He flew out from beneath the front section and angled toward Core Two. White light from Centauri B shone down from directly above him, and to his port side, the fiery orange light from Centauri A. Liam frowned. The star looked even bigger than it had when they’d arrived.
He zipped along the great curving hull of the core. Thousands of little windows beside him, all dark.
Ahead was the blast hole in Segment Three, like some interstellar shark had taken a bite out of the ship. Liam centered himself outside the gaping darkness and, holding his breath, flew in. Mangled metal beams and tangled, twisted wiring reflected in the skim drone’s lights, reaching out at him from all sides. He zigged and zagged through the wreckage, at one point catching a glimpse into a stateroom that seemed almost perfectly intact, except that its wall had been ripped off, the bathroom bitten in half, all its pods gone.
Then he was through and into the cavernous core. He pivoted and flew beside the nearest walkway, lined with stateroom doors. The park was below him, its grass brown and frozen. Ice coated every surface: the walkway railings, the walls and doors, and the thousands of stasis pods that had been salvaged from Core Three and were now lined up end to end on each walkway. Around him at the edges of the skim drone’s lights, the cables of the transport system—some of them snapped—gleamed like webs, as if this core were the lair of some giant spider.
Liam tugged the beacon from his suit and pressed the top, peering out the cockpit for a glimpse of the tiny green light. But the drone’s lights were too bright, causing a million glittering refractions of ice, and it was too dark beyond their reach. Liam slowed to a stop and turned off the lights. He pressed the beacon again. No sign of its twin. He turned the drone lights back on, shot forward a few hundred meters, stopped, and tried again. Only darkness.
He repeated this sequence over, and over, until he’d reached the end of the core segment. He flew along the inner curve of the wall and reversed direction, a new set of balconies in view beside him. He started back up the core, flying short distances, extinguishing his lights, and pressing the beacon.
As he went, he checked the battery: 88 percent. Was that lower than it should have been at this point? Maybe. But there was still plenty of juice left.
He’d reached the end of his third sweep when the drone’s link activated.
“Liam, this is JEFF. What is your status?”
“I’m still looking for Mina.” He checked the time. One hour and fourteen minutes until Red Line. He’d scanned barely a quarter of the segment so far, at best. “What’s going on there?”
“I have analyzed their d-d-dampening program, and I have calculated a way to disrupt it. I am testing it here on the Scorpius. If it works, I will have to wake a bot on each of the other starliners to do the same thing. But I will need to access fleet logs to get the identification codes for exact bots to contact directly, as the ship-wide link systems are down.”
“That sounds like a lot to do in just over an hour.”
“Yes . . . I would advise that you begin returning to the cruiser soon, to prepare for departure.”
“I’m not going without Mina.”
“You may have to, in order to save yourself and your parents.”
“Just tell me when your test is done.”
Liam slammed the controls and screamed in the cockpit. He needed to go faster! There were too many decks, and not enough time, and he only had two eyes—
Wait. He opened the options for the navigation screen. Of course! He could change the display to view all four directional cameras at once. He turned off the lights and pressed the beacon. Nothing, but he could see many more pods this way. He moved along, trying over and over. Reached the end. Moved and started back again.
He’d checked nearly half the segment now, but fifteen more minutes had passed. Under an hour to Red Line.
“How’s that test going, JEFF?”
No response.
Liam darted farther up the core before doing his next test. But if he went too far, he might miss some. I have to risk it. I’m running out of time. Still nothing. He flew again. Pressed the beacon.
Wait. Was that a flash of light on the port camera? He tapped the beacon again.
There she was! A weak green glint, on the far side of the segment. Liam held his breath, tapping the spot and setting navigation. He rotated the ship and shot toward her, dipping and darting to avoid the glittering transport cables. As he flew, he doused his lights and hit the beacon, and the green light glimmered brighter, and a moment later he was there, hovering in front of a walkway, where a single stasis pod among all the others had a tiny green light flashing through its icy top. Liam tilted the skim drone and pressed the beacon and the light bloomed inside, illuminating a faint outline of Mina’s shoulders and chin through the frost.
“Hi,” Liam said quietly. He laughed to himself, and tears leaked from his eyes, and he kept pressing the beacon and looking at the faint impression of his sister, right there, finally, after so long.
“Liam,” said JEFF. “Are you headed back to the cruiser?”
“I found her, JEFF!” Liam couldn’t help shouting. “How’s it going there?”
“I have successfully disabled the Telphons’ programming. I am rebooting ship systems, and will attempt to contact bots on the other starliners in a few minutes. However, you still need to be prepared to take action if this does not work. Time is running out.”
“I know. It’s okay now,” he said. “I’ll be back there in a second.”
Liam figured the skim drone was strong enough to override the pod’s magnet. He rotated so that the bottom claw was facing Mina’s pod, tapped the thrusters to line up, and then extended the claw, watching on the underside camera. He closed its bulky metal fingers around the sides of the pod, breathing with as much relief as he could ever remember feeling. He fired the thruster gently—
The skim drone shuddered but didn’t budge. Liam tried again, to the same result, then stopped. He couldn’t risk damaging the pod or skim drone.
“JEFF,” Liam said into the link. “How do you detach the magnet lock on the pod?”
“Just a moment. . . .”
Liam bit his lip. He checked the time. Forty-nine minutes. Cold sweat dripped beneath his arms.
“JEFF, I need to—
“Apologies, my processors are nearly maxed out. The lock mechanism is on the right side of the main control panel of the pod. Look for a small blue lever.”
“Okay.”
“Liam, you really need to—”
“I know! Hold on.”
Liam put on his helmet and activated his suit. He opened the canopy, and sound and air sucked away, his suit humming against the frigid cold of space. He unbuckled and floated out of the drone, guiding himself down the front of the ship using the gold towing rings. He moved quickly but carefully to the underside of the ship and then pulled himself along the claw until he was beside Mina’s pod. He rubbed his glove over the top, scattering a cloud of ice crystals, and there was Mina, her face serene and asleep. “Hey, sis.”
The controls on the side of the pod were frosted over. Liam located the little blue handle, pulled the lever, and felt the pod shift beneath him, floating free. He pushed off the balcony railing back up to the side of the drone, and climbed inside. As soon as the cabin repressurized, he yanked off his helmet and fired the thruster. The skim drone lurched and lifted away from the balcony. On the camera, Liam could see his sister safely in the grip of the claw beneath him.
“JEFF, I have Mina. I’m headed back to the cruiser.”
He nearly burned the thruster at full power, but Mina’s pod immediately buffeted off one of the transport cables, and Liam reminded himself that the ship had a bigger profile now with her pod, and snagging on one of those cables could send them spinning to a crash.
He checked the time: forty-one minutes until Red Line. But he had Mina now. It would be enough.
Liam threaded his way back to the gaping hole and then shot
out through the jaws of debris. He emerged into space and found himself face-to-face with the boiling orange star. Sorry to disappoint you, he thought, but I’m not dying here.
He flew along the side of the core and then back under the front section of the starliner to the docking bay airlock. He sent the landing request, and moments later, he was back inside the hangar.
“All right, JEFF, I’m back. Is it working?”
“Good news. I have successfully contacted a bot on each ship. The Saga has rebooted and awakened a command team, and they have also confirmed that they can fly the starliner at least enough to execute a burn out of the system. I expect the Rhea will be in the same condition. However, I have also confirmed that one thing the Telphon commander told us is true: The Scorpius is too low on fuel to depart on its own. It will need to be towed by the other starliners using their magnet tethers. This will require a more gradual engine burn, but I believe we can reach a safe enough distance to then compensate by using the solar sails to harness the energy wave of the supernova.”
“And there’s time for that?”
“We will find out shortly.”
“JEFF, translate! Does that mean we’re going to make it or not?”
“My calculations indicate that your odds for survival will be better staying with the Scorpius at this point.”
“Okay, well, I’ll wake up Mina. Keep me posted.”
He gently lowered Mina’s pod to the floor beside the Cosmic Cruiser. As he retracted the skim drone’s claw, he gazed at her through the underside camera. He could still see her sleeping face through the hole he had rubbed in the frost. He tapped the thrusters to dock beneath the cruiser—
A great rumble shuddered through the Scorpius, rattling the entire hangar. Mina’s pod skidded on the floor. There was a wicked crack, and a section of paneling crashed down beside the cruiser.
“JEFF, what was that?”
“We appear to be under attack from the Telphon craft.”
“They’re back?”
“One of our engines has been hit with their particle incinerator weapon. I am scrambling our defensive fleet of drone fighters to engage, as is the Saga. The Rhea is nearly online.”
“But you can’t destroy it! Phoebe’s on that ship!”
“We must protect the hundreds of millions of lives on board,” said JEFF. “That said, the Telphon ship has some sort of cloaking device and is difficult to target. It just fired on the Saga, taking out its primary shielding. I am running analysis to develop a counterstrategy, as we cannot defend ourselves for long against their weaponry—”
A muted sound distracted Liam. Like a voice. Liam checked the skim drone’s link, but only JEFF was transmitting on it. He glanced around the hangar; had someone called to him from the deck? But there was no one around.
Are you there? it sounded like the voice had said. It seemed to be coming from inside the craft—Liam pushed aside his helmet. A light flashed within the folds of his Dust Devils jersey.
“Of course you’re not. But I didn’t know what else to do.”
Phoebe!
Liam grabbed the jersey. There was something tucked in its front pocket: Phoebe’s link. That strange symbol she’d shown him was flashing on its screen.
“We’ll never see each other again,” Phoebe said. “I guess I just want the universe to know that I’m sorry, and I was wrong. I—”
Liam tapped the symbol. “Phoebe! Phoebe, it’s me! I’m here!”
“Liam! You’re okay!”
“Where are you?”
“I’m on our ship! They don’t know I’m contacting you. Where are you?”
“In the skim drone.”
“Still on the Scorpius?”
“Yeah. What’s happening? I thought you left.”
“Liam, I couldn’t talk them out of it. We’d moved to a safe distance, to see what we could learn about the Drove after the nova. But then we detected your ships coming back online. It’s my fault they knew about the Drove—otherwise we would have just left. Even when I’m right, I’m wrong. You have to get out of there.”
“Where am I going to go?” said Liam. “We’re trying to get the starliners to safety. JEFF is on the bridge. I’m alone with my parents and sister.”
“You found her? She’s alive?”
“Yeah. Shawn is too.”
Phoebe made a sniffling sound. “Liam, I’m sorry, my parents won’t listen. Neither will Barro or Tarra, or anyone else. They don’t care about what I’m trying to tell them. About the Drove, the chronologist, that everything is so much more complicated than we know. They just want you all dead. I don’t know what we’re going to do, I—” There was a loud screeching sound.
“Phoebe?”
“Your fighters are firing on us. But they won’t be able to stop us. This ship is too fast.”
“I know.” Liam looked at Mina’s pod. He could load her onto the cruiser and run for it. Get his family to safety. But then what?
“Hello, Liam,” said JEFF over the link. “Are you all right?”
“Hold on a sec,” Liam said to Phoebe. “Yes, JEFF, um . . .” He probably shouldn’t tell JEFF he was talking to Phoebe.
“Liam, you should dock the drone and buckle in on board. Things are about to get bumpy.”
The entire ship lurched sharply around Liam.
“That was the magnet tether from the Saga,” said JEFF. “The Rhea is moving into position.”
“All three of us attached makes us sitting ducks, doesn’t it?” said Liam.
“Momentarily, but do not worry. It is also a part of our counterstrategy against the hostile craft.”
“Counterstrategy?” Liam eyed Phoebe’s link. With a shaking finger, he pressed the icon so that she would hear their conversation. “What strategy is that?”
“I am now synced up with the other two commands. The enemy ship is too fast to pinpoint with our standard warheads. However, the Rhea was able to run scans, and we have determined that while the ship’s engine possesses technology beyond our understanding, it still operates according to standard electromagnetic theory. Therefore, we are deploying the drone fighters in such a way as to draw the ship to a target location, at which point we are going to fire an array of warheads with timed detonation from all three starliners, encasing the ship in an electromagnetic blast that should render it inoperable.”
“Inoperable, and then what? We just leave it there?”
“Then we will be able to target the ship directly.”
“But JEFF—” Liam’s insides squeezed tight. “Phoebe’s on that ship.”
“Acknowledged, but you must understand: she is part of a hostile alien force that is responsible for many thousands of lives lost already, and is currently attempting to kill many more.”
“We’re responsible for— Never mind.”
Liam switched off the drone’s link. “Did you hear that?” he said to Phoebe. “It’s a trap.”
“I heard it.”
“You should tell your people our plan,” said Liam, his heart racing.
“But then we might kill you!” Phoebe sniffled. “I told you I can’t stop them. I’m powerless here. Just a stupid kid to them.”
“I know the feeling.”
A silence passed between them. Outside the drone, the Scorpius rumbled.
“I guess this is good-bye,” said Phoebe.
As Liam listened, a great hole opened up inside him, like all of his emotions were spiraling down it. He closed his eyes and slid along, letting the breeze blow. Once again, he saw himself at different moments in time, all floating like bubbles. He saw the future, close now, the boiling star about to explode, Phoebe’s icy face . . . but his thoughts slipped backward too, to sitting on the couch with her before Delphi, to being trapped on that ledge on Mars with her, to catching her eye and laughing when Shawn made a joke in class, and all the moments compressed into a ball inside him, heavier than anything he’d known.
He even remembered her makeup melting awa
y and her true face becoming visible underneath it, the truth she’d dared to share with him. In her own way, she had probably seen that moment, that future, coming for a long time, but she had been brave.
He would be brave.
“Phoebe,” he said calmly. “It’s going to be all right.”
“How?”
“Just a sec.” Liam tapped the drone’s link. “JEFF, how long until we fire those warheads?”
“Approximately ten minutes.”
“Okay, thanks.” Liam flexed his fingers on the controls. There was no point fighting it anymore. “JEFF, I need you to do something for me. Make sure my family is safe, okay?”
“Liam, I do not understand the circumstances of this order.”
He breathed deep, then fired the thrusters and spun toward the airlock.
“Liam, where are you going?”
The inner doors slid open.
“Liam, please: I cannot calculate any scenario in which leaving this ship leads to a favorable outcome.”
“Neither can I.” He slid into the airlock, and when the outer doors opened, he fired the skim drone’s thruster at full power. “Phoebe, can you turn on the location beacon on that link you’re using?”
“Yeah, but why?”
“I’m coming to get you.”
18
TIME TO SUPERNOVA RED LINE: 0H:27M
“Coming to get me?” said Phoebe. “How?”
“In the skim drone.”
“But Liam, your vision—”
“I know—I think this is it.”
Phoebe didn’t reply right away. Liam maneuvered the drone out from under the starliner. The battery level was at 73 percent. Enough, maybe. And yet he wondered with a sinking feeling if he would need it.
He paired Phoebe’s link with the skim drone and opened the tracking screen. A dot lit up, indicating Phoebe’s position. “Okay, I’ve got you.”
The Oceans between Stars Page 24
