Starflight

by Melissa Landers

  “It’s a lab,” he said.

  Solara peeked around his shoulder. “What kind? Medical?”

  “I don’t know.” Since it seemed safe, he holstered his gun and entered the room. “Let’s find out.”

  They explored opposite halves of the room, starting at the entrance and working their way toward the back. As Doran moved from one table to the next, he detected a familiar scent, something that plucked at his memories of his internship with new product development. The smell was slightly sharp and metallic, like melting ore. Then he noticed a glass-paned furnace in the wall with a chunk of metal burning inside, and everything clicked into place.

  “I’ve seen this before,” he said. “It’s fuel development.”

  “Not just any fuel.” The sudden flatness in Solara’s tone prompted him to face her. She trailed her index finger along a data tablet affixed to the wall and added, “The one you’re accused of stealing.”

  He rushed to her side and glanced at the screen, instantly spotting the word Infinium in several places on the page. The rest of the text was a nonsensical jumble of numbers and formulas, so he tapped the panel and returned to the main data directory.

  He found a file called G.S. INFINIUM LABORATORY JOURNAL and selected it, then scrolled through the entries while Solara read along with him.

  G.S. ENTRY #1: Solar Day 3, Cycle 9. Discovered Highly Unstable Ore With Unusually Long-Burning Properties.

  “Look.” Doran pointed at a small clear bag of rocks resting on the table, labeled INFINIUM RAW ORE SAMPLES. “It’s like I said. I’ll bet my father found out how dangerous this was and wanted it destroyed.”

  The next several entries confirmed his theory as the scientist detailed the challenges involved with stabilization. On its own, the metal was highly combustible to the point of weaponry use. But then the journal took a different turn. After several months of trial and error, G.S. found a combination of additives that allowed the ore to ignite and generate energy without exploding. Once the process was complete, he named the new matter Infinium, because it seemed to burn eternally.

  G.S. ENTRY #243: Infinium is now stable, but its temperature output is too high for use in current engine systems.

  They’d just scrolled through another week’s report when the com-link in their suits activated, and Renny’s voice crackled from inside their collars.

  “Report back,” he said. “You two okay?”

  “We’re fine,” Doran answered. “We found the Infinium lab, and we’re getting caught up on the data files. How about you?”

  “There’s a private residence down here,” Renny said. “Stocked with—”

  “More like a mansion,” Kane cut in. “This place is swank. Theater screens in every bedroom, a full gym, showers so big you could drown. There’s even a heated pool with sun lamps and a beach simulator.”

  “It’s true,” Renny said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Is the house abandoned?” Solara asked.

  “It don’t think so,” Renny said. “There are dishes in the sink and food in the cooler, but we haven’t seen a soul.”

  “Neither have we,” Doran added, feeling the urge to check behind him. No one was there, but that didn’t put his anxiety to rest.

  “The hangar is empty, so whoever lives here may have flown off world,” Renny said. “Keep your eyes peeled, and we’ll check in again soon.”

  Doran exchanged a heavy glance with Solara. The posh living quarters, the hidden lab. Clearly his father had rewarded someone lavishly to stay here and experiment with Infinium, far from the reach of the Solar League. But nothing about the data led Doran to believe there was a weapon of mass destruction here.

  He leaned in and skimmed the screen until he found the next entry describing the scientist’s progress. It took several months, but G.S. finally created a sample of Infinium that was interchangeable with Spaulding fuel.

  G.S. ENTRY #360: To test compatibility, I rewired our compound’s power source to the ignition tank in the lab, fueled by a twelve-ounce sample of Infinium. The outcome was successful with no interruptions in energy supply. I will document the time lapse until the sample is depleted.

  Doran scrolled through the next two months’ entries but couldn’t find any indication that the original sample had run out. He turned and stared across the room at the hunk of rock burning inside the laboratory tank, then had to force himself to blink.

  “You mean to tell me,” he said, “that a tiny rock has been powering this whole complex? For months?”

  Solara touched his arm. “If it’s true, think about what this means.”

  He didn’t need prompting. His mind was already reeling with the implications of Infinium on the open market. A lump of this super-fuel would burn a lifetime in the farming machines that now lay dormant on fields across the outer realm. Homes would stay heated for generations. Travel expenses would plummet, opening new trade routes and freeing settlers to come and go as they pleased. Commerce would flourish, and lives would be saved.

  Infinium had the power to change everything.

  But what none of this told him was why his father had sent him here or how his DNA had ended up on the supply crate. All Doran knew was that he’d never touched these samples. He glanced around the lab until he noticed a strand of long jet-black hair on the floor, and an idea came to mind. Using a pair of tweezers, he picked up the hair and carried it to the lab’s genetic scanner.

  “Let’s find out who G.S. is,” Doran said.

  After he inserted the sample, the machine buzzed for several minutes, and the words MATCH FOUND scrolled across the screen. He tapped the DISPLAY option and leaned closer, pulse ticking in anticipation. But when the result flashed on the panel, his own face stared back at him, along with the text DORAN MICHAEL SPAULDING, HOUSTON, TEXAS: EARTH.

  “That can’t be right,” he said. “You saw that hair—it’s not mine.”

  “Has your hair ever been that long?” Solara asked. “Maybe someone planted it here.”

  “No, never.”

  “Then we have to assume it’s your genetic code.”

  “But it’s not.”

  “Are you sure?” Solara dipped her head and peered at him intently. “Doran,” she said with a gentle touch of her hand. “Think about it. A long time ago, there was someone who shared your DNA. I think he’s the one who invented Infinium, or at least that he handled the crate your father supposedly stole from the Solar League transport.”

  Doran’s twin? The implication was so absurd that he nearly laughed. “My brother’s gone. We found his body.”

  “Did you see the remains?”

  “Of course not. I was nine years old.”

  “What was his name?” she asked. “You never told me.”

  “Gage,” he said. As soon as the word left his lips, the hair along his forearms stood on end. “Gage Spaulding.”

  “The initials fit. It all fits.”

  “No,” Doran whispered. “That’s crazy.”

  He shook his head again and again, never stopping, because denial was the only way to bat down the prickle of hope quickly swelling inside him. He couldn’t afford to hope. It would only hurt that much more when reality set in again. His brother couldn’t be alive, otherwise Doran would have sensed it somehow. And what about his parents? If their other son had survived, they’d know it, and they would never keep a secret like that from him.

  Solara was wrong. She had to be.

  But then the lab doors swung open and revealed something that shifted his very center of gravity. Renny and Kane strode inside with their hands folded behind their heads, both of them led at gunpoint by a furious, distorted mirror image of himself.

  At once, a memory washed over Doran—an emotional snapshot from his childhood that he’d nearly forgotten. On the night he was snatched from his bed, he recalled lying blindfolded on the cold floor of a shuttle and holding his brother’s hand. Fear had choked him in tandem with a musty rag shoved inside
his mouth, but the grip of Gage’s fingers had kept Doran grounded, connected to something safe and familiar.

  Now those fingers were curled around a pulse pistol.

  Doran had to remind himself to breathe. Impossible as it seemed, Gage Spaulding was alive and well. But how much of the boy Doran remembered was still in there?

  “Gage,” Doran whispered, his body as stiff and motionless as a tomb.

  The twin’s eyes moved toward the sound of his name, then flew wide in a way that told Solara this encounter was just as shocking for him as it was for the rest of them. He studied his brother, no doubt taking in the subtle differences that set them apart. Gage’s skin had the slightly golden hue of someone who bathed in artificial light instead of natural sun, with a silver web of scar tissue tugging down the corner of his left eye. He wore his hair in a low ponytail that disappeared behind a pair of broad shoulders that could pass for Doran’s. And both of them had the same arrogant tilt to their chins, the one she’d taken months to recognize as a defense mechanism. Each boy peered at the other through an identical mask of reserved wonder, as if afraid to believe what their eyes were telling them. The similarities were uncanny.

  Except this twin knew how to wield a gun.

  When Doran took a step toward his brother, Gage aimed at him and warned in a shaky voice, “Drop your pistol and stay back. I’m pretty sure I know why you’re here.”

  Doran tossed his weapon to the floor and held both palms forward. His mouth seemed to have stopped working, because it took a few tries before he spoke. “How are you alive?”

  Gage faltered, as if the question had caught him off guard. “The same way you’re alive. I got out of the house before it burned down.”

  “But we buried you. There was a body.”

  Gage didn’t look too surprised to hear that. He glanced away from his brother, staring thoughtfully at the discarded pistol before picking it up and tucking it inside his waistband. “The body wasn’t mine. I ran for two blocks and hid behind a garbage bin. That’s where Mom found me. She wanted to keep me safe from Dad, so she let him think I was dead. But she said you knew our secret. She never mentioned it to you?”

  “Never mentioned it?” Doran echoed. “She sat next to me at your funeral.” For a long time afterward, Doran went very still and quiet. His eyes were shimmering with unshed tears when he finally broke the silence. “And then she left me with Dad and brought you here to live with her for all these years. Because you were the science prodigy, not me. I was just average. I wasn’t…”

  Useful to her.

  Solara didn’t need to hear the final words—they were written on Doran’s face. Her heart broke as she watched him try to blink away the moisture welling in his eyes. Abandonment was one thing, but his mom had left him in favor of another child. Solara had never told anyone, but that was the real reason she refused to seek out her birth parents. She couldn’t bear the possibility that they’d started a new family without her.

  “Is Mom here now?” Doran asked, and wiped a sleeve across his eyes.

  Gage shook his head.

  “Good,” Doran muttered. He swallowed hard, his gaze turning sharply to ice. “As far as I’m concerned, she died that day instead of you.”

  That seemed to ruffle Gage’s feathers. His chin jerked up, along with the barrel of his pistol. “Watch your mouth.”

  “You’re defending her?” Doran asked, flinching back like he’d been slapped. “She faked your death and kept us apart for almost a decade. And for what? To take revenge on Dad? To invent the perfect fuel and drive him out of business? It’s sick!”

  Solara agreed. The Spauldings made her glad to be an orphan.

  “And Dad’s a total saint, right?” sneered Gage.

  “Maybe not, but he’s a victim in all this, too.”

  “A victim?” Gage snapped, rage burning behind his eyes. “He knows me! Mom let me call him months ago, to tell him about what I created—how Infinium was going to change everything, and how the Solar League paid a fortune for my first batch. But do you think he asked me to come home?” Gage made a noise of disgust. “No. He begged me to bury the project, just like Mom said he would. He told me Infinium would make Spaulding Fuel redundant and ruin the family legacy. When I refused to play along, he stole the batch from the transport. Then he traced our location and threatened to send someone here, either to destroy my research or to steal it; he didn’t say which.” Gage’s voice sounded broken when he added, “I just didn’t know it would be my own brother.”

  Doran’s shoulders sank. He had to be reeling with the fact that not only were both his parents liars, but also that the future he’d envisioned no longer existed. Once Spaulding Fuel collapsed, there would be no company to inherit.

  “And here you are,” Gage said flatly. “In my lab, looking through my computer. Mom told me you were just like Dad. I guess she was right about that, too.”

  “No,” Doran told him. “Dad sent me here, but I had no idea why. I would never destroy your work. The fringe needs it too much.”

  “Right.” Clearly unconvinced, Gage flicked his aim at Solara, then at Renny and Kane. “Who are your friends?”

  Before any of them could answer, the com-link speakers activated, and Captain Rossi called through their suits, “Time to wrap it up. Cassia found a tracker on the Banshee’s front landing gear. I’m guessing someone on New Haven planted it there to claim the reward for Daro the Red. So far the skies look clear, but who knows how long that’ll last.”

  Solara went cold. “We have to go,” she told Gage. “Now.”

  “She’s right,” Doran said. “There’s a pirate named Demarkus on the way, and you don’t want to meet him while you’re wearing my face.”

  Gage lifted his pistol. “Nobody’s going anywhere. Not until I figure out what to do with you.”

  Her pulse hammering, Solara glanced around the lab for a weapon to use against Gage or a way to distract him long enough to make it back to the ship. Her gaze landed on the bag of Infinium ore samples, and she made a snap decision. With one hand, she snatched the bag off the table and dashed out the open doors and into the hall, hoping Gage was smart enough not to shoot her and risk blowing them all into next week.

  She heard the stomp of boots and the metallic clang of a bolt sliding into place. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Gage had locked everyone inside the lab. He’d set down his pistol and was pulling on an insulated suit with the kind of speed that prompted her feet to move faster.

  While she ran, she stuffed the ore samples in her suit pocket and fastened her oxygen helmet. If she could reach the ship before Gage, she and the captain might be able to disarm him and free the others. She beat him into the air-lock chamber and shut the interior door, then wasted no time in climbing the ladder to the surface. With a mighty heave, she pushed open the top hatch and stepped outside.

  Instantly, she froze in place. The pirates were already there.

  At least a dozen mismatched shuttles had landed in a circle surrounding the Banshee, whose lowered cargo ramp showed that she’d been boarded. Solara’s heart jumped, and she darted glances in every direction looking for Cassia and the captain. The fact that he hadn’t warned her through the com-link suggested the pirates had captured him.

  Or worse.

  But there was no sign of the crew…or of anyone.

  Gage caught up with her, but she ignored the pistol pressed against her ribs and pointed at the night sky, where a distant moon illuminated the pirates’ tank of a ship hovering just outside the planet’s gravitational pull. She was about to explain when an iron hand settled on her shoulder, and she whirled around so quickly that she landed on her backside. That same hand smacked the pistol from Gage’s grip and sent it flying.

  With pain radiating from her tailbone, Solara craned her neck upward to take in seven solid feet of muscle encased in a thermal space suit. She couldn’t hear Demarkus’s voice, but she watched his lips curve in a familiar smile, equal parts cha
rming and chilling. Those lips moved in a phrase she recognized easily.

  “Hello, little bird.”

  It took Doran and the crew twenty minutes to remove the lab doors from the hinges with a screwdriver they’d found in a drawer, twice as long as it should’ve taken because the shock of everything Doran had just learned was making his hands clumsy.

  He couldn’t think straight. Nothing made sense anymore. The mother he’d missed for half his life cared more about vengeance than her own children. The father he’d idolized since he was old enough to toddle in the man’s footsteps had placed the family business ahead of his actual family. And Gage. The dead had risen. It was all too much to take in.

  “Doran!” Kane snapped his fingers an inch from his face. “Wake up!”

  Doran blinked, suddenly alert as he followed Renny and Kane into the hallway. He couldn’t afford to let his thoughts distract him, not if he wanted to reach Solara. She was counting on him to keep a clear head, and he wouldn’t let her down.

  “The com-link’s dead,” Kane announced, tapping the button on his chest.

  “Then someone shut down the system,” Renny said darkly. “And the only way to do that is from the pilothouse.”

  That was all Doran needed to hear. He donned his oxygen helmet, and the three of them jogged toward the air-lock chamber. By the time he crawled onto the planet’s surface, he was tensed and ready for a fight.

  Fists raised, he spun in a circle…and found nobody.

  He lowered his arms, confused as he glanced to and fro. The icy landscape looked exactly the same as when he’d left it. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary—until he turned his gaze skyward and noticed the pirate ship looming overhead, its hangar door closing behind a convoy of shuttlecraft. Then realization hit, and the fear of losing Solara and Gage caused him to push so quickly to his feet that he expected to rocket to the moon.

  With a firm shake, Renny redirected his attention to the Banshee and her shuttle, still docked on the opposite side of the air-lock hatch. Doran’s legs moved to run, but Renny jerked him to a stop and used two fingers to communicate We’ll check it out first.