For the most part, Elijah was quiet, and when he did speak, he asked short, softly spoken questions. By the time Ricardo finally got to the meeting on Io and the battle that eventually allowed them to break into Tull’s asteroid and rescue the most famous man on Earth, they were approaching Vala’s ship. It floated in the distance like a cliff that had been lopped off the side of a mountain and shot into the far reaches of the Milky Way galaxy.
“And . . . here we are,” Ricardo said.
“You’re back,” Kira said. “Safe. I have to get word to Kai and Sahar.”
“We’ll figure out what to do next once we’re on the mother ship,” Trevone added.
“Hey,” Drue said. “We can check ‘saving Elijah’ off our giant list of things to do! Next up, save a couple of worlds.”
The comms went silent after that, and Benny listened closely, waiting to hear what Elijah would inquire about next. Would he ask about the current state of the Taj? How quickly they could take the resort back? How badly it had been damaged? What cars and prototypes were safe?
But instead, he said only two words.
“Thank you.”
There was another brief silence before Ricardo spoke. “Of course. We were always going to come rescue you. Even before we knew where you were. We never doubted you were alive.”
“Not for that,” Elijah said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m eternally grateful. I owe all of you a debt I will never be able to repay, though I intend on trying. What I’m thanking you for is . . . well, everything, I suppose. For continuing to fight.” The man laughed a little. “Despite my own influences.”
There was something different in Elijah’s voice, Benny thought. The man still had the assuredness and quick wit that they’d all grown accustomed to in their brief days with him at the Taj. But his words were tinged with a heaviness Benny couldn’t quite put his finger on. It reminded him of how his grandmother’s way of speaking had changed after his father’s death. She had sounded mostly the same, but there was one almost imperceptible difference—a weight that those who didn’t know her as well as Benny and his brothers might not have picked up on.
“Elijah,” Ricardo said, a hesitancy to his voice. “What happened to you on that ship? Were you in that room the whole time?”
Several seconds passed before he answered.
“Not always,” Elijah said. “They had . . . many questions. But I think mostly I was in that cell. Unable to really move. Blinded by that blasted mask.” He laughed again, just once. “Plenty of time to think about everything I’ve ever done wrong in my life.” He took a deep breath through his nose; and when he spoke again, he was upbeat, almost jovial. “And to worry about you all. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to find out you’re okay. Not only alive and well but, from what I can tell, thriving, even in such bleak times. Every last one of you. That includes the scholarship winners. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t even be here.”
Right, Benny thought, we’d still be back at the Taj and Earth would belong to aliens. But he kept his mouth shut. He was pretty sure Elijah had meant this to be a good thing.
There was quiet on the comms again as they drew closer to Vala’s ship. Eventually, Benny leaned forward in his seat. “Uh, maybe this isn’t the best time to tell you, but I just jumped your Chevelle over a river of molten rock on Io and ended up melting its tires.” He paused. “Hot Dog almost got hit by a lava geyser in this Star Runner, but it’s fine. Obviously.”
“It was never even close to me!” she said, smacking his arm.
“Wait, wait, wait, you guys did what without me?!” Drue shouted over the comms. “I was risking my butt trying to make sure some alien kid didn’t get exploded, and you were off having fun?”
“I took care of myself!” Zee said. “You saw me back there. I stopped Commander Tull! And I’m not a kid. You’re the one who’s barely out of a . . .” There was a harmonic grunt. “What do they call those things babies go in? It’s right on the tip of my brain!”
The two of them started squabbling while Ricardo tried to get them to knock it off. In the background, though, Benny could hear Elijah West laughing. Not at what has happening, Benny figured, but at the absurdity of everything. The laughter spread, contagious, until it caught all of them—the relief that they’d made it this far together. That they were alive. In that brief moment, at least, it was nice to pretend that was all that mattered.
Vala and Ramona were waiting for them on the bridge beside the hologram that displayed their new trajectory.
“Maybe it’s just the company,” Elijah said, as he walked into the room, “but this definitely feels cozier than Tull’s ship did.”
Vala hurried over to Zee, pulling him close in a web of tentacles. The kid struggled for a few seconds before relenting, wrapping one tentacle around the commander’s waist as well. The arm Vala had broken back in the crater on Io was now encased in a clear, gemlike cast.
Then, Vala noticed the silver glove Zee carried.
“Where did you get that?” Vala asked.
“From Benny.” The alien grinned. “I blasted Tull just for you.”
The commander turned to Benny sharply, her lips drawn tight across her face.
“Uh, are you okay?” he asked, pointing to Vala’s arm, hoping to deflect any anger.
“I’ll return to normal conditions in a few days,” Vala said. She looked back at Zee, and then turned her attention to the newest arrival. “Elijah West. I am Commander Vala. I have heard much about you, even before these children made homes on my ship. It is an honor to have you aboard. If only it were under different circumstances.”
Elijah bowed a little, though he didn’t take his eyes off the Maraudi leader. “Commander. Thank you for all you’ve done for my friends. I’m sorry to hear how badly the meeting went.”
“We were so close,” Benny said.
“Yeah,” Drue said. “My dad agreed to a temporary truce even.”
“He meant it, too, I believe,” Vala said.
“And then Tull . . .” Ricardo muttered.
“It’s unfortunate that at such a crucial moment, one of your people showed up and ensured that any conversation about peace fell apart,” Elijah said, staring at Vala.
Vala was quiet for a few seconds as she raised her gold mask, exposing all three of her eyes. “Tull acted on his own accord. I have already sent word to our home world, explaining the situation. As you were Tull’s captive, I assume you understand that he can be . . . impulsive. Just as your Dr. Bale did not hesitate to shoot what he thought was my actual body.”
“Yo,” Ramona called from a few yards away. “Pinky’s killing me. Keeps un-muting herself. Wants to be made of light and polygons again.”
“Oh,” Benny said. “Right.”
He tapped on his metal bracelet as Ramona fiddled with her HoloTek. The nanoprojectors took to the air, and in seconds the AI was standing before them, face lit up even brighter than usual.
She clasped her hands together in front of her chest. “Elijah!”
“There you are,” the man said with a grin. “Look at you, on an alien ship a million miles from home.” He shook his head. “I bet you’d never thought you’d be somewhere like this.”
“Are you kidding? As your assistant, I’m surprised I haven’t seen other galaxies, to be quite honest.” She sighed, giving him a warm smile. “Welcome back, Mr. West.” Then her face darkened a bit as her eyes narrowed. “You overrode my programing and forced me to let you get yourself sucked into an alien ship. Not to mention you kept my real personality locked away for years.” She took a few long strides toward him, until her face was inches from his, and then poked an intangible finger through his chest. “Don’t you think for a second I forgot about any of that. When all this is said and done, we’re going to have to have a long, long chat about my autonomy.”
“Where are we headed?” Trevone asked, walking to the hologram map in the center of the bridge. “Back toward Earth?”
“
That direction,” Vala said. “But given the perceived hostilities between us and both the Earth forces and Commander Tull’s soldiers, I thought it best to stay as hidden as possible until we decided upon our next course of action.”
Jasmine peered at the blinking spot of the hologram that marked their destination. “Is that . . . the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter?”
“It is,” Vala said.
From the other side of the room, Griida let out a groan.
Vala nodded. “It took Griida some time, but he found a suitable space for us to fall in line with the asteroids.”
“Clever,” Trevone said. “Hide a ship that looks like a giant hunk of rock among a bunch of actual hunks of rock.”
Kira shook her head. “Always asteroids.”
“At least these don’t explode,” Hot Dog said. Then she paused. “Right?”
“Have you been in contact with the Earth forces?” Drue asked. “Any word from my dad? Do we know what happened to them?”
“Negative.” Ramona said. “Dead air.”
Pinky raised both palms. “That doesn’t mean anything, though,” she said. “Their communications could have been knocked out. Our satellite might be getting too far away from their ships, or . . . Well, there could be any number of reasons.”
“Sure,” Drue said. “No big.”
“What about Pito and the stealth drives we were working on?” Jasmine asked.
“We packed up everything when we evacuated Ganymede,” Vala said. “All your materials are downstairs.”
“And the other kids?” Ricardo asked. “Pinky said they made it back okay. Was anyone hurt?”
“Only in the sense that Ash had to practically pry some of them out of their Space Runners,” Pinky said. “They wanted to fly around Ganymede or alongside the mother ship as we left.”
Hot Dog gasped and turned to Drue. “Our initials! Please tell me you took a pic with your HoloTek while we were out there.”
“I thought you would!” Drue cried. “We have to go back!”
As all this was happening, Elijah’s head practically never stopped moving. Either he was taking in the many wonders of the bridge or staring at the people talking as if he’d never heard them speak before. He must have noticed Benny looking at him, because he glanced at the boy and shook his head a little.
“You kids . . .” he murmured, one side of his mouth curling up in a grin.
“We need to focus,” Ricardo said. “We don’t know if this armistice is still in place, or if Senator Lincoln thinks the whole meeting was a trap.”
“Ugh,” Hot Dog groaned. “If he thinks it was a trap, then he definitely didn’t see how hard a bunch of ETs were trying to kill Benny and Vala.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I wish we had an instant replay of that whole run.”
Benny couldn’t hide a dejected frown. “I think we failed. Even with everything we told them . . . I wouldn’t be surprised if the Earth forces launched their weapon.”
“Earth forces,” Elijah said. “You mean Project New Apollo.”
Benny snapped his head toward the man. “What is that? I keep hearing it.”
“I recognized the insignia on my dad’s Space Runner,” Drue said. “He used to have files marked with it sometimes. Stuff that no one else was ever supposed to see.”
Elijah nodded. “New Apollo is an initiative the United States government tried for many years to get me involved with as a contractor. They wanted weapons. Space Runner tanks. Deep space probes. The ability to build an entire force of space marines.” He shook his head. “It appears that when I turned them down for the umpteenth time, Austin—Dr. Bale picked up the slack.” He paused, frowning. “Using my designs.”
“But why?” Hot Dog asked. “What did they want all that stuff for?”
Elijah glanced at Commander Vala. “Partially to be able to defend Earth from any outside invaders. At least someone in the government must have believed Bale when he brought word of the Alpha Maraudi to them.”
“And the other part?” Jasmine asked.
“Colonization,” Elijah said. “Seeking out new worlds. Assessing threats. Possibly leaving Earth behind one day. Their reasoning changed with every meeting.” He laughed a little. “Not only does the name of the initiative recall the beginning of our obsession with space exploration but the ancient Greek deity as well. Apollo was symbolized by bows and arrows. The patron god of colonists. I’m sure someone thought that was very clever at some point.”
“If these peace talks are a failure, then we have to stop New Apollo from launching that weapon,” Trevone said. “I just hope we’re not too late.”
“What should we do?” Ricardo asked, turning to Elijah.
He looked almost taken aback by the question. “You’re asking me?”
“Well, yeah.”
Elijah looked around at all of them. “Seems to me like you’re the ones who have this under control. I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything that’s happening. Just point me to where you think I’ll be the most help and I’ll do what I can.”
Everyone looked at each other, unsure of how to continue. Benny didn’t realize how independent they’d become since they’d last seen Elijah West in person. All of this they’d done by themselves—with a little help here and there.
Trevone spoke up first. “We could use your eyes on Dr. Bale’s stealth drives. The programming is . . . well, it’s not like anything we’ve worked with.”
Elijah nodded. “I remember that man’s designs. They worked, generally, but they were needlessly complicated. Impenetrable, even. You should have seen his plans for the Grand Dome.” He sighed. “You know, I always meant to get around to reinforcing that one day, but I guess I got distracted.”
“Right,” Pinky said. “A lot of those distractions are sitting in the hangar right now.”
“I saw. Which reminds me, I need to quadruple Ash’s salary.” He paused. “Assuming that salaries are still a thing a month from now.”
“All right then,” Ricardo said. “So . . . let’s get back to it.”
Elijah hesitated. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ve been wearing this space suit since I blew up a hyperdrive in Tull’s hangar. I don’t suppose . . .”
Pinky smirked. “There it is. I’m still well aware of how demanding you can be. I had them put a spare change of clothes in a private room for you.”
“Not demanding,” Elijah said with a pout. “Just very, very smelly.”
“Oh, right,” Ricardo said, looking a little flustered. “You probably want to rest, too. Sorry.”
“I just need a few minutes,” Elijah said. “This room . . . ?”
“I’ll show you,” Pinky said, starting toward the hallway. “Follow me.”
Elijah paused a moment to take in everything around him one more time. He looked as if he was going to say something, but in the end he simply smiled and followed the AI.
“Ramona,” Trevone said. “You mentioned you were tooling with . . . the Alpha Maraudi communications?”
“You heard right, goggles,” she said, motioning to a terminal near Griida where it looked like a Taj HoloTek had been spliced into the alien tech. “I like that ET,” she continued. “He’s quiet.”
“Hmmm,” Trevone continued. “Can you show me? And do you have the specs on that satellite you put together?”
“Roger, roger,” Ramona said. “Watch and learn.”
Hot Dog sidled up next to Benny. “Hey,” she whispered. “Elijah’s different, right? A little more . . . chill?”
“Yeah,” Benny said. “Definitely.”
She shrugged. “I guess a couple days alone in space prison will do that to you.”
Almost everyone began to disperse from the bridge. Vala beckoned for Benny to follow her up the steps to the throne that looked out onto the expanse of outer space. The commander stood with her hands clasped behind her back, staring out at stars located light-years away. Benny stopped beside her.
Slowly, she pulled something from the mess of tendrils on her head and handed it out to Benny—his silver electro glove.
“Oh,” he said. “Thanks. But we have a couple more stashed away. Zee can keep it if he wants.”
Vala let out a wheeze Benny hoped might have been a laugh. “I fear what he would do with such a device. He is behind in studying the cultures that once lived on Pluto. I can imagine him using it against his tutor on an especially long day of lectures.”
Benny’s mouth dropped open. “Cultures on Pluto?”
“Oh.” The commander sounded a bit surprised, then smiled a little. “Of course. They were extinct long before your kind ever walked the Earth. You might find their lives and eventual demise interesting. We can discuss them in the future if you like. Fascinating creatures. A pity about the Brood Wars.”
“I . . .” Benny started, once again reeling at the vastness of things he didn’t know about, even in his own solar system. “Sure,” he finally managed, taking the glove back. “But if he ever needs this again . . . or if you do . . . If Tull attacks . . .” He trailed off.
“Thank you,” Vala said. “For bringing him back.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t exactly the safest rescue mission. Things got a little hairy there at the end.”
The commander nodded. “So I understand.”
“Yeah . . .” Benny said. “So, uh . . . speaking of Tull . . .”
“You’re wondering what this means for this ship and your people.”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, they tried pretty hard to blow us all up.”
Vala nodded, still staring out into space. “You know, we never thought of humanity as our enemies. I am not sure if that is a compliment or an insult to your kind. You were always simply a different civilization. But now . . .” Her tentacles constricted slightly. “Now I am not sure what we are. The same can be said of Commander Tull. The Alpha Maraudi have not warred among ourselves in many, many generations. Argued, of course, but always acquiesced and moved on. We value peace. But we also put the preservation of our species above all else. These two things go hand in hand. So when there is a conflict between our want for peace among our people and our will for them to survive . . .” Vala shook her head. “I am not sure what Tull is now. An enemy? A vigilante? A shepherd for our kind? Someone who will bring about a new age for the Alpha Maraudi? And by that line of thinking, what am I? A peace broker, as you all called yourselves? Or something else. A traitor.” She turned to Benny, looking down at him. “We try to be a people who believe in absolutes, but in this universe, that is sometimes difficult. Absolutes are constructs that we have invented. They don’t occur naturally. After all, fire and ice can exist on the same moon, but so do places in between where the two balance out. Nebulous, gray areas. Tell me, young one. How do you traverse this terrain?”
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