I don’t get it. “Why would I be there?”
“Weapons lab,” Electra repeats, and gazes across the table at me. “A place where new weapons are developed. It’s where you came from.”
As I realize what this means, I get a sudden lurching, empty feeling, like when I was floating in the deepest, coldest, most airless regions of space. There’s no home. There’s no family of shapeshifters waiting for me.
I really am a thing.
I was made in a lab.
To be a weapon.
38
I think I’ve known all along that I am a weapon.
When anyone looks into my eyes, that’s what they should see: a thing that was made for hunting and for killing. They don’t see a person, they see an it.
“He will never agree,” Electra is saying.
The captain answers, but I can’t hear her above the whirling of my thoughts.
There are other shapeshifters, like me. Other made weapons. Except they haven’t escaped from the lab on the Peacemaker, as I did.
From the time I arrived at the station and took the shape of a dog puppy, I knew that I was running away from something. I always knew it was something awful.
The dream I had, with the white walls and the hunger and the desperate resistance. It wasn’t a prison; it was a lab.
And now I’m going to have to go back to it. Because if there are shapeshifters still in that lab, they are alone and frightened, and I have to get them out.
I realize that I am standing in the middle of the mess-room, and the Hunter is stirring. A blink, and I see that Electra and the captain are still at the table. The eye has disappeared; it’s probably hiding. Reetha has come in too, and waits by the door with her arms folded. The captain has her head in her hands, and Electra looks as bleak as I’ve ever seen her.
The captain looks up. “Trouble, we’ll head for the Altarian system. The Free Farmers will take you and hide you from the StarLeague. And Electra, too. You’ll both be safe there.”
Electra is shaking her head.
When I speak, my voice sounds hoarse, as if I’ve been shouting. “No,” I rasp. I pace two steps away, and then two steps back to the middle of the room. “I have to get the other shapeshifters out of that place.”
“Told you,” Electra says.
“Shut up,” the captain snarls at her.
“I have to get them out of that lab,” I repeat.
“Trouble, you cannot,” the captain says, getting to her feet. “You should run as far away from there as you can.”
I turn to face her. “No.”
“I will not hand you over to that StarLeague general.” She bangs a hand on the table. “That’s what this would amount to. I won’t do it.”
I don’t know what my face looks like, but she flinches. “If you won’t take me to the Peacemaker,” I say in my raspy voice, “I’ll go by myself.” I whirl and head for the door, the one that opens onto the corridor that leads to the airlock.
Reetha gets there ahead of me. She plants herself in front of the door, her arms still folded and her face as blank as it always is.
“Get out of my way,” I warn. There is a thing that I have to do, and nobody is going to stop me from doing it.
Reetha just stands there. A blink and I will shift into the Hunter, and I will fight my way out.
“Stop it!” It’s Electra. Swiftly, she crosses the room to me and grips the front of my sweater, holding me in place when I try to pull away. “Listen, T. Just listen. You know why I decided to help you, instead of turning you in? You were on the planet, trapped in the Vault, and I was waiting in the Dart, and I had to decide. I could have alerted General Smag, and he would have been the one to take you out of The Knowledge’s trap.” She pulls me closer. “Why didn’t I?”
“Because the StarLeague took you from your family when you were a baby,” I say.
“That’s right,” Electra says. “You’ve seen what I can do; you know how dangerous I am. I was made by the StarLeague, just like you were.” She lets go of my sweater and puts her hands on my shoulders. “We are weapons, T. But we are people, too.”
I consider it. If we are people, then we can’t be used by somebody else. We get to decide. “I am a weapon,” I tell her, “that is for rescuing shapeshifters.”
“Yes,” she says fiercely. “So am I.” Electra glances over her shoulder at Reetha. “Are you in?”
“Yes,” Reetha answers immediately.
I turn to the captain, because we can’t do anything unless she agrees to help.
Before I can speak, Reetha points at her with a claw. “Confess,” she orders.
The captain blinks. “Maybe now isn’t the—”
“Confess,” Reetha insists.
“Yes. Well.” The captain scrubs a hand through her tightly curled hair. “Trouble, you know that we do a bit of smuggling on this ship.”
“Yes,” I say, remembering our conversation about that.
“I knew it,” Electra whispers beside me.
“Right, well,” the captain goes on, “there are a lot of people out there”—she waves an arm, indicating the entire galaxy, I guess—“who don’t want to be constantly watched and controlled by the StarLeague.” She shoots a quick glance at Electra. “They don’t like it when their children are taken and turned into soldiers, for example. For a long time this ship has delivered supplies to those who are trying to live outside the control of the StarLeague. Sometimes this means we get into places and deal with people who are dangerous. And let’s say that sometimes . . . well . . . sometimes we . . .”
“You get into trouble,” I say. I think I know where this is going. “You like trouble.”
“Heh. Yes.” The captain pulls out a chair from the table and sits down, folding her arms. “It occurred to me,” she goes on, “when the Hunter appeared on this ship, that in certain situations it might be a very useful—”
“—weapon,” I interrupt. “That’s why you let me stay?”
She shakes her head, no. “I wouldn’t want the Hunter if it didn’t come with Trouble. Everyone else on this ship feels the same way.” Then she gives her mysterious half smile. “What do you say—both of you. Will you join my crew?”
Electra and I look at each other. “I will if you will,” I tell her.
“Yes,” Electra answers, with a nod for the captain. “I don’t want to be the StarLeague’s weapon anymore.”
“Good,” I say. “I’ll come too if we can go rescue the shapeshifters.”
“Fine,” Captain Astra says. “Yes. I don’t like it, but we’ll do it.” She sits up and points at us. “I’ll tell you this much. We’re all in this together. And we’re not doing anything until we have a plan. A very carefully thought-out, well-considered, intelligent plan in which neither of you children does anything stupid that requires us to rescue you.”
Electra and I look at each other. We’re both thinking, Us? Children?
“All right?” the captain asks.
“All right,” we say at the same time.
39
When we start working on the plan, we realize pretty quickly that the only way to get into the StarLeague weapons lab aboard the Peacemaker is for me to do it. Anybody else in the crew would be detected immediately, because they all have ID chips and I don’t.
Electra and I are studying the schematic—an incredibly detailed 3D map version of General Smag’s ship made of blue lines and numbers. It’s almost like the Peacemaker itself is floating in the screen on the wall.
“This is what I was talking about,” the captain complains from the galley, where she’s making yet another cup of kaff. “It’s a stupid plan, and it puts Trouble in too much danger.”
Electra ignores her. “You could go in through the waste disposal system, here,” she says, pointing to a place in the schematic.<
br />
“What if I go in,” I suggest, “and disable the ID chip detectors, and then you could come in here?” I point to another place, where I think the lab is located.
Electra studies it. Her tintacles turn red—a thinking color. “Hm. Maybe.”
Leaving the galley, the captain crosses the room to flop onto the couch. “Trouble’s going to get hurt, I just know it. I hate this.”
“Yes,” Electra says without looking at her. “We know.”
Electra and I study the schematic for a while in silence.
“We’re going about this the wrong way,” she says at last.
“Yep,” I agree.
“As soon as you shift, you’ll give off that energy signal and the Peacemaker will know exactly where you are,” Electra points out.
“I know.” It’s clear that sneaking in is not going to work.
Electra’s eyes brighten, and for the very first time, she smiles—a wide, conspiratorial grin—and her tintacles turn bright green. “What about brave Cadet Electra Zox and—”
“—and her shapeshifter prisoner?” I finish, with an answering grin.
“Captain Astra is going to hate it,” she says.
“I’m going to hate what?” the captain calls from the couch. She appears to be so relaxed that she has no bones, but I know her better than that. She’s paying keen attention.
Electra turns from the table to face her. “We can’t sneak in. The Peacemaker is too well defended.”
I feel a sparkle of excitement. “So we take the Dart and fly it to Smag’s ship. We pretend that Electra captured me, and walk right in.”
“What?” the captain says, and leaps up from the couch. “That’s a terrible idea.” She strides over to the screen, where she examines the schematic. She points. “What if Trouble shifted into something small and went in through the—”
“Quit poking your nose in,” Electra says crossly. “We already thought of that, and it won’t work.”
“What about—” the captain begins.
Electra interrupts her again. “Here’s how you can help, Captain. If Trouble and I do manage to free the shapeshifters from the lab, you can figure out what we’re going to do next.” She holds up one finger. “First, as I’ve been telling you all along, General Smag is relentless. The stealth-box can’t hide us forever. How are we going to get away from his pursuit?” She holds up a second finger. “Then, speaking of we, officially, I am still a StarLeague cadet, and if I’m really going to be a member of your crew, we’ll have to do something about that. And three”—a third finger—“what about Trouble?”
“And the other shapeshifters,” I put in. “The StarLeague thinks we’re weapons. How can we make them see that we’re people, too?”
“Oh, sure,” the captain mutters. “Give me the hardest job—figuring out the aftermath.” She stalks back over to the couch, flings herself down, puts her feet up, and closes her eyes.
Electra and I go back to the schematic of the weapons lab. The eye comes and hovers at my shoulder, watching. I tell Electra that The Knowledge asked me to look for information about it.
“Was it created in this weapons lab too?” Electra asks.
“Maybe,” I tell her. “It will find out while we’re there.”
There’s quiet for a few minutes while Electra and I study the schematic.
“I just thought of an even better way,” I say, “for us to get into the lab. And I won’t even have to shapeshift.”
I tell her.
Electra’s eyes gleam. “T, that is devious!”
“It is,” I say proudly. “All we need is a rat.”
Quietly, Electra and I add to our plan, discussing where in the lab the shapeshifters might be imprisoned, and figuring out what we’re going to do about my missing ID chip.
Then, from the couch, the captain says, “Heh.”
“What?” Electra asks, looking over at her.
Lying there with her eyes closed, the captain gives a broad, lazy smile. “We’re going to get out of this just fine. And The Knowledge is going to help us do it.”
40
We already know that General Smag is hunting for the Hindsight.
So it’s not hard for us to hunt for him.
All we have to do is wait, hidden in our space-pocket.
The Knowledge’s asteroid is nearby, and it keeps sending us snippets of advice and information, which we mostly have to ignore because we have a lot to do in the hour before Peacemaker arrives.
The whole crew helps.
While two Shkkka examine the schematic of General Smag’s ship to see if there’s anything we missed, Telly stations himself in the galley.
“Stew,” he says, handing me a full bowl and a spoon, “with meat in it.” Before I’m finished eating, he comes back and hands me a couple of protein bars. Then he brings a pile of lettuce from the garden. “Salad,” he says with a tusky smile and a twitch of his ear that makes his bell earring tinkle. I eat the salad, and everything else that he brings me so that I can store up plenty of energy. Reetha works on Electra’s old ID scanner so we can use it to get on board the Peacemaker, and one of the Shkkka prepares the Dart ship. Amby helps me find a rat who is willing to help us. The captain insists there are no rats on her ship, but of course there are. As it happens, the rats are eager to colonize Peacemaker, so they select a female pregnant with nine babies to come with us. She knows that it will be dangerous, but that’s rats for you: they’ll risk anything to expand their territory.
Electra puts on her black StarLeague coverall, and gives me a spare one she had in the Dart to put on. Using a sharp knife from the galley, Reetha gives me a short military haircut. While I eat protein bars, Electra drills me on how to stand and how to salute and even how to walk like a StarLeague cadet. The cadets are supposed to all do everything the exact same way, like proper little weapons. Electra says, with a frustrated growl, that I will never make a good cadet because I am very good at being Trouble, and not good at pretending to be somebody else.
When she says this, it makes the captain laugh for some reason.
Before we get into the Dart to leave on our mission, the rest of the crew comes to the cargo hold to wish us good luck, which is a thing people do, even though it doesn’t have any effect on what happens.
Lizardians do not hug; Reetha just points a claw at me and says, “Come. Back.”
I can’t promise that we will, so I just nod.
Telly puts a big hand on my shoulder, and on Electra’s. He smiles around his tusks. “Teach that Smag to leave us alone.”
Beside him, Amby is crying. Fat blue tears run down their face. They wipe at them with long fingers. “I don’t . . .” They sniff. “Please be . . .”
Then all three Shkkka surround Electra and me and pat us on our heads with their antennae.
Right before we get into the Dart, Captain Astra gives me a hug. When she does, I get that warm, safe feeling. “Be careful,” she says.
“We will be,” I assure her.
“No, we won’t,” Electra puts in. She climbs into the Dart and starts punching buttons on the control panel. The Knowledge’s eye hovers at her shoulder, watching.
“Listen, Trouble,” the captain says before I can follow. And then, in a quiet, serious voice, she tells me something big and important, and gives me another hug. “Good luck, you impossible creature,” she says.
“Come on, T!” Electra shouts.
I pick up the rat in her cage.
Once I’m on the Dart, Electra takes us out of the hidden Hindsight, setting a course that will lead us to Peacemaker.
Captain Astra will take the Hindsight and go to the far side of the Vault planet, staying dark and unnoticed but ready to swoop in to pick us up and then run for it if we have to.
* * *
It isn’t long before Peacemake
r arrives.
At first I don’t see it. I’m not expecting something that huge. As it moves it’s just a shadow blotting out the stars. Then it turns and catches the light from the distant sun. The light flickers along the Peacemaker’s edges, and we see its sleek, dangerous lines and its powerful weapons. Lined up along its belly are Dart ships just like this one, tiny against the huge bulk of the ship.
We get closer, and Peacemaker fills the entire forward window.
Electra is communicating with it, giving the right codes in a flat, steady voice, but not telling them anything about the shapeshifter she has with her. She brings the Dart closer, then slots it into a row of other Darts. It lands with a loud, metallic clank and a shudder, and clamps come out and lock us into place.
I am so full of energy and nervousness and excitement that I can hardly keep my human skin on. This is my plan. I have to rescue the shapeshifters. I don’t know what I’m going to do if it doesn’t work.
“Relax,” Electra says without looking away from the control panel. “Just be normal.”
Yes, but the next part is the trickiest. Our entire mission could end right here.
We go to the outer hatch of the Dart, and Electra takes a deep breath. “Here we go,” she tells me, and then hits the button to open it, and we step, in unison, onto the Peacemaker. The Knowledge’s eye sneaks out behind us and then zips off to watch from farther away—but it’s still recording everything that it sees.
We’re at the Peacemaker’s dock, where all its Dart ships come in. It’s a big, gleaming space, with rows of bright lights along a high ceiling, and various busy beings wearing military uniforms or black coveralls like the ones Electra and I have on.
As our feet hit the metal deck, two young cadets in coveralls bustle up to us, one long-necked lizardian and one humanoid whose face is covered with folds and wrinkles of pink skin. Their beady pink eyes peer out suspiciously at us.
Trouble in the Stars Page 14