A Daring Rescue by Space Pirates

by Rob Favre

  And I found her there, sitting between the black rocks under the tilted palm tree. Her face was smeared with dark grime, her hair stiff with dirt. She was still beautiful.

  “Hey,” I said as I sat down beside her. “You kind of disappeared there. Everything okay?”

  Renay glanced at me, then back out over the water, smiling sadly. “I do not know.”

  “We did just save a few thousand people, you know.”

  She looked at me, through me, searching for something. I felt transparent. She sighed and closed her eyes, rubbed them wearily. “You really do not know yet, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “I found my parents and my brother. They seemed happy to see me, happy to be off the planet. He is married now. I have a nephew.”

  “That all sounds good.”

  “Yes. But they told me a little bit about what happened while we were gone. You are a celebrity now. Stories and movies have been made about you.”

  “And I say it’s about time.”

  She didn’t feel like joking around. “But they are not just about you, Tom. There is another character in the story.”

  “And who is that?”

  In a flash of golden light, Mustard appeared next to us on the beach, waving his tentacles in excitement. This didn’t make me jump nearly as much as it used to.

  “Dude, nice work! You saved everyone.”

  “Thanks, Mustard.”

  “I have a message for you.”

  “From who?”

  “From Juliana.”

  “Great. Alright, let’s hear it.”

  “She told me I have to say the words to you since you can’t brain what she actually sent. What it says is thank you monkey, for giving my project an exciting third act twist. I haven’t decided whether I will be the merciful victor and leave you stranded on a planet somewhere, or let the audience see what they really want: your humiliating, prolonged, and agonizing death.”

  “Sounds like she might be a little angry. How long have we got?”

  The control panel appeared around me. Things were not looking good.

  I took Renay’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry, this is something we need to handle right now. While you were talking to your folks, did you happen to find out who’s in charge of the colony right now?”

  She nodded, and squeezed my hand back, a little harder and a little longer than expected.

  The council consisted of a half-dozen dirty, tired people, who at the moment looked more confused than anything. I’d had Mustard bring them all to a desert plateau that had a really nice view down into a rust-colored valley. There hadn’t been time to explain light box transportation. There wasn’t going to be time to explain most of this.

  “Thank you all for coming,” I started. “We had planned to give you a little more time to process all of this, but, well, we’re facing a bit of a deadline. Combat controls.”

  A semicircle of glowing controls and displays appeared around me. I had spent a lot of time on the trip here learning how Mustard’s different control panels worked. There was one that dealt strictly with the barbecue sauce supply. This one was in case we ever found ourselves in a space battle. Space battles seem really cool when they’re in a movie. They are much less cool when you’re faced with the prospect of dying in one. It showed a three-millimeter model of our yacht in the center. I pointed to it. “That is us.”

  I pointed to the half-dozen other smaller ships, spreading out to surround us. “That is the fleet that’s here to stop us. They will be here in less than an hour.”

  Mustard squirmed up and down in excitement. “Actually, dude, I’ve updated my calculations. It’s about fifteen minutes until they can activate the containment field.”

  I tried to contain the panic roiling inside me. I hoped it didn’t show. “Okay, thanks for the update, Mustard. So anyway, we have about fifteen minutes to decide what to do.”

  An old guy with leathery skin and a scruffy gray beard raised a sinewy arm. “Can we use one of those minutes to ask some questions?”

  My panic level was rising. My palms were starting to sweat. “Sure.”

  “I think I speak for all of us when I say that I appreciate you coming to save us. We, all of us, would be dead if not for you. So please, do not mistake this for ingratitude, but… how did you come into possession of this… impressive vessel?”

  “Great question, kind of a long story. I’ll tell you the whole thing sometime. Any other questions?”

  “Why are we being pursued by a fleet with hostile intentions?”

  I shot a glance at Renay. She shrugged. “Another long story, which I’ll also be happy to tell you sometime. Sort of related to the first long story. What else?”

  He looked around at the others. Some shook their heads. Some just stared. One woman spoke. “What options have we?”

  “Well, we have some weapons. We could stay and try to fight. Mustard, what are the chances…”

  “Oh, we’d be destroyed, dude. No question. We might take two or three of them with us, but yeah… 100% chance of death.”

  “Okay then. So, we can stay and go down fighting, or we can get out of here. Anyone have any thoughts?”

  There were a few moments of baffled glances before the bearded guy spoke again. “While we appreciate being asked, Old One, we know nothing of this situation. You, and young Renay here… we leave it to your judgment. You have already exceeded our expectations. Now you must do just a bit more.”

  Renay took my hand and we shared a look. She was steely, resolute, and something else. Sad, deeply and profoundly. I didn’t know why. But I gave her hand a squeeze.

  “Mustard, get us out of here. Doesn’t matter where. Away from them. Ranch factor 10.”

  Mustard gave a triple-tentacled salute. “Yes, sir, dude.”

  The controls vanished. I had thought we would have more than a few minutes to make the decision about where to go next, but sometimes you just have to improvise. Within an hour, we’d be cruising along at close to the speed of light. Juliana’s ships might follow us, or they might not. But they wouldn’t be able to catch us unless we slowed down.

  Maybe we wouldn’t slow down. Maybe we’d just keep going, out into space, forever. Maybe building things on planets was old fashioned and overrated. I’d lived on two so far, and it ended badly both times.

  I thanked the council. Light boxes appeared and whisked them back to their families. I stood next to Renay, staring out across the canyon. The fake sun was just going down, and the shadows in the valley were deep and black.

  “Okay, crisis averted. For now.” I brushed the hair back away from her cheek. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

  She did. I sat in stunned silence. I don’t know for how long. At some point Renay left and I was alone. The light went from yellow to orange to purple. I stood up and went to find someone.

  The baseball stadium was a lot more populated than the last time I’d been here.

  We’d picked this as the temporary place to stick everyone as they came off the shuttles. It seemed like the most comforting and familiar location on the Bigger Beef, with nothing to fall into or drown in. There was seating for thousands in the stands, but most of the colonists had set up blankets and tents on the field itself. The seats were good for watching a ballgame; they were not so good for lying down and trying to sleep.

  A lot of people wanted to talk to me as I made my way across left field. The Old Ones, who were all looking the part now, mostly wanted to know if I’d really been back to Earth, and what I had seen there. The Young Ones mostly wanted to know who had built this colossal yacht that was now our home, and how. Some just stared, some just whispered to each other.

  Some smiled knowingly and pointed toward center field.

  I felt like I was floating, like I was watching someone else walk up to the family huddled on dirty blankets. Two little boys slept soundly. A brittle shell of an old woman, some men I didn’t know. Gabby smiled at me, and
nodded. I still couldn’t believe she was a grown woman now, but that was not the most astonishing thing I saw.

  Standing there, about ten meters away, was an impossibility.

  “Hi, Tom,” Zoe said.

  Renay had told me, but I could not believe it, even now as I looked at her with my own eyes. I had to be looking at a middle-aged woman, but somehow, she looked exactly the way I remembered her, exactly the way she’d looked in my dreams and daydreams for the last year and half. I blinked, I shook my head, I blinked again. She was still there.

  “Zoe?”

  She ran toward me and grabbed me and held me tight. Everyone around us, an entire stadium full of people sighed and clapped and cheered. I just stood there, numb and confused.

  “Tom.” She was still holding me tight, her head buried in my chest. She was solid, she was real. I wasn’t imaging this. “I knew you would come back. I just knew it. Welcome home.”

  She kissed me.

  I pulled away.

  She let go, stepped back. “You are not happy to see me?”

  “No, Zoe, of course, I’m happy to see you. It’s just… I’m a little surprised. I thought you’d be…”

  “Older?”

  “Yeah.”

  She laughed. Tears flowed down her cheeks, leaving wet trails in the grime. “I waited for you, Tom. I waited, and you came back. I am so glad to see you.”

  She stepped toward me for another embrace. I stepped back.

  I was dizzy, faint, crushed, happy, sad, delirious. I wanted to say everything. I couldn’t say anything.

  “Zoe, I’m… sorry. I have to go.”

  I could feel every person in the stadium watching me, hear every person in the stadium holding their breath. A light box appeared and flashed me away.

  All that waiting, all that mourning, and impossibly, the thing I’d wished for more than anything else was true. And now maybe I didn’t want it. And maybe I wanted it more than ever. It was all too much.

  I went to the bottom of the ocean, alone.

  Epilogue

  Dad took another bite of his pizza. He chewed it slowly, analytically, with a smile on his face. He’d eaten two slices so far, and I could already see him eyeing one of Mom’s.

  “It was so nice of you to bring us here, Tom,” Mom said before taking a sip of coffee.

  “You wouldn’t believe what I had to do to get a reservation.”

  It was night in fake Manhattan. The air felt cool but comfortable, and the breeze should have been blowing leaves and bags and newspapers, but the sidewalks were empty. Empty taxis and cars drove past, honking their horns, on their way to deliver nobody to nowhere in particular.

  “I still can’t believe you saw a real dinosaur,” Dad said in between bites. “You have to be making that part up.”

  “If I were making it up, my part in the story would have been a lot more heroic.”

  “Tell me again about the city. Were there any buildings you recognized? What did the cars look like? Were there any cars around still?”

  Mom put her hand on his arm. “Logan, please, you don’t need to interrogate him.” I still could not believe how different she looked with gray hair. Her eyes were different, too. Paler. Sadder. Maybe that was just my imagination. “Tom. We are so glad to see you again. We really thought…” She looked down, blinked the tears from her eyes, and shook her head. “But you’re alright, after all.”

  I smiled, but I found myself thinking about what it must have been like for them all that time I was gone, wondering if I was coming back. At some point, probably figuring that they would never see me again. It was all too much. I tried to change the subject. “Have you picked out a place to live yet?”

  Dad nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, we found a great apartment building about two blocks from here.”

  “Let me guess – you’re on the top floor.”

  “No, we have the whole building.” He laughed. “There aren’t too many of us Old Ones left, so there’s plenty of space here in the city. Traffic looks like it’s still going to be a problem though. Hey, Celia, maybe I should run for mayor. I would only need about six votes.”

  Mom tried to ignore him but couldn’t hide a sliver of a grin. “Where is everyone else settling, Tom? Have you heard very much?”

  I nodded. “A few on the beach. Most of them seem to favor either the jungle or the giant mushrooms.”

  “Oh, those are beautiful. I want to go back to the mushrooms tomorrow. Logan, let’s go back to the mushrooms tomorrow.”

  “Fine by me.” Dad was now halfway through Mom’s second slice of pizza. “Long as we can come back here for dinner.”

  “Tom.” Mom had lowered her voice. There was nobody around to overhear us, but I thought I knew where this was heading. “Have you thought any more about what we talked about?”

  “Yeah. But I feel like I’m going to be wrong no matter what.”

  She put her hand on mine. “I know it feels that way. But listen to your heart, Tom. Your heart will tell you what to do, if you let it.”

  “What if my heart is telling me to run and hide and never deal with any of this?”

  Dad was not as concerned with being overheard as Mom was. “That’s not your heart, son, that’s your brain trying to keep you from being hurt. But this is gonna hurt, son. No matter what. Might as well pull off the band-aid.”

  Mom frowned at him, but she didn’t disagree either. I knew she was right. I knew he was right. And I knew what my heart thought was right. There was no more reason to delay.

  I said goodnight to my parents and stepped into a golden box.

  The jungle, at least this part of it, was already getting crowded. There were huts on the ground, and surprisingly elaborate tree houses up in the branches. Not too far from the huts Renay and I used when we were guests here, there was a clearing that had become a kind of market and pubic square for the residents of the Jungle. Everyone was pretty well taken care of now in terms of food, but there was still lots of trading going on. People still needed clothes and shoes, after all, and relish onesies were proving surprisingly unpopular. I thought about going around, but I worried I would get lost. I had a pretty good idea of where I was going, and I had to go through the market to get there.

  A deep, rumbling roar echoed through the jungle from far away. Preston still lived here, but he mostly stayed away from people, with one exception.

  I was already feeling pretty tense, but when I stepped into the market it got much worse. Conversations stopped as I passed by. Most people looked away. A few stared openly. I was getting used to this, especially among the Young Ones. Everyone I spoke to was polite and expressed their gratitude for being saved, of course. But I got the feeling that I’d robbed a lot of people of a happy ending they wanted.

  I passed by a table where an old woman was trading some shirts she’d knitted. One of the men there looked familiar. He turned and watched me as I went by, cool and detached, examining me like I was a specimen he was studying. I tried to imagine what he would look like without the close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard.

  Oh.

  It was Rick.

  I nodded to him in what I hoped was a casual way. He turned back to the table without a word.

  It took several painful, silent minutes to cross the market. From there, I had a pretty good idea where I was headed. Follow the stream to the fallen tree, turn right, go past the bamboo grove, cross the other stream.

  There it was.

  This wasn’t going to be easy. My palms were sweating and my stomach was clenched in a knot.

  I had been across the galaxy and back, fought dinosaurs, flown through space wearing nothing but a force field, and fled a hostile battle fleet. Somehow, all of that was still easier than the conversation I was about to have.

  Time to rip off the band-aid.

  I knocked on the door.

  She looked surprised to see me.

  “Hi,” I said. “I think we should talk.”

  Acknowled
gments

  I owe more thanks than I can express to everyone listed here:

  Liz, for reading an unreasonable number of drafts of this thing, for always being patient, and honest, and enthusiastic. Also, for never giving me a hard time about locking myself in a room with a computer to write yet again.

  Kat, for inspiring me to keep writing, and always scribbling excited reactions in the margins.

  Vin, and Scott, and Leah – for taking the time to beta read this book. It got a whole lot better because of your comments and suggestions.

  Thank you all.

  Also, if there’s such a thing as anti-thanks, I would like to extend them to my cat Storm, for jumping on my keyboard about sixty times while I was writing this.

  About the author

  Rob Favre lives with his wife and two children in Charleston, South Carolina. When he’s not writing books, he designs software, horrifies his children by putting hot sauce on foods that should never be eaten with hot sauce, and tries to avoid the wrath of the cats.

  Follow him on Twitter:

  @robfavre

  Read his not-infrequently updated blog:

  www.rob-favre.com

  © 2018 Rob Favre. All rights reserved.

  Cover image from Shutterstock.

  Cover fonts: Quantico, Contrail One

  For attribution see fonts.google.com/attribution