“Right.” Benny said. “Okay. No problem. I’ll just . . .” He took a few steps forward and then turned back to the others. “Uh, Jazz. Would you mind backing me up?”
She smiled and nodded. “Of course.”
They walked toward the central hologram slowly, finally standing beside Vala. The alien’s arms were at the commander’s sides, the four slender fingers on each hand twitching slightly. Under the glowing stalactites that hung from the ceiling, the gemlike pieces of armor that studded Vala’s body gleamed.
“Hi,” Benny said, and then he paused. It suddenly dawned on him that not only was he talking to an alien—which, oddly enough, was something he was kind of getting used to—he was talking to someone who was likely much, much older than him. He had no concept of how long the Alpha Maraudi lived. All he knew was that both Vala and Tull had mentioned something about the aliens having been around far before humans were and that they lived much longer.
Benny took a deep breath and held his head up a little higher, trying to at least make it look like he was sure of himself. In fact, now that he thought about it, putting on a brave face when he was scared or feeling helpless was probably the only way he’d survived all the fights and space battles he’d found himself in lately.
“Hi,” he said again. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry . . . we’re sorry for the ships that went down.”
Vala didn’t react. Benny opened his mouth, ready to say more, only to find that he had no idea how to continue. He looked at Jasmine, who must have recognized that he was at a bit of a loss for words.
“As the commander, I’m sure it was a really difficult decision to leave your people behind,” Jasmine said, speaking carefully.
“We have a word for them that does not translate,” Vala eventually said. “Not fighters, necessarily, but ones who protect. Those who . . .” The commander paused, standing so still that for a second Benny thought something was wrong. “Those who give themselves up for the whole,” Vala continued.
“Right.” Benny nodded. And then, without knowing what else to say, he found himself apologizing again.
One of the dozens of slender tentacles piled high on the commander’s head reached out. It grazed a ribbon of green light floating above the image of the Moon. The hologram shifted, until it was Earth in front of them, spinning almost imperceptibly.
“One world,” Vala said in a voice that sounded like a dozen people of different ages speaking at once. “Out of all the planets in all the galaxies, it had to be yours that we need.”
Benny stared at Earth, a ball of water and sand and trees and people all kept alive by a glowing star millions of miles away. It was strange to see the planet look so peaceful and small, despite knowing that two species depended on it for their survival. He spotted the Drylands, which had always seemed so enormous to him when he was growing up, nothing but desert and cloudless skies as far as the eye could take in.
It seemed so foolish to have thought the Drylands were big, now that he’d learned of the Alpha Maraudi and realized how tiny his planet was in the grand scheme of the cosmos. In the last few weeks, he’d discovered that his perceptions of the universe were hopelessly limited. Space, it turned out, was a treacherous place. Full of wonder, yes, but also danger. There was much more out there than he had ever imagined.
Bathed in the glow of the hologram, a new thought entered his mind.
“You’ve never been to Earth before, have you?” he asked.
“No,” Vala responded. “I know it only through our research and observations. I’ve never felt its soil myself. We have been very restricted in terms of visiting the planet.”
The commander was silent for a moment as Benny tried to wrap his head around how it must feel to put so much importance on a place you knew only from holograms and research. But, then, that’s how he’d lived in the Drylands. His caravan had survived by putting its faith in the idea that whatever their destination—even if it was a place they’d never been—it held the promise of a better life.
“What is it like?” Vala asked.
“It’s . . .” Benny started, memories of his home filling his head. The heat of the sun. The smell of a campfire on cold desert nights. The sound of his grandmother snoring, which he now missed, though he’d always thought it was so annoying back on Earth. “It’s beautiful. Well, parts of it are. Even in the Drylands. I don’t think I realized that until I got to the Moon, though.”
“You miss it.”
“Yeah,” Benny said. “I mean, I miss my family. A lot. And . . . you know. Earth in general, too.”
Vala nodded. “I understand. It is a long time since I’ve been on my world.”
“We ruined parts of ours, that’s for sure,” Jasmine said. “But I always thought we’d make it better.” She shook her head. “That’s one of the reasons I got into science in the first place. I think a lot of EW-SCABers felt that way.” She paused. “Feel that way, I mean.”
And then they stood there, side by side, staring at the hologram together.
Benny wasn’t sure what Vala and Jasmine were thinking about, but his focus drifted to the blip of the Moon in the background. He took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves as his mind wandered to the dark side. There, an insane genius named Dr. Austin Bale had hidden a superweapon capable of utterly destroying the Alpha Maraudi. One they knew virtually nothing about.
In a faraway galaxy, an expanding star threatened the existence of the Maraudi planet, but it was possible that their annihilation would be orchestrated by humans.
Two worlds were at stake. Two species. And somehow, it felt to Benny as though it had fallen to him and his friends to try to save them all from extinction.
2.
The sound of boots on the stone floor broke the momentary stillness on the bridge. Benny turned to see Ricardo Rocha, the oldest member of the Pit Crew, walking toward them.
Ricardo looked at Vala and nodded cautiously, then at Benny and Jasmine. “The last of the SRs from the Taj are here,” he said as he came to a stop in front of them. “The hangar is already closed up and everything.”
Vala called something out to Griida across the bridge, and then turned back to Benny and the others. “Our power cells are being prepped,” Vala said. “In a few minutes, we’ll enter accelerated travel.”
“A few of your people showed us around the mother ship,” Ricardo said to the commander. He looked at Benny. “There’s plenty of room for all of us. We’re trying to help get everyone oriented. As much as we can. But the new arrivals are pretty . . . weirded out. A lot of them are upset.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Benny said. “Hiding out on an alien mother ship wasn’t in the EW-SCAB brochure.”
“It was the smartest thing we could do, given the way things were at the Taj,” Jasmine said. “I definitely didn’t want to get sent back to Earth so Dr. Bale and Drue’s dad could try to destroy the Alpha Maraudi.”
As Jasmine spoke, Vala’s tentacles constricted around the glowing red ball they held. Before the commander could respond, though, Drue swaggered in, a half-eaten apple in one hand.
“Good news, guys,” Drue said through a mouthful of fruit. “Our friends brought food with them. You’d better grab some now, though, because there’s a lot of stress eating going on in there already.”
Across the bridge, Ramona looked up from her HoloTek and zoned in on Drue’s apple. “Snacks?” Her eyes went wide. “Is there soda? Energy drinks? My battery is depleted.”
“Oh, yeah. But we’ll def be running on sustenance squares soon if we’re not careful.” He came to a stop in front of Benny and scrunched his eyebrows together. “As the core members of the Moon Platoon, maybe we should stash some of the good stuff for ourselves?”
Benny blinked. “You’re not serious, right?”
“Ehhhh,” Drue said, shrugging.
“We will look at our own food reserves and try to discern what you might be able to eat without harm,” Vala said. The commander loo
ked to Griida and said something in their musical language.
Griida barked back.
“What did he say?” Drue asked. Then, after a beat: “Um . . . or is it she?”
“We do not classify our people as you do,” Vala said. “There are many subtleties and nuances to our pronouns. They are not as restrictive as yours.”
“Okay, sure, that’s cool.” Drue paused. “Uh, but, before I was kind of calling all aliens ‘it’ and that sounds a little harsh, right?”
Vala stared at him for a moment. “He would be the closest word you have for Griida. A female pronoun would be acceptable for me.”
Drue nodded and bit into his apple. “So, what did our dude Griida say?”
“That you should eat whatever you like, and if it kills you, it will be a lesson to the others,” the commander said.
“Seriously?” Drue asked, his face scrunching in disdain. Then he grinned a little. “Oh! I get it. It’s a joke.”
But Vala didn’t laugh. Instead, she reached a tentacle down and removed the mask covering the top half of her face, revealing two diamond-shaped eyes that burned with red pupils and a third one in the center of her forehead that glowed a vibrant blue. She turned her shining gaze to Benny. “I believe now would be an opportune time for us to discuss what we’re going to do next. You said you want us to work together. We must figure out what that will entail.”
“Heck, yeah,” Drue said. He took a final bite of fruit and then looked at the core. “Uh. You guys have trash cans up here or what?”
“It is customary for the Maraudi commanders to speak alone before small councils are brought in to advise. This helps to build trust.”
Ricardo clenched his jaw, and Benny was sure he was about to protest. But then he just crossed his arms. “That makes sense.”
“Come on. I’m the charmer!” Drue protested. “I should be in on this.”
“Go back and help with the new arrivals,” Ricardo said to him. “Like I asked you to earlier.”
“What if I’m absolutely quiet and just listen?” he asked.
“Drue,” Benny said.
He sighed. “Fine.”
“I’ll join you in a moment,” Ricardo said. Then he hesitated. His eyes fell to the floor, and then to the hologram of Earth spinning slowly beside them. “I’d like to see him again.”
Without a word, Vala tapped a tentacle against one of the ribbons of light that floated on the fringes of the hologram. In an instant the planet was gone. Instead, standing before them was the person responsible for the Lunar Taj and the very existence of Space Runners. The world’s first trillionaire. A man who had raced cars across the Milky Way galaxy and who, despite having lost his faith in humanity for a while, had seemingly sacrificed himself to stop an asteroid storm from destroying Earth.
Elijah West.
It was only a recording of the call they’d received earlier, but it looked so real that the hairs on the back of Benny’s neck stood on end. A gold mask covered Elijah West’s eyes. Oddly enough, it matched the gold studs on his driving gloves, as well as the accents on his maroon space suit. It was almost as if the whole thing had been planned, like Elijah was dressed up for some costume party at the Taj. Were that the case, the hulking alien standing beside him might have been slightly less terrifying to Benny. It was Tull, the Alpha Maraudi commander who’d led the asteroid storm against Earth—and who Benny and Hot Dog had faced days before when they’d been sucked aboard a different mother ship. The commander’s two slick black tentacles curved into the air like horns, and his menacing grin showed off rows of shiny gray teeth.
Ricardo was silent for a moment, unblinking as he looked at the hologram of his mentor. “I wish I’d been here when the call came in,” he said quietly, “to see this for myself and tell him that we’re trying to find him. To let him know the Pit Crew is still fighting.”
“I’m sure he’s never doubted that,” Jasmine said. Her eyebrows drew together as she looked at Ricardo. Then she grabbed the sleeve of Drue’s expensive-looking space suit and half dragged him toward the door. “Come on. Show me and Ramona where the snacks are.”
“Mmmm,” Ramona said, looking up from her HoloTek. “Take me to the foods.”
Drue groaned, but led the girls out anyway. “Just for the record, Jazz, I am well aware that you’re trying to distract me.” He shrugged. “I just happen to know there’s a stash of cookies in one of those boxes with my name on it.”
When they were gone, Benny took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and then turned to Vala. “Okay. Lead the way.”
Vala pointed a long finger at a pulsing dot of light on the edge of the hologram. “When you’re ready, this will play the communication,” she said to Ricardo.
She then motioned to a jagged hole in the wall. Benny had actually made it when he’d infiltrated her ship. It led into a gigantic chamber full of alien plants and flowers. “Walk with me, Benny Love of Earth.”
He nodded, following her. He was almost to the garden when Elijah’s voice filled the bridge.
“Benny,” Elijah said. “What in the name of the Milky Way galaxy have you done with my resort?”
Benny stopped short when he heard his name, turning to see the recording that Ricardo had begun. By this point in the video, Commander Tull had removed the mask that had hidden much of Elijah’s face. He flashed a wide smile and spoke in an upbeat voice, but even from across the room Benny could see that his eyes were rimmed in red, and that bruises were beginning to form around his hairline. Elijah may have been pretending that everything was okay, but Benny was pretty sure that was just an act for their sake. When he’d met Tull, the commander had threatened to take him and Hot Dog hostage as the last remaining humans, to set them up in some sort of lab or zoo so that the Alpha Maraudi could learn from them. They were to serve as examples of a species that had ruined itself—a warning to future generations of aliens. But that was before Elijah had blown away part of the asteroid ship with an overloaded hyperdrive. Now Tull was undoubtedly very angry. Who knew what he was capable of?
Benny had been on the bridge when the call came in—had talked to Elijah himself. He’d watched the recording afterward several times, too. He knew what happened next. Tull would question Vala’s loyalty and warn that he’d already sent word to their home world that she was conspiring with humans. He would grill Benny and his friends about the superweapon they knew hardly anything about. And, finally, he would assure Benny and the others that the only way they’d see Elijah alive again was if Dr. Bale’s weapon was destroyed.
Still, Benny stood there, part of him wishing that, impossibly, things would turn out different this time. He might have watched the entire recording again had Vala not made a harmonic noise behind him and, letting out a long breath, he turned to join the commander and discuss the fate of their peoples.
3.
The rock that Benny had melted earlier in order for him and his friends to get to the bridge had hardened into blobby pools on the floor. Benny felt a little embarrassed as he stepped over them and into the garden.
“Uh,” he said. “Sorry about the wall.”
Vala nodded as a thin tendril tipped in gold moved through the air, obviously intent on fixing the mess. Then the commander paused.
“Can you rebuild it?” she asked Benny. “With the glove that I assume came from Tull’s ship? It is not of a design that my crew members use.”
“Well . . .” he started. He’d managed to close the hole in the hangar that he’d created when they first boarded, but that was about it as far his experience went with fixing things. Mostly, he’d used the glove to punch away alien rock, which had worked out pretty well for him and his friends, even if it wasn’t the most delicate way to get things done. “I’m not sure if I can,” he admitted.
“Why don’t you try,” Vala urged.
Benny hesitated. Was this some kind of test? And if so, to what end? Did the commander just want to know how adept he was at using the alien tech? He cou
ld almost feel her gaze on his face as she stared at him. Then he reminded himself that he was there to talk to Vala, to work with her—and in order to do that, they needed to start trying to trust each other.
“Sure,” Benny said.
He stepped to the break in the wall, placing the golden palm of the alien glove against it. He concentrated, imagining the stone reforming, sealing them into the garden. Slowly, the rock began to move and grow, as though it were a thick liquid expanding under his touch. He slid his hand across it, hoping that plugging up the hole would be as easy as closing a sliding door. For a moment, it actually felt that simple.
And then the rock was stretched too thin and could no longer hold itself up. Chunks of it fell to the floor, crumbling, breaking Benny’s concentration. He let out a breath and stepped back.
“Huh,” he said. “I did it back in the hangar, no problem.”
“What was different?” Vala asked.
Benny shrugged. “I dunno. I guess then I was mostly working on adrenaline. I didn’t really have time to think. We had to seal the hole before we could move forward.”
“Curious. As far as we know humans have never used this sort of science before. I admit it is a bit of a shock to me that it yields to your will at all.” Vala flicked her gold-tipped tentacle in the air. Almost instantaneously, the wall was whole again, the melted stone rising and re-forming into a solid mass.
“Whoa,” Benny said.
Vala extended a hand ahead of her, beckoning Benny to start down a trail covered in purple gravel.
The cavernous space was teaming with life, housing plants like Benny had never before seen on Earth or even in the Taj. Flowering pods in every possible color dotted yellow soil, thriving amid vines bearing metallic fruits, trees that looked as though they were topped with gossamer streamers, and bushes full of blooms that opened and closed every few seconds, a different shade of the rainbow each time.
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