by Adam Holt
“Get on with it, Android. Who took the Device! You?”
“Me? No, sir. I was with Moreline preparing the Cerberus. Only, well, Commander Harper left us for a moment. He told us he wanted to say goodbye to his son before he left.”
“Oh, did he? And you let him do it?” yelled Trackman.
“Yes,” said Sawyer, “it would have been suspicious to go with him. So we finished loading equipment into the Cerberus until he returned.”
Trackman flicked his hand. The Ascendant released me. I fell away from the bars of the cage. Air returned to my lungs. Trackman turned toward Sawyer. “So it’s your fault. Brilliant, Android. Just brilliant. If the Lord Ascendant doesn’t receive his gift, we are all doomed. I will assume that your robot brain can’t tell me where the Device is, so get busy. Search this ship. If we can’t find it, we will pay Commander Harper a visit. If he won’t give us what we want, I’ll be back for you,” he said to me.
With that, the three of them left. The Ascendant walked behind them, and as he left, the room brightened.
“My dad did see the avalanche coming,” I said. “He knew that he was walking into a trap.”
“If those Ascendants find the Device, they’ll make us all slaves!” said Queen Envy.
“Mike won’t say a thing,” Sylvia Moreline grunted.
“Well, if we’re going to swim an avalanche, we should get started,” said Tabitha. “Trackman will search the ship before he asks Commander Harper.”
“You’re darn right.” Buckshot said that. He was only half-way coherent, but we were happy to have him back. Queen Envy held up his head. “Get us up to date, Sylvia.”
Moreline told us what happened on the “comet.” They had been on the surface trying to drill, as we had seen. My dad first noticed the comet was starting to rotate. They began to get back into the Cerberus to return to The Adversity. Then Lincoln Sawyer grabbed them both by the arm and said, “Keep drilling. We’re almost there.”
After a few moments of drilling, my dad turned the laser drill on Sawyer. The drill burned through the arm of Sawyer’s spacesuit. That depressurized his suit momentarily, which would have killed a man. Not an Android. Sawyer grabbed Moreline and made a motion as if to rip off her helmet. My dad had no choice but to put down the drill. Sawyer tied a hose around his arm to keep the rest of his suit pressurized. At that point, a crack opened in the surface of the “comet,” and the three of them fell, along with the Cerberus, until they were hauled into the Ascendant ship. There they were taken captive and beaten.
“They split us up,” she explained. “No plots that way.”
“Well, they’re wrong about that,” said Tabitha. “More people, more places, more ways to bring them down. Where did they keep you? Tell Sunjay everything you can.”
Moreline described the ship’s interior in detail. Sunjay made mental notes. I was only half-listening. It won’t matter if we can’t get out of this stupid cage. I kept clutching the bars. Need to get out. These bars, these bars. We need to break these bars. No, we can’t break them. Need to melt them. Yes, they need to melt.
In the background, Moreline and Buckshot brainstormed about how to reclaim the ship. This is pointless unless I can do something about it. The bars seemed to grow hotter the more I thought about them. The red haze clouded my vision. I closed my eyes and pictured the bars turning red. Red, red, red, red, red. I could hear something sizzling. Beneath my hands the metal felt soft, like molten lava, and squished between my fingers. The bars were no longer in the way, and I pictured myself grabbing Sunjay and Tabitha and floating out of the cage. Everything grew strangely quiet as the Vision faded away.
When I opened my eyes again, there were no bars in front of me, only the overgrown garden and the empty cage where the Harper Device once was. I turned around to see what had happened. My hands were glowing. So were the bars, which were molding back into place. My friends stood beside me. In the cage everyone else looked at us.
Tabitha and Sunjay looked at me with wide eyes. “Tully, you, we just…”
“I can’t explain it,” I said. “I don’t know what I just did.”
“Tarnations, Tully!” said Buckshot. “Do that again!” I tried again, but the red haze was gone. The bars wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t make my hands glow on command, apparently. We tried to override the locking system but Trackman had planned ahead. It was useless.
“Listen to me,” I said, “we’ve got work to do. We’ve got to save my dad. He was smart enough to hide the Harper Device. He’s got to have a plan.”
Buckshot shook his head. “Godspeed,” he said, still looking dazed. Moreline grabbed my arm through the cage. She smiled weakly. “Tully, the ship is full of guards with those black staffs. Watch for them on the spacebridge. It sounds impossible, but you three do impossible things all the time. Now it’s in your hands.”
Moreline’s words gave me courage as we left the lab and made our way through the ship, looking around every corner for an enemy. Finally we reached Queen Envy’s room. We needed some spacesuits. Moreline didn’t realize it, but we wouldn’t be crossing over to the Lion’s Mane through the purple tentacle. Sunjay donned his pink suit, Tabitha her purple, and I floated across the hall and grabbed the first suit I could find. “G. Trackman” it said on the helmet. I returned to the Queen’s room wearing Trackman’s spacesuit.
“I’m burning this suit when I’m done with it,” I said.
“Only if I can help,” said Sunjay. “Only if we survive.”
“Everyone ready for the spacejump?” I said, ignoring him.
Tabitha gave me a thumbs-up.
“Wouldn’t the spacebridge thing be safer?” said Sunjay.
“We’ve got to go with the Vision,” I said.
“Space is cold, Tully, and we won’t have any way to maneuver once we jump. And how are we supposed to get in even if we make it?” he asked.
“Do you know the Elvish word for ‘friend’?” Tabitha asked, adjusting her gloves. Sunjay looked confused.
“You’re the map genius. You’ll figure it out,” I told him. “Maybe we can just knock. One of the Ascendant warriors might direct us to the nearest entrance.”
I had no idea how to answer his questions. Still, my dad needed help and I had seen a Red Vision. This was no time for doubt.
HANDS
Tabitha and Sunjay had already worn human spacesuits, but it was the first time I had worn a spacesuit designed for my species. The orangutan suit was hard to move in, but Trackman’s suit was a perfect fit. The suits had magnetic footpads, which seemed to turn every surface in the ship into a magnetic walkway. That came in handy. We were going to need to stick to the side of The Adversity before we jumped—or float into outer space.
The suits also had ABA, Active Biomechanical Assistance, which supercharged all of our movements—I felt like a mini version of Hercules. It was good to feel strong, and we might need that strength if we ran into any of the Ascendant warriors.
We walked from Queen Envy’s room toward the airlock on the opposite side of the ship from the Lion’s Mane. We carried our helmets and discussed the plan on our way, peeking around every corner and hoping not to see our enemy.
“We can’t hesitate when it’s time to jump,” I said. “I give the countdown and then we go. We get one shot, and we either make it or miss it.”
“One more thing,” said Tabitha. “We might not be able to communicate out there. Remember, your dad couldn’t contact Earth or the Moon.” We put on our helmets to check. The radios didn’t work. As usual, Tabitha was right.
“Tabitha, you can read lips, and you and I both know some sign language now. That should help.”
“What about me?” said Sunjay, throwing his helmet. “Stupid radio! I won’t know what’s going on if you start signing or talking. What if I float away into space and can’t even talk to anyone before I freeze to death or run out of oxygen or, or, AHHH!” Sunjay grabbed his hair and yanked. Because he had on the ABA space gloves, he
pulled out a chunk of hair on accident and screamed again.
Stars! Sunjay is already freaking out and we haven’t even started the jump! I thought. His hair floated past my face. He was probably picturing himself like that hair, floating off into darkness. He must have seen my concern because he took a deep breath. I was about to give him a pep talk, but he put up his hand.
“No, no wait. Tully, I trust you. You had a Vision. Queen Envy always says ‘When you can’t be anything else, be brave.’ So I’ll be brave. At least if I die, I’ll die in one of her spacesuits.”
“Did you really just say that?” asked Tabitha, punching him. “What about dying with two of your best friends? Creepy crawler death wish spacestalker. Now I’m glad we can’t talk in space.”
He laughed. I laughed. We both snapped on our helmets. I kind of understood how soldiers manage to joke around before a battle. It felt good. The tension was gone for the moment.
We gave a final thumbs-up to each other. It was time to walk into space. I gripped the airlock handle and opened it with easy strength.
We floated into the small room and waited for it to depressurize. After a few minutes a light turned green. The outside airlock opened. There, looming like a black curtain, was outer space. It stretched out before us, dark and sparkling.
Floating around in a ship was a strange experience. Being weightless outside the ship made my whole body tingle with fear, like I was looking over the edge of a skyscraper. I attached my feet to the body of the ship and tried to keep my eyes focused on my movements rather than black expanse that surrounded us. Even with the ABA and the magnetized soles, it was awkward to move. For the crew the suits were a second skin, but I felt like a little boy trying to walk in his father’s cowboy boots. On a tight rope.
Tabitha followed and Sunjay came last. He tried to crawl out of the airlock on all fours, but I picked up one of his feet and put it on the side of the ship. He waved his arms as if he was falling. Then he steadied himself and put the other foot down. All systems were go.
We clunked along the side of the ship until we could see the Lion’s Mane, its purple tentacle stretched between the two spacecrafts. I reviewed the plan in my head. Pretty simple: jump, land, and enter.
We looked at the giant ship in the distance. I decided not to push off too hard. I mouthed to Tabitha, “Not a big jump, just a little push.” She read my lips perfectly and pantomimed to Sunjay. Her drama classes were coming in handy in space because Sunjay understood. He gave me the okay sign. We were ready to launch ourselves. I pointed to the center of the giant black and purple sphere. I wedged myself between them and began a countdown.
“10, 9, 8, 7….”
My hands trembled as I counted down, but the gloves hid my fear.
“6, 5, 4…”
When the count reached four, we clasped hands: Sunjay on my left, Tabitha on my right. I nodded with the last few numbers.
“3, 2, 1, 0…”
And with that, each of us gave a light push. I felt my magnetic footpad stick for a second and then we were adrift in an ocean of stars.
I looked back at The Adversity for a moment. It was the strangest feeling, moving away from something so slowly and having no way to change course. We seemed to be on target, but we had a long way to go and weren’t going to get there quickly. There was absolute silence except my breathing inside the helmet and the blood pounding in my ears.
Sunjay had a death grip on my left hand, and he kept repositioning his grip. Soon I felt a squeeze on my right hand. I turned toward Tabitha. Her head looked tiny in the helmet, but her hair filled up the rest of it. “Your hair looks crazy!” I mouthed. She smiled at me and shook her head, like bad space hair and facing certain death were what she signed up for when we decided to do this. How cool is that? My breathing slowed down and was quieter. The more I thought about her, the more awesome she seemed to me. Tabitha the scarf twirler. Tabitha the problem-solver. Tabitha the tough and beautiful and tall.
I squeezed her hand back. I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. With the ship in the background, it seemed like we were the only two people in the universe, doing a dance among the stars. For some reason I thought about the mystery doodle she drew when we first learned about the Harper Device.
“What did you write on that doodle?” I mouthed to her. “The one I found. I couldn’t pick it up.”
“Oh my stars, you did see that!”
“Not the whole thing. What did you it say about me?”
“Ha, no way! I have a secret from you now!”
She mouthed something else to me, but I got distracted. It felt like that moment in the hallway back on Earth. I looked into her green eyes and forgot all the dangers that awaited us when we landed.
I didn’t have long to admire her though, because suddenly her eyes widened with fear. She squeezed my hand so tightly with the ABA that she almost broke my fingers.
“Tabitha, ouch!” I yelled.
With her other hand, she pointed across my body.
I turned to my left and gasped. I wasn’t holding Sunjay’s hand! He flailed his arms, trying to grab my hand. We touched fingers for a moment, but inch by inch, foot by foot, we were drifting slowly away from one another. There was no way to bring him back. Terror was in his eyes. He was screaming, but I couldn’t hear a thing. We weren’t even halfway to our destination, and our plan was ruined.
I looked to see if our aim was okay, and to my surprise Sunjay was headed toward the center of the Lion’s Mane. He swung his arms like he was drowning, but he wasn’t the one who needed help. Tabitha and I were. I tried to look as calm as possible, but it was clear that we might miss the target completely. My foot stuck for just a second, I remembered. I wish we could have radioed someone for help, just so we could say something, but who would we call, even if we could? Lincoln Sawyer? The Ascendant Lord? All I could do was mouth things to Tabitha.
“He’s on the right path. We’re off target. My foot got stuck for a second. It’s going to be close, Tabitha.”
She shook her head. “We’re going to miss.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. Figure it out, Tully. You can do it.”
“What?”
“You have power. Use it. Use it.”
She was pleading with me, like I was holding something back from her again, but I wasn’t. Sunjay kept swinging his arm wildly in the distance. Behind him the Lion’s Mane looked shiny and smooth like black glass. I could picture him landing and us grabbing for the surface and sliding off into the darkness. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Tabitha and I crossed the halfway point, holding hands. Our moment in space had become a jump to our deaths.
Space opened up before us, twinkling and uninviting and cold. I focused and thought, We didn’t come all this way to fail. We are going to get my dad. I won’t let everyone down. I can swim in the avalanche. If only I had had some training…
I focused on that idea. The three of us could do this. The three of us. That’s when I felt Tabitha struggled away from my grip. She released my hand and pushed me as hard as she could. I reached for her, but she pulled her hand away from me. Now all three of us were alone in space.
It took me a moment to realize what she did. She was floating farther off course into space, and I was closing in on Sunjay. I panicked. She could read my lips.
“Calm down,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”
“No! What did you do?” My voice echoed in my ears.
“Go help your dad. You and Sunjay.”
“We won’t be able to get you in time. You’ll run out of oxygen.”
“Then you’d better hurry.”
“I’m not going to lose you.”
“Then bring me back,” she said. “Use your power.”
“I don’t know how!” I yelled. “You have to live!”
“Then save me,” she said.
“How?”
“It’s in your hands.”
Sunjay and I slowly moved toward
each other. He looked back and saw me coming toward him. He looked thrilled until he realized what was happening. His hands went to his helmet and he opened his mouth to shout. The weight of responsibility almost crushed me. This was my fault. I turned back toward Tabitha. She signed something to me that I did not understand. Then she turned her face to the blackness beyond the Lion’s Mane.
I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Now! Now, now, now! Now or never! God, she has to live!”
There are times when you think you’re focusing on some idea, but then you realize you really weren’t focused at all. I closed my eyes. She was right. There was no use in panic, no use in what I could not do. I pushed everything else out of my mind except for this: She has to live.
As I said those words, the whole world turned red again. I saw the situation from all of our perspectives—Sunjay headed on course, me headed toward Sunjay, and Tabitha floating to her doom. No. No, we would go where we needed to go. I heard a voice in my head repeat her words: It’s in your hands.
My clenched fists felt red hot, as they did when I gripped the bars of the cage. They felt powerful, like they could hold or catch or grab anything. When I opened my eyes, my hands were glowing again, right through Trackman’s white suit. This is in your hands, Tully. Do what you need to do.
I extended my right hand toward Tabitha, like I wanted to grab the back of her space suit. She was so far away now, just a white speck among the stars. Make a way, I thought. Make a way.
I repeated the word again and again, like a chant. Each time I said this, the red glow in my hand brightened, pulsated, just like the Harper Device. After several seconds—it felt like an hour—a thin red beam of light emerged from my glove. Then a second beam. A third. Soon hundreds of thin red beams extended from my glove. The beams slowly extended like a net toward Tabitha. I continued my chant. With a big mental push, the beams spread out and reached around her. She turned around and saw what was happening. I captured her. Now I had to pull her back. I pulled the beam toward us like it was a rope, hand over hand. It shouldn’t have been so hard. There was no gravity to fight. It was something else. Sweat beaded on my forehead. My lungs heaved against the space suit. It was like the universe was fighting to keep her away from me, and I wouldn’t let it win.