Trouble in the Stars

by Sarah Prineas

But . . . but . . . but . . . if I’m not just a stowaway, what am I? I’m a shapeshifter, but am I something else, too? I was so sure that I’m not the escaped prisoner that General Smag is hunting. But what if I’m wrong?

  I pace around the mess-room once, twice, taking shaky breaths, my heart pounding and hurting at the same time.

  Captain Astra likes the empty space between stars and she is used to being alone. She is not going to help me. She’s going to let the StarLeague have me.

  It’ll only be another second, and they’ll come through the door with the ID scanner.

  I’m frightened and I’m angry and I’m desperately unhappy and I hate all these human feelings!

  Then I feel that other shape stirring within me again.

  And I’m shaking all over now.

  No. NO.

  The door slides open.

  The captain steps into the room, followed by Reetha and Electra.

  Run away, Captain Astra! Run! NOW!

  And then I shift—

  —into a new and extremely deadly and dangerous and terrifying shape.

  19

  The Hunter is not much bigger than a human boy. But it is far, far more deadly and powerful.

  The Hunter’s jaws are oversized and low-slung, and its fangs drip with poisonous acid that falls to the deck and starts eating into the metal. Its backbone is ridged with spikes, and smaller, sharper spikes protrude from its double-jointed elbows and shoulders. Its keen eyes and ears can sense every movement and sound, and it smells the delicious scent of fear rising off the female humanoids and the lizardian in the doorway. It is heavily armored, strong, and blindingly fast. It doesn’t have any weapons because it doesn’t need any. Nothing can hurt the Hunter.

  Nothing.

  Seeing the Hunter, the old human female flinches, her eyes wide and terrified; at the same moment, the lizardian grabs both of the humanoids’ arms and drags them into the corridor. One of them hits a button, and the door slides closed.

  The Hunter rams an armored shoulder against the door, and it dents, but holds. From outside the mess-room comes the sound of running feet and shouts.

  The Hunter has a target.

  It lopes into the food area, shifts into a blob of goo form, and creeps into the handy ventilation tube. Moments later it drops out of the tube into a corridor. As it falls toward the floor, it shifts again into the Hunter form, landing with a heavy thump on its two clawed feet.

  The tall blue-skinned humanoid is there. Seeing the Hunter take shape, they emit a high-pitched scream and cower back against the wall.

  It would be easy to kill them with a flick of a claw and a quick bite to the neck, but the blue humanoid is not the immediate target. Instead the Hunter darts closer, grabs them as they scream and struggle uselessly, and flings them into the nearest room, hitting the button by the door to seal them in.

  The Hunter whirls and continues.

  The young female emerges from a doorway bearing a weapon, which she fires. The bolts sizzle down the corridor and whang off the Hunter’s armored skin. They are annoying.

  She keeps firing as it stalks closer, and then it sweeps her out of the way, continuing toward its target.

  The Hunter can hear, in the rest of the ship, shouts and crashes as the crew reacts to its presence. There is nothing they can do to stop it.

  It reaches the bridge. Swiveling its head, it examines the room. Empty. Swiftly, it crosses to the control panel next to the captain’s chair. With one blow it smashes it.

  Next target, engineering. This ship is not continuing to the next station.

  The Hunter emerges from the bridge into an empty corridor. The crew has already figured out that hiding is better than trying to attack.

  It starts toward the engineering section, knowing the insectoids who run that part of the ship will defend it with their lives. Still, it continues, stalking down the corridor.

  And then . . . its stomach gives a mighty growl.

  It stops.

  Shifting into the Hunter form takes an enormous amount of energy.

  It has not had enough to eat lately.

  Hungry. The Hunter is hungry.

  There are plenty of things to eat on this ship.

  Before going to deal with the insectoids and engineering, the Hunter will stop at the mess-room and get some food. Something called stew, it thinks. And every protein bar left in the galley.

  Moving quickly, it follows the corridor to the mess-room. The door opens easily when it hits the button with its claw.

  The ship’s crew is there, waiting for it.

  * * *

  Humans, the Hunter has learned, think in overcomplicated ways and feel sloppy emotions and do stupid things.

  The old woman human is doing something very, very stupid.

  Instead of being scared and backing away from the Hunter as it looms in the doorway, she holds her ground. She is probably feeling some kind of complicated human emotion at this moment. Maybe she thinks she can protect her crew.

  No matter. To the Hunter, everything is simple: Hunger. Hunt. Kill.

  First, the Hunter deals with the others: the lizardian, a tusked humanoid, one of the insectoids, and the girl. As they back away, night-black tentacles erupt from the Hunter’s chest and shoulders, hissing around it like snakes. One of them flashes out and knocks the weapon from the girl’s hands; other tentacles prison the rest of the crew against a wall.

  That leaves the Hunter free to deal with their leader.

  It stalks closer. Its arms are long and tipped with razor-sharp claws. They dart out and grab her, lifting her off the ground. She struggles, but it does her no good, because the Hunter is relentless.

  It draws her closer. When she speaks, her voice is shaking. “Electra, you can shoot it anytime now.”

  Oh really? The Hunter snarls into her face. A drop of acid from its fangs drips onto her arm, and she flinches. The Hunter tightens its grip, and she takes a gasping breath.

  The Hunter tilts its head, examining its prey closely with one of its eyes. She is an old, tired, lonely, frightened human. She is . . . familiar.

  Why?

  Because she is an enemy?

  No.

  Because she likes the darkness of space and thinks that everyone ends up alone.

  Midnight snacks and conversation.

  Stars that . . .

  . . . sing?

  Ah. She is the captain.

  The Hunter is not going to kill the captain, or damage her. It sets her gently onto the floor.

  At the same time, it withdraws the tentacles that are pinning the others against the wall. The Hunter is aware of the girl, Electra, sneakily picking up the weapon from the floor, but the captain raises a hand, holding her in place, and she doesn’t fire.

  There is a long moment where the captain studies the Hunter. It is not sure what her eyes really see. If they see what the Hunter truly is.

  It gazes back at the captain. More than any dog puppy or blob of goo or human boy, the Hunter is what it is, this hungry shape made for hunting, fighting, killing.

  It is devious.

  It is trouble.

  I am Trouble.

  And so I shift back into my human form.

  20

  The others are on the far side of the mess-room, where Reetha is using a first aid kit to clean and bandage the acid burn on the captain’s arm. Electra is holding the weapon, standing guard. The rest of the crew are in other parts of the ship, checking on the damage done by the Hunter.

  I am under the table in my human boy shape, curled up in a shivering ball.

  Other kinds of beings feel emotions, sometimes very strongly. The bond between insectoids like the Shkkka, who belong to a group mind, is unbreakable and intense. The dog puppy felt emotion, mainly loneliness, but it could feel fear, too
. My blob of goo form feels some simple emotions, but only faintly. For example, when Reetha tossed me out the airlock, my dog self was terrified, but after I shifted, my blob of goo shape was not.

  My human emotions are different from anything I’ve felt before, in any form. It’s like the way humans experience the taste of food.

  I’ve tasted a lot of different emotions since I stowed away on this ship.

  Misery is a new one.

  “I want it off this ship,” the captain is saying. Then: “Ow!”

  “Hold. Still,” Reetha says.

  “Just get the bandage on,” the captain says impatiently. Then I hear the click as Reetha closes the first aid kit.

  “I told you how dangerous it is,” Electra says.

  “Yeah, yeah,” the captain says. “I want it off this ship now.”

  “It will fight us,” Electra warns.

  I sit there under the table, shivering. It. The captain called me it. My stomach growls.

  Reetha has gone to one of the lockers, where she gets something; then she starts across the room to my table.

  “What are you doing?” Electra protests.

  Without answering, Reetha shoves a bundle of clothing under the table and goes back to join the others.

  With shaking hands, I pull the clothes on. It doesn’t stop me from shivering.

  “How are we going to get it out of there?” Electra asks in a low voice.

  “Ask,” Reetha puts in.

  “Huh,” the captain says, and comes halfway across the room, where she bends down below the level of the table so she can see me. She straightens quickly. “He’s crying.”

  Electra bends to take a look. “It’s trying to manipulate you.”

  “No,” I tell them. “This water is just coming out of my eyes.” A drop falls on my hand, and I lick it. Salty. So that’s what misery tastes like.

  “Come out of there,” the captain orders.

  I wipe the misery water off my face and crawl out from under the table, getting to my feet.

  Electra, her face grim, has her weapon trained on me; Reetha stands with her arms folded across her chest.

  The captain studies me, still keeping her distance. “What are you?”

  “I’m a shapeshifter,” I tell her.

  “That’s become rather obvious,” she says.

  “I’m the only one.” I stare down at my bare toes. “Before I got to the station, I was in my blob of goo shape.” I glance up at the captain. “In space. For . . . for a long time.” I wrap my arms around myself, but I can’t seem to stop shaking. “The blob of goo form doesn’t have very much brain, and it forgot what happened to it . . . to me . . . before. Electra’s right. I must be the prisoner who escaped from the StarLeague.”

  “So this blob of goo form of yours can survive outside the ship,” the captain notes. “Are you going to resist or attack if we take you to the airlock?”

  I can’t get my voice to say anything else, so I shake my head, which in human means no.

  “All right,” Electra says. “Let’s go.” She points with her weapon toward the doorway.

  I lead the way out of the mess-room and into the corridor, and in tense silence the others follow.

  When we get to the airlock, Electra steps forward and hits a button on the control panel, and the inner hatch door creaks open. “Get in there,” she orders.

  I don’t move.

  “Tell it to go in,” Electra says to the captain.

  Captain Astra is studying me. If she orders me to go into the airlock, I will do it.

  “You’ve seen it,” Electra goes on. “You’ve seen how dangerous it is. From the moment it stepped aboard, it easily could have killed everyone and taken over the ship.”

  “True,” the captain agrees. Then she adds, “But you may have noticed. He didn’t.”

  “I could have,” I put in.

  She frowns at me.

  “You saw it,” I say. “The Hunter. Electra is right. It is dangerous.”

  The captain’s frown deepens.

  “And devious,” I add.

  “Don’t listen to it,” Electra interrupts. “Stop talking,” she snaps at me, “and get into the airlock!”

  I can’t move.

  You’re always alone in the end.

  Space is cold and dark and lonely, and it is silent. Floating out there in my blob of goo form, eventually I will forget everything that happened on this ship. I’ll forget the captain, and I’ll forget that my name is Trouble.

  The captain is still staring at me.

  “It’s all right,” I tell her, wiping my face with the sleeve of my shirt. “It’s just this misery water coming out of my eyes.”

  “Tears, Trouble,” she says slowly. “They’re called tears.”

  I look up at the captain. What I expect to see in her eyes is the cold darkness between stars. That’s what should be there. But it’s not.

  “Put it out the airlock,” Electra snaps.

  “No,” says the captain, and she almost sounds surprised.

  Then Reetha adds, “Our. Trouble.” She points a claw at me. She’s known for a long time that I’m not really a human boy. I’m surprised she didn’t put me out the airlock weeks ago.

  And then she adds something completely unexpected.

  “Not. Only. Shape. Shifter,” Reetha says.

  21

  Before I can ask Reetha what she is talking about—I’m not the only shapeshifter?!

  —and before Electra can shove me into the airlock herself—

  —Telly races down the corridor toward us, his footsteps ringing on the metal deck.

  “Captain,” he pants, skidding to a stop. He’s run all the way here from the bridge. “We just received a broadcast sent to us by the commander of the Peacemaker.”

  Electra immediately stands at attention. “General Smag?”

  Telly blinks. “Yes, that’s his name.” He glances nervously at me, and then away again.

  “Innnnteresting,” the captain says, drawing out the word. She points with her chin. “Mess-room. Now.” She flicks a glance at me. “You too.”

  When we all get to the mess-room, the captain nods at me and points to a corner.

  I sit down there, wrapping my arms around my legs. My stomach is growling. Electra stations herself a few paces away with her weapon out, guarding me.

  Captain Astra collapses into a chair and heaves a sigh. “I could use a cup of kaff. So, Telly, what does General Smag want?”

  Telly perches on one of the other chairs around the table. “He says we are in imminent danger of attack, that there is a dangerous criminal on our ship.” Telly’s ears twitch, but he doesn’t look toward my corner. “The general orders us to halt where we are and wait, that the Peacemaker is coming to rescue us. He says they know exactly where we are.”

  “Rats,” the captain curses. Still slouched in her chair, she gazes at me. She’s deciding something.

  “Captain,” Telly says. “The general is waiting for an answer. He says it’s urgent.”

  “You must respond immediately,” Electra puts in.

  The captain ignores this. “What do you think?” she asks me.

  Human brains are funny. I should be reacting to this new information about General Smag, but instead my stomach is growling and my brain is going,

  I’m not the only shapeshifter?!

  I’m not the only shapeshifter?

  I’m not the only shapeshifter!

  “Uhhhh,” I say slowly.

  “Trouble,” the captain says sharply.

  “What do I think?” I repeat. Well, I’m afraid of General Smag, and I’m also worried about the Hunter, and I’m hungry, and part of my brain is there are other shapeshifters. But there’s something else.

  The captain
is still gazing at me. “Well?” she asks. “What should we do with you?”

  I know what she could lose when the StarLeague arrives and finds me on her ship. Everything. “You don’t have any choice.” I take a shaky breath. “You’ll have to space me and leave me here for the Peacemaker to pick up. Or you could hand me over when General Smag gets here.”

  “Huh,” the captain says. Then she speaks to everyone else in the room. “Trouble, yes or no, just offered to give himself up to save the ship. Yes.”

  “Yes,” Reetha agrees.

  Shkkka twitches an antenna, which means yes.

  “Ye-es,” Telly says slowly. “He did.”

  “Oh my,” Amby mumbles.

  Electra scowls, still holding her weapon as if she’s on guard.

  The captain turns back to me. “That was a test.”

  “A test,” I repeat.

  “You passed,” she says.

  “How?” I ask, completely confused.

  “Figure it out.” She leans back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling, thinking. “I don’t want that general near my ship,” she says. “We’re not responding to his message, and we’re not handing Trouble over to him.”

  “Captain,” Electra protests, straightening. “The shapeshifter is a wanted criminal!”

  “You keep saying that,” Captain Astra says. “What crime, exactly, did he commit?”

  “You’ve seen how dangerous it is,” Electra insists.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” the captain drawls. “I’m fairly sure that by the laws of the StarLeague you can’t arrest or imprison a person for something he might do.”

  Electra’s green eyes blaze with anger and frustration. “It is not a person!”

  “Ah,” the captain says, in complete control. “And that was a test too. You did not pass it, Electra.” She jumps to her feet. “Reetha, get me a cup of kaff. We have about five minutes to figure out what we’re going to do here.”

  I know what I want to do.

  Remember a long time ago when I told you that I am a shapeshifter, and that I am the only one? If that’s not true—if there really are others like me—it means I’m not alone anymore.