Starbounders

by Adam Jay Epstein

  “You nicked the ventilator off his ship, the Copernicus,” Kaylee said. “Nearly suffocated everyone on board.”

  “Oh, yeah. That ship was supposed to be empty at the time. The itinerary said they were scheduled for an on-planet contracting meeting.”

  “How much did you get for it?” she asked bitterly.

  “Haven’t found a buyer yet. If your father’s interested, I’d be willing to sell it back to him at a good price.”

  Kaylee spat at Skold’s feet.

  “Save your fluids,” he said. “I told you, this is a salt planet.”

  “Can’t I just eat her now?” Lalique asked.

  “If things were different, I might say yes. But we’re going to need at least one of these kids to launch a hopper ship out of this planet’s designated safe haven. And there’s a good chance they won’t all make it to the haven alive.”

  Lalique pouted.

  “If you’re hungry, have one of these,” Skold said. He opened the supply canister he’d taken off the ship and tossed her a spaste pouch. It was roughly the size of a tube of toothpaste.

  “I don’t eat this garbage,” Lalique said, throwing the pouch to the sand.

  Skold immediately retrieved it.

  “There’s enough sustenance inside each of these to keep us alive for days,” he said. “Don’t be stupid.”

  Suddenly the ground began to tremble beneath their feet.

  “A sinkhole,” Jahir said.

  “I don’t think so,” Skold replied.

  A pale appendage stretched out of the sand, moving with incredible speed. Its leechlike mouth struck Lalique on her back, digging its circle of teeth into her. Before Lalique or anyone else could react, a horrible sucking sound was heard. By the time Jahir had aimed his sonic crossbow, it was too late. Lalique had been drained of every last drop of moisture, leaving nothing of her body but a mummified carcass of bone and fur.

  Jahir let out an ear-shattering howl. “My sister!”

  He unloaded a volley of sonic blasts, but most seemed to bounce off the beast’s rock-hard exoskeleton.

  Zachary and the others were backing away as the rest of the creature emerged. It looked like an eyeless octopus, but with nine long sucker tubes extending from its body. The crosshairs of Zachary’s lensicon locked in. He blinked twice.

  * * *

  LIFE-FORM:

  DEHYDRA

  THIS NATIVE OF PLANET SIROCCO IS NOTABLE FOR ITS ABILITY TO DRAIN MOISTURE FROM ITS PREY THROUGH EACH OF ITS NINE SIPHON TENDRILS.

  IT SPENDS MOST OF ITS TIME BENEATH THE SAND, LIVING ON WATER STORED IN ITS WARM, TENDER BELLY.

  * * *

  Zachary would have read further, but one of the dehydra’s suckers was snaking toward him. He grabbed the sonic crossbow that had dropped from Lalique’s hand and took a shot at the creature. The beam of sound hit the attacking sucker but only stunned it for a moment. The sucker resumed its pursuit of Zachary with single-minded determination.

  And the creature’s other eight arms appeared just as thirsty, setting their sights on the rest of the group.

  “It wants to suck us all dry,” Zachary called out.

  “I didn’t think it would be giving out kisses,” Skold replied.

  Instead of running away, Kur’tuo turned to the appendage coming up behind him. He slashed at it with his forearm, cutting the mouth clear off. The severed appendage fell to the ground and began writhing.

  Kur’tuo made a series of loud clicks at the dehydra.

  “Cursing at it isn’t going to help,” Skold said.

  The chopped sucker was already regenerating itself, forming a new mouth and growing new teeth.

  “We’re not going to be able to kill this thing,” Kaylee said. “And I’m not sure we can outrun it, either.”

  “Maybe we can distract it,” Zachary said.

  “With what?” Ryic asked.

  “Vreeks.” Zachary looked to the subzero freezer that had been thrown from the wreckage. It was only fifty yards off, but there would be no way to get to it with the dehydra standing in his way. Even Ryic wouldn’t be able to stretch far enough to unlatch the freezers.

  “Somebody cover me,” Zachary said. “I’ll try to make a run for it.”

  “Use your warp glove, kid,” Skold replied. “Haven’t they taught you anything at Indigo 8?”

  His warp glove! Of course! Zachary was about to find out if his Starbounder training was worth anything at all. Two calculations had to be made first. Direction was easy—he’d just point at the desired target. As for distance, the more he rotated his wrist clockwise, the farther away the hole would appear. Zachary thrust his hand forward, twisting his wrist, and pointed his index finger. A black disc formed precisely as he aimed. He reached through and watched as a second hole materialized fifty yards away, just inches from the freezer. His gloved hand emerged from that hole and gripped the latch, opening it. Then Zachary pulled his warp glove back to his side.

  Vreeks immediately squirmed out of the freezer, charging for the warm belly of the dehydra. The giant Siroccan beast spun its attention to the slimy critters and the open freezer behind them. Three of the appendages dived into the icebox and started to soak up every remnant of frost inside, while the other six arms began sucking the life out of the vreeks.

  “Follow me,” Skold said, running toward a rock-covered ridge in the distance. “Hopefully that thing doesn’t know how to climb.”

  The others took off behind him. They sprinted for the rocks and didn’t stop, but Zachary turned back to see the vreeks shriveling up one by one. He moved even faster, not wanting to suffer their fate. Unlike the chase down to the bonfire at Indigo 8, which had been filled with giddy excitement, this was a run with decidedly different stakes—life or death. And there was nothing fun about it.

  Finally they reached a safe hiding spot behind the rocks on the ridge.

  “Now what?” Ryic asked, catching his breath.

  “This is an IPDL-registered planet,” Skold said. “Every one of them has a safe haven that houses an emergency hopper ship with enough fuel to get to the nearest space station.”

  “How do we find one of these safe havens?” Zachary asked.

  “That’s where you come in,” Skold said. “Each Starbounder’s warp glove has a built-in homing device that will guide its wielder to the closest one. From this point on, we’re a team. At least until we don’t need you alive anymore.”

  “If anything happens to us, life in an asteroid prison will seem like a vacation compared to what the IPDL will do to you,” Zachary said. “My name is Zachary Night. My great-great-grandfather was Frederick Night. This warp glove on my hand right now is the same one Gerald Night wore in the Battle of Siarnaq. My brother, Jacob Night—”

  Skold cut him off.

  “Look, kid, the only night I’m scared of is the one that’s coming when those two suns set. Now let’s move.”

  «SIX»

  Beads of perspiration dripped down Zachary’s cheek, then fell to the desert sand below. Zachary had already stripped off the custodial jumpsuit and was down to his T-shirt and cargo pants, but that didn’t stop the sweat from coming. Each drop that hit the salty ground was immediately swarmed by inch-long insects. Zachary’s lensicon had identified them several miles back as sweat mites, Siroccan parasites that fed off a larger organism’s secretions of sweat, blood, or mucus.

  Using the Starbounders’ warp gloves as their guide to the safe haven, the three alien fugitives, alongside Zachary, Kaylee, and Ryic, traveled across the desolate landscape. The first sun had already set and the second was nearing the horizon. It was hard to tell how many hours had passed.

  “If I hadn’t come to Indigo 8, I’d be starting classes this week,” Zachary said. “I wonder who got my locker. It was pretty good real estate. Right next to Olivia Nichols.”

  “I don’t know about you,” Kaylee said, “but stranded on a salt planet in the middle of the outerverse with three alien fugitives . . . that’s
an upgrade from my school.”

  “You must have had some friends you didn’t want to say good-bye to,” Zachary said.

  “I wasn’t exactly a friendship-bracelet kind of girl.”

  “Well, I felt terrible having to lie to my friends. Telling them my parents were sending me to boarding school. What am I supposed to say when I go home for the holidays?” Zachary looked down at the gash in his forearm from the crash. “That I got half my arm torn off in the Pine Lake Academy computer lab?”

  “You live on a strange planet, kid,” Skold said. “There aren’t too many places left in the galaxy that hide the truth about the outerverse from their people. Of course, in Earth’s case, I don’t entirely disagree. It seems that most of your species isn’t ready for all this.”

  “Are you sure we’re heading in the right direction?” Jahir asked impatiently.

  Skold grabbed Ryic’s arm and looked at the palm of his glove. One edge of the circle pulsed brighter, signaling the direction to follow. The faster the light oscillated, the closer the glove’s wielder was to the intended destination, but the pulse was fairly slow. “We’re on track,” Skold said. “Trust me.” By the way Jahir was snarling, it was clear that he didn’t, but Skold didn’t care. “You three should probably have something to eat,” he said, tossing Kaylee the supply canister.

  She caught it in her hand, unlatched the top, and passed Zachary and Ryic a spaste pouch. Then she pulled one out for herself.

  “What flavor did you get?” Ryic asked Zachary.

  “Flavor?” Zachary replied. This was his first encounter with the unusual food substitute.

  “It says on the bottom of your pouch.”

  Zachary flipped his over and read the print on the foil.

  “A hard-boiled egg,” he said.

  “I got sausage-and-pepperoni pizza,” Ryic replied. “Want to trade?”

  “You want to trade sausage-and-pepperoni pizza for a hard-boiled egg?” Zachary asked.

  “I know it is decidedly to my advantage,” Ryic said apologetically.

  “For you, buddy, I’ll do it.”

  The two swapped spaste pouches, and Ryic squeezed a bit of his into his mouth. He swallowed, looked satisfied, and confirmed that by saying, “Delicious.”

  Zachary unscrewed the cap of his spaste and brought the open end to his lips. Then he squeezed out a mouthful. While it had the texture of toothpaste, it did taste remarkably like a sausage-and-pepperoni pizza.

  “Mine’s pretty good, too,” he said enthusiastically. More surprising, he felt full after one bite.

  Without warning, Kaylee dropped the supply canister and kicked it away from her.

  “Something’s in there,” she said.

  Everyone looked down at the circular metal container as it moved on its own, shaking and rattling back and forth. Skold aimed his photon cannon, but before he fired, a tiny baby vreek emerged, with four long feelers that looked too big for its body. Although it didn’t have eyes or a face, it seemed lost and scared.

  Skold lowered his weapon.

  “Let’s keep moving,” he said.

  The group started up again, leaving the sluglike creature behind. Immediately the sweat mites that had been following them surrounded it. The vreek let out a scared squeak.

  Kaylee paused, then doubled back. She reached down and lifted the baby vreek into her hand.

  “What are you doing?” Zachary asked.

  “We can’t just leave it here,” she said.

  “Why not? Have you seen what that cute little thing turns into?”

  “I’m taking it,” Kaylee said, slipping the creature into one of the pockets on her jumpsuit. “Don’t worry,” she whispered to the baby vreek. “I have a pet chinchilla at home.”

  The group continued its swift pace forward. Skold led the way out in front of them, pounding the shockle on his left wrist with a rock, trying to break it off like he had already done with the one on his right. Unsuccessful, he removed a pair of magnetic tweezers from his pocket and began to jimmy the shockle’s locking mechanism. But instead of unfastening it, all the tweezers did was ignite a flash of light. Even from where Zachary was standing, the neutron burst made him see stars.

  “Unless you want to go blind, I’d keep your distance,” warned Skold, who seemed unaffected by the blast and tried the tweezers again.

  “So, what did the IPDL finally get you for, anyway?” Kaylee asked, turning her gaze from the shockles.

  “I believe the technical charge was intergalactic grand theft larceny.”

  “Must have been a pretty big score to get you life in an asteroid prison,” Kaylee said.

  “Oh, it was big,” Skold said. “The kind of big that buys you your own solar system.”

  “Well, it’s a shame that didn’t work out for you,” Kaylee said.

  “Maybe next time you’ll find yourself some smarter accomplices,” Zachary said under his breath.

  Skold eyed Kur’tuo and Jahir, who were keeping pace alongside him.

  “Who, them? I run my operations solo. We were just cell mates in the detention facility at Indigo 8. Once we get off this planet, we won’t be sending each other holiday cards.”

  “And I thought we’d grown so close,” Jahir said.

  “For someone who’s not from Earth, you certainly talk like someone who is,” Zachary said to Skold.

  “I was trained as a diplomat,” Skold replied. “In order to better communicate with your species, I had to learn to mimic the local vernacular and customs.”

  “If they weren’t part of your crew, what crimes did they commit?” Zachary asked.

  Jahir answered for himself. “An interstellar peacekeeping team visited my home moon bringing food rations. But Lalique and I chose to eat the peacekeeping team instead.”

  Kur’tuo let out a series of clicks.

  “He says he was imprisoned for destroying a peaceful plant,” Skold translated.

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Ryic said. “I have been guilty of herbicide on occasion. I especially like this dish you call Cobb salad.”

  Kur’tuo clicked angrily.

  “I’m sorry,” Skold said, correcting himself. “Peaceful planet.”

  The group came up over another ridge. Ahead, a glimmering lake stretched for miles into the distance, with thin silver jetties crisscrossing it.

  “I thought you said there wasn’t any water here.” Ryic was looking curiously down the slope at the crystal-clear liquid.

  The sweat mites that had been following them suddenly reversed course and scattered in the opposite direction.

  “I’m guessing that’s not water,” Skold said.

  The six reached the edge of the lake. Zachary glanced down and was tempted to drop to his knees and lap up the liquid like a thirsty dog. But the sound of sizzling broke his daydream. He looked at the tip of his friction boot and saw that it had touched the still pool, causing the rubber material to bubble and disintegrate. He quickly stepped back.

  “Hydrochloric acid,” Skold said. “An entire lake of it.”

  Skold grabbed Ryic by the wrist and checked the pulsing light on his warp glove. “The safe haven is on the other side of the lake.” Skold’s eyes shifted to the narrow silver jetties that rose above its surface. Unaffected by the corrosive power of the acid, they had naturally formed like sandbars at a beach. “We’ll have to cross using these jetties. They must be composed of some kind of metal that isn’t harmed by the acid. Of course I won’t be the one testing it out.” Skold pushed Zachary forward. “You will.”

  The entire group went silent as he put his left foot onto the path. Just a boot’s width wide, with hydrochloric acid calmly hugging either side, the jetty hardly looked safe. All of Zachary’s concentration was focused on his own two feet. Never before had he been so careful with his steps: left heel to right toe, right heel to left toe. Just a moment of distraction, the tiniest slipup, and he could be without a foot or leg.

  But Skold was right. The jetty wa
s solid enough to cross. And the others all followed behind Zachary

  They got a quarter of the way across the lake and found themselves on a large island of the silver metal. Multiple jetties split off from it, each one snaking through the sea of acid, but which would lead to the other side? No matter how hard he strained, Zachary couldn’t get a clear enough view of the maze of silver to really be sure.

  “We’ll go down each one if we have to,” Skold said.

  He set off on the center path, and the others followed.

  “My dad used to take my brother and me out fishing,” Zachary said to Kaylee and Ryic. “We’d go early in the morning when the water was calm. It looked like glass, just like this. Jacob would let me hook the worms so I wouldn’t feel left out when he caught all the fish.”

  Zachary felt a gentle breeze blow across the acid lake and took relief in the momentary cool. Kaylee did, too, leaning her head back and letting the wind drift through her hair. But Kur’tuo, who was tailing behind her, had no patience for even the slightest pause. He shoved her forward, clicking angrily. The force sent Kaylee stumbling toward the edge of the jetty, and she nearly fell into the hydrochloric pool. Luckily, Zachary reached back and gripped her arm, steadying her.

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you manners?” Kaylee asked Kur’tuo, trying to restrain her anger.

  Kur’tuo responded with a series of clicks.

  “He says he was one of a thousand eggs,” Skold translated. “His mother was busy.”

  The breeze picked up, making tiny ripples in the acid. In the distance, billowing clouds of sand were churning, heading toward them.

  “We need to get across this lake,” Zachary said. “Fast.”

  “He’s right,” Skold said. “Once that salt storm reaches us, those ripples are going to turn into full-blown waves. And these thin strips of land won’t be able to protect us.”

  One after the other, Skold, Ryic, Zachary, Kaylee, Kur’tuo, and Jahir began to run, no longer having the luxury of taking each step with care. Although they were moving quickly, the oncoming salt storm was moving faster. As the wind got stronger, Zachary could feel flakes of salt hitting his lips, making them pucker.