There was never any talk of mutiny aboard the Beagle. Captain Saito was well respected, and the punishment if you got caught was severe. Leo had never met anyone willing to turn their back on the Coalition, anyway.
Until a few days ago, at least.
“Wait, so you’re going to turn Bastian in to the Djarik?” Skits asked. The robot sounded concerned.
“That’s the plan. First officer learns about the steadily rising bounty on her captain’s head and coordinates an uprising of the crew. She captures him and takes control of the ship and steers toward the nearest Djarik outpost she can find with the hopes of turning him in for a reward. We all know how much Baz prizes his notoriety,” Kat said. “Time to see if all that hard work has paid off.”
“It was her idea,” Baz said, though Leo couldn’t tell if he was praising her for her genius or assigning blame ahead of time. Maybe both.
“Okay. That’s how we get in—but what about once we’re there?” Boo wanted to know.
“That’s where it gets froggier,” Baz said. “While Kat’s collecting the reward for my head, you and Skits will sneak off the Icarus, find the nearest computer terminal, and feed it this.” He reached down by his seat and pulled an empty cardboard box from his satchel.
“You want me to feed the computer a Twinkie?” Boo asked.
Baz turned the box upside down and another datachip slid out. “One more little gift from Mac and Dev. It’s a worm, a nasty one that should temporarily cripple the Djarik security systems base-wide. Locks. Alarms. Cameras. Defense grids. All you two have to do is find a terminal and plug it in.”
“That is, after Skits locates Dr. Fender,” Kat amended.
“Yeah. Let’s not forget that part,” Leo added softly.
“So we disable base security and tell you and Kat where to get the stowaway’s father, and then you what? Just go break him out?” Skits asked.
“That’s the plan,” Baz said. “More or less.”
“Bastian Black, that is a terrible plan,” Skits said. “There are at least three hundred and forty-nine things that could go wrong with that plan.”
“Tell her that,” Baz said, pointing at Kat, definitely preassigning blame this time.
Leo shook his head. For once he agreed with Skits. “You expect a robot plastered with bumper stickers and a hairy four-armed giant to sneak around a Djarik base without getting noticed?”
“Actually, I’m about average height for my people,” Boo noted.
“And I can be stealthy when I need to be,” Skits whirred. Though the last time Leo had seen her in action she had music blaring out of her speaker, flames shooting out her belly, and smoke pouring out of her rear.
“Skits is right,” Baz said. “There are hundreds of ways this can go wrong. Once we are down there, we will probably have to improvise. But unless anyone has a better idea?” The captain gave it a full ten seconds, looking at each of them in turn, just to make his point. When his eyes landed on Leo, Leo stared back, unblinking, until the captain turned away.
“Mutiny, it is,” Boo said.
“What about me?” Leo asked. “What do I do?”
“For right now you just stand there and look like you belong,” Baz said.
Because you’ve made it pretty clear I don’t, Leo thought. “How do I do that?”
“You know. Try to look more like a pirate,” Kat suggested. “Poke out an eyeball or something.”
“I can help with that,” Skits offered.
Leo was sure Kat was joking. Skits not so much. He settled for fixing his face in what he hoped was a vicious-looking sneer.
“Speaking of which, we will need this mutiny to look convincing as well,” Baz said, looking directly at Kat. It took a moment for Leo to figure out what he was hinting at, but she seemed to catch on immediately.
“You’re serious?”
“They’ll never believe I surrendered without a fight,” he said. “Besides, you can’t tell me that you’ve never thought about it.”
“Two or three times a day, minimum,” Kat said. “But that doesn’t mean I was ever going to do it.”
“Well, now’s your chance,” the captain said. “And make it good. They will need to see the bruise.”
Kat shrugged. “Okay. Just remember, you asked for it.”
Kat clenched her fingers into fists. Baz closed his eyes. Leo didn’t dare.
He definitely wanted to watch this.
Katarina Corea was naturally right-handed. But her left packed more of a punch. The benefits of having a fist made of titanium.
Baz instantly crumpled to his knees, both his hands flying to his jaw. He spat a colorful pink glob onto the cockpit floor. Leo was a little surprised no teeth came with it.
“The left? Really?”
“You said to make it look good. And I didn’t want to bruise my knuckles,” Kat explained. She knelt down, put her softer hand on Baz’s shoulder. “Sorry, Captain.”
“You’re the captain now, southpaw,” he said, working his jaw slowly back and forth. He showed his profile to Leo—the lip split, cheek cut, a purple bloom already starting to work its way to the surface. “How does it look?”
Leo winced. That was answer enough.
“It better look good,” Boo said, pointing to the main console and the screens flashing red. “We already have company. Djarik patrol craft. Two of them. Headed this way. So much for optimism.”
“No time for the blood to dry,” Baz said, letting Kat help him to his feet. “Leo, reach into that trunk beside you and pull out a set of cuffs. Might as well complete the look.”
Leo found the trunk in question containing mostly greasy tools, but buried near the bottom was a pair of metal handcuffs. Not near as fancy as the energy binders the Aykari used to transport their prisoners, but they would do. He handed them to Baz, who slipped them on, tight enough to be convincing, but not tight enough he couldn’t squeeze out of them if he had to.
Leo had once owned a set of trick cuffs used in his magic shows with his mom. He’d left them in his own trunk in his room, light-years away. Now he was about to help pull off some sleight of hand that was way higher stakes than any magic he’d ever done.
As Baz clicked the cuffs closed, and Kat took the pilot’s seat, a new set of lights began to blink. “They’re hailing us,” she said. She pointed to Boo and Skits. “You two go in the back and get ready. We don’t want them to know you’re on board.”
Leo still wasn’t sure what he should do, so he just kept scowling. He could see two ships closing in. One of them spat a laser blast across the Icarus’s nose. Warning shots were an unusual courtesy for a Djarik. There had been no warning shots when they attacked the Beagle. There certainly hadn’t been any warning the day Leo’s world went up in flames—though maybe that had been the warning, for the people of Earth to stay out of the war.
It didn’t work.
“Get down on your knees,” Kat commanded.
Leo got to his knees.
“She means me,” Baz said.
With a grunt, Baz knelt down. Kat flipped a switch and the center screen crackled and fuzzed before revealing two Djarik soldiers in uniform. Seeing them again, their scaled hides, their black eyes, Leo felt a wave of revulsion and anger surge through him. He thought of him and his brother huddled in that dark room, their backs pressed against the wall, Gareth smoothing his hair. Thought of the pieces of the Beagle scattered to the stars. The flocks of seagulls taking flight away from the blinding flash and rising smoke.
His mother sitting on the porch with her lonely blade of grass.
“Unknown craft, you are trespassing in Djarik-controlled territory. Identify yourself immediately or be destroyed.”
“Not much for pleasantries, are they?” Kat touched a button below the screen. “This is Katarina Corea, captain of the Icarus. This man beside me is Bastian Daedalus Black, a known criminal wanted by the Djarik empire for acts of piracy.” Baz grimaced menacingly, licking the blood from the crack in hi
s lip, playing it up for the audience. Leo stood just behind him, trying to look cool and composed when inside he was all nerves. “I’ve come to collect whatever his stinking, cowardly hide is worth.”
On the vid screen, the two Djarik soldiers leaned together, conferring. Finally the first alien faced them again. “Hold your current course and await further instructions.” The screen went black, the communication ended.
“They’ve jammed our long-range coms and those fighters are locked on. I don’t think they’re buying it,” Kat said. “I should have punched you harder.”
“I really don’t think that’s possible,” Baz told her.
“Oh, it’s possible.”
The console flashed, the vid screen coming to life again.
“Captain Corea, you are to disable your ship’s weapons and then proceed to landing bay three under fighter escort. Any deviation will result in your immediate termination.”
“Understood,” Kat said, cutting off the coms. She nodded at Baz. “Guess it was hard enough after all. We’re in.”
Leo allowed himself a breath. They had gone right up to the front door and knocked, and now they were being ushered inside.
Right into a house full of monsters.
Kat turned back to the controls, keeping the Icarus in line with the two Djarik fighters as they descended into the planet’s atmosphere, breaking through a gunmetal-gray cloud to reveal a sprawling outpost with multiple towers and platforms tethered together by tunnels and bridges built of the same black alloy that the Djarik used to build all their ships. Dotted across the surface, as far as Leo could see, sat dozens of giant smoke-belching machines with their feet anchored in the planet’s crust. The shape and construction were different from the ones the Aykari had brought to Earth, but Leo immediately understood their purpose.
“Ventasium,” he whispered.
“The planet must be full of it,” Baz marveled.
“We aren’t here to steal V,” Kat reminded him. “We are here to get Leo’s father back.”
“I know. But it makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Just how many planets like this are even left? And what happens when all of them run out?”
“Then I guess we’re out of a job,” Kat said.
“Or maybe the war would end,” Leo murmured. After all, if there was no V, maybe there would be nothing to fight over. Or at least no way for anyone to go too far from home to do the fighting. For those who still had a home, that is.
“The escorts are peeling off.”
Leo squinted through the screen at the giant hangar they were headed toward, currently occupied by a cargo freighter twice the size of the Icarus, no doubt designed to transport ventasium cores to the places where the fighting was fiercest. It was the kind of ship that would make a tempting target for a pirate, Leo guessed. “I have to hand it to you, Baz,” Kat said as she settled the Icarus next to the freighter. “I mean, we’ve done some crazy stuff before, but only the worst pirate in the world would be dumb enough to try and pull off a stunt like this.”
Baz winked at her and wiped the blood from his lip on his sleeve.
The Icarus docked, and Leo followed the new captain and her loosely cuffed captive to the back of the ship where Skits and Boo were waiting.
“There’s probably a security checkpoint with a control terminal next to the landing bay,” Baz instructed. “Hopefully you two can sneak in and access it without attracting any attention. Kat’s got the earcom, so you can talk to her, but obviously we can’t talk directly to you without giving ourselves away. As soon as you have Dr. Fender’s location, you plant that worm and shut down security, then get back to the ship. Kat and I will meet you there.”
Leo cleared his throat emphatically. “Wait. What about me? Aren’t I coming with?”
“Sorry,” Baz said. “You’re staying on the ship.”
Skits snorted. Leo didn’t know robots could snort but she did, a huff of air through her speaker. “Sucks to be you,” she added.
Leo opened his mouth to protest, but Baz cut him off. “Listen, Leo. I get it, he’s your dad. And I know you want to help, but I’m not going to risk your life trying to save his. This is a Djarik base. This whole operation could go south in a heartbeat.”
“Yeah? And then what?” Leo asked. “Somebody starts shooting at me? We have to make a quick getaway? Maybe I almost fall off a bridge?” He stared at the captain, refusing to look down at his feet this time. Besides, what do you care? he thought. Or are you worried that your ransom will be less if I don’t make it? “He’s my father. And I’m coming,” Leo insisted.
“And as the captain of this ship, I’m telling you you’re not,” Baz returned.
“Except you aren’t the captain.”
Leo looked at Kat.
“The kid’s got a point,” she said. “It’s not as if we’ve done a stellar job keeping him out of harm’s way up to now.”
“And he’s come in handy before,” Boo added, holding up his injured arm.
Bastian Black shook his head. “Fine. But if anyone asks, you’re just a cabin boy. Also, you’re mute.”
“Wait, why do I have to—”
“Mute,” Baz insisted, putting up a finger. Leo shut his mouth. “I don’t want you saying anything to blow our cover.”
“At least I’m allowed to talk,” Skits said, swiveling her head so Leo could see her smile.
“Not once you’re off this ship, you’re not. Stealthy, remember?” Kat reminded her.
“As a ninja turtle,” the robot said.
Baz looked over his crew—the handful of misfits and exiles he’d taken in. Plus one Coalition stowaway.
“All right. Hands in.”
He placed his two cuffed hands in the center of the circle, followed by the one Kat was born with and one of Boo’s furry mitts. Skits extended one of her own metal claws.
They all looked at Leo.
“Well? You coming or not?” Baz said.
Leo took a deep breath.
And added his hand to the pile.
One, two, three, four,
The aliens are at the door.
Five, six, seven, eight,
Better go and lock the gate.
Eight, seven, six, five,
The aliens will soon arrive.
Four, three, two, one,
And when they do, you better run.
—Twenty-first-century jump rope rhyme
Behind Closed Doors
CAPTAIN KATARINA COREA EMERGED FROM THE RAMP of the Icarus with her prisoner stumbling behind her, cuffed hands dangling in front, right cheek imitating a sunset. Leo trailed after him, armed with a metal rod too short to be a proper wake-up stick but heavy enough to make the right impression. He was told to whack Baz with it whenever he tried to speak or made a sudden move—orders from the captain herself. Leo had to admit Kat looked much more like a pirate captain than Baz. She strode down the Icarus’s ramp with her jaw in full jut, one hand on the butt of her pistol, the other dragging Black by a cuff of his shirt, this one advertising a band Leo had never even heard of—as if anyone could make jam out of pearls. If she seemed at all intimidated by the armed Djarik guards approaching them, she didn’t show it.
Leo, on the other hand, held his arms tight against his sides to keep them from shaking.
The hangar was huge. The view from the Icarus had shown a massive complex sprawling across the landscape, his father somewhere inside. We will find him, Leo kept telling himself. We will find him, and then together, we will go find Gareth. And then . . .
Leo didn’t even bother with the and then. His hope didn’t reach that far yet.
Kat dragged her bounty ten more steps and then forced him to his knees. Of the three approaching Djarik, two wore black armor that covered nearly every inch of their scaly bodies. The third one in the lead was dressed differently—in a loosely draped red robe not too different from Boo’s. Leo could tell she was female by the lack of quills lining her jaw. On her wrist she wore a device much like
Leo’s watch, which she appeared to speak into as they approached.
Leo took a step back reflexively as the Djarik closed in. Every thing about them caused his stomach to knot. The way they breathed, their necks pulsing, scales quivering. The thin reptilian crescent of their deep-set eyes. The slight hunch of their backs, the dagger-sharp points of their claws. But when he closed his own eyes and tried to keep the image of them in his head, he saw only fire and smoke. Bright light and crackling sky. The sand grains slinking between his fingers.
And his mother on the porch. I see you, my little lion.
The eyes of the robed Djarik settled on Leo for a moment before turning to Kat, making him shudder all over again.
“Captain Corea,” the Djarik began, acknowledging Kat with a nod that she subtly returned. “Your presence is unexpected but not unwelcome.” Leo had heard the Djarik speak before—vids of soldiers barking commands, prisoners making confessions to Aykari authorities—but this one had a more formal tone. She sounded intelligent, almost respectful, but no less dangerous. “I am Tadrik, an official of the Djarik government. And this human kneeling before us is the infamous Captain Black?”
Baz clearly couldn’t help it: he had to grin at the word infamous. Kat motioned to Leo and he took the hint, giving Baz a whack across the back with the rod. He tried to make it look a lot harder than it was.
“Bastian Daedalus Black,” Kat confirmed. “Responsible for numerous attacks on Djarik vessels and the theft of untold resources. I’m here to negotiate the terms of his bounty.”
Eight thousand pentars. That’s what Baz had been worth when he’d boarded the Beagle. To the Coalition, at least. Leo wondered what he was worth to the Djarik. Or if the price had gone up the last two days. He wondered how big the number would have to be for Kat to turn him in for real, cutting Leo and the rest of the crew loose and taking the Icarus for herself. He didn’t think there was a bounty high enough. For all her talk about not owing him anything, Leo knew Katarina Corea was loyal to the captain just the same.
“Certainly,” the robed Djarik said. “However, we cannot permit you to enter our facility armed.” Tadrik snapped her long, clawed fingers and the two guards came closer. There was a second where Leo thought this might be it, that so many years of scrabbling to stay alive might trigger Kat’s instincts, cause her to revert to the go-in-with-guns-blazing plan, but she reached for her pistol slowly, unholstering it and presenting it to one of the guards.
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