Starbounders #2

by Adam Jay Epstein

  Zachary, Kaylee, Ryic, and Quee were on the lower deck, mopping the floors, walls, and ceilings. It was the first time they had been alone since getting on the ship.

  “IPDL freight charter rules mandate that every registered crew member be given a twenty-minute leave during fueling stops,” Quee said. “That should give us plenty of time to sneak away and figure out how we’re going to get to Luwidix.”

  “Once Aggoman reports back to Indigo 8 that we’ve gone AWOL, I’m guessing they’ll send IPDL officers to find us,” Zachary said, sliding his mag mop along the wall, cleaning up a large glob of green slime and depositing it into a bucket. “We’ll have to make a few bounds to lose them and hope we can disable the tracking beacon on whatever ship we steal before they catch up.”

  “Are you sure about this, Zachary?” Ryic asked. “Why are we putting ourselves in so much danger for a mission that randomly fell into our laps? What if Olari didn’t even have a pair of lexispecs?”

  “Clearly the Black Atom Society thought there was something in Olari’s possessions worth stealing,” Zachary said.

  “But why does it have to be us?” Ryic asked.

  “’Cause we’re Starbounders,” Zachary replied.

  “This is still about the good of the galaxy, right?” Kaylee asked.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Zachary snapped back.

  “I just want to be sure all this saving the outerverse stuff isn’t going to your head.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me. My feet are planted firmly on the ground.” Zachary glanced up and realized he was, in fact, standing on the ceiling. “Well, not literally. But you get the point.”

  Kaylee was about to reply when she stepped into a viscous pool of jelly sticking to the wall. The goo made a squishing sound and covered her boots.

  “This is disgusting,” she said.

  Ryic swiped a finger across his shirtsleeve, where a drop of the substance had drifted. Then he licked it clean off. “Mm, asbesmoss,” he said.

  Neon-blue lights started to blink throughout the ship.

  “You know what that means,” Kaylee said. “It’s bounding time.”

  “I really wish I hadn’t just eaten that,” Ryic said.

  While Ryic occasionally regurgitated his second stomach during jumps through interdimensional folds, Zachary actually found the wholly unnatural sensation exhilarating. The four returned to the main hold, where they took their seats once more alongside the starjunk’s crew members as the ship made the leap through space. After the usual disorientation of a bound, Zachary acclimated himself, watching the starjunk exit into the rosy-hued cosmos of the Xero system on his armchair monitor.

  The blue lights stopped blinking, indicating that it was okay to move freely about the cabin once more.

  “You four,” one of the ship’s engineers called from a nearby doorway. “Float your butts over here. I need hands to release the fueling valve. We’ll be docking within minutes.”

  The trainees soared across the cabin, ducking beneath a metallic archway and passing through a series of soundlocks, doorways that muted the loud commotion of the ship’s propulsion generator. As they moved from one antechamber to the next, the noise grew louder until they reached the near-deafening engine bay, where a large silver object resembling a tuba reverberated from what sounded like bombs exploding inside of it. As Zachary had learned in his Indigo 8 quantum physics class, this was a miniature particle accelerator, much like Earth’s Large Hadron Collider, which shoots electrons at near light speed. Aux-bots were tending to the outside of it, under the engineer’s supervision.

  “I need each of you to twist one of these valves open manually!” the engineer shouted over the blasts.

  “Isn’t that what you have the aux-bots for?” Zachary asked.

  “Darn right it is,” the engineer replied. “But you four are here on disciplinary duty. Which means you’re no better than these dumb hunks of metal.”

  Zachary got to work on the first one, but even with the wrench he was handed, it was a struggle. His cohorts didn’t seem to be faring any better. The engineer turned to Ryic with a worried look on his face.

  “Hey, Stretch, wrong valve!” he yelled. “What are you trying to do, flood the whole engine bay? Stick to the square-shaped caps, not the round ones.”

  Ryic corrected himself, and the four trainees finished the task at hand, but not before callusing their fingers and blistering their palms.

  “The bots will take it from here,” the engineer said.

  Zachary, Kaylee, Ryic, and Quee returned to the top deck and found other crew members gathering there. Even Aggoman had pulled herself away from the flight command to join them. And Zachary was beginning to see why.

  As the starjunk made its approach toward the floating IPDL hub, a truly remarkable sight came into view. An enormous statue, perhaps a thousand feet tall, formed an arch above the docking bay. It depicted two colossuses shaking hands: one human, the other some kind of alien species.

  “The Mammoths of Xero,” Aggoman explained, seeing the look of wonder on Zachary’s face. “A monument to the truce agreed upon when the people of Earth encountered the Koto tribe of Ustandar, formerly known as the Wild Planet. Up until then, the Koto had been a ruthless, warring species. It was the first formerly hostile group that mankind recruited into the IPDL. As a tribute to friendship, this statue was erected—a gateway of peace for all those who enter.”

  The ship was moving in closer and the full scope of the monument, in all its intricate detail, was becoming clear. It was as if Michelangelo himself had carved the meteoric rock one section at a time. All around the hub, aux-bots were jetting through the sky on flying motorcycles, only stopping to do maintenance on the docked spacecraft.

  “I think my dad told me about this place once,” Zachary interjected. “He said that one of my ancestors was part of the crew that brokered the peace.”

  “Maybe that’s him,” Ryic said, staring at the human half of the towering statue. “It certainly looks like you.”

  Zachary hadn’t seen the resemblance before, but now that Ryic mentioned it, there were some uncanny similarities. He and the statue had the same chin, the same cheekbones—even its eyes mirrored his own.

  “Actually, that’s Io Mech,” Aggoman said. “Nobody could ever confirm where he came from, but he’s considered by many to be the greatest Starbounder who ever lived.”

  The starjunk made its final descent, coasting beneath the torsos and arms of the monument. It slowed its approach and pulled into a waiting airlock. Once the ship came to a complete stop, the crew members began to file for the exit. Zachary, Kaylee, Ryic, and Quee started to follow them, but Aggoman signaled for them to stop.

  “Fueling stop leave is only mandatory for crew members,” she said. “And the four of you are just here on disciplinary duty.”

  “So we’re stuck?” Kaylee asked.

  “You’ve got work to do,” Aggoman replied. “Let’s see if you can’t get the flight deck and navigation room spotless while they’re unoccupied.”

  The four trudged back to where they’d left their mag mops. As soon as they were out of earshot, they conferred.

  “Now what?” Ryic asked.

  “We’ll have to duck out the cargo hold,” Zachary said.

  “It’s not going to take Aggoman long to realize we’re not here,” Ryic replied.

  “That’s why we have to move fast,” Zachary said.

  They scooped up their minimal belongings and floated toward the cargo hold of the ship. Several crew members were already hauling bricks of fuel inside with the assistance of robotic carriers only slightly larger than Indigo 8’s hovering jellyfish porters. Other deckhands were pushing empty fuel containers off the ship. The trainees stopped just out of sight.

  “There’s no way we walk out that door without being seen,” Quee said.

  “Who said we’re going to walk?” Zachary replied.

  He got down low and pulled hi
mself behind the first obstacle he could find, leading the others to one of the empty fuel containers waiting to be taken off the ship. Zachary lifted the top of the container and confirmed that it was large enough to hold all four of them. He climbed inside first, then lent a hand to Quee. Ryic and Kaylee vaulted themselves in next.

  Once they were all hidden inside, Ryic stretched out his arms and pulled the top back on, securing it as best he could. The walls and floors of the bin were still slick with gasoline. Zachary had manned the pump at the corner station for his mom and dad plenty of times before, and the smell reminded him strangely of home. But the nostril-burning odor was also making his brain hurt.

  The four waited silently. Zachary could hear tendrils latching onto the outside of the container, then a voice. “Let’s take ’em out,” it said.

  And then they were moving. Neither Zachary nor any of his companions said a word. They merely braced themselves as the fuel bin left the ship and gravity suddenly returned, sending Quee, Ryic, and Zachary tumbling on top of Kaylee. She had to bite her tongue to keep from squealing.

  “What was that?” a second voice outside asked.

  The container was set down abruptly. Zachary peered through the tiny grating and saw a pair of crew members approaching. He flashed two fingers to Kaylee, who lifted up her pant leg and revealed a vibration hammer that she’d conveniently forgotten to return to the aux-bot repair kit. She pulled her retracted warp glove from her pocket and let it slide over her arm. Then, in one fluid motion, she formed a hole and stuck the hand clutching the vibration hammer through. She struck the closer of the two crew members in the back of the neck, knocking him unconscious. The other guy immediately sprinted for a distress panel on the far wall, but before he made it there, Kaylee had created a new hole behind his head and dropped him to the ground as well.

  After the second thud, Ryic pushed off the top of the container and the four young Starbounders peeked out to survey their surroundings. They had been transported to the IPDL hub’s refinery, where dozens of identical bins were stored. For the moment, they appeared to be alone.

  Zachary, Kaylee, Ryic, and Quee climbed down to the ground. Together they lifted the fallen crew members and deposited them into the empty crate. Once the lid was back in place, they pushed the container across the floor so that it blended in with all the others.

  “They’re going to be okay, right?” Ryic asked.

  “Nothing a little Tylenol won’t cure,” Kaylee replied.

  Quee was scrolling through her wrist tablet. “This is bad. This is very bad.”

  “Could you narrow that down to something more specific please?” Zachary asked.

  “I’m looking at the hub’s manifest. That starjunk we just flew in on is the only ship docked here,” she said.

  “I don’t understand,” Zachary said. “I saw tons of other ships surrounding the hub on our approach.”

  “Yeah, but none of those are actually docked. They’re just free-floaters. You’d need a space ferry to get to them.”

  “We can’t wait around for another spacecraft to arrive,” Ryic said. “So what do we do?”

  “Quee, any idea where we can find some bio regulators on this hub?” Kaylee asked.

  “Why?” Ryic asked nervously. “You’re not suggesting we make an untethered space jump, are you?”

  “I’m not that crazy,” Kaylee replied. “I was thinking we’d get a ride.” She pointed through the refinery’s window to a pair of aux-bots zipping through space atop their flying motorcycles.

  “Oh, that makes me feel much better,” Ryic said.

  “Looks like they’ve got bio regulators at every emergency exit,” Quee said, scanning her tablet with a few deft flicks of her fingers.

  “What about the bikes?” Zachary asked.

  “The aux-bot service portal is below the hub’s customs terminal,” Quee replied. “There’s a stairwell next to the confiscated goods room that should take us directly inside.”

  “Lead the way,” Zachary said.

  With one eye on her tablet and the other reading the signs at every turn, Quee guided them past unsuspecting hub workers toward the nearest emergency exit. Zachary spied a glass case affixed to the wall housing a half dozen bio regulators, clear mouthpieces that formed repulsive barriers around any creature, human or otherwise, who placed the device in its mouth. They were essential for survival in the vacuum of space. Each of the four Starbounders took one before Quee was on the move again.

  They hustled across the hub’s central platform, where most of the station’s visitors and temporary residents were watching some kind of broadcast breaking on the holographic displays.

  “Protos, a colonized planet and member of the IPDL, was thrown into darkness after its sun was suddenly and inexplicably drained to a third of its size,” an outerverse reporter said from behind a news desk.

  Zachary paused briefly to take in the news, but he didn’t have time to listen for more. As he continued to walk, Zachary took note of the structure’s labyrinth of transparent tubular walkways that crisscrossed above and below them. Every path had a clear view of the Mammoths of Xero through the domed rooftop.

  Zachary caught sight of Aggoman passing through a tube about two stories above. He suddenly realized there was nowhere to hide.

  “Just keep your head down and walk,” Kaylee said, following Zachary’s gaze and coming to the same conclusion he had.

  Fortunately, everyone around them was still distracted by the broadcast.

  “The answers to what caused the stellar disaster remain unknown, but the Intergalactic Science Federation is sending a team there now, along with IPDL relief forces,” the outerverse reporter said.

  Zachary again paid little attention to the story as he passed; all that mattered to him was that it was keeping all eyes away from him and his fellow Starbounders.

  Quee led them to a junction point where a glass tube descended from the platform and spiraled downward to the customs terminal. The four followed it as quickly as they could. When they arrived at the customs gate, a humanoid agent clearly not from Earth was performing cranial identification scans on all those who passed. An orange light meant the individual had clearance to enter. A blue light meant the opposite.

  “Let’s turn around,” Zachary said. “There has to be another way.”

  “This is no problem,” Quee said confidently, punching the keypad of her wrist tablet. “Just follow my lead.”

  She stepped up to the agent who was holding the electronic scanner. The agent waved it across Quee’s forehead and Zachary was surprised to see it glow orange. Zachary wasn’t sure how, but Quee had somehow tricked the system. He just hoped that whatever she had done would work for him, Ryic, and Kaylee, as well.

  Zachary was next, and he stood before the agent as coolly as he could. The electronic device moved from one edge of his hairline across his forehead to the other. He could hear the faint hum of the scanner working, then watched as the light miraculously turned orange once more.

  Ryic and Kaylee were cleared the same way, allowing the four to enter the customs terminal. They headed a safe distance away from the checkpoint.

  “How did you do that?” Zachary asked Quee in a whisper.

  “I discovered a long time ago that if I ever wanted to step foot anywhere besides bottom-tier Tenretni, I’d have to figure out a way to make myself invisible. So I implanted a recombinant chip right below my temple to scramble DNA scanners.” Zachary hadn’t given it a second look before, but now he couldn’t take his eyes off the thin scar above the bridge of Quee’s nose. “Before I walked through, I just turned up the frequency a little, so the device synched with my recombinant chip and lost the ability to discern those with clearance from those without.”

  The customs terminal was a spacious room filled with boxes, bags, and crates. Officials used ostrils, long-nosed, batlike creatures, to sniff out any contraband hidden within. If the goods were deemed permissible, they got pushed across the t
erminal for their owners to retrieve them. Those declared illegal were sent to the confiscation room. Which was exactly where Quee was leading Zachary, Kaylee, and Ryic. But that wasn’t the destination she had in mind. It was the doorway just beyond it.

  The four slipped into the stairwell, and just as they did, an official called out, “You’re not supposed to go in there!”

  The door closed behind them and they broke into a sprint down the steps. They reached the entrance to the aux-bot service portal, and each of the young Starbounders inserted their bio regulators into their mouths. Just then, the hub’s emergency alarm started to wail, no doubt alerting the station’s security forces to their escape.

  Zachary put his warp glove–encased hand into the indentation beside the door, causing it to slide open. He was fully aware that he’d be leaving a digital DNA trail for anyone who came looking for them, but there was no other way. He and his companions stepped through an atmospheric atrium, a small isolated room where gravity could be gradually adjusted to acclimate new visitors to the station. When they came out on the other side, the four were suddenly floating in a completely silent hangar where aux-bots were boarding and docking their flying motorcycles. The walls were lined with machinery and tools that the robots could use for any requested repairs to the hub and all its surrounding ships.

  Zachary pushed off the wall and soared across the room to one of the unoccupied bikes, straddling it. He signaled the others, and they joined him with mixed success and not nearly as much style. Thankfully, these aux-bots seemed to be programmed only for maintenance, not security—not a single one gave the trainees a second glance.

  Zachary, Kaylee, Ryic, and Quee pressed the ignition buttons on the sides of their handlebars and jetted out through the hangar’s open bay doors. Zachary had always imagined that riding on a motorcycle would be a spine-tingling experience, feeling the rush of wind blowing through his hair and the ground vibrating beneath the bike’s tires. But this was a thrill of a different kind. With no up or down, there was only forward.

  Quee had taken the lead again, guiding them toward a small, free-floating jumpcraft. There were plenty of other ships, bigger and faster-looking, but this one resembled a model they’d recently used in a flight simulation class at Indigo 8. Zachary blinked twice.