The World Forgot

by Martin Leicht

  “My dearest child,” Byron says softly. “I promise you, when the time is right, I shall move heaven and earth to help you find your daughter. But we must focus on the bigger picture for now. We must force the Council’s hand by making ourselves known to the leaders of Earth. And there are mysteries to be unlocked which may be our only hope of surviving the coming storm.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” I say, wiping my nose. “You do that.”

  Byron turns to one of his crewmen. “Ensign, would you please take our guests to the quarters we’ve made up for them? You should all rest. We’ll reach the rendezvous point with the rest of my men shortly. From there we will discuss how to proceed.”

  “Lord Byron, or, should I say, Commander,” Dad says, stepping forward. “I would like to offer my services to you in any way possible. I know the Almiri are a race of superintelligent beings, and I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I am probably the smartest person I know.”

  “It would be my honor to have you on our team, Mr. Nara,” Byron says.

  Dad wraps me up in a big hug and kisses my cheek.

  “Get some rest, dearheart. I’ll come see you shortly.”

  I don’t answer, just return his hug. He pulls away and looks at me, sadness on his face.

  “We must make our plans according to the problems before us,” Dad tells me softly. I can see the pain in his eyes. “We’ll find her,” he says. “I promise.”

  “Sure,” I say, and I even manage a nod. I turn back to Byron, the tracking device still in my hand. “Is it all right . . . if I hold on to this for now?” I ask. “I know she’s not going to suddenly reappear while I’m napping, but . . .”

  “Of course,” Byron tells me. “There’s no harm in holding out hope.” He nods to his ensign, and the young crewman leads me, Ducky, Marnie, and Cole back out into the hall. The whole way down the corridor, Ducky’s got his arm around me, and I rest my head on his shoulder.

  Hold on, Olivia, I think. Just hold on.

  • • •

  “These quarters aren’t so bad,” Ducky says, bouncing his butt on the cot a little, taking in the 1970s-era sci-fi blandness that the Almiri let pass for décor. He nudges me in the arm. “I mean, considering we just spent a month underground at the South Pole.”

  “Yuh-huh,” I say absently. In truth, I’m not paying attention. I’m counting in my head.

  “I cannae imagine what yer goin’ through,” Marnie says. “But rest assured that when the time comes, I’ll help ye find yer bairn. If she’s been taken to the Rust Belt, the Enosi have contacts there. Folks that go unnoticed, and therefore notice everything.”

  “What’s a Rusbell?” Cole asks from his bunk across the room.

  “The Rust Belt,” Marnie repeats. “Tha’s where all the lowpin space stations are and all tha’. Cruisers, beat-up ships, lots of rubbish, mainly.”

  “Guys,” Cole says to me and Ducky, “is it just me, or is Marnie talking gibberish?”

  I attempt to act as translator. “The Rust Belt,” I say. “You’ve been there, Cole. It’s where the Echidna was stationed.”

  “Oh, the Rust Belt,” Cole says. “I thought Marnie said ‘Rusbell.’ And I was like, ‘Where’s the Rusbell? I’ve never heard of that place.’ And then the other part of me was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know. Better ask.’”

  “Thanks for that glance into your inner monologue, Cole,” I say. I turn my attention to Ducky. “How long do you think it’s been since they left us here? Five minutes?”

  “Probably closer to ten,” he replies. “Why?”

  Without answering I spring up off the mattress and open the door.

  “Elvie?” Cole says as I pass him into the corridor. “Where are you going?”

  I look both ways down the hall. Empty. And why wouldn’t it be? We’re not prisoners anymore. We probably have free rein to go wherever we please on Grandpop’s party boat in the sky.

  Well, almost anywhere.

  I’m already halfway down the hall toward the lift when the others realize I’m not merely stretching my legs. The three of them come bounding after me, and catch up just as I enter the elevator and hit the down button. They squeeze themselves in with me before the doors slide shut.

  “Mind filling me in, Elvs?” Cole asks as we travel down to the bottom deck.

  “Let the boys up there enjoy their explosions and heroics and other boring derring-dos,” I say. “The Almiri can have their little race war. I’m getting my daughter back.”

  “Yer going to track down Marsden?” Marnie asks. “How?”

  I wield the tracker. “With this.” The elevator doors slide open, and we’re down on the hangar level. I make a beeline for the sealed bay doors.

  “Elvie, you heard the commander,” Cole says. “That thing won’t be able to penetrate whatever interference is mucking up the signal. You’d have to be, like, right next to Olivia for it to pick her up.”

  “Then I guess we have a needle in a haystack to find,” I say. “Marnie, your contacts in the Rust Belt. Where can we reach them?”

  “We’ve eyes ’n’ ears on several installations,” Marnie says. “I’d start on New Moon, the ozone refinery station.”

  “Very well, then. We’ll start there. Maybe your guys have heard about some unsavory types lurking about, hiding with the rest of the floating garbage up there.”

  “And how do you propose we get there?” Ducky asks. “Swim?”

  “If it wasn’t already clear, I’m stealing a spaceship,” I say. “One of those neat little numbers with the stealth shield.”

  Ducky slides in front of me, bringing me to a halt. “Elvie, you’re not thinking.” He turns and points at the bay doors. “Unless you’ve suddenly jumped several ranks in the military service of the aliens who don’t even like your kind, you don’t have the clearance to open those doors, let alone launch a ship.”

  “True,” I say, twirling my grandfather’s security clearance card around in my hand. “But Byron does.”

  “How did you get that?” Ducky asks.

  “You son of a bitch!” I fake-cry as I pantomime slapping Ducky in the chest. I burst into a great big smile.

  “Aren’t ye the canny lass,” Marnie says, a grin spreading across her face.

  “When the need arises,” I say. “Always have a plan.”

  “Even if you can get the ship started up,” Cole counters, “they’ll spot it and shut the outer doors down.”

  My smile only broadens as I turn to Cole. “Then I guess I have some pretty extraordinary hacking to get started on.” Hold on, Olivia. Mama’s coming. “Let’s get to work.”

  Chapter Five

  In Which Communications Begin to Break Down

  Not to brag or anything, but if they gave out medals for stealing invisible ships and piloting them away from your alien grandfather undetected, yours truly would grab the gold, easy.

  “Okay,” Ducky says after we’ve successfully broken away from the Almiri strike force and plunged into the blackness of space. His face is green, naturally, because we are moving, and he grips the armrests of his seat tightly. “So, like, now what?”

  To that I have absolutely no response. But at least someone else does.

  “We’re thirteen-point-three-thousand clicks from the Rust Belt,” Marnie tells us. The chick’s been standing over my shoulder for the past fifteen minutes or so, watching me work the controls, and it’s making me mildly claustrophobic. “New Moon is near the center of the densest cluster of ships. Tricky flying, but this ship’s slight enough that we shouldnae have much trouble.”

  “What are spies doing sitting in the middle of an orbital ghetto?” Cole asks, fiddling with the tracker. He wanted something to do so I let him hold it, but I’m getting worried he’s going to break it.

  “Cole!” I snap as he bangs the tracker with the heel of his
hand. “Be careful with that.”

  “They’re na’ spies,” Marnie tells him. “More as like they’re untapped fonts of information.”

  “How much info can you get sitting on a defunct space station with the dregs of humanity?”

  “Where d’ya reckon undesirables go when they want to do business?” Marnie says. “They go where they think no folks are watching. So, what better place to watch?”

  “I’m confused as to why you would need contacts like that in the first place,” Cole asks, still banging the tracker.

  “We can’t all be as selective about our friends as the Almiri,” Marnie says.

  “Ha-ha,” Cole says. He flips another switch on the tracker, and it starts frantically beeping. “Holy shit, Elvs! I got it working!” He’s waving the tracker around like a maniac. “Olivia’s here! She’s, like, two meters away or something!”

  I roll my eyes. “Cole, any chance you switched it to frequency one again?”

  He checks, then presses his lips together, all chagrinned-­like. “Um . . . ,” he says slowly. “It’s possible, yeah.”

  “I’m frequency one,” I tell Cole for, like, the four-billionth time. I grab the tracker from him to flip the switch back to stop the inane beeping. “Our daughter is frequency two.”

  “It’s hard to remember,” he says by way of defense as he takes the tracker back.

  “Try to make up a mnemonic,” Ducky calls from his chair. And he doesn’t even need to turn around to sense that Cole is staring at him blankly. “A memory trick,” he clarifies. “Like . . . ‘Frequency two, which rhymes with ‘coo,’ which is what babies do.’ So two for Olivia.”

  “Or how ’bout ‘eejit,’” Marnie chimes in. “Cuz there’s two Es in ‘eejit,’ and if yer so daft ye cannae remember that, then that’s what ye are.”

  “I’ll remember,” Cole says.

  “So,” I say, turning my attention to Marnie. “To the Rust Belt, then? To find this contact of yours?” It’s the best—sorry, only—plan any of us have had so far, and if anyone can give us information that leads to Olivia, I’m all for it. “All agreed?” I ask.

  Marnie gives an emphatic “Aye!” Cole on the other hand . . .

  “Guys!” he shouts. “I found her! I found our daughter! She’s, like, two meters aw— Oh, wait. Frequency two, right?”

  And that’s when Ducky barfs on the floor.

  Clearly, Marsden and his cronies don’t stand a chance.

  • • •

  The station, designated New Moon A-1138 according to my navigational readouts, looms large in front of us as I bring the ship in closer. Did I say large? I meant uge, as in so huge that there isn’t any room left for the h. I’ve been to New York City only twice, once on a middle school field trip to the Museum of Pretentious Art and once when Dad took me and Ducky to see 2 Fast 2 Furious on Broadway for my eleventh birthday, so I don’t have a great sense of the actual size of the island of Manhattan, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s roughly the same as the floating hunk of metal that I’m currently steering toward.

  “Look at the size of that thing!” Cole whistles from behind me.

  “Cut the chatter, Red Two,” Ducky says, half-snorting.

  “Red what?” Cole asks.

  “It’s just . . . It’s from . . . Forget it. Hey, but, guys, I was thinking. We’re working a reconnaissance mission, right? Gathering intel?” Ducky is still green, but it’s an excited green. I can tell he’s about to nerd out on all of us. “Don’t you think we should all be incognito? Like, with secret identities and stuff? I’ve been working on mine.” He sits up a little straighter. “Alfred Sniggle, new junior sanitation engineer. Thoughts?” He looks expectantly to the rest of us.

  I am not the only person concerned with things besides Ducky’s nerd fantasy, apparently.

  “This thing’s getting even wonkier,” Cole says. He’s still messing with the tracker. “Now both frequencies are buzzing in and out.”

  “It’s the debris from all the derelict craft in this sector,” Marnie tells him. “Radiation, magnetic fields, et cetera. Chops up yer signal, makes it cockeyed.”

  “You sure it’s not just broken?” Cole asks, aiming the tracker at his head. No signal there, obviously.

  “Cole, give me that thing,” I say, attempting to snatch it from him with one hand while the other operates the ship’s controls.

  “Best leave it aboard, act’ly,” Marnie tells me. “A precious object like tha’ won’t be safe where we’re going. It’ll get pocketed an’ sold less than five minutes off the ship.”

  “I’ll hide it somewhere really safe,” I promise.

  “Trust me,” Marnie says. “Ye could hide it up yer own arse—those thieves’d have it off ye ’fore you even noticed they pulled down yer drawers. Much safer here.”

  “Hard to believe this isn’t more of a vacation destination,” I mutter. But I know Marnie’s got a better sense of this place than I do. The tracker will stay on board.

  Hold on, Livvie, I think as the station looms ever larger before us.

  “I’ve never seen a station this big before,” Cole says.

  “Or so . . . gross,” I add.

  Even from this distance it’s easy to tell that New Moon has seen better days. I didn’t realize you could see rust from kilometers away, but if that’s not what I’m looking at, then whatever it is is doing a pretty good rust impersonation. The blotchy brown patches on the hull of the station must be several hundred meters in diameter, at least, and from what I can see, they snake all over the surface. There are cracks, holes, and just plain shoddy construction running the entire length of New Moon from start to finish.

  “It’s amazing that thing doesn’t break apart,” I muse.

  “Why in the heck do they call it New Moon?” Cole asks.

  “That’s no moon,” Ducky begins. “It’s a space—”

  “Ducky, enough,” I tell him.

  “Alfred,” he insists. “I’m Alfred Sniggle now. Don’t forget. You’ll blow my cover.”

  I roll my eyes. “Okay, then. Enough, Alfred. Now listen to this.” And I begin reading the information from the heads-up display the console is feeding me. “According to the description here, New Moon is the largest orbital station ever constructed, and the second largest satellite of Earth after the actual moon. Built in 2043, it has been home to an ozone processing refinery, the only ever off-world supercollider, and for a brief period in the sixties served as the headquarters for the Psychedelic Tofreegan Collective before they were all committed. Now everything’s gone except the refinery.”

  “Well, if you ask me,” Cole says, “New Moon is the biggest hunk of crap I’ve ever seen.”

  “Can’t argue with you there,” I say.

  “That’s a first,” Cole replies with a snort.

  I sigh. I’m getting more than a little fed up with Cole’s attitude. Sure, he agreed to steal a stealth ship with me and go flying off into the great unknown in an attempt to rescue our daughter, disobeying a direct order from his former Almiri supervisor, and potentially endangering the entire planet in the process, but he’s been such a drag about it.

  I flip the comm to an open channel as we begin our approach.

  “New Moon control, this is, um, the U.S. . . . Baby Chaser,” I say, shrugging at Ducky as he shakes his head at me. “Request permission to dock.”

  I leave the channel open, awaiting a response. All that comes back over the comm is static.

  “New Moon control,” I repeat, “this is—”

  “Ye can save yer voice,” Marnie tells me. “There ’nt a control to give clearance.”

  “Well, then how are we supposed to know where to dock?” I ask. “Not to mention avoid crashing into other incoming vessels?”

  “I’ll show ye where to land,” Marnie assures me. “As fer the oth
er thing, well, ye’ll jes’ have to show off some fine piloting skills, won’t ye?”

  Marnie does indeed seem to know her way around this place. She guides me past the prow, where I would have assumed the docking bay to be, and down along the seamy underbelly of the station.

  “This is a really weird approach for a landing dock,” I say. “How are you supposed to find it if you don’t already know it’s there?”

  “Tha’s the point,” Marnie says.

  “Well, at least there isn’t any other traffic, so we don’t have to worry about—”

  On cue—because the universe absolutely adores using me as its straight man—three small ships come flying out of nowhere from underneath the station, screeching by so close that I can practically feel the paint scratching off our hull. For a moment I lose control and we swerve hard enough for Ducky to lose his footing at the console behind me. There is a violent thud! against the side of the hull as the last ship zips past.

  “What the hell was that?” I shout, scrambling to regain control of the ship. “Did one of them hit us?”

  “Negative,” Marnie says, smiling a bit as she reads Ducky’s display (Ducky being otherwise occupied, picking himself off the floor). “They jettisoned some rubbish out the back as they passed. It’s nothin’ to be afeart of. Jes’ a friendly suggestion we watch ourselves.”

  “We should watch ourselves? Who where those jackasses?”

  “O3 Cowboys,” Marnie tells us. “They take the ozone bricks from the refinery and deploy them into the atmosphere, where they break down and revert to gas.”

  “They fly around in those little ships like that carrying ozone?” Ducky asks incredulously. “It’s a miracle they don’t blow up.”

  “They do, from time to time,” Marnie says. “It’s not the most stable career, to be sure.”

  I grunt in reply, but I have more important things to concern myself with than a bunch of alpha-apes. “Marnie, just show me where we’re landing on this heap.”