Leo shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. It was as good as his father was going to get.
That night Leo stood in front of his closet, staring down at the open chest with all his magic stuff inside. His hat, his magnetic wand, his many decks of cards. He spotted the string of scarves all tied together, every color of the rainbow.
He softly closed the trunk and shut the closet door.
Leo stared into the mouth of his tin cup and the bubbling orange goo it contained.
This, apparently, was what the crew of the Icarus had to eat. Leo had spent some time in the back helping Boo with the repairs to Skits’s tread when the Queleti heard Leo’s stomach growl—loud enough to be heard above the welder he was operating.
“What was that? Is there an angry parasite living inside you? If so, I’d like fair warning if it tries to escape.”
Leo put a hand over his stomach, embarrassed. “Just hungry, I guess.” Boo said he knew just the thing, and moments later, Leo was staring at it, trying not to grimace. It smelled spicy; one whiff tickled his nose hairs and made him sneeze. “What did you say this was called again?”
“Gyurt,” the Queleti said, taking a huge spoonful of the stuff from his own cup and swallowing it contentedly.
“Geyurt? Like yogurt?”
It looked like yogurt. Sorta. If yogurt had chunks. And bubbles. And made your eyes water.
“No. Gyurt,” Boo insisted. “Like . . . gyurt.”
“I call it dog vomit,” Kat said matter-of-factly. “We had a dog back on Andural when I was young. Named it Hurk because it threw up constantly. Looked just like that.” Her cup held water, not gyurt. Leo should have taken that as a sign.
“Gyurt is a traditional Queleti dish made from nerlfing milk and boiled jak tree bark. It’s a staple among my people,” Boo insisted, happily slurping from his own cup.
“Sounds delicious,” Leo lied. Leo had no idea what a nerlfing even looked like. He pushed his gyurt around with the tip of his spoon. “What are the chunks?”
“Magu bean,” Boo said.
Leo grimaced again.
“Boo’s what we would call a vegetarian,” Kat said. “Doesn’t eat anything that he can look in the eye. Just try it. It’s really not bad, as far as dog vomits go.”
Leo’s stomach gurgled. He put a little bit on the edge of his spoon, brought it to his lips.
“The important thing about gyurt is to not let it sit on your tongue too long,” Boo warned. “The jak tree bark gives it a nice kick, but it can also cause blisters.”
Leo set his spoon gently back in the cup.
Boo snorted dismissively. “Humans. You claim to be so adventurous, but you’re afraid of everything.” The Queleti caught Kat glaring at him. “With some exceptions,” he amended.
“And your people really eat this stuff? Like, all the time?” Leo wanted to know.
“Our people eat bologna,” Kat said, coming to the Queleti’s defense.
“What’s a bologna?” Boo asked.
“Honestly? Nobody really knows,” Kat replied. “A mystery in every bite.”
Leo would kill for a bologna sandwich right about now. He took one more sniff of his gyurt and then pushed the cup away from him just as Bastian Black’s voice called out over the coms.
“Kat, can you get up here? We have a situation.”
“What now?” She handed Leo her empty cup and took off in the direction of the bridge.
Leo handed both cups he was holding to Boo, who had the hands to spare, and followed, ignoring the Queleti yelling at him. “You didn’t even try it!”
He got to the cockpit but stood just outside the door, listening, to Kat’s voice first, followed by Baz’s. Both of them were tense.
“You’re sure these are the right coordinates?”
“I’m telling you. I checked the log. This is where the kid’s ship was when we boarded it.”
Leo felt his already gurgling stomach start to ache. There was only one thing this could mean. He stepped into the cockpit to see for himself.
There was nothing to see. The ship—his ship—was no longer there.
“Where is it?” Leo asked, getting the attention of the other two. “Where’s the Beagle?”
Where’s my brother? is what he almost said, but it amounted to the same question.
“I don’t know, kid. According to the nav log, this is where we left it. Something happened. Maybe they found a way to repair the sublight engines. Maybe they’re already on their way to r—”
Baz’s sentence was cut off by Kat pointing out of the cockpit at something coming toward them. A twisted hunk of metal as big as the Icarus, hurtling through space. And then another. And another.
Debris. Wreckage from a ship that had been destroyed.
Leo felt his knees buckle, his chest tighten. He reached out for the back of Kat’s seat to hold himself up but missed, collapsing to the cockpit floor. Everything started to blur, but even through his fuzzy vision, Leo caught Baz unbuckling his restraints, coming to kneel beside him. “Leo? What’s happening? What’s wrong with him?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Kat said.
Gareth. Gareth was on that ship. Leo had left him there. Along with Tex. Captain Saito. Lieutenant Berg. He’d left them all there. He’d abandoned them. His chest tightened further, the panic clawing its way inside, wrapping cold fingers around his windpipe, squeezing mercilessly.
“Baz, we’ve got a problem.”
“Tell me about it—I think the kid’s having a heart attack.”
“No. Different problem. Djarik fighters. Incoming.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Bastian Black hissed. He crawled back into the pilot’s seat. “Help him,” he shouted, pointing at Leo. “Boo, get your big furry butt up here!” he shouted even louder.
Kat was next to Leo now, leaning close, her eyes only inches from his. “Breathe, Leo. Just breathe,” she whispered.
She sounded like his dad.
The pressure on his chest was unbearable now. He fumbled at his pocket, wrapping his fingers around his inhaler, pulling it free just as the Queleti appeared. “What’s going on? Is Leo okay?”
“Does he look like he’s okay?” Kat snapped.
Dark shadows crept into the edges of Leo’s vision. He heard Baz’s voice: “These guys are closing fast. There’s a whole swarm of them. Too many to take on. We’ve got no choice. We’ve got to get out of here.”
No, Leo wanted to say, but he could barely even breathe, so the cries only echoed in his own head. No. We can’t leave. Not without Gareth. He told me to get help. He told me to come back for him. And I came back. He fumbled with the cap on his inhaler, but it slipped out of his shaking hands. Baz’s voice rang out again. “Boo—get that kid strapped in, we’re going to have to make a jump.”
“Jump where?” Kat asked.
“You let me figure that out. You just try to keep those fighters off our back.”
Leo fumbled around on the floor, one hand brushing up against his inhaler, knocking it even farther away.
“It’s like they were just waiting for us,” Kat said.
“They were definitely waiting for someone,” Baz answered.
Leo’s eyes fluttered. He could just make out the Queleti holding his inhaler out to him. “Here,” Boo said.
Leo took it with both hands, brought it to his lips, took as deep a breath as he could manage. Just enough. He felt himself lifted by four arms and placed into a seat. Heard the click of the buckle snapping home. He still had his inhaler clutched tight in one hand, but with the other he reached out to the seat in front of him.
“Gareth,” he rasped.
“Sorry, kid,” Bastian Black said. “I tried.”
And almost like flipping a switch, Leo’s world turned black.
Breathe.
Some days it was as simple and as difficult as that.
Just breathe.
There were nights, not long after the attack, Leo would wake with a monster
sitting on his chest, a nebulous black beast crushing him under its weight. He would swing out with his fists to knock the imaginary creature off, screaming, knocking the lamp from his nightstand instead, tangling himself in his comforter, his door opening to reveal his father, or sometimes Gareth, flipping on the overhead light, then beside him, holding the mask from his nebulizer.
Just breathe, they said.
And some days, it seemed, that was all he could do. While the world around him raged—while humans from every nation signed up to board naval cruisers, volunteered to man distant outposts, gave impassioned speeches on the need to bring the Djarik to justice for their crimes against Earth—Leo tried to leave the house as little as possible. He closed himself in his room. He seldom saw his friends outside school. He avoided looking at the pictures on the walls. Every night the Aykari would play its Coalition message of unity, broadcast from the ships that umbrellaed the planet: Citizens of Earth, we are with you. And every night Leo would curl up with Amos the cat and Houdini the stuffed rabbit and will himself not to cry.
But as the weeks and months passed, the pain abated. The black beast didn’t come to haunt him as often, and the hole inside Leo slowly started to fill as he realized the one consoling truth: that he wasn’t alone. His mother was gone, but he had his dad. He had Gareth. He had his cat, his shelf of shells, his view of the mountains, the hammock in his backyard just in reach of the shade of a cherry blossom tree where he and his brother would sit and read, kicking each other to get more room.
And then the cherry blossom tree died—stricken with an unknown fungus that had spread throughout the backyards across the entire neighborhood, causing its bark to bloom white, its leaves to shrivel and fall. As soon as it was taken down, Leo and Gareth convinced their dad to let them plant another.
The tree was little more than a sapling when the Fenders boarded the Beagle, waving goodbye to the only home any of them had ever known.
Leo had no idea if it was even still there.
When Leo came to he was lying on a cot, half naked, staring into an eerily smiling face.
“About time,” Skits said.
Leo blinked. Everything looked unfamiliar, too bright and smeared around the edges. He tried to sit, to at least pull himself to his elbows, but the strap across his chest made it impossible. “What’s going on?” he croaked, finding his voice. His throat felt raw. “Why am I strapped down?”
“You were thrashing about in your sleep. Screaming too. I wanted to stuff a rag in your mouth to shut you up, but Bastian said I couldn’t.”
Leo fumbled with the buckle, but the way it fell across his arms, he couldn’t quite reach it. “Where’s my shirt?”
“You covered it in vomit when we made the jump. It was revolting. Baz told me to wash it but I burned it instead. It was easier. It had a hole in it anyway.”
Leo didn’t remember being sick. He didn’t even remember making a jump. He struggled again to reach the buckle, fumbling with the straps.
Skits watched him. “You look ridiculous,” she said. “Be still.”
With one of the claws that extended from her torso, she released the buckle and the straps fell free. Leo noticed the robot had been fully repaired. A new titanium plate had been grafted over the hole from the laser blast, and across that a brand-new sticker had been plastered: Coffee first, then we’ll see. He wondered if Skits had any notion what coffee was supposed to taste like. He looked down at his own bare chest, the sunken cavity of a stomach that hadn’t been full in days. He tried to sit up, but regretted the move instantly, a sudden sharp pain ricocheting around his skull. If felt as if someone had struck the back of his head with the flat end of a shovel.
“Right.” Skits continued watching him rub the spot. “So, Boo might have accidentally slammed your head into the side of the door carrying you back here. Not that you noticed. You apparently fainted the moment we jumped away from those Djarik fighters.”
“What Djarik fi—” Leo started to say.
In a rush it all came back to him. The captain’s plan to take Leo back to his ship. The bits of wreckage floating in space. Pieces of mangled metal scattered to the stars.
Gareth.
For a moment Leo felt like he might pass out again. He put his head between his knees and took a deep but shuddering breath. “What happened?” he asked.
“I already told you. You threw up, then you fainted, then Boo slammed your head against the door, then I burned your shirt and tried to gag you, and then—”
“No. What happened to my ship?” Leo said sharply. “What happened to the Beagle?”
“Oh . . . that,” Skits said. “Bastian isn’t sure. Says it could have been any number of things. Malfunction in the emergency power system triggering an explosion. More pirates. Maybe the Coalition came for a rescue and then scuttled the ship, thinking it unsalvageable. Most likely, though, it was the Djarik again. Come back to finish the job.”
Finish the job. Leo remembered Kat yelling at Baz. The squadron of fighters bearing down on them. “What about the crew? My brother?”
“Bastian says we can’t be sure of that either, but I have my suspicions. Would you like to hear them?” Before Leo could answer, the robot added, “No, you probably wouldn’t.”
Leo rubbed his head, tried to stand, swayed by the dizziness and nausea. “Where is Captain Black?”
“With everyone else having a big important meeting in the cockpit. But was I invited? Of course not. Because I’m just a robot, so I was stuck watching over you.”
Leo took three steps, the whole room spinning around him. He put a hand out, finding the wall, using it to guide him.
“You should lie back down; you could have a concussion,” Skits called after him. “But you know what. Go ahead and ignore me. See if I care. You’re as stubborn as the rest of them.”
Leo made his way through the Icarus, hands on the sides of the ship’s narrow corridors to keep from falling down. He could hear voices coming from the front. Boo’s. Kat’s. The captain’s.
“Why would a whole squadron of fighters stick around after the ship was already destroyed?”
“Maybe it was a trap. Maybe they were waiting for the Coalition but caught us instead.”
“Or maybe we just got there moments after they blew the blasted thing up.”
“That still doesn’t quite explain why they came back to the ship, given they were the ones to strand it in the first place. It just doesn’t make sense—”
Kat was the first to notice Leo standing there, Skits rolling up behind him.
“I told him to lie down, but he didn’t listen to me,” the robot complained. “Because nobody listens to me.”
“It’s all right, Skits,” Baz said. “How’re you feeling, kid?” he asked Leo, then answered himself. “Stupid question.”
Leo stood in the doorway, shivering, arms crossing his bare chest. Seconds later Boo was beside him, taking off his robe, his Yunkai, wrapping it around Leo’s shoulders. It draped off him, piled up at his feet, but he could feel the Queleti’s residual warmth and the shivering slowed.
“So that was it,” Leo said. “That was really the Beagle we saw?”
“I guess we can’t really say for certain,” Kat answered. “It was a big ship. And the coordinates were right.”
“And the crew?” Leo pressed.
“We can’t be sure of that either,” Baz said. “It’s possible they weren’t on board when the ship was destroyed.”
“Possible,” Leo repeated.
Possible his brother escaped somehow. Possible his father was still alive. Possible was a funny word. Possible was a piece of driftwood floating in the middle of the ocean. Something just big enough to cling to, to keep you afloat. It wasn’t hope. Hope was spotting an island on the horizon or hearing a ship’s horn in the distance. Possible was something less than that. The potential for hope. And with it, that sickening dread, like a stomach full of wriggling maggots. Leo looked through the cockpit into the seem
ingly never-ending blackness. He started to falter, but Boo held him up.
“I’ve got you.”
Leo felt his throat ache, his eyes sting. Then he heard his brother’s voice again. Be brave, Leo. He wanted to, but it felt like it took everything he had just to stay standing. He scanned the blackness for something familiar. “So where are we now?”
“On our way to Vestra Prime,” Black said. “It’s the planetary equivalent of a dive bar—only regulars ever go there.”
Regular what? Leo wondered.
“It’s a good place to lie low,” Kat explained.
In other words, they were on the run.
“We jumped as close as we could, but we ran out of V,” Baz explained. “Guess I should have given Grims nine cores instead.”
They were running away, and they were taking Leo with them to another place he’d never even heard of. Leo shut his eyes and felt himself move away, his mind slipping out of the ship, through the emptiness, jumping from one point of light to another, searching for something familiar—a turquoise marble with swirls of white, a two-story house with robin’s-egg blue shutters, a patch of green overdue for mowing, the sound of a ball slapping into the pocket of a glove. Leo could almost smell the leather. Could almost hear his brother’s voice telling him to get underneath it. To not be afraid.
It was Baz’s voice that brought him back. “Leo?”
Leo opened his eyes. Remembered where he was. Who he was with.
“What was on that ship, Leo?”
“What?” Leo asked, blinking.
“Your ship. We suspect the Djarik came back for it. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Leo said, shaking his head. “I don’t know why they’d come back. They took what they wanted the first time.”
“Your father, we know,” Baz said. “But there had to be something else worth coming back for. Something they must have missed the first time around. What was it?”
“I don’t know!” Leo shouted. “I don’t know what they would be looking for! They crippled the ship and left us for dead!” Leo glared at the captain, his body shaking, even under the heavy robe. “But you know that. You saw it when you boarded us. Then you left us there too.”
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