Neptune took my hand and pulled me to my feet. He led me out of the cell, back to the computer, and this time turned the sound switch so the computer was silent. He clicked a couple of keys on the keyboard and the regulation screensaver went black. A field popped up in the middle of the screen, and he typed in his name and ID number, and then entered a string of encoded characters into ten white fields. The black screen dissolved and a news database replaced it.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Neptune looked at me, his brows drawn low over his eyes. He rolled out his chair and stood, and indicated that I should sit. Curious about this sudden change in Neptune and his willingness to share information with me, I dropped onto the molded plastic and leaned forward to read the screen.
Bulletins appeared character by character on the bottom as if someone at a remote location was typing them while events were unfolding. As new information appeared on the bottom of the screen, the existing news scrolled up and the bulletins on the top disappeared.
Space Pirates from Colony 13 have infiltrated the galaxy. Safe zones compromised.
I immediately understood why we couldn’t make an unscheduled stop. Pirates were the biggest threat to the galaxy. They operated by their own code, one that made allowances for murder, torture, theft, and kidnapping if those actions got them what they wanted. They were the same people my father had been accused of colluding with to maximize the value of our ice mine yield.
Nobody wanted to believe that Jack Stryker had been capable of entering a deal with pirates, but the evidence had been incontrovertible. Worse, he hadn’t denied the accusations. My dad had remained silent when the Space Police Corps came to the mine and arrested him and through his trial at the Federation Council. Whether or not he was talking now, I wouldn’t know. I’d never know as long as I stayed away from Colony 13.
I read what I could from the news monitor, picking out enough words to understand the magnitude of the threat. As long as we were on Moon Unit 5, we were safe. Once we stopped, we’d be a prime target. Which meant the devil we knew—the on-ship murderer and saboteur—was better than the devil we didn’t know—the violent and unscrupulous space pirates on a rampage through the galaxy.
Neptune switched the monitor to black.
“Hey!” I said. “I was reading that.”
“You read enough. We need a plan.”
“Here’s my plan. I’m going back to bed. Tomorrow morning, I’ll get up early so I can beat the Martians to the cafeteria. I’ll get my food to go and eat it in my room. When we land on Ganymede, I’ll request a transfer and take a space taxi back to Plunia.”
“You’re not going back to Plunia.” Neptune’s face was rigid.
I didn’t care if he didn’t like my attitude. At the moment I didn’t much like his. “Oh, yes I am. I want off this ship. You can find yourself another helper.”
“Did you not read the news? Those pirates are tearing up the galaxy. Any attempt to land will put the safety of every passenger on this ship in danger. If conditions don’t improve, we’re not going to land on Ganymede. We’re not going to land anywhere. You’re stuck on this ship whether you like it or not.”
“We have to land eventually. There’s only enough fuel on board to keep us in orbit for two weeks.”
“Which means we don’t have to worry about that problem yet. Right now, the only problem we have is figuring out who’s sabotaging the ship.”
I stood up. “Are you kidding? That might be your only problem, but it’s not mine. My coworkers want to lynch me. I haven’t had a proper night of sleep in two days. My ex-boyfriend has me under surveillance, my old boss wants me written up for a wardrobe infraction, and my new boss just poisoned me with carbon monoxide. If somebody doesn’t kill me because I know too much about the murder, I’m going to die in a space crash when Moon Unit 5 runs out of fuel. This trip was supposed to be my dream, and now all I want is to go home. I want to go back to work in the ice mines on Plunia. I want to go where I’m wanted. I want to be with my mom.”
Neptune’s expression changed. He switched the monitor back on and clicked a small green tab on the bottom that said Plunian News. A pop-up window filled the screen. Neptune pulled his chair away from the desk so I could get a better look at the article, but as soon as I made out the headline, I hated him for keeping it from me in the first place, and I hated him for showing it to me now.
Pirate Attack Destroys Dwarf Planet
Images of my home planet taken from a remote camera that monitored the galaxy filled the screen. Plunia exploding. Particles dispersing. My home planet dissolving into black nothingness.
The only world I knew was gone.
I looked away. Neptune put his hand under my jaw and turned my face back to the screen. I stared at the destruction of my planet, hating him for making me watch what I was bound to replay in future nightmares. I tried to turn my head, but Neptune’s hand kept my face pointed toward the news bulletins. It was only then that I noticed the bottom screen crawl.
Pirates Kill Ice Mine Owner
To the rest of the galaxy, the loss of critical dry ice supplies would take precedence over the smaller story running along the bottom of the screen. But to me, it was all that mattered. Because everything I’d wanted—my hopes, my dreams, my opportunities—had come to me because of my mother’s sacrifices. When our lives had been torn apart, she’d made a new future for us. And now she’d been killed at the hands of the very men who had corrupted my dad.
19: Alone
I shouldn’t have taken the job on this ship. I should have been back where I belonged, on Plunia, helping with the family business. I should have been there to help my mom fight off the attack and maybe save her life. But instead, I was here, chasing dreams that should have died a long time ago and pretending to be something I wasn’t.
I didn’t want to read the article. Not while Neptune was sitting in the chair next to me, studying my reaction. My life had been destroyed once thanks to space pirates. And now, they’d taken the one person who had gotten me through those troubling times. If pirates were onboard Moon Unit 5, I had no doubt I would kill them. My lifetime desire to work in security and the newfound credentials that made me look official were worth nothing.
Nothing.
“She wouldn’t have wanted you to give up this opportunity to be there with her,” Neptune said.
“You don’t know anything about my mother, and you don’t know anything about me.” My voice was detached and emotionless. I felt cold. I stood up straight and stared ahead, focusing on the wall at the end of the hallway. “Are we done here?”
“Stryker,” Neptune said. He put his hand on my arm. I looked down at it for a few seconds and then stepped away from him. The distance forced his hand to fall from my skin. I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ground together. There was nothing inside of me. Not sadness, not anger, not fear. Just a black hole. I was alone now, alone in the universe with nobody on my side.
“Am I spending the night here or in my quarters?” I asked.
“You can go to your quarters.”
I nodded once and then turned around and left. My movements felt robotic, as though I’d been programmed to move the same way I’d programmed Cat. I must have activated the elevator and traveled the hallway to my door, but I didn’t remember doing any of it. I went inside and crawled under the temperature-sensitive blanket. I was cold. So cold. I curled up on my side with my knees up to my chest and my arms folded in front of me. My entire body shook with chills.
The temperature-sensitive blanket must have malfunctioned. Nothing I did made me warm. I stared at the wall in front of me. I didn’t want to close my eyes or fall asleep. I didn’t want to let time move forward. If I could stay awake, in the privacy of my room, I could pretend everything was the way it had been when I left Plunia.
***
I don’t know when sleep won the coin toss, but I woke the next morning to the sound of Cat meowing my alarm. I was roasting under se
veral temperature-sensitive blankets and a pile of clothes. I pushed the layers off me and then yelled when I saw I had company.
Pika sat at my table. Her pointy ears jutted up on either side of her head, and her eyes were twice the size they’d been the day before.
I stared at her for a moment, not saying a word. At first, I just felt sleepy, like I’d taken medication that had left me groggy. The pile of clothes on top of me and the presence of Pika didn’t make sense.
And then, the horror came back to me. The news article about the space pirates. The destruction of Plunia. The death of my mother.
The sense of being completely alone.
I brushed at my shoulders, feeling like one of the heat-sensitive blankets was still there. It wasn’t. The weight was imaginary. I felt like I had the day my dad had been arrested and taken to Colony 13, only worse. Everyone would watch me, judge me, pity me. Somehow I had to find an inner strength to carry me beyond the gossip and criticism of the crew members and passengers and anybody else I’d encounter for the rest of my life. I had to turn off my emotions and use my Plunian mind to focus on facts: cold, hard facts. The opposite of emotion.
Fact: Two plus two equals four.
Fact: Red and yellow make orange.
Fact: People can’t be trusted.
I shifted my gaze from Pika to the mound of clothes piled on my bed. They were crew uniforms. “Why are there uniforms on my bed?” I asked.
“You were cold, and the temperature blankets weren’t warming you.”
“The blankets are standard issue. I only had one. Where did the rest come from?”
“I took one from the second navigation officer’s room.” Pika smiled a little. “Nobody thought to check his quarters after he died. That’s where I’ve been staying.”
Again, I wondered if I’d been foolishly accepting Pika’s innocent act. She knew her way around the ship without being noticed. She was smart enough to hole up in the quarters vacated by the deceased officer. But now, I didn’t care. Let someone else figure out what happened. I doubted anybody was going to risk their life trying to find out what happened to my mother.
“That explains one extra blanket, but not two. And since you’re a stowaway, you can’t tell me the third one is yours.”
“It belongs to the giant.”
“You stole Neptune’s blanket?”
“He gave it to me.”
I pushed the pile of gray uniforms to the floor and peeled off the top blanket. “Take it back,” I said. “I don’t need Neptune’s charity.”
As I held the blanket out toward Pika, I realized the pink alien was shivering. I didn’t know how she’d gotten into my quarters or the uniform ward that first day on the ship. I didn’t ask. She’d already demonstrated that she was able to get into places she probably shouldn’t have been. I walked across the room and draped the extra blanket over her narrow shoulders. The cloth immediately turned a soft orange shade as it adjusted to her Gremlon temperature. Her fists grabbed at the edges, and she wrapped it tight around her body. “Thank you,” she said in a little girl voice.
“You’re welcome.”
I picked up the uniform closest to me and started folding. It was a mindless task, the least important one I could choose. I needed something that required no thought. Hold the shirt to my chest. Fold each sleeve in: left one first and right one next. Raise the hem of the shirt to the shoulders so the shirt was folded over itself. Set it on the pile and move onto the next one. Neither Pika nor I spoke while I worked my way through the pile. When I finished, I had twelve gray tops and sixteen pairs of black trousers. I moved the piles from the bed to the table.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” I asked Pika.
She watched me with wide eyes but didn’t answer. I tipped my head toward the bed. “Go ahead and lay down. Nobody is going to come looking for you here either.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have to return these uniforms to the inventory closet before anybody notices they’re missing.”
“Wait,” Pika said. She extended her closed fist out from under the blanket. “I’m not allowed to let you leave without these.”
I felt my forehead scrunch in confusion and held my hand out. Pika turned her fist sideways and opened her fingers. Three round white pills fell into my palm. Only one person had offered me oxygen tablets since being on board the ship. Only one person knew my oxygen canisters had been tampered with and filled with carbon monoxide. One person knew everything I knew: about what I’d figured out in engineering and what had happened to my home planet. One person who controlled my future.
“Pika, what can you tell me about the giant?”
Pika’s eyes widened. “I’m not allowed to talk about him.”
“He gave you these pills, didn’t he? He told you to come into my room and watch over me. Why? Does he know you’re a stowaway? Why is he okay with you being on the ship?”
Pika’s ears popped out on top of her head, and her body mass diminished. I hadn’t known Gremlons could change size at will, and I leaned forward to study her. “How’d you do that?”
“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything.”
“You got smaller.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I saw you. Your ears popped up, and your body shrank. Why? And how?”
Slowly Pika’s ears retracted closer to her head. She pulled the heat-adjusting thermal blanket up to her neck. “The giant told me you were sick and I should give you those when you woke up so you could get better.”
“How did you get in here?”
“He let me in.”
“Neptune was in my room again?”
Pika’s looked scared. “He was worried about you. He said you were aloner than anybody else on the ship.”
I didn’t correct Pika or ask to hear the exact words Neptune had used because it didn’t matter. I was alone. In a ship of passengers who were having the time of their lives, I was without a single person I could trust.
20: Lashing Out
I changed into my black security uniform, picked up the stacks of uniforms, and left Pika behind in my quarters. I felt nothing. No enthusiasm for being on the ship, no pride in a job well done, no determination to prove I belonged. I was empty.
Two of the little green men who had confronted me yesterday morning passed me in the hallway. I kept my eyes forward and my gravity boots walking one foot in front of the other. Their voices floated to me from behind. “First one Plunian, now two. What’s next? Little purple babies?”
“That one seems like a real handful. Bet that’s why her dad took off with space pirates and screwed over their whole planet. Worthless trash.”
I dropped the uniforms in the hall, a dark gray pile on top of the orange industrial carpet. I turned around and watched the Martians as they walked away, totally unaware that I’d overheard them. Or maybe they were aware. Maybe they’d wanted me to hear. Maybe this was how life was going to be from now on.
Rage burned like a supernova. I ran toward the Martians. The carpet silenced my footsteps, and by the time they realized I was right behind them, I had jumped on the back of one and knocked him to the ground. He writhed underneath me, but I was bigger, stronger, and madder than he was. I was too far gone to stop or realize what I was doing. I slapped at him, pummeled him, and a strange scream I never knew I could make came from my throat.
The other man tried to pull me off. I flung him away. He staggered backward and stumbled into the wall. He regained his footing and took off down the hall.
The man beneath me cowered and held up his arms. “Don’t hurt me!” he cried out.
“Take it back! My mother was not trash!” I yelled.
“I take it back! I take it all back! Stop hitting me!”
The only fighting I knew was what they’d taught us at the space academy in Security Section Maneuvers. They we
re defensive moves, not offensive ones. But there was no way to pretend my assault on the communication officer in the hallway was anything other than offensive. Unless someone had overheard what they’d said.
Two strong tawny arms wrapped themselves around me from behind and lifted me off the little green man. I was in the air. I raised my legs and made contact with the wall and pushed off as hard as I could. The arms tightened around me, and I felt like I was in a compressor.
“Get ahold of yourself,” said a voice in my ear.
The mass behind me was Neptune. How did he know—oh. The chip in the security uniform.
A wave of unwanted heat washed over me. It was so strong I knew without looking that my skin color had intensified. Neptune was the one person on this ship who knew why I was angry. And somehow, that knowledge was like a release valve for my rage. My legs went limp against the wall and, because he was applying a counter pressure, I got squished. He must have realized the fight had left me because he took a step back and held on until my feet found the ground. I expected him to let go of me, but he didn’t. Not right away.
The two of us stood facing the wall. I didn’t want to make eye contact with him, or the Martian on the ground, or the other Moon Unit 5 crew that had come out of their quarters and the employee lounge to see who was making all the ruckus. I looked up at the lights on the top of the hallway. They were flashing white; two flashes close together. Code White: general crew disturbance. Protocol: evacuate quadrant.
The elevator doors slid open, and a team of medical officers got off. Doc Edison was in front. The expression on his face wasn’t as understanding as it had been yesterday when he’d given me a sugar pop in the holding cell.
Doc and his team moved past me and assessed the officer on the ground. He was sitting up and scowling at me. I looked away, only to see Captain Swift heading down the hallway toward us.
“Do what I say,” Neptune said quietly.
I turned my head ever so slightly toward him. “I still don’t know if I trust you.”
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