Corpse raised one red eyebrow. “Good aim.”
“The best,” I corrected.
“All right,” she said while rubbing her jaw. “Maybe we’ll hire you.”
I smiled, but I hid my mouth behind one hand to cover up my excitement. I would make more money if I didn’t seem too eager. “What’s the job?”
“Ever heard of the Fasti stars?” she asked.
Of course I’d heard of them. Man-made stars were a pretty big deal.
Corpse leaned forward and grinned. “We want you to blow one up.”
Even as I blinked in confusion, the idea of blowing up a star sent a thrill dancing along my spine. I could almost picture it: a flash of blinding light followed by a force so huge it shook the galaxy. It would be my greatest achievement, my personal masterpiece. I cupped my ear in case I’d heard wrong. “As in demolish an actual sun? Is that even possible?”
Cadaver bounced in his seat, practically vibrating with excitement. “It is if you have dark matter. Which we scored from—”
Corpse jammed an elbow in his side. “A little louder, you idiot,” she hissed. “The Galaxy Guards in the next sector didn’t hear you.”
Whoa, dark matter.
That stuff was hard core—and super-illegal. I’d heard dark matter was some kind of mystery substance that made up the universe. I didn’t understand the science behind it, but I knew it was powerful enough to destroy planets, which explained the “super-illegal” part. I wondered where Corpse and Cadaver had gotten it.
More than that, I was curious why anyone would want to destroy a perfectly good star. Asteroids, sure. They wrecked ships and rained down on planets like car-size hail. The only good asteroid was a blasted one. But a custom-built yellow sun, perfect for making colony planets livable? Seemed like a waste to me.…Not that I wouldn’t enjoy blowing it to smithereens.
“Why a star?” I asked. “What’s in it for you?”
Corpse gave me a look that could melt steel. “Do you care?”
Inwardly I shrugged. No, I didn’t really care. But if I had to work with dark matter, that would be dangerous, not to mention next-level criminal. Maybe I could use that to my advantage. The shadier the job, the greater the risk, which translated into more money for me.
I pretended to think it over. “Depends on how much you’re paying.”
Corpse crooked a finger at me. When I leaned in close, she whispered a number so high I almost choked on my own tongue.
“Nope,” I told her. “I definitely don’t care.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said.
“I’ll need a blaster and a ship.”
She slid a credit chip across the table. “This should cover a blaster and a one-way ticket to Fasti. That’s all you need for now.”
I frowned at the chip before I tucked it in my pocket. I had hoped to score a ship out of the deal. As much money as Corpse had offered me, it wasn’t close to enough to buy a proper blasting cruiser, the kind with a triple-reinforced hull to protect me from asteroids. Maybe I could afford a small fixer-upper when the job was done. I would have to watch every penny—make do with my cramped boots and my short pants—but it would be worth it to have my own ship and my own private space, where no one could tell me what to do, or how to act, or when to go to bed at night. I wanted to earn a living, all by myself. To be completely free…and all alone.
That was the dream. This job might help me reach it.
“Here, take this, too,” Cadaver said. He handed me a comm link that resembled a glossy black button. “Call us when you land on Fasti. Then we’ll tell you what to do next.”
“What about my money?” I asked.
“You’ll get it when the job’s finished,” he said.
I shook my head. I liked getting part of my payment up front, just in case a client decided not to pay. “I want half now.”
“Why?” he asked. “It’s not like we’re gonna stiff you. Not unless we want to spend the rest of our lives with targets on our backs.”
I couldn’t argue with that. He was right.
Kind of.
My people had our own government that fought for our rights on Earth, not that it did any good. They were called the Council of Wanderers, and everyone knew that if a client refused to pay, we could add their name to the Council’s burn list, making them a target for every Wanderer in the galaxy. But what Cadaver didn’t know was that the Council handed out punishments for mutants, too, not just for humans. And my name was at the top of a different list…a Most Wanted list. I was a criminal to my own people, so I couldn’t very well ask the Council to hunt down someone who crossed me. In fact, if I wasn’t careful, I would end up at the mercy of mutants who didn’t know the meaning of the word.
But I couldn’t tell Corpse and Cadaver that. So instead, I said, “It’s an act of good faith to pay some money up front.”
Corpse pointed at the credit chip in my pocket. “Consider that your down payment.”
“But—”
“Or I can take back my credits and find another ghost to do the job,” she interrupted. “It’s not like there’s a shortage of you mutants begging for work in every port. I don’t need the best shot in the galaxy. Second best will do.”
“Or third.” Cadaver snorted. “Or fourth, or tenth, or whatever. A star’s an easy target. It’s impossible to miss. Heck, I could do the job myself if I wanted to.”
I scoffed at his bragging. He couldn’t handle the job, and we both knew it. Demolition was tricky work with a lot of science involved. It wasn’t enough to hit a target. You had to hit it in just the right place with the right amount of force, otherwise it would splinter into more targets instead of exploding into harmless bits. And destroying a sun was even more complicated, because stars were made up of gases and radiation instead of solid matter. Nothing about this job was easy.
But still, other Wanderers would do the work for less.
My rumbling stomach told me not to risk it. “Fine. But I might need more—”
“Make do,” Corpse interrupted again. Then she stood up and charged out of the pub without a backward glance, pumping her muscled arms while Cadaver danced after her.
I blew out a sigh and glanced through the open doorway. In the distance, a boxy shuttle lifted off from the transport station, flying its passengers to larger ships floating above the atmosphere. There were only two shuttles per day, so I should probably hurry if I wanted to catch the next one.
Looked like I was going to Fasti to blow up a star.
My parents would be so proud.
Banana shenanigans.
That was what my mom used to call the science experiments I wanted to do in zero gravity, to pass the time during all those boring trips to Nana’s planet. “The gravity drive isn’t a toy,” my mom had always said in that finger-wagging tone of hers. “It’s there for our safety, not for your banana shenanigans.”
Well, guess what? My mom was a billion miles away.
And so began the banana shenanigans! (Say that ten times fast.)
I learned some interesting stuff by the end of my first day alone on the ship. Fun fact: In zero gravity, a fire extinguisher becomes a wizard’s broomstick. Just saddle up, point the spray nozzle behind you, squeeze the trigger, and zoom! You’re Harry Potter…in space! Slightly less fun fact: Farts will not propel you across the room, something I wish I had known before I fueled up on two cans of beans from the pantry.
But despite my epic gas, I was in science-nerd heaven. I tried things my parents would have killed me for even thinking about. Like using a laser and a magnifying glass to ignite a bowl of sugar. (That experiment worked a little too well, hence my need for the fire extinguisher.) But once I learned how flammable sugar was, I applied my findings to a new project: making pasta rockets out of gummy bears and dried macaroni noodles. It took a few tries to find the right proportion of candy to noodles, but I finally succeeded in setting off my own fireworks show.
Then later on after a
bathroom break, I got curious about the ship’s plumbing and decided to follow the toilet pipe to a tank in the lower level. It was interesting to learn where our waste products ended up, but I shouldn’t have opened that tank. It was seriously gross. And as someone who lives with four brothers—not ordinary boys, but chest-beating, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals who regularly “forgot” to flush the toilet as a means of terrorism—I know a thing or two about nastiness.
Aside from that, my day was perfect. I even discovered my parents had linked their credit account to the ship, so I could download all the games and apps I wanted. As a bonus, I found my mom’s secret stash of chocolate bars in the drawer under her bed.
Best vacation ever!
The only downside was the high-pitched ringing coming from the ship’s speakers, followed by a computerized voice repeating, “Incoming message. Centaurus residence, Earth.” It seemed my parents were calling again. They had finally figured out I was gone—six hours later.
That’s right, six hours.
They’d slept halfway through the night before they noticed they were missing a ship worth more than their apartment. Oh, and a son, of course, but I guess they had plenty of those to spare. Too bad I wasn’t born a girl. We all knew Mom had always wanted a daughter, just not enough to keep rolling the dice and getting more boys.
To make the ringing stop, I rode my fire extinguisher to the comm station and held my finger above the DENY button. But then I paused to take a deep breath, which cooled my anger enough to make me wonder if I was judging my parents too harshly.
Was it really a big deal that they hadn’t noticed me gone for so long? Was I being dramatic or oversensitive? Maybe my parents had a good reason for sleeping through my accidental blastoff. Maybe they’d been tired from the trip to Nana’s planet or stressed out because of our fight. They had to be worried about me. After all, I was their kid.
I should probably answer the call and tell them I was okay. That was the right thing to do. Besides, they might go easier on me if they knew I was safe.…
Or they might yell my eardrums inside out and order me to come home. Then I would never see a Fasti star.
Six hours.
An image popped into my head of my mom and dad snoozing on their pillows while I zoomed through deep space, defenseless and alone. There was no way my parents had simply collapsed onto their mattress from stress or exhaustion. We had a bedtime routine in our home that never changed. Before turning out the lights, my dad always made sure the high-rise windows were locked so no one could break in using a hovercraft. And while he ran a security check, my mom collected everyone’s tablets and comms so we couldn’t stay up all night playing games. My folks must have checked on my brothers before going to bed.
They just hadn’t checked on me.
With a frown, I punched the DENY key and floated out of the pilothouse on my fire extinguisher. I would call my parents on the way home from Fasti. In the meantime, let them worry about me for a change.
Today I would call the shots.
I was on my way to raid the pantry when I heard a knock coming from below the floor, and I paused, turning my ear toward the sound. The thump happened again, this time louder, and with a raspy hiss at the end. There were only two levels on the ship. The living areas were all upstairs: the family room, galley, bedrooms, and pilothouse. The boring mechanical stuff like engines and pipes were on the bottom level. Judging by the thump’s position on the floor, it seemed to be coming from the downstairs utility closet.
Knock, hissssss.
I stared at the floor as chills danced down my spine. Probably a piece of equipment had come loose and bumped the ceiling. That happened in zero gravity. But what about the hissing sound at the end? That had sounded…alive.
Snakes could get inside ships. So could rats and roaches and all kinds of mutated creepy-crawlies. They could squish their bodies through the tiniest cracks and then spring on people when they least expected it. And sometimes the radiation in space made bugs grow to monster size. I had heard stories about it. Like this one time, Duke told me about a kid who woke up in his ship’s bed, wrapped in spider silk, human burrito–style. The spider had sucked the kid half dry before his parents had killed it with a golf club. (Though I’m not sure why anyone would bring a golf club to space. That’s kind of weird.)
“Computer,” I called to the ship’s automated system. “Restore gravity to Earth-standard level.”
“Restoring gravity,” she chimed.
After my feet drifted to the floor, I set aside the fire extinguisher and glanced around the living room for something handier that I could use as a weapon. Everything good was bolted down: lamps, chairs, wastebaskets, side tables. I picked up a ship’s manual and tested its weight in my palm. There was a nice heft to it. It was no golf club, but a book upside the head might stun a mutated spider if I hit it hard enough.
The air was thick with dust and engine grease as I crept down the stairs to the dim lower level. I thought about that classic scene in every horror movie, when someone’s about to go into a dark basement and never come out again. Part of me yelled, Don’t do it!
I paused, feeling a cold sweat break out on my upper lip. I couldn’t make my feet move. I wished I were brave like Duke, or clever with electronics like the twins, or even reckless like Bonner, who would probably just laugh and stick his butt in the closet and kill the spider with his toxic gas.
I wasn’t brave or skilled or reckless. The only thing I had going for me was smarts, and I couldn’t quiz a spider to death. But as I stood there on the steps, the logical side of me knew I would never be able to rest until I found out what was in the closet. There was simply no avoiding it. I would rather face my fears now than go to sleep tonight and wake up as a human burrito.
So I kept going.
The hissing sound turned into a rattle that raised goose bumps on my arms. Swallowing hard, I curled one hand around the closet door while I gripped my book in the other trembling hand. I gulped a breath and held it. Then before I could change my mind, I yanked back on the lever and threw open the door.
A tentacle snaked out at me, and I shrieked high enough to shatter glass. Stumbling backward, I dropped my book and landed right on my butt. Helplessly, I glanced up at the monster’s arm, its curves glinting metallic in the overhead light. Something about the metal arms seemed familiar, but my freaked-out brain wouldn’t let my eyes process any information. It took a few moments before I could squint and bring the creature’s arms into focus.
Then I released the longest breath of my life.
The “monster” was only Cabe, our utility robot. We hadn’t used him in so long that I’d forgotten he was on board. Cabe, short for Cable Aid 010, could fix things with the thin metal ropes coiled inside his body. He was good for tying things down or fishing for remote objects in space, but that was about it. He tended to glitch a lot and overreact. One time on a trip home from Nana’s house, Dad burned his hand while cooking dinner. Cabe heard the yelling and thought Dad was in mortal danger, so he rolled into the galley with cables spewing from both armholes and covered the stove in rope. Only the stove hadn’t switched off yet. You know how metal conducts heat? Well, the heat from the stove traveled through Cabe to the steel floor panels, which turned our trip into a real-life game of the Floor Is Lava. After that, Dad shut down Cabe and stowed him in the closet.
I stood up and brushed off the back of my pants, glancing at yards of loose cable spilling across the floor. With his cylinder-shape head, barrel chest, and bendy legs on wheels, Cabe resembled a living trash can. He was cute, in a goofy sort of way. I knew he had always meant well, even if he’d screwed up a lot. Plus, he’d been nice to me—sometimes nicer than my own family. He’d kept me company during a few trips, quizzing me on science facts when I’d had no one else to talk to. My heart felt heavy to see him like this, slumped against the wall, forgotten and alone…kind of like me.
I decided to switch him on.
One flick o
f the button behind his neck, and his body hummed with power. Light shone behind his eyes. He jerked upright and blurted in a tinny voice, “Moon of My Life, how can I serve you?”
I snickered at the funny nickname my mom had programmed Cabe to call her. I had almost forgotten about it. Moon of My Life was a reference to some five-hundred-year-old fantasy novel series where pretty much everyone died at the end. My mom was obsessed with twenty-first-century literature. She called it the Juicy Age of Storytelling. She’d passed on that love to me, too. But no matter how much she raved about her favorite fantasy novels, I knew no book series could stand the test of time like Harry Potter.
“I’m Ky,” I said. “Mom’s not here. It’s just you and me, buddy.”
Cabe swiveled his head in my direction and droned, “Hello, Goosey.”
I frowned, remembering Mom had also programmed Cabe to call me by a totally embarrassing nickname from my diaper days. No one had called me Goosey since my last growth spurt.
Cabe scanned me from head to toe. When he spoke, his voice raised a pitch. “Goosey, your body mass has increased by twenty-seven percent. Are you in mortal danger?”
See what I meant about overreacting?
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “I’ve grown since you were deactivated, that’s all.”
“Please stand by,” he said. He went silent for a few beats while he synched with the ship’s computer. “Two years, one month, six days, and twenty hours have passed since my last session. Was I in disrepair?” He retracted the loose cable on the floor like a kid slurping up spaghetti noodles. “I detect no new parts.”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with you. You were in storage.”
His voice lowered in a way that made him seem sad. “Was my service unsatisfactory?”
“Nah.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “They just don’t appreciate us, bud.”
A beep rang through the speakers as another call came in. I covered my ears and began leading Cabe to the pilothouse. “Come on. I want you to turn off the comm.”
“Disabling communication is not advisable, Goosey.”
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