Stowaway

by John David Anderson

  Leo stared. Here, at last, was the war. The one that had been raging long before Leo was even born, the one his father had tried to shield him from, happening right in front of him. Leo wondered if his father was on one of the arrow-like Djarik transports emerging from the planet’s atmosphere alongside the Icarus, desperate to make their escape. As he watched, one of those same freighters slipped through the wall of incoming Aykari laser fire and jumped safely away.

  That one, Leo thought. Let’s just assume he was on that one.

  He had no idea where his father was going, where Chellis was taking him. Wasn’t even sure why. I have to see this through. Leo only knew that whatever it was, it had to be important. Even more important than staying with your own son.

  A sudden jolt caused Leo to stumble, almost slamming his head, as Kat banked hard, attempting to put as much distance as possible between the Icarus and the slowly advancing Aykari blockade, which fortunately seemed more interested in the fleeing Djarik ships than the lone pirate transport.

  “Um, we’ve got an incoming message here,” Kat said, punching a button as a holovid lit up above the ship’s console. Leo looked to see a brain floating in a glass tube.

  “Hello, Baz,” Mac’s recorded voice said. “I hope this reaches you in time. If you are still planning on rescuing Dr. Fender, I suggest you do it quickly. It seems my impetuous partner found another party interested in the same information we gave you, and they were willing to pay a princely sum. If I had to guess, I’d venture that said other party is already on their way. I realize it’s a bit underhanded, but you of all people know what it takes to survive out here. So if you do make it out alive, please try not to take it personally.”

  The transmission ended and Mac’s image vanished, leaving Kat with dagger eyes and bared teeth. “They sold us out!” she snarled. “Those double-crossing Herflax humpers sold us out! I swear, when I see those two again they’re going to need glass jars for every part of their bodies. And I mean every part.”

  “Maybe we should concentrate on the more immediate problem,” Boo suggested, pointing to the array of familiar red lights blaring on the console. Leo recognized the warning by now: incoming starfighters locking on to their ship. Leo couldn’t tell if they were Djarik or Aykari. At this point, he wasn’t sure it even mattered.

  There were no warning shots this time. The fighters came in from all sides. The Icarus staggered under a volley of hits, its shields barely absorbing the damage, their pursuers closing in for the kill.

  Why when you’re on nobody’s side are you suddenly everybody’s enemy?

  “We’re taking a beating here,” Kat said. “I don’t care where we jump to, but we’d better do it now!”

  “I know,” Baz fired back.

  The Icarus shook again as another alarm blared. Behind Leo a column of steam hissed out of a pipe.

  “I’m serious!”

  “I know!”

  A new set of lights started to flash, warning the ship’s shields were already depleted.

  “Baz . . .”

  “Just two more seconds.”

  Leo felt the familiar cold hand gripping his throat. He struggled for a breath. He thought of the jellyfish floating in the waves. The one he’d tried to save.

  “Now?”

  “Now!”

  Two fists slammed down on the console at once.

  In the engine compartment of the Icarus, inside an insulated FTL drive designed by the brightest Aykari engineers, an electrical spark triggered the release of a very precious substance known to most of the galaxy as EL-486. The element instantly fused with four other much-less-precious substances, creating a chain reaction that Leo—despite his father’s teaching and many diagrams and drawings—couldn’t even begin to follow. The power it released was immense, but also highly channeled, so that instead of blowing the Icarus to smithereens, it served to activate the FTL drive system, creating a minor tear in the fabric of the universe and launching the ship and its five passengers into hyperspace.

  It was a beautiful piece of tech, a godly marvel, perfected over centuries of space travel. The kind of technology that allows you to explore the unknown, to expand the boundaries of your empire, to cement your place as the most advanced beings in the galaxy.

  Its only failing—and it wasn’t a small one—was its dependence on something that could only be found on one planet out of a thousand. And even then, the means of its mass extraction often resulted in the planet’s slow decline, disrupting its ecosystems, polluting its rivers, its oceans, its skies; sapping the life out of it and, eventually—inevitably—those who once called the planet home.

  There were some who called that progress.

  There were others who disagreed.

  The rest were caught somewhere in between.

  It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

  —Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1996

  Promises

  THERE WERE DAYS LEO REMEMBERED BECAUSE HE had no choice. Because they were branded on his brain, body, and soul, carved roughly into him by the blunt edge of grief.

  But there were also days he remembered because he wanted to. Because he willed himself to. Because if he could accumulate enough of them, they might bury the others under their weight or push them to the corners where they could be ignored.

  Memories of him and Gareth sledding down the hill behind his school and of the mugs of marshmallow-laden hot chocolate that followed. Of him and his brother teaming up against their dad, pulling him away from his desk, from his “really important” work, and wrestling him to the ground, piling all the pillows from every sofa and bed on top of him to make a mountain, and then belly flopping onto the pile, reveling in their father’s laughing groans coming from underneath.

  Memories of his mother stretched out across a blanket in the grass, growing right where it belonged this time—her head resting on his father’s leg, blinking against the sun as the boys abandoned their half-eaten sandwiches to find a tree to climb. And Sundays spent hiking through the woods, Leo’s father carrying an extra bag to pick up the trash they found littered along the way. It may not be our trash, he said, but that doesn’t mean it’s not our responsibility to clean it up. It’s for the greater good.

  Leo’s father often spoke of the greater good—some force that impelled a person to do what was best, not for himself but for everyone else. He said it extended beyond family, beyond home and school, even beyond country and planet, that all species of a higher intellectual order assumed this responsibility—to look out for each other, to care for each other, to clean up after each other’s messes. But it only works if we all believe in it, he said.

  If we all believed in it, Leo thought, then there wouldn’t be any trash to pick up to begin with. Which meant whoever left this soda can sitting on the side of the trail was either not of a higher intellectual order or they just didn’t care. What happens when someone—a person, a species, a planet—decides not to believe?

  What do you do when the whole galaxy becomes a mess for someone else to clean up?

  His father would say that you don’t give up. That you keep trying. That no dreams are easy to achieve. But Leo knew better. He knew that most people only looked out for their own. Sometimes, it seemed, that was all you could do.

  But was it enough?

  Leo sat at the table, head in his hands. He was alone, everyone else in some other part of the ship. Leo assumed they were leaving him be on purpose.

  He was starting to get used to it—being left to fend for himself.

  It seemed like his whole universe was falling apart.

  He’d felt that way before too.

  What I’m about to tell you will be hard to hear and even harder to believe.

  Leo didn’t know what to believe. Everything was so knotted in his head that anytime he tried to follow one line of thought it crashed into another an
d splintered off into a dozen contradictory directions. What ifs and could bes and how comes. His father was right—it was hard to believe that the Aykari would do such a thing—allowing the Djarik to decimate cities, to slaughter civilians just so his planet, his people, would fully commit to their war.

  Hard to believe, but not impossible.

  Not when you think of hummingbirds and cherry blossoms long gone. Not when you think of the earthquakes and the disappearing beaches. Not when you see what the war has reduced people to. The ones stuck in between. The planets and people used up and discarded or simply pushed away and ignored. Then it wasn’t so hard at all.

  Harder for Leo to believe that his father was gone again, after being this close to getting him back. That after everything, Leo was right back where he started—on board a pirate ship with his family scattered to the stars.

  He leaned across the table, turned his watch dial to twelve, and the projection shot across the cramped dining area of the Icarus, revealing the familiar porch and the blade of grass, the puzzled look followed by the fleeting smile. The one he’d never see again, not for real. Leo put his head against the cool metal table. The anger swelled within him as it had so many times before, but he no longer knew where to direct it. Yes, it was a Djarik missile that took her, but it was the Aykari’s cold and calculated decision to let it.

  And Leo’s fault for not insisting that she come with them that day. Nothing good ever comes from leaving the ones you love behind.

  I see you.

  “You okay there, ninja turtle?”

  Leo startled, switching off the projection and tucking his hands under the table as if he’d been doing something wrong.

  Baz stood in the doorway, hands shoved into his pockets. He had changed back into his flip-flops and wore a new T-shirt with an obscene set of ruby-red lips and a giant tongue lolling out. A gauzy white bandage was stuck to the side of his head, a rust-colored spot at its center. The captain had lost most of his left ear to that blast back in the Djarik hangar. Of course the Aykari could probably grow and graft on a new one easily enough—except they were the ones who had shot it off.

  Leo wiped at his eyes. “All good,” he said with a sigh.

  “If you ever think about becoming an outlaw, you’ll definitely need to work on your lying.” Baz took the opposite seat and pointed to the bowl still sitting on the table from last time. “You going to eat that?”

  Leo looked at the leftover gyurt, shook his head, and slid it toward the captain. Unlike Gareth, Baz didn’t slide it back. He choked down one bite and then torpedoed the spoon back into the bowl. “The only thing worse than gyurt? Cold gyurt,” he said, making a face, but following it with a smile. “Though strangely, it kind of reminds me of chili dogs. You remember chili dogs?”

  Leo nodded. His father would buy them for him and Gareth when they went to watch the Rockies play. Chili dogs and popcorn and giant sodas—enough to make even Dev-the-double-crossing-jacker jealous.

  “I miss chili dogs,” Baz mused. “And salsa. With a big bag of crisp, salty tortilla chips.”

  “Double bacon cheeseburgers,” Leo said, his mouth starting to water. “With french fries. And ketchup.”

  “Loads of ketchup,” Baz agreed. “And watermelon. Thick slices, juice dripping off your chin. Oranges too. Not so much eating them, but the smell.”

  Leo nodded. For some things the smell was really all he remembered. “Fresh baked cookies,” Leo said. “Right out of the oven.”

  “Mown grass.”

  “Campfires.”

  Baz took a long, steady breath through his nose, eyes shut, perhaps going back to the last time he’d sat around a fire. When he opened them again, he still looked far away, but then he found his focus. “We could go on like this forever, you know. Won’t change anything. Still just gonna be looking at a bowl of cold gyurt.”

  Leo tucked his chin into his folded arms. “Yeah. But I can’t help it sometimes.”

  “Me neither.”

  The captain reached up and touched his bandage, gently tracing the arc of the bloodstain with one finger.

  “Does it hurt?”

  Baz shrugged. “No more than other things. There’s really only like a third of an ear left. Kat says I’ll finally look like a real pirate.” He laughed at his own joke. “I should say thanks, by the way. For what you did back there. If it weren’t for you, we’d all be on a Djarik prison ship right now and there’s no telling what body parts I’d be missing.”

  Leo shrugged. “You would have done the same for me.”

  “You so sure about that?” Baz asked, but the look in the pirate’s eyes told Leo that he was right.

  Probably.

  Baz took up his spoon again, slowly stirring it along the rim of the bowl like a planet orbiting its sun. Billions of planets. Billions of suns. How much did any of them really matter? Only the ones with ventasium in them? And when that was all gone, then what?

  Do this for me, Leo. It could mean the world.

  “We tried, Leo. You tried. There was no way you could have known.”

  “Do you think it’s true?” Leo asked. “What my father said? About what happened that day? About the attack?”

  Baz had been there, after all. He had seen it. Days later he had signed up to avenge it, like thousands of others. He once wore the same patch as the one in Leo’s pocket. The medal—the one Leo had furtively returned to Baz’s trunk rather than keeping it—was proof.

  Though it was also proof that the captain had his doubts long before today.

  “Are you asking me if I believe the Aykari lied to us, letting those missiles hit so that they could use us? Because you already know my answer. The Aykari have been using us from the moment they showed up. You, me, your dad, all of us—fueling their ships and fighting their war, and all for some promise they don’t intend to keep. They’re really no better than their enemies. And we’re all fools for joining their Coalition.” Baz tugged on his unbandaged ear, almost as if to verify that it was still there. That he was still half right. “At least with the Djarik you know what you’re up against. Though I wish I knew what it is they needed your father for. Whatever it is, I’m not sure I want to be around to see it.”

  Leo reached into his pocket—technically Kat’s pocket—removing what he’d hidden there and setting it on the table.

  “Maybe this will tell us,” he said.

  “Okay, let’s see what this is all about.”

  They were back in the cockpit, the whole crew gathered to see what Leo’s father had given him. Baz clicked the datachip into place. For a moment there was nothing, and then Dr. Calvin Fender appeared from the waist up. Leo shivered looking at the image on the screen; his father looked more like a ghost, a flickering apparition of himself. Leo could tell by the clothes and the beard that it had been recorded in the last day or two—while he was being held prisoner by the Djarik.

  No, not prisoner. Partner.

  Leo stared at his father’s image, waiting for some explanation or apology, something directed at him, but what followed wasn’t even meant for Leo.

  “This message is for Zirkus Crayt,” the recording began. “My name is Dr. Calvin Fender. For the past three years I have been stationed aboard the Coalition research vessel Beagle, ostensibly searching for potential sources of EL-four eight six, though in reality I have been working on ways to refine it in order to increase its power. Five days ago I was taken prisoner by the Djarik empire and coerced into helping them instead. As a result, I have learned that the Djarik are on the verge of weaponizing EL-four eight six on a scale never seen before, developing a way to destabilize the element within planets themselves, resulting in a massive release of uncontrolled energy. With such a weapon at their disposal, the Djarik could destroy any planet where the element is found, including my own home of Earth. The Djarik intend to use this weapon to try and end the war, but I fear the cost in lives galaxy-wide would be too great. I believe there is—that there has to be—another w
ay.

  “Included on this datachip is all the research I have been able to gather. I believe you are my best chance—our best chance—of countering this new threat. I’m afraid of what might happen if this information falls into anyone else’s hands, including the Aykari. I’m also afraid we don’t have much time. Though I may be able to stall them, I believe the Djarik’s development of this weapon is inevitable. My only hope is that you will find a way to stop it, to succeed where I cannot. Please—for the sake of Earth and for every planet that has been unwittingly drawn into this terrible war—I am begging for your help.”

  With a buzz of static, the ghost of Calvin Fender disappeared. The crew of the Icarus stared into the empty space left behind.

  Skits whistled. “Well that’s a kick in the treads.”

  “Taking out entire planets, entire populations?” Boo said. “That’s monstrous, even for the Djarik.”

  “Is it really that hard to believe?”

  The crew all turned to their captain, bandaged and bruised, the purple bloom on his cheek outlined with a corona of yellow. “I mean, what’s the difference? How is this anything new? Djarik. Aykari. Bombs. Drills. It all comes out the same in the end, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe this is the difference,” Leo said, pointing to the datachip. “You heard what my father said. Maybe this Zirkus Crayt knows how to stop it.”

  “Right,” Skits said. “One guy is going to find a way to stop the entire Djarik empire from blowing up the galaxy. We don’t know who this Crayt person is or where to find him.”

  “Maybe not the first part,” Kat said. She tapped on the screen, scrolling through data files, images, blueprints. “Most of this is technical—diagrams, specs, all beyond me—but this last part here”—she tapped on a file and a map appeared, alongside a set of coordinates. “It’s pretty far. We might not have enough juice to jump there and back. Not that we can’t get more if we need to.”

  Leo knew what she meant. They were pirates, after all.