come down to my office please? There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” He grabbed a pile of papers from the drawer of his desk and sorted through them. About five minutes later, a teenaged-looking boy walked into the room. I assumed he was Daniel. He had shaggy brownish-blonde hair and deep blue eyes. He was tall and had a stocky build, but he wasn’t fat. “Ah, Daniel, right on time! Come in, come in! This is the person I’d like you to meet, Zandrea. She is twelve years old and has never flown before. I’d like you to show her the basics,” the man had said.
“Sure thing, Mr. Smith. Come on Zandrea, I have lots to show you.” Blushing, I stood up and walked out of the room and down the hall that I’m walking in right now.
Thinking back, I think I had a little crush on Daniel. Now, I wish I could see him again. I knock on the door that was slightly open. I push it open a little further and feel a rush of warm air. I begin to
step into the room when I hear a voice behind me.
“He’s not here. He’s out training some teenagers,” the voice says. I turn around and immediately recognize the person that stands in front of me.
“Daniel!” I shout out and rush over to him. I stop a few inches away from him. He throws his arms around me. He’s three years older than me, so I consider him a big brother. He still smells like oil and clove, his signature scent. He pulls away first.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were going to stay with your family after you gave up trying to sell the Stoneard,” he says. I blush slightly.
“I’m running away, with my brother,” I answer. “I decided he should come with me and enjoy the galaxy, like I did.” He looks up at the ceiling and back at me.
“I told you never to come back. You barely made it out of there alive, and now you want to go back? With your brother?” he asks.
“It’s complicated,” I say. “I can explain on the way, but I need to get a flight, somewhere away from here. Far away.”
We find my brother sleeping next to the fire where I left him by. He’s curled up into a ball, with his sweatshirt draped over him like a blanket and his arm as a pillow. I gently shake him awake. He slowly opens his eyes and lifts his head up. “I thought I was dreaming,” he says. I know what he means. It was a nightmare the first time I left home and came here too.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I say. “I want you to meet someone. His name is Daniel, and he helped me when I was gone. He’ll be helping us escape.” Kyle looks from me to Daniel and back to me.
“Why are we escaping? I like it here,” he complains.
“It’s not what you think it is,” Daniel explains. “Sacmuntas is not how most people imagine it. Coreno, and many other planets in the galaxy, has been at war with a group of people called the Intergalactic Corps for as long as I can remember, and the government here is doing nothing about it. Before you know it, everyone and everything you know won’t be here. Your mother, she won’t be the mother you know. We have to get out of here before it’s too late.”
“Then we should bring Mother with us,” Kyle says. “It’s only fair. She raised us, and you think we should just leave her behind?”
“No, you’re right, it is wrong to leave her behind, but she has already turned into one of them,” I explain. “We can’t risk it. We’ll come back for her, but unless we can free her from the Corps’ spell, she has to stay.” Kyle’s expression goes from horrified to scared. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I don’t want him growing up with fear the only word in his vocabulary.
“We can try to change her back,” Kyle says, his voice shaking.
“The only way to do that is by going to Vulcona and stopping the war from the inside of the Corps’ headquarters. That’s the only way to get our mother back,” I say.
Kyle brightens up a little at that and pulls his jacket around him.
“Daniel,” I say. “Can you get us a flight out of here?”
“Yeah, I was going to see what kinds of ships they have left. I’ll be right back.”
He swiftly walks over to the main office and pulls the door open. I look over at Kyle, who yawns so big I think he might pop an eardrum. “So what do you think of Daniel?” I ask him. He shrugs.
“He’s okay, I guess,” he says tiredly. “I just wish he wasn’t right, you know, about our mother being under some sort of spell, and we have to travel around the galaxy to help her. I just want my mother back, my real mother.” He looks back at the fire as I put my arm around him.
“Don’t worry, as soon as we defeat the Corps, we’ll get Mother back, I promise,” I say as I look him straight in the eye. I don’t even know where to begin looking, but I know Daniel does, and that’s why I need him on this mission. I think bringing Kyle with us is going to make things difficult, because he doesn’t seem to want to cooperate. I have to remind him that it’s all for our mother. I realize now why she didn’t seem like her normal self.
Daniel comes back a couple of minutes later with some papers in his hand. Kyle had fallen back to sleep, his head on my leg and jacket draped over his feet. “I talked to the chief’s second-in-command, and he said all we needed to do was sign a few spots and we would be good to go,” Daniel says with fake enthusiasm.
“Where does he want us to sign?” I ask. He points to a few different lines. I take a pen out of my satchel and sign the lines that are required. I hand the pen over to Daniel, and he signs as well. We just need one signature from Kyle, but he’s fast asleep. I gently shake him, and he stirs. He turns over and sits up.
“Yes?” he asks. I hand him the paper and show him where to sign. He signs his name quickly and sloppily and turns back over.
It’s good enough, I just want to get out of here, I think. I hand the papers back to Daniel and he takes them back to the office. I sit there and think about what I’m about to do. I’m leaving again, but this time, I have Kyle with me. I don’t feel as bad this time. It’s because of you that your mother has fallen into the hands of the Corps. She would be fine if you never left her and Kyle, a voice in my head tells me. If Kyle ever found out it was because of me that our mother has fallen into the Corps’ trap, he would never forgive me. He wouldn’t be able to bring himself to do so. I may not have seen him in a while, but I know Kyle. And I know that if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t be able to forgive him.
Daniel comes back with the second-in-command. They stop right in front of us.
“Are these the people you’re going to take?” asks the second-in-command. He has a deep voice, kind of like the chief’s.
“Yes. This is Zandrea, and that over there is Kyle. I need one of your ships to take us away from here,” Daniel answers. The man looks at me, as if he recognizes me.
“I’ve seen you before. I don’t know where though,” the man says to me.
“I’ve been here before. I just got back yesterday. I left six years ago,” I say.
“Still doesn’t ring a bell. Anyway, come with me. I have your ship all ready to go,” the man says. Daniel looks at me and shrugs.
I wake Kyle up again, but this time he looks mad. “Stop waking me up,” he yells.
“Kyle, it’s time. We have to leave. You can sleep on the ship,” I say. He stands up and grabs his backpack and jacket, a scowl still on his face. We follow Daniel around the corner to another part of the landing pad. This is where the ships are stored and stay until someone wants to fly one out like us. The man leads us down to the fifth hanger and goes inside. There are a few people in the hanger already. One of them looks up to see the second-in-command walk in. He dries his hands off on his pants and walks over.
The second-in-command starts explaining the situation to the other man. The other man nods his head and yells something over to the rest of his crew. The second-in-command walks back over to us. “These men are just readying the ship. They should be done in five minutes,” he says.
“That’s fine,” Daniel says. The man walks away, back toward the main office.
“It’s so big,” Kyle says in astonishment. He looks all around him.
“Yeah, no kidding,” I say and follow his gaze to a ship that’s about to land on the runway. As soon as the ship lands, three men jump out of the door, and a team of cleaners jump inside and find a hangar for the ship. I look back over to Daniel, who is now talking to one of the workers that was cleaning the ship we are about to use. The worker walks away and Daniel walks toward us.
“He said the ship is ready for us. We can get on, and I’ll show you how to work the controls,” he says.
“But I already know how to,” I say.
“These are slightly different,” he says.
He’s not kidding. The ship is slightly bigger than the ones I’m used to flying. This one is meant for four people instead of only two.
Kyle and I board the ship and he takes his seat in the back. I set my stuff down in the seat next to Kyle and go up to the cockpit for my
training lesson. Daniel takes the seat next to me a few minutes later. For the next ten minutes, I learn about all of the controls and buttons and whistles. After my training lesson, Daniel gets out of the ship and goes to find the second-in-command.
“Are you excited?” I ask Kyle. He shrugs.
“Mother always said to never leave her side. That’s what I’m doing right now. I didn’t ask to be here. I can stay and keep her company,” Kyle says.
“You can come with us or stay here with Mother, but just know that we need you on this mission. It isn’t safe for you to be here with her, and without you, we can’t bring down the Corps. The mission won’t be a success,” I say, almost cheerful. He just shrugs again.
Daniel comes back five minutes later with the second-in-command, and he gives us the all clear to go. Finally, I think. Finally we can go. Daniel puts the ship in drive and steers the ship down the runway. There’s the sound of engines whirring, and before I know it, we’re launched into the nothingness of space.
“Our route is from here, and then we head to Techario where we will fuel up and then head back out,” Daniel says. I nod and look back at Kyle, who has fallen asleep.
“I feel bad,” I say. “I didn’t give him a choice. I didn’t ask his opinion on anything. I basically kidnapped him.” Daniel looks over at me.
“You’re doing the right thing. Plus, he needs to get out in the world. He’ll have so much fun!” Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid about.
We stop on Techario about a half hour later. It’s cold there as well, even though it’s the middle of summer. Daniel jumps out of the ship and goes into a little convenience store to ask about fuel prices. I hear Kyle stir and then moan. “No, no. Don’t take her. Take me instead. No,” Kyle says in his sleep. I climb to the back and shake him awake. He sits up fast and almost hits his head on a low-lying bar.
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