Blastaway

by Melissa Landers

  “It’s okay,” I assured him. “My lips are sealed. I want to hear more about what happens next. When do I blow up the star? And how? You said something about dark matter, but you didn’t tell me what I’m supposed to do with it. I’ve never detonated a star before. I have to know exactly where to hit it and with how much power, otherwise it won’t work.”

  “Don’t worry about the dark matter,” he said. “It’s already loaded into the sun’s core. I’ll send you a set of coordinates for dead center—and I do mean dead center. If you miss the mark by the tiniest bit, you won’t hit the package and the sun won’t explode. But if your aim is as good as you say, all you have to do is fire your laser at the coordinates, and you’re done.” He mimicked an explosion with his hands. “That star will blow its chunks like a watermelon in a pressure chamber.” He shrugged. “Either that or implode and create a black hole.”

  “Wait, what?” I said. Black holes were deadly. And impossible to escape. Could I really open one? Because if so, Corpse and Cadaver would have to find someone else to finish the job. Sure, I was broke, but what good was money if I didn’t live to spend it?

  A new voice said, “No, not while the star is shrunken,” and Corpse’s red head appeared behind Cadaver’s shoulder.

  “Either way,” Cadaver told me, “you’d better fire the shot and make tracks.”

  Corpse cut her eyes at him. “Don’t scare the kid. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” I asked.

  She raised her right hand as if swearing an oath. “Sure as the sunrise.”

  That was an ironic thing to say, but I didn’t mention it. “All right,” I said. “You told me to go to Earth, but that doesn’t make sense. I can’t demolish the star if it’s too close to an inhabited planet. Are you sure it’s not a better idea to meet you—”

  “Just be there in two days, and be ready,” Corpse interrupted. “Have your comm turned on. We’ll tell you what to do.”

  “How will I get paid when I’m done?” I asked. “I’m all out of—”

  Before I could finish my sentence, Corpse reached out and tapped her screen, turning off the video feed.

  I blew out a sigh. She had better not be trying to stiff me.

  I cocked an ear toward the comm station, hoping the hack had worked. When I heard the soft rustle of clothes from the other end, I grinned. The trick had done its job. Now I needed Corpse and Cadaver to spill their guts.

  “Kids are so annoying,” Corpse said in her raspy voice. “I should’ve hired that old mutant with the twitchy eye.”

  “But the boss wanted the best,” Cadaver said. “And that’s what we got him.”

  Corpse grunted.

  There was a pause. Then Cadaver asked, “Think she’ll make it out in time after she fires the shot?”

  “Who cares?” Corpse said. “If she doesn’t, it’s not like anyone will miss her. She’s a mutant…and an orphan. She’s so far off the radar that she’s practically dead, anyway.”

  Cadaver snorted. “Plus, if she dies, we can keep her share.”

  “Please,” Corpse sneered. “As if I was going to pay her. I already spent her share. If she’s dumb enough to come around looking for money, we’ll off her.”

  My jaw dropped. They were trying to stiff me!

  “What about the mutant Council?” Cadaver asked. “Those ghosties don’t mess around. I don’t want to end up on their burn list.”

  “You won’t,” Corpse told him. “The boss said not to worry about the Council.”

  “Why?”

  “Because soon they’ll have bigger problems to deal with than one random girl.”

  “Problems like what?”

  “Oh, come on.” Corpse made a noise of frustration. “Seriously? You can’t figure it out?”

  “Maybe if you give me a hint…”

  “Ugh,” she said. “I think I absorbed all of the brain cells when we were in the womb together.”

  A voice behind me whispered, “Whose womb are we talking about?”

  I jumped in my seat and whipped around to find Kyler standing in the doorway. I froze, wondering how much he had overheard. If he found out I was working with the Fasti kidnappers (or starnappers), he would rat me out in a hot second. Luckily his expression seemed more curious than angry, so he must have just walked in. I released a breath and rested a hand over my heart. That was a close call.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I decided to do some investigating into what happened on Fasti, so I looked up the transmission code for the stolen star barge and called it using the hacking trick you taught me.”

  Ky’s eyebrows shot up. He seemed impressed. “That’s the Fasti barge?” he asked, pointing at the comm station.

  “Yeah, but they haven’t said anything useful yet.”

  “Wait a minute,” Ky said, wrinkling his forehead in thought. “I recognize those voices. Aren’t those the pirates who tried to steal my ship?”

  I faked an aha face. “You might be right.”

  From the barge’s transmission station, a beep announced an incoming call. Corpse answered, and a man spoke in a harsh tone: “Where’s my star? I wanted it here a week before the vote.”

  “Sorry, boss,” Corpse said. “It’s going to take another day or two. We’re going as fast as we can. A star’s not easy cargo.”

  The man huffed an angry breath. “Make changes, not excuses. Have the star here tomorrow, or you’re not getting the rest of your money.”

  Corpse grumbled to herself. “I guess I could lighten the barge by dumping some equipment.”

  “Whatever it takes,” the man said. “And park the sun a few klicks closer to Earth than my scientist told you to. I want the voters to feel the heat.”

  “But won’t that fry the planet?” Corpse asked.

  “Not if your sharpshooter is as good as you promised.” The man paused in a way that made the silence feel like a threat. “Which had better be the case. I want people scared, not torched.”

  “Our shooter is the best,” Corpse told him. “I guarantee it.”

  “Then get it done,” he ordered. “Or else.”

  Another beep sounded, and the man disconnected.

  “What a jerk,” Corpse muttered. “It’s a good thing he’s rich, or I would’ve killed him a long time ago.”

  “Guess we should figure out how to make the barge faster.”

  “Come on,” Corpse told her brother. “We’ve got to lighten the load. Let’s start by dumping anything we don’t need—furniture, storage containers.…” Her voice trailed off as both of them walked away from the transmission station.

  On my end, I uncrossed the yellow and purple wires while I took a moment to figure out what was going on. My stomach dipped as I realized Mystery Man had hired Corpse and Cadaver to steal the Fasti star and use it to scare the people of Earth. And my role was to blow up the star…and if it was too close to Earth, possibly destroy the planet.

  I shivered, suddenly cold. No way was that going to happen. I darted a glance at Ky, double hoping he would never find out I had been involved with these monsters. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at the comm screen, his skin as pale as milk.

  “I know who that was,” he murmured. “The guy in charge. I recognize his voice because I’ve heard it a hundred times on my dad’s data tablet.”

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  Kyler gulped. “Quasar Niatrix.”

  “The Quasar Niatrix?” I asked, though I didn’t know why I was surprised. Quasar was the same money-hungry jerk who had rigged the prison system against my people, so risking an entire planet seemed right up his alley.

  “What did the pirates say before I got here?” Kyler asked. “I know you told me it was nothing useful, but try to remember any detail you can. It might be more helpful than you think.”

  “Uh…let me see…” I dropped my gaze, pretending to think it over while I searched for a detail to share that wouldn�
�t bust me. “I remember them saying they had help stealing the star, someone on the inside.”

  “Where? Like in the government? Or the Galaxy Guard?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Hmm…” I thought of another detail. “They mentioned dark matter.”

  Kyler’s eyebrows shot into his forehead. “What about it?”

  “Not much. Just that it’s been loaded into the sun, to help it explode or something.”

  “Wait a minute.” Ky paused. “That’s actually a huge clue. It would take someone really skilled, like an expert in the field, to put dark matter in a man-made star. So that means the person Quasar had on the inside must be—”

  “Someone from the Fasti lab,” I finished. It made sense. “Maybe the lady who invented it all, Doctor Norbert. She knows stars better than anyone.”

  “Doctor Nesbit,” Ky corrected. “And no, she would never do that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she’s my mentor,” he said. “Well, kind of. She called me once. I have her number in my comm.”

  “That doesn’t mean you know her,” I pointed out. “Plus, it kind of makes sense that she was the one, because she’s the best. Quasar doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would want the second best.”

  Ky shook his head. “Trust me, it had to be one of her assistants, someone who studied her research and had access to the lab. But either way, it’s obvious Wanderers didn’t steal the star. Quasar is framing them.”

  “Not surprising,” I said. “People always throw us under the bus.”

  Ky thumbed at the comm speaker. “It sounds like Quasar wants to scare voters into thinking Wanderers are going to launch the star into Earth, and that he’s the only one who can save the day. You heard him. He has a sharpshooter standing by. He said he wants people scared, not torched. So his plan must be to swing the vote and take control of Earth.”

  “But he also wants to bring the star closer than his scientist told him to,” I pointed out. “If it’s too near Earth, there won’t be a planet left for him to control.”

  Kyler chewed his bottom lip. “I need to call home and warn my family. And you should send a transmission to your Council.”

  I froze.

  “They should know what’s going on,” he added. “The meeting with the United Nations is tomorrow. They’re going to decide if Wanderers should be allowed to live on Earth. It’s not going to go well if they think you’re a bunch of terrorists.”

  There weren’t enough credits in the galaxy to convince me to call the Council. I wanted to stay so far off their radar that I was an actual ghost. But I couldn’t admit that to Kyler, so I scrambled for an excuse.

  “But what proof do we have for the UN?” I asked him. “They’re not going to believe the word of one boy and a mutant girl over Quasar Niatrix. Besides, if Quasar is willing to frame my people for the star theft and terrorism, then he won’t hesitate to use his media connections to smear us even more.”

  Ky frowned. “He’s already doing that. My dad said it’s a smoke screen, that Quasar is stirring up lies about Wanderers in order to scare voters into letting him run the planet.”

  “See?” I said, pointing back and forth between us. “Your people haven’t exactly rolled out the welcome mat for mutants. We’re not allowed to live on Earth. That’s why we’ve been flying around the galaxy for hundreds of years looking for a way to scrape together a living. And humans hate us for that, too. They say we’re taking away their jobs. We can’t win with you guys. So what do you think will happen if the Council goes public and announces it’s Quasar Niatrix behind the star theft? Humans will think the Council is delusional.”

  “All right, point taken,” he admitted. “My dad knows a lot about politics. Maybe when I call home, he’ll have an idea to get the truth out there.”

  “Better do it before you lose your nerve,” I told him. He’d been avoiding his parents for too long already.

  He exhaled a long breath that puffed his cheeks. Then he tapped the transmission screen and entered a contact number. He hesitated for one more moment until he tapped SEND.

  But nothing happened.

  “Connection error, static interference,” he read on the screen. “That’s weird.”

  “What’s weird?” I asked.

  “Static interference usually happens when a ship has its shields up. Something about the tech won’t let the signal through.” Ky furrowed his brow. “But we don’t have a shield, and neither does Earth.”

  “Maybe it was a fluke,” I said. “Try again.”

  He did, five more times, and got the same error message.

  Kyler went pale. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his upper lip. “Something’s wrong. We have to call the Galaxy Guard.”

  “What?” I demanded. “Are you nuts? Half the Guard is in Quasar’s pocket.”

  “But the other half isn’t,” he argued. When I glared at him, he added, “Look, there’s a miniature sun headed for Earth. We can’t sit on that information. We have to tell someone.”

  “They won’t listen.”

  “Maybe they will.”

  “But you can’t trust…”

  I trailed off because Kyler made the decision without me. He entered the Guard’s number and sat back in his seat while the transmission connected.

  A bald man with a bushy brown mustache appeared onscreen. He wore a polite grin that dropped as soon as he looked at Kyler and realized he was talking to a tween. It was a good thing my face wasn’t visible from the pilot’s seat, otherwise the guy probably would’ve disconnected without a second thought.

  “This line is for emergencies only, kid,” the man warned.

  “That’s why I’m calling,” Kyler said. “It’s about the Fasti star.”

  “We’re handling it. Our ships are already trailing the barge.”

  “But there’s more.” In a rush, Ky told the man everything we’d learned about the star theft. “I know it sounds wild, but Quasar Niatrix really is—”

  The line disconnected, leaving behind one last image of the man rolling his eyes and releasing a sigh that puffed his mustache.

  “Told you,” I announced. “You can’t trust the system.”

  Ky cut his eyes at me. “Thanks. That’s real helpful.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  He scratched his temple in thought. Then he came up with an idea that was even dumber than calling the Guard. “We’ll catch up to the star barge and send a transmission to the Guard ships chasing it.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. “I mean…seriously?”

  “This time it’ll work,” he said. “This time I’ll make them listen.”

  Have you ever been caught off guard in gym class and taken a soccer ball to the gut? It’s the actual worst, enough to turn you off sports forever. The force of the blow expels the air from your body, and once your lungs go flat, it’s wicked hard to inflate them again. So you open your mouth and try to coax air down your throat, but nothing happens. Your eyes bulge and start to water. Your face turns red. You feel like you’re suffocating, because in a way you are.

  If you know that sensation, then you understand how I felt after learning a star was headed for my home planet. There was nothing physically wrong with me. My lungs were working just fine, but each time I pictured my family sitting around the dinner table, having no idea they might become crispier than twice-fried bacon bits, my chest went tight and my brain spun inside my skull. It was all I could do to set the autopilot for a new course. Luckily, we were close to the barge, no more than a few hours away.

  Hours that passed in awkward silence.

  I could tell that Fig thought my idea was dumb, in part from the disbelieving looks she kept throwing at me, and also because the only time she spoke to me was to say, “This is a dumb idea.” So it was probably a good thing that we approached the barge quicker than we had expected.

  I leaned forward and squin
ted at the navigation screen, taking in the chaos we were about to enter. We weren’t close enough to the barge to see anything except the blinding light from the miniature sun, but the screen showed dozens of flashing dots (Guard ships) flying in circles around a craft so enormous it reminded me of an elephant with flies buzzing around it.

  “Which one is in charge?” I wondered aloud. “There are so many ships.”

  “The one that looks most evil, I guess,” Fig muttered.

  Since that was no help, I decided to send a transmission to the nearest Guard cruiser. “Computer,” I said, “connect me with the ship at the following coordinates.” Then I called out the cruiser’s position and waited for someone to answer.

  A young guy responded, friendlier than the last man, but with a similar bushy brown mustache that covered his upper teeth when he smiled. What was the deal with Guards and their mustaches? Was it part of the uniform or something?

  “What can I do for you, son?” he asked me.

  I slid a smug glance at Fig. Not all Guards were jerks. “I have information on the Fasti star,” I told the man. Then I shared everything I knew with him. The whole time I talked, he really listened—not a single eye roll or weary sigh. When I was done, he nodded in a way that said he believed me. I can’t tell you how good it felt to be taken seriously for once.

  “I need you to come on board so I can take an official statement,” he said. “Tell your pilot to approach our hangar slowly, and then wait for permission to dock. I’ll be inside waiting for you.”

  I nodded, and the transmission ended.

  “No way,” Fig said, her hands fisting the wheel. “I’m not flying us inside a Guard ship. Have you forgotten there’s an illegal blaster on board?”

  “It’s hidden in the storage bay,” I reminded her. “But they can’t search the ship without a legal reason, and they don’t have one.”

  “You think they can’t make up a reason?” She laughed bitterly. “You really are a chump.”

  “Hey,” I objected. There was no need for name-calling. “I’m trying to do the right thing here. In case you’ve forgotten, Earth is in danger. The fate of an entire planet is more important than your illegal laser cann—”