Spacer's Creed

by Michelle Levigne

  “Pirates,” Bain whispered.

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  Chapter Sixteen

  Bain took hold of Alyss's hand and dropped to his knees. She knelt next to him and stared at the campfires and tents as the people walked back and forth, making their supper and settling in for the night.

  “Why are they there?” she said after a few seconds of silence.

  Bain shook his head. He thought maybe the pirates were chasing or hunting the children, but he knew better than to say it out loud. Alyss might start crying, or get mad and hit him, or even yell. After hiding from the Mashrami and running away from the pirates, Bain knew they had to be careful. The best way to hide was to sit still, make no noise and learn all they could about the pirates before they tried to do anything. That was what Lin had told him.

  “Do you think the other kids are in there?” he asked after a few more minutes. Alyss just nodded. “Is there a back door?”

  “Yes, but it'll take us a whole day to get there.” She sighed and stretched out on her stomach. She rested her chin on her crossed arms and watched the people in the camp.

  “There's lots of room. I bet if we waited until it got dark we could just walk around them and stay out of the light.”

  Alyss nodded. A tear trickled down the side of her nose, then slid across her cheek. She didn't wipe it away.

  “It'll be okay. Lin's probably already at the spaceport. She'll unload everybody and get the ship checked out, and then she'll come back for us.”

  “What if the pirates shoot at her?”

  “Oh.” Bain stretched out on his stomach and propped his elbows on the ground with his chin in his hands. He hadn't thought about that part yet. Where had the pirates hidden their ship? It couldn't be too far away, could it?

  “Are you a good Spacer?”

  “Lin says I am.” He wondered why Alyss asked that question.

  “If we found the pirates’ ship, could you steal it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I only know Spacer ships right now. Lin says it'll take years to learn enough so I can run any ship.” He grinned when a new thought came to him. “I bet I know enough to break their ship, though.”

  “Could you?” Alyss turned to look at him and started to smile.

  “But how would I get out after I broke it?”

  “Oh.” She frowned and nodded. “Didn't think about that part.”

  “We should just go in, find the other kids, go out of the canyon the back way, and wait for Lin to find us.”

  They waited until full dark had fallen. They drank the last of the water in their canteens and ate the last packet of cold food from their backpacks. The ground grew cold before Bain started to feel uncomfortable. The ground cover was more like a scratchy moss than grass or squashed bushes. It gave just enough under him that he didn't feel the dirt or rocks. The only problem was that the moss was lumpy, and he had to keep shifting position to avoid getting sore.

  The pirates let the two outer fires die down to smoldering coals. Bain watched the men move around in the growing darkness, outlined by the flames of the center fire that stayed bright and strong. Slowly, one by one, the men-shapes went into the tents and didn't come back out, or else rolled up in blankets at the edge of the firelight.

  “Think it's dark enough?” Alyss whispered, when it grew cold enough that Bain felt damp seeping through his clothes.

  “Yeah.” He grinned into the darkness. He had been about to ask her if she thought it was dark enough, but he wasn't going to tell her that.

  Alyss led the way. Bain didn't argue with her, because he remembered what Lin had said about sticking to what he could do best. Alyss was from around here. She knew what the ground was like. It would be stupid for him to go in the lead, because he could lead them into something just as bad as a sinker hole and not know it.

  Every few steps, they stopped and knelt and watched the pirate camp. The night was so quiet that they could hear the crackling of the fire and snores from the men sleeping outside. Two men sat by the fire, holding long dart rifles across their laps and looking out into the darkness. Bain watched them. Every time one of the men moved, he reached out and tugged on Alyss's skirt, and they both froze in place. They held their breaths, and Bain counted to fifty before they moved again.

  It took a long time to reach the first pile of rocks that stood between the candy bushes and the canyon mouth. One moon had risen above the tallest trees along the horizon, and the next moon showed a thin silvery curve above the black crumpled horizon line.

  The pirates’ shuttles sat behind the second pile of boulders and rubble, with their exhaust ports facing the mouth of the canyon. Bain and Alyss had started moving faster once they started around the backside of the boulders. With the sky-scraping piles of rock and rubble and dirt between them and the pirates, they didn't have to worry about being seen or heard.

  Bain and Alyss ran around a thick block of stone taller and wider than both of them and nearly collided with the side of one shuttle. It was painted black, glossy in the starlight and moonlight. A soft blue glow came through the viewports in the front and the sides, meaning the shuttle's equipment was awake and ready to work at a moment's notice.

  Alyss looked at Bain, then at the shuttle, then at the canyon mouth. “Can you fly it?”

  “No.”

  They walked slowly around the shuttles, in case there were pirates working inside. When they reached the black, thick darkness in the canyon, Alyss reached back and took hold of Bain's hand. He didn't mind at all.

  The passageway narrowed and angled down into the ground. Every time Bain looked up, the patch of sky was further away and thinner. Soon it was little more than a thread of silver-speckled, soft charcoal color in between high, thick walls of black. The air was cold. He wished he had brought a coat. He tugged his backpack up higher on his shoulders for warmth.

  Then, ahead of them the canyon opened wide and became a deep basin full of moonlight. Every shadow was a thick, glossy black that made Bain think it was as solid as the fingers of rock that stuck up into the air all along the walls of the canyon. Caves peppered the walls, like spots on a bug's wings. Bain looked all around and wondered where the children were hiding. How far and how long would he and Alyss have to search before they found the others? He didn't think it would be safe to start shouting, calling names in the darkness.

  “This way,” Alyss whispered. She obviously felt as nervous as he did about making noise.

  They were still holding hands. Bain didn't feel at all awkward about breaking his grip on her hand, especially when Alyss led him into perfect darkness. He felt the ground slope up under his feet.

  It was a trail, climbing up the side of the canyon wall. Bain leaned against the rough, rocky wall as they climbed. It was hard to tell how wide the trail was, how thick and sturdy the ledge, and he didn't want to get close to the edge to find out. He had the awful feeling that falling in the dark was five times longer and ten times more painful than falling in broad daylight.

  Alyss led him into a cave. They squeezed between piles of boulders, and then Bain had to bend over when the ceiling dipped down. They turned a sharp corner. Alyss vanished for a moment and let go of his hand.

  Bright light hit him in the eyes and voices erupted. After the ringing quiet of the night, Bain thought his ears would burst. Hands grabbed him and threw him against the wall and he heard Alyss shouting at someone. Bain decided it would be smart to pretend he was weak and helpless, like he had done a few times at the orphanage. When the hands let go of him, he let his legs fold, and slid down against the wall.

  His eyes adjusted to the light, finally. It wasn't a brilliant, blinding searchlight as he had first thought, but a single, small fire in a depression in the rocky floor of the cave. It only looked bright compared to the utter darkness he had crawled through.

  His ears ached, but it hadn't been hundreds of people shouting at
him—only twelve boys and girls near his age and a little older. Beyond the ring of firelight, Bain saw little heads lifting up off pillows and peering out from under blankets while sleepy little eyes blinked at him.

  “What's going on?” The boy who had picked him up and pushed him against the wall turned to glare at Alyss. He was tall with curly black hair and black eyes. A little fuzz that could turn into a beard darkened his chin and cheeks.

  “The pirates are landing, just like the Ranger said,” Alyss said. She glared right back at him and jammed her fists into her hips, just like Mistress Harrol had done.

  “We know that already.” He sighed and pointed at Bain. “Who's he, and what's he doing here?”

  “He's a Spacer—”

  “He's too little to be a Spacer,” another boy called from the edge of the firelight. He struggled to his feet and joined Alyss and the older boy. He looked enough like the older boy to be his twin, but a head shorter and with no beard trying to grow. He looked down on Bain and grinned.

  “He's a Spacer, and he's here so the ship can find us when they come back for us,” Alyss continued. She glared at the brothers and held out a hand for Bain.

  Bain decided it wouldn't look good if he let Alyss help him stand up. He pressed against the wall and kept a careful watch on the brothers as he stood.

  “Wait a minute,” the older one said. His mouth dropped open as he looked back and forth between Alyss and Bain. “How did you two get in here? Those pirates are camped right in front of the passage out.”

  “We snuck past.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Marco, sometimes you are so stupid.”

  If the older boy was Marco, then his brother was Mattias. Bain felt a little better knowing what name went with what face.

  “What do we need a Spacer for, anyway?” Mattias asked. He stepped closer and grinned nastily at Bain from over his brother's shoulder.

  “Mashrami sent the plague that made everybody so sick back at the processing station,” Bain said. “We brought the vaccine, and my captain took all the sick people out. Pirates were coming, so they had to leave. Right away.”

  “Bain's the only way the ship can find us again,” Alyss added.

  “Bain? That's a stupid name.” Mattias wrinkled up his nose and turned back to the fire.

  A few of the boys sitting around the fire laughed, softly. They stopped when Marco turned and glared at them.

  “You want to get left behind?” the older boy asked. A few shook their heads. “Then don't make fun of the people who are helping you.” He turned back to Bain and shrugged. “Sorry about hitting you like that. You scared me when you came in here after Alyss.”

  “Scared me, too.” Bain grinned. At least Marco didn't think he was stupid, and Marco was older, the leader.

  “How did you get past those pirates? Scared me to death when I went to get more firewood and saw them setting up camp this afternoon.”

  “Two don't make as much noise as twenty.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “How did you know they were pirates?” Bain had to ask.

  “Nobody goes into anybody else's gathering territory without permission.” Marco shrugged and gestured over toward the fire. They sat down. The other children made room for Alyss and Bain to join them. “Besides, I didn't recognize any of the men, and those shuttles don't belong here on Dogray.”

  “When is your ship coming to get us?” a boy asked from the other side of the fire.

  “Probably tomorrow some time. It depends on how long it takes to get back to the spaceport, unload the sick people, and then get back here,” Alyss said.

  “Maybe longer.” Bain hunched his shoulders and tried not to look as worried as he felt. “They had to leave because Ganfer's sensors detected some ships approaching, and Lin wanted to launch before they were close enough to know who was coming. If the pirates chased her like before, she'd go into space before heading for the spaceport.”

  “Chase her?” Mattias said. “Like, shooting at her and all that?” His eyes got big.

  “No. Lin doesn't let anybody get close enough to Sunsinger to shoot at us.”

  “How did she get away last time?” a girl asked from the shadows to Bain's left.

  Bain told them about the race toward the Knaught Point, the twisting and turning of Sunsinger, how Ranger Lt. Gray was hurt, and how everybody in the hold had spent the entire trip in stasis to avoid injury.

  When he finished, every single person around the fire was silent and wide-eyed. The crackling of the little fire was loud.

  “We have to make sure the pirates don't chase us when your ship comes back for us,” Marco said in the quiet of the cave room.

  “They only have shuttles,” Alyss said. “Sunsinger is a big ship.”

  “But shuttles can move a lot faster and launch sooner because they're so small. If they ram the ship, it can't go into space, can it?” The older boy turned to Bain.

  If it weren't so serious, Bain would have laughed. Someone much older and bigger than him acted like he, Bain, was the expert.

  Well, maybe he was. None of them had traveled in a ship larger than a shuttle. Bain actually knew how to run a control panel—for simple shipboard jobs—and was training to take a Spacer's ship through Knaught Points.

  “If it hurts Sunsinger enough, yes.” Bain didn't like admitting that. He was learning that being an adult meant taking the bad things with the good when they happened to him.

  “Then how do we stop them?” Mattias demanded. “You know about ships, right? Could you steal one?”

  “There are two out there,” Alyss said. “If we take one, that still leaves one for them to hurt our ship.”

  “I could try to break the shuttles,” Bain said. His stomach felt like he had fallen down a steep hill when he said the words.

  “How?” Mattias didn't sound like he was teasing Bain any longer.

  “I know how to fix things in the control panel on Sunsinger.”

  “Yeah? What good does that do us?”

  “It does a lot of good, stupid,” Marco said. “If you know how to fix things, that means you have to know how they get broken.” He grinned at Bain, but it wasn't a nice grin. “If we get you into the shuttles, you can take things apart inside so they can't fly?”

  “And I bet I can make sure the pirates don't know they're broken until they try to launch, too,” Bain said, nodding. He still felt sick, but he knew they had to do this. The thought of Sunsinger getting rammed by the pirates scared him more than getting caught by the pirates.

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  Chapter Seventeen

  Bain was tired. His head hurt, his eyes were gritty and dry, and his back ached. He walked behind Marco, with Alyss behind him and Mattias behind her. Marco, being the oldest and in charge of all the littles, said only they four would go to sabotage the pirates’ shuttles. As Bain had pointed out, two had been able to sneak in because they were so few and able to be quiet. Four wouldn't be much more trouble to hide and stay quiet. Bain would sneak into the shuttles and try to take things apart while the other three kept watch, and, if they had to, create a distraction so he could get away safely.

  What kind of a distraction? Marco wasn't sure yet. He grinned when Bain asked him, and said they would have to wait for inspiration. Somehow, Bain didn't like the sound of that. What if they didn't get any ideas? Would they have to walk through the dark and climb back up that steep trail to the cave again, without having done anything to hurt the pirates? What if Sunsinger showed up in the morning, and the pirates came after her with their shuttles to ram her? Bain knew he would be sick because he could have done something to protect the ship, and hadn't.

  More than anything, he wanted to curl up under a blanket and go to sleep until Sunsinger showed up.

  He was a Spacer now, and that meant he had a responsibility to his ship. He had to keep walking, and he had to do the best he could to hurt the pirates’ shuttles without any tools.

>   Besides, Mattias would laugh at him if Bain messed up or ran away. The bigger boy wasn't a bully like Toly Gaber, but Bain still didn't like being teased by him.

  They came to the mouth of the canyon and stopped while they were still in the deepest, darkest part of the shadows. The pirates’ fires looked bright, spilling light everywhere in the camp. From where the four sat, they could see the two shuttles without anything blocking their way.

  “Tents,” Mattias said. “Maybe we could set the tents on fire?”

  “That would only make more light,” Bain said. “They'd see you.”

  “Right.” Marco squatted with his knees up around his ears and stared into the darkness of the pirates’ camp. “What if they have alarms on the shuttles?”

  “Why would they have alarms? They think they're the only ones out here. Pirates think settlers and harvesters are stupid.” Bain felt his face stretch into a nasty grin. His three companions grinned back.

  “My father says people are the most stupid when they think everyone else is stupid,” Alyss offered.

  “But we should be careful, just in case they do have alarms on the shuttles,” Marco said. “Whatever we do to distract the pirates, it has to happen at the same time the alarms go off.”

  “Like what?”

  “Matt might be half-right with the tents.”

  “Like what?” his brother demanded.

  “Remember when Uncle Jae set up that tent for us two summers ago, and the ground was so shallow he couldn't pound the pegs in very far?”

  “Uh huh.” Mattias chuckled. “The first wind that came through knocked the whole thing down on top of us. Woke us up in the middle of the night, and it took forever to get out of the mess it made.”

  “How are you going to knock all of them down at the same time?” Bain asked.

  “Loosen all the pegs,” Alyss said.

  “Yeah.” Marco nodded, barely visible in the moonlit darkness of their hiding place. “I bet if we got some rope, tied all the tents together, and then yanked really hard and ran—”