Starbounders

by Adam Jay Epstein

  They reached a second island, this one with a tall, thin silver spire at its center. Waves of acid were now cresting and breaking over the jetties.

  “We’re trapped,” Zachary said.

  The six of them huddled closer, moving in toward the spire as the acid level continued rising. The salt storm was now raging all around them, causing Zachary’s eyes to sting. He felt a burning sensation on the back of his leg, where a spray of hydrochloric acid had eaten away at his pants and was sizzling against his calf.

  All the Night family stories ended with epic battles won and medals being earned for acts of bravery. But Zachary couldn’t remember a single tale ending like this.

  “We sure could use my dad’s fishing boat right about now,” Zachary said. “Of course, the acid would eat through it pretty quickly.”

  Kaylee, who had been examining the spire, got a spark in her eyes. “What if we make our own boat?” She rapped her fist against the metal surface. “It’s hollow.”

  “We’ll have to break it off from the base and split it open,” Zachary said, seeing her plan. “Then we can ride it to the other side of the lake like a canoe.”

  Skold must have thought it was a good idea because he had already loaded his photon cannon and was firing at the spot where the spire met the island.

  The rest of them stood back as the blasts began to shake the spire. After a series of rapid shots, Skold’s cannon finally tipped it.

  “Kur’tuo, cut the spire from end to end,” Kaylee shouted.

  The alien made several clicks and turned away.

  “He says no one gives orders to Kur’tuo,” Skold translated. “Especially little girls.” Kaylee stared daggers at Skold. “His words. Not mine.” Then taking aim with his cannon, Skold sent blasts along the top edge of the spire.

  The waves were getting bigger now, crashing onto the island. Their makeshift canoe was finished just in time.

  “Get it into the lake,” Kaylee cried over the roar of the storm.

  Everyone gathered around one end and pushed the spire along the island to the edge of the lake. Now Zachary just hoped that it would float. With a final thrust, the metal skiff slid into the choppy acid and remained buoyant.

  “Pile in,” Skold said.

  One by one they climbed aboard, and once all six were inside they let the wind and waves carry them away from the island. Flecks of acid continued to spray the inside of the boat, eating away at their clothes and burning their flesh. More problematic was the fact that the escape vessel was starting to sink. It was carrying too much weight.

  Kur’tuo grunted out a series of clicks.

  “He’s right,” Skold said. “Looks like maximum occupancy is five.” He eyed the three Starbounders-in-training. “So, which one of you feels like taking a dip?”

  But Kur’tuo wasn’t waiting for any volunteers. He thrust out an arm at Ryic, gripping him by the shirt. Just before he chucked him overboard, Kaylee’s right foot flew into Kur’tuo’s abdomen with enough force to knock him straight off the boat. The alien’s bug-like eyes went even wider as he tumbled into the acid, his body melting into a green pool with an awful hissing sound. The spire immediately rose up again, no longer on the verge of sinking.

  “I guess he was just feeling selfless,” Kaylee said without a hint of remorse.

  The silver vessel lurched at the whims of the storm. With no oar to propel them and no one volunteering to use their arms as paddles, they bobbed along the acid waves until the salt storm blew itself out and the sky became clear again. When the tip of the canoe ran aground on the opposite end of the lake, they got out in time to see Sirocco’s second sun dipping below the horizon. It was dark in an instant. The thin atmosphere couldn’t hold a sunset.

  Skold walked up beside Ryic and took a look at the pulsing light on his warp glove to gauge their distance from the safe haven.

  “We’re still miles away,” he said. “As much as I wanted to get to the hopper ship today, I think traveling at night will be too dangerous. I’d hate to accidentally step into a sinkhole or walk into a dehydra we don’t even know is there. Let’s stop here. It seems as good a spot as any.”

  Zachary looked around. He saw nothing but salty dunes in every direction. No shelter. No caves to curl up in. They’d have to spend the night exposed to the elements. Back home, when Zachary went camping, at least he had a tent and a sleeping bag. Here they had no equipment. Sleeping under the stars would mean just that. Lying with their backs on the sand and their faces to the sky.

  Skold took a seat on a nearby rock and took out his magnetic tweezers, still intent on freeing his wrist from the shockle. Jahir pulled the loose skin hanging from his bones around him like a blanket and curled up to go to sleep.

  Zachary, Ryic, and Kaylee were left to fend for themselves. Zachary’s lips were badly cracked and he could barely conjure up enough saliva to moisten them.

  “I say we wait until they’re both asleep and then make a run for it,” Kaylee whispered. “We can find that hopper ship and jump to the nearest space station.”

  “Weaponless and on our own?” Ryic asked.

  “Killed by the elements or killed by them,” Kaylee said.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Zachary could see neutron bursts as Skold attempted to remove the shockle.

  “I think we’d be better off pretending to be on their side a little longer,” Zachary argued, his voice hoarse. “Then we seize our moment.”

  “I’m with him,” Ryic said.

  Kaylee might not have agreed, but she seemed to respect the fact that she was outvoted.

  No spot seemed better than any other for sleeping, so Zachary, Kaylee, and Ryic lay down on the ground where they were, side by side. They stared up at the swirl of stars dotting the greenish space clouds of the distant Stringer Nebula.

  “Back home, I would stargaze with my numerical predecessor, Jengi 1,174,830,” Ryic said suddenly. “I miss her very much.”

  “Is she like your sister or something?” Kaylee asked.

  “Not exactly. We do not have siblings on Klenarog, at least not in the way you do on Earth. Every member of my species is birthed from the Origin Pool, primordial waters that elders return to at the end of their lives. From their dissolved remains new Klenarogians emerge. We are all given a name and number, and our destinies are chosen at random.”

  “Did you grow up in a house or have a mom and dad?” Zachary asked.

  “I was raised in the youth barracks, under the tutelage of the planet’s finest mentors. Love and caring were doled out in equal rations, the same as meals and showers.”

  “Well, at least you could never be disappointed that way,” Kaylee said.

  “I guess I was one of the lucky ones,” Zachary said. “My family has always been there for me.”

  The three lay silently for a moment.

  “Do you think anyone is looking for us?” Ryic asked.

  “Sure, they might be looking,” Kaylee said. “It’s finding us that’s the tricky part. I once saw this show on the Discovery Channel that said if someone goes overboard on a cruise ship at night, the odds of being rescued are one in a million. Now picture that instead of being lost at sea, you’re lost in an infinite universe.”

  “What do you think they’ve told our parents?” Zachary asked Kaylee.

  “Probably that there was an accident,” Kaylee said. “Or that they lost communication with our ship.”

  Zachary’s chest immediately tightened. He had a horrible feeling that he would never see his family again. How was he supposed to get his friends out of this mess? When was Jacob going to drop in from wherever it was he was on assignment to save them? Or would they be spending the rest of their short lives here on Sirocco? Kingston was sounding pretty good right about now.

  Zachary had been falling in and out of sleep for what felt like hours. Every time he drifted off, his dreams took him to waterfalls or mountain springs. But the mental mirages left him just as thirsty as before. Then he felt a
drop of water land on his forehead. This was no dream. Was it raining?

  Zachary’s eyes peeled open to find Jahir standing over him, drooling from his open mouth. As the gaunt alien bared his wolfish teeth and lunged, Zachary acted on instinct alone, rolling out of the way.

  He screamed for help; at least he tried to. But his throat had become so dry, all that came out was a scratchy, barely audible wheeze. Kaylee and Ryic slept right through it.

  “I hate to go to bed on an empty stomach.” Jahir licked his lips as he circled his prey. Zachary could already picture Jahir burying those long fangs in his flesh.

  Clenching his fists, he realized he was still wearing his glove. Then, in the dim starlight he spotted one of the sonic crossbows lying near the sleeping Skold. Acting fast, Zachary opened a warp hole. He grabbed the crossbow, pulling it to his side. Without hesitating he took aim at Jahir and pulled the trigger. But no beam of sound shot out from the crossbow. Zachary looked down to see salt clogging the firing mechanism. When his eyes flicked back up to his enemy, Jahir was smiling.

  The fugitive pounced, clawing at Zachary’s face and pinning him on his back. Jahir was closing in for the kill. Zachary used all his strength to push the beast but was unsuccessful. Jahir’s teeth were moving toward Zachary’s neck when a photon bolt struck him in the back of the head, felling him to the ground instantly. Zachary shoved the lifeless alien off him to see Skold standing with photon cannon in hand.

  “It wasn’t going to be long before I was on the menu, too,” Skold said.

  The blast had awakened Ryic and Kaylee. They scrambled to their feet.

  “What happened?” Ryic asked, still disoriented.

  “Jahir was looking for a midnight snack,” Zachary whispered hoarsely, wiping blood from the deep scratches on his cheeks.

  “Zachary, are you okay?” Kaylee asked, moving toward him to help.

  “I’ve been in fights before,” Zachary croaked. “Granted, most of them weren’t with aliens who looked like the Big Bad Wolf’s ugly cousin.”

  Skold was digging a hole beside Jahir’s body. The shockle still dangled from his left wrist.

  “You really think he deserves a proper burial?” Kaylee asked, making it obvious she didn’t.

  “I just don’t want to be stuck smelling him all night,” Skold said. “Now go back to sleep. We still have a few hours before dawn.”

  «SEVEN»

  The first sun of Sirocco had risen, and the four remaining survivors of the Dreadnought Epsilon crash wasted no time. Guided by the compass in Ryic’s warp glove, they walked for hours over the increasingly hot sand. According to the pulsing light, they were getting close to the safe haven—and the emergency hopper ship docked inside it.

  Zachary walked beside Kaylee, who was letting the baby vreek crawl up and down her arm.

  “Sputnik, that tickles,” said Kaylee.

  “Sputnik?” asked Zachary, his voice still scratchy and low. “You gave it a name?”

  “He reminded me of the old Russian satellite, with those four little needles sticking out of his back.”

  Skold strode ahead of them, preoccupied with the indigo box with the infinity symbol on it that he had removed from the dreadnought. It made Zachary think of all those people back home who walked around with their noses buried in their cell phones. Then Skold pulled a thin wire from the artificial flesh of his right wrist and inserted it into a tiny hole on the side of the box.

  “What are you doing?” Zachary asked, slightly sickened by the sight.

  “Uploading the data from the ship’s starbox,” Skold replied.

  “That’s the starbox?”

  Zachary had imagined the dreadnought’s heart and brain to be a giant supercomputer, not something smaller than an iPhone.

  “There’s only one thing more valuable than parts,” Skold said. “Knowledge.”

  “What, do you have an internal hard drive or something?” Kaylee asked, pointing to the wire sticking out of Skold’s wrist.

  “This shell comes with all kinds of perks,” Skold said. “I’ve got emergency oxygen tanks, a water filtration system, and I even sprang for all ten thousand channels of universal satellite TV. Although I have to admit, reception can be spotty.”

  “How did you go from diplomat to outerverse felon?” Zachary asked.

  “From studying Earthlings,” Skold replied. “My kind—the people of Ota Stella—don’t know anything of thievery or crime. We have no personal belongings, and the welfare of one another is prized more than anything. But after many years of living among your species, seeing all of your greed and ambition, I recognized the wisdom of your ways.”

  “What was that?” Zachary asked.

  “That taking and earning are not that different—both put money in your pocket. And that fast ships are fun.” Skold gave a sly grin. “You three have been asking an awful lot of questions. Now what about you?” He eyed Kaylee. “What’s with the piercings and colored hair? Daddy taking too many business trips to the outerverse? Need something to get his attention during his short stops home?”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” Kaylee said. She walked ahead, clearly bothered.

  Skold turned to Ryic.

  “You’re from Klenarog, right? That planet has some of the finest combatants and pilots in the known galaxies. Just never heard of them sending anyone to the IPDL. Don’t they have their own fleet? Couldn’t make the grade at home? So you got dumped at Indigo 8?”

  At first Zachary thought Skold’s provoking was off the mark, but he could tell by the way Ryic was avoiding eye contact that his taunts had touched a nerve.

  Finally Skold’s attention fell on Zachary.

  “I’m not sure about you, kid. But something tells me you’ve got a long way to go before that warp glove fits you.”

  The words cut deep for Zachary. What he wanted more than anything was to live up to his family’s legacy, but Skold was right.

  “You gonna charge me for that brilliant insight?” Zachary challenged. He had no intention of letting Skold—or Kaylee or Ryic—see any weakness in him.

  “No, the first hour is free,” Skold replied. “Come on, let’s pick up the pace.”

  If the fugitive’s goal had been to get them to quit asking questions, he’d succeeded. For a while the only thing that broke the silence was the sound of Sputnik cooing inside Kaylee’s pocket. Then Ryic spoke.

  “Look,” he said, pointing into the distance.

  Through the salt clouds they could spy a silver dot on the horizon reflecting the planet’s two suns brightly.

  “That’s it, all right,” Skold said. “That’s where we’re headed. But we’ve still got plenty of time to uncork all your skeletons. Now which of you is going to start sharing?”

  What had only been a small, gleaming dot hours earlier had now come into clear focus. It was a bunker resembling a flat-topped pyramid. A holographic flag on the top bore the IPDL symbol. The flag looked like it was flapping in the wind, but unlike an ordinary flag, it would never be destroyed by salt storms or other climatic disasters.

  Skold led them to the bunker’s solid front wall, where a single fist-sized indentation was the only shape on the otherwise completely smooth surface.

  “Who’d like to do the honors?” Skold asked. Zachary stepped up but didn’t know what he was supposed to do. “Press your warp glove against it.”

  Zachary activated his glove and inserted it into the spot on the wall. A magnetic force held the glove tightly in place. Then it released and one side of the building slid open. LED lights blinked on, revealing a large chamber within. Once everyone rushed inside, the open wall of the bunker automatically sealed shut behind them.

  Zachary had expected to find only the hopper ship within the IPDL safe haven but was pleasantly surprised to see tanks of water lining the walls, along with emergency food rations and first aid supplies. A small spacecraft stood at the center of the bunker. It was an egg-shaped pod with oval portholes on opposite si
des. No bigger than an RV, it had four giant metallic legs elevating the pod five feet off the ground. Ladderlike steps led to the door.

  “Grab some water,” Skold told them. “Then we can get off this nightmare of a planet.”

  Zachary, Kaylee, and Ryic eagerly ran up to one of the walls, snatching empty thermoses and filling them to the brim with water from the spigots near the bottoms of the tanks. They threw back the drinks, letting the liquid flow down their dry throats. Zachary swallowed gulp after gulp. Never had water tasted so good. He began to choke even as he continued to swallow.

  Kaylee pulled her mouth away from her thermos slightly but made a point of keeping it in front of her lips.

  “How are we going to ditch him?” she asked quietly under her breath. “It’s only a matter of time before we’re on the wrong end of that photon cannon.”

  “He saved my life,” Zachary replied, in equally hushed tones.

  “We can’t trust him. He’ll sacrifice us the first chance he gets.”

  Zachary nodded. He knew she was right.

  “Are you sure this isn’t personal?” Ryic asked. “For what Skold did to your father?”

  “I just want us to get home,” Kaylee said.

  They all glanced over at the fugitive, who was raiding the first aid supplies. His photon cannon was slung across his back.

  “Now’s our chance,” Kaylee said. “Zachary, on the count of three, use your warp glove to unlatch his shoulder harness. I’ll grab the weapon once it’s loose.”

  “What about me?” Ryic asked.

  “You might want to duck behind something,” Kaylee said. “In case things don’t go as planned.” She turned to Zachary. “One . . . two . . . three.”

  In unison they held out their warp gloves. Two holes opened right behind Skold. Zachary reached through the first, snapping the shoulder latch. Kaylee’s hand emerged from the second and grabbed the photon cannon. By the time Skold turned around, Kaylee was pointing the weapon straight at him.

  “Nice teamwork,” Skold said. “Gold stars for both of you.”