Jane and the Exodus (Stargazer Series Book 1)

by T. R. Woodman

  Jane felt her shoulders tighten again. Tomorrow? she thought.

  He continued. “I feel a responsibility to the people of our country, to leave them knowing that they have a choice—that they don’t have to live the way they have been living. And whether they choose to come to the new world with us in the future or not, their future will be dependent upon the choices they make, individually and as a people.”

  He paused again, the crowd still riveted. “But I want to remind you, on this, our eve of discovery … you get to make a choice as well,” he added. “When you committed yourselves to this project, it may have seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime … one that may have made you excited about your or your family’s future. But the idea wasn’t real then. It is real now, though, and the reality is this—”

  Jane’s dad cleared his throat. “The reality is that in spite of the precautions we are taking, the preparations we have made, and the planning we have done, this journey will be dangerous. There are challenges we will face together, many of which we can’t foresee. We don’t know how long it will take to get to the new world, and assuming we do make it, the hard work required to make a life on a new planet will be ahead of us.

  “Further, even if we want to return to Earth at some point, for whatever reason, we may not be able to. We very well may be leaving Earth behind and everything it has meant to us—good and bad. We may never see it again. More importantly, many of us will be leaving people behind, and if there are people down there on Earth whom we love, we may never see them again either.”

  At this, Jane had to choke back a tear at the thought of never seeing Tate again, and she noticed that her dad had wrinkled up his brow too, certainly thinking about Tate as well.

  “And there’s another reality to this as well,” Jane’s dad said, now leaning with both hands on the railing in front of him. “I can say with confidence that as soon as I make this announcement to the people of our country, our government is going to try to stop us. They can’t afford to have us leave or give the people of our country hope that life could be better without them. I need for all of you to understand—I expect this. It very likely will be dangerous, and once the announcement is made—from that point forward, whether we are here or are traveling to our new planet—our very lives may be in danger.”

  Jane felt her father’s words torpedo down from his mouth and smash her squarely in the gut as she realized that she did not have a week to get to Tate, and by the sounds of things, she had less than a day. There was no way the government was going to tolerate her father sending a message like that. They would be coming for him. She felt her breath get short, but she tried to stay calm.

  Jane looked around the room. Whatever energy and excitement there was had completely dissipated as people considered what they were giving up, were risking to be there, and the dangers that lay ahead.

  “So again,” her dad continued, “you get to make a choice—but you have to make your choice tonight. Once the announcement is made tomorrow morning, there will be no turning back. It will not be possible for you to come and go as you have. If you are still on Vista in the morning, then you have made your choice, and assuming we are successful, you will be the first to discover and find a life on a new planet … one that we hope will offer us all the dream of opportunity, freedom, and life.

  “For those of you who choose not to go, for whatever reason, no explanation is necessary. But you will need to leave on one of the shuttles set to depart at four o’clock tomorrow morning. Our intention is to have you to the surface before the country has awakened. This will give you time to find your way to wherever it is that you need to go, before the country knows what we are doing. This is for your safety.”

  Her dad paused again, looking around at the mass of people congregated below him. “I would wish you all a good night, but for many of you, I know it’ll be anything but, given the choice ahead you must make. So I will leave you with this thought instead … Whether you choose to go on this adventure with us or choose to stay behind, remember that the direction your life will take will be based on the decisions you make. Pray about this decision.”

  With that, Jane saw her dad wave to the crowd of people and turn to walk back toward the command center. She tried to breathe. I still have time … There’s still time.

  A moment later, the murmuring started, and Jane watched the people in the crowd mill around, talking a little here and there with one another. She watched one couple hug and others wipe tears from their eyes. Still, others were laughing and smiling, patting one another on the back and shaking hands. Some of the people she knew and some she didn’t, but the range of emotions expressed by the people on Vista in that moment seemed boundless.

  Her mind still scrambling to catch up, Jane watched the crowd. It was beginning to thin as people headed to wherever they needed to go. Glancing to one side, she saw Adam and his parents talking with mostly serious expressions on their faces. She suspected something about the choice they faced was hard for them too. Adam’s mom gave him a hug, and he patted her on the back as she started to cry. His dad’s look of concern was also noticeable, even from a distance. His dad put his hand on Adam’s shoulder. Jane couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like Adam’s parents were saying goodbye.

  Totally unexpectedly, Jane felt her knees go weak. Having just spent a flirty moment with him in the exercise room, the thought had flitted across her mind that Adam might be staying—because of her. A split second later, she was bent over with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Her mind started racing as she oscillated between being incredibly flattered at the prospect of being that important to him and incredibly pissed that he would put that kind of pressure on her.

  Images raced through her mind. A wedding in the park where she stood. Cramped life in a small room on Vista with another person. Innumerable children surrounding her, tugging on her shirtsleeves. Standing on the stoop of a one-room house, waving to her husband, Adam, as he walked off to work. She wanted to scream but found no sound. Not even a gasp would come.

  A moment passed and Jane caught her breath. Standing straight again, she glanced back to where Adam and his parents had been, only to notice that they, and most the crowd, were walking out of the park.

  Putting her hands on her hips, Jane shook her head. “Pull yourself together, girl,” she mumbled under her breath, chastising herself for letting her emotions run away from her like that. Between worrying over convincing Tate to come and wondering what Adam’s intentions were for staying, Jane felt like she was scrambling her own brain.

  Tate … I have to focus on Tate, she thought, realizing she didn’t have time to worry over Adam or the decisions he was going to make.

  Jane breathed deeply. She knew what she was going to do. She had all along, she reminded herself, but the shock of having to deal with it sooner than she imagined had caught her off guard.

  Focus on Tate … I still have time, she thought again as she started toward the catwalk and the command center, thinking she’d say good night to her dad. She knew the chance that everything would work out perfectly in all this was small, but Jane found some comfort in remembering what her dad was capable of. There was no way he was going to fail. She was sure of it. He had a plan, and her worries that he might be arrested were probably just that—worries.

  Jane also figured there was a small chance Tate would change his mind about not coming with them, but while she had complete confidence that her dad could pull of the nearly impossible, she had almost zero confidence in her own ability to do something seemingly simple. She only had one more shot, though, and she was determined not to take no for an answer. Tate would just have to listen to reason.

  DEFIANT

  Jane peered into the hallway. She wasn’t expecting to see anyone, but she figured she couldn’t be too careful. Even on a space station, which isn’t naturally beholden to Earthy conventions like daytime and nighttime, she figured it’d look strange for her to be see
n skulking around after midnight.

  The hallway was quiet. She slipped through the doorway leaving her quarters and crept down the corridor, feeling like she was back on Earth, sneaking in after curfew. Rounding the corner of the corridor leading toward the park, she heard nothing—there wasn’t anyone to give her away.

  Breezing her way through the park, still staying as concealed as she could under the cover of the trees, she came to the corridor that led to the shuttle bays. There were nearly two dozen shuttles docked in the transportation wing of Vista, and Jane suspected that in just a couple of hours, this area would be as busy as it ever had been. She had no idea how many people were going to leave the space station, but she knew her dad’s announcement had made a lot of people think.

  Jane knew she wasn’t an important part of the crew, and she kept a low profile around her dad’s company, but people still knew who she was, so she couldn’t very well be seen boarding a shuttle with other evacuees. An image of a rat abandoning a doomed ship at the dock just before it set sail popped into her head. She didn’t know if that was just an old wives’ tale or not, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t want to look like a rat, and she certainly didn’t want to bring embarrassment to her dad, especially since she wasn’t abandoning ship. She was trying to rescue her stubbornly foolish brother from drowning.

  CP Interstellar employed people from all over the world, and the people on Vista came from all over as well. When the shuttles left in a few hours, they would drop simultaneously, taking people back to the cities where they had come from. Knowing that her shuttle—her dad’s shuttle really—would be heading back to the headquarters in Atlanta, she sneaked down the breezeway and climbed aboard.

  Jane stood in the hull of the dark ship and breathed a sigh of relief, figuring she had made it without being seen. Her plan was solid: She was going to lock herself in her quarters on the shuttle—nobody would try to gain access to her room anyway—and she would fly down to the surface with everyone who was leaving for good. Once everyone was off the ship, she would sneak off to talk some sense into Tate. Then she’d fly back with the shuttle afterward.

  Even with nothing but the emergency lights on, Jane could see well enough in the shuttle. She could have made her way to her quarters blindfolded, given all the time she had spent on it over the years. In seconds she was inside her room. The door closed behind her, and she turned on the lights.

  “Jane?” came Evelyn’s questioning voice over the intercom. “What are you doing on the shuttle?”

  “How did you know I was in here?”

  “Other than your dad, you are the only person who can access your quarters. I can hear your dad speaking with the engineers in the command center, so I knew it was you.”

  “My dad is still up … at this hour?” Jane asked, a little worried. Her dad didn’t sleep much, especially not these days with all the chaos. “What are they doing up there?”

  “They’re running some last-minute tests on the Leap Frog,” Evelyn replied. “I have told them they have done all they can to test it, but what do I know?”

  “Get used to it, Evelyn. My dad sometimes has selective hearing. If he’s set on doing something, he’s going to do it.”

  “I know someone else who is like that, Jane.”

  Jane smiled. “Like father, like daughter?”

  “Exactly.”

  Jane didn’t feel like changing out of her clothes, especially because she was going to be up and out of her quarters before most of the country was even awake. She sat down on the edge of her bed and started to unlace her shoes.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Evelyn stated.

  A mischievous grin crept across Jane’s lips. “You picked up on that, huh?”

  “That’s still not an answer, Jane. What are you doing on the shuttle?”

  Jane’s grin faded. Evelyn was a tireless computer and would certainly keep bothering her until she got her answer. She slipped off her shoes. “Fine,” Jane relented. “I’m going to find Tate, and I’m going to try to talk some sense into him.”

  “I would advise against that, Jane,” Evelyn replied. “Not only will it be dangerous for you, but it will be dangerous for him.”

  “Not if he comes back to the shuttle with me,” Jane replied, reclining on her bed with her hands under her head.

  “It is highly unlikely that you will change his mind.”

  Jane cocked her eyebrow in disbelief. “Have you even met me?”

  “Right, Jane—like father, like daughter,” Evelyn agreed.

  A moment passed and Jane thought about what she might say to Tate. She still wasn’t sure, but she knew it would have to be good if she was going to convince him.

  “You know,” Evelyn said, breaking Jane’s thought, “I’m going to have to inform your dad about what you are up to.”

  Jane smirked. “You’re going to tell my dad on me? If I had a sister, I’m pretty sure you would sound exactly like her right now.”

  “Be that as it may, I have to tell him.”

  “You most certainly will not.”

  “I don’t have a choice, Jane,” Evelyn reasoned. “It’s for your own safety.”

  Jane started to get a little concerned at Evelyn’s persistence and then had an idea.

  “Didn’t my dad hire you to be my assistant, Evelyn?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did.”

  Jane sat up straight on her bed, pointing her finger toward the ceiling but at nothing in particular. “Then as your boss, I am telling you not to say anything to my dad,” Jane ordered.

  A moment passed. “That’s a rotten thing to do, Jane.”

  Having won her battle against artificial intelligence, Jane leaned back again on her bed and grinned. “No,” she said, feeling pretty good about herself. “That’s business, Evelyn. And if you knew any better, you’d know that it’s more important for me to find Tate and get him to come with us. It’s for his own safety. I can’t have you interfering with me at least trying.”

  Evelyn relented. “Fine, Jane, I won’t tell him, but only as long as you are safe. You have to wear a communicator while you’re off the shuttle, preferably the earbud that tucks inside your ear. That way I can track you in case something bad happens.”

  “Nothing bad is going to happen, Evelyn.”

  “Jane,” Evelyn began in her own condescending tone, “I am smarter than you are. There is a significant chance that something bad is going to happen.”

  “Again, you’re sounding like the sister I don’t have,” Jane replied, rolling her eyes. She knew she was taking a risk, and she didn’t need Evelyn reminding her of it every ten seconds.

  “Jane,” Evelyn said.

  Still annoyed, Jane relented. “Fine, I’ll be careful, and I’ll wear the earbud.”

  Jane stared at the ceiling in her room, thinking about Tate and what she should say, lost in her thoughts for a second. “Do you know where Tate is right now, Evelyn?”

  “I always know where Tate is. He is a priest. He listens to me when I tell him to do something.”

  Jane smirked and raised her eyebrow. “A little less sass please, Evelyn.”

  “Sorry, I got caught up in the moment,” Evelyn replied and then continued in a more helpful tone. “Yes, I know where Tate is. I can track him because of the nanite technology in his head. It sends out a beacon I can detect, and he never turns it off. He’s in the rectory in his parish right now, and according to his vitals, he’s asleep.”

  “Thanks, Evelyn.”

  “You’re welcome, Jane. After we land, I’ll let you know when everyone is gone. Then you can make your way to the parking garage.”

  “I plan to take one of the utility trucks—one that’s older. Hopefully, that’ll be less conspicuous,” Jane added, trying to convince Evelyn she had thought this through, though she wasn’t sure why she felt the need.

  “Once you’re in your vehicle, I’ll lead you straight to Tate.” Evelyn paused and then added, “You know, Jan
e, your dad is going to wonder what’s going on when I don’t return the shuttle to Vista right away. He’s going to figure out what you’re up to very quickly. He’s a smart man.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Jane said, trying to play it cool. “But what’s he going to do, ground me? I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “A little less sass please, Jane.”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like my mo—”

  Jane stopped mid-word and mid-breath. She put her hand to her mouth and slowly gritted her teeth. The memory of her mom flooded her mind. She didn’t feel so cool anymore.

  Her room was quiet again, and then Evelyn broke the silence. “Jane, may I ask you a question?”

  Pausing a second longer than normal, and still berating herself over slighting her mom, Jane finally responded. “Sure, Evelyn—go ahead.”

  “Why do you think Tate will change his mind?”

  Jane was silent. She didn’t really have an answer. She wasn’t sure he would change his mind at all, but she gave the only answer she could, which expressed how she felt about it. “Because I need him to.”

  Evelyn said nothing, letting a moment pass. “Get some rest, Jane. You have an adventure ahead of you.”

  Jane turned down the light by her bed. “Thanks for helping me, Evelyn.”

  With a comforting tone, Evelyn replied, “Hey, what are sisters for?”

  NAIVE

  “The coast is clear,” Evelyn said through the earbud tucked inside Jane’s ear.

  Jane peered through the doorway from her quarters, down the hallway, into the dark belly of the shuttle. Everyone was gone.

  “Thanks,” Jane replied, whispering.

  Jane walked cautiously in the dark. She felt her stomach churn as she approached the ramp leading down to the tarmac. She was nervous, but not because she was worried about being seen; she was nervous about whether she could convince Tate to come along. The thought of leaving him on Earth with all the trouble her father was causing made her almost sick to her stomach.