At Galactic Central

by Kate MacLeod

  “I hope this wasn’t a bad idea,” she whispered to Daisy. Daisy had enhanced hearing; Scout had to just barely speak for her to hear, only a slight rumble to her vocal cords.

  But if Daisy responded in kind, Scout with her conventional ears heard nothing.

  The staircase was almost completely dark, her glasses giving her the general outlines of the walls and ceiling and of the kids crowded all around her.

  Then it took a turn, the steps grew wider, and she could see a warm light at the bottom.

  The space had clearly been intended for storage, with dusty crates stacked all around the walls, but the center of the space had been cleared and swept clean. A single chair sat under a pair of lights, and on the chair sat a girl with an explosion of thick hair barely contained by the red hood she had pulled up to keep her face in shadow.

  The minute Scout stepped into the light she threw the hood back, launching herself off the chair to tackle Scout in a fierce hug.

  “Hey, Sparrow,” Scout said, patting her awkwardly on the back. “You know, if you wanted to talk to me, you could have just told these kids to give me a message.”

  “It’s all messed up,” Sparrow said. She wasn’t crying, but she was very close to it. “It’s all so, so messed up.”

  “The Months?” Daisy asked, and Sparrow looked over at her.

  “This is Daisy,” Scout said. “A friend. Daisy, this is Sparrow.”

  Sparrow looked her over. By the time she was done assessing her, she had her emotions back under control. She returned to her chair under the lights but left her hood thrown back.

  “Yes,” she said. “The Months.”

  “You know about the war that’s about to break out,” Scout pressed.

  “Probably more details than you do,” Sparrow said.

  “You still work for the Months?” Scout asked.

  “I bring food to your friends twice a day,” Sparrow said. “The rest of the time, no one cares where I am. So I’ve been snooping.”

  “Were they called to testify?” Scout asked.

  “Yes, but they didn’t go to the court building to do it. It was done remotely. It could have been done from home,” Sparrow said bitterly.

  “Daisy and I have a way to get them out,” Scout said.

  “And we have a ship that will take us back to Amatheon,” Daisy said, which was news to Scout.

  “Those are good things,” Sparrow said. “But they aren’t going to matter a bit if you don’t have a way past the blockade, which is still standing. Or a way to get on board Amatheon Orbiter 1 or down to the surface without being detected by the Space Farers or the rebels.”

  “It’ll probably be easier just to get caught,” Scout said. “It worked to get us to you.”

  “It won’t work for this,” Sparrow said. “I’m not your enemy. They are.”

  “You already have a plan,” Daisy said, and Sparrow narrowed her eyes at her for a long minute before breaking out in a broad smile.

  “I do indeed have a plan,” she said. “More than that, I have allies.”

  “Who?” Scout asked. The last she had seen, Sparrow had been a tiny presence lost among the pirates that flocked around the Months. She had passed her time befriending the crew in engineering. How could engineers help now?

  Sparrow pulled a cloth with a flourish to reveal a communications screen, and Scout realized even as her eyes confirmed it just who Sparrow had been plotting with.

  Tom Tom. The pilot Sparrow had introduced her to in an arcade back on the Months’ ship.

  The pilot that had run missions between the Months in orbit and the rebels down on the surface.

  8

  “Sparrow? You’re back?” Tom Tom asked, flicking the long, dark blond bangs back from his eyes. Sparrow stepped directly in front of the screen and his eyes focused on her. “There you are.”

  “And I’m not alone,” Sparrow told him, extending a hand back behind her. Scout looked at it but didn’t take it.

  Allies. Plural. Not just Tom Tom.

  Daisy was looking at her, one eyebrow raised in an unasked question. But it wasn’t like Scout could explain right now, surrounded by strangers and within Tom Tom’s hearing.

  Scout sighed and put her hand in Sparrow’s, letting the younger girl drag her forward.

  Tom Tom visibly perked up. “Scout Shannon!” he said. “You fell off everybody’s radar for a while there. Some thought you were dead.”

  “I wasn’t,” Scout said.

  “I never believed it,” Sparrow said with fierce loyalty.

  “Who did?” Scout wondered.

  Sparrow frowned in thought. “Mai. Or at least she really hoped it was true,” she said. “Jun insisted it couldn’t be, though. Out of the two of them, I tend to trust Jun.”

  Scout was surprised by that. The two sisters looked alike, although they weren’t quite twins, but their temperaments could not have been more opposite. Mai did all the talking, strove to appear reasonable, always wanted to make a deal that would at least seem to be in everyone’s best interests.

  But Jun was a creature of raw emotion. She seldom spoke, but she did enjoy throwing things.

  The more she thought about it, the more Scout would have to agree with Sparrow that Jun was the more trustworthy of the two. She had no layers, no place where she hid things. She thought it, she acted on it, in the most explosive manner possible.

  But whatever intel they had gotten about all that had happened on Schneeheim must have been vague indeed for the two sisters to come to such opposite conclusions. Scout supposed that was good for her.

  “I’ve been trying to bring Scout and her friend . . .”

  “Daisy,” Scout said.

  “Her friend Daisy up to speed with our plans,” Sparrow said to Tom Tom, who nodded, still preferring just to listen. “The Months are heading back to Amatheon sometime tonight. The easiest, most direct way for us to get there is for me to maintain my guise as a member of their crew, and for you two to sneak on board. I can get you in with the food shipment no problem. The kitchen crew likes me; the Months, not so much.”

  “The Months’ ship,” Scout repeated, her tone carefully neutral. She had been on the Months’ ship before when it was waiting to cross the barricade to leave Amatheon. It was like a floating city, complete with a hospital, a walking park under an artificial sun, a marketplace, and a pirate court that flocked around the Months, looking to curry favor.

  On board the Months’ ship, she had had her first encounter with a warp engine. It had had strange effects on her, as if it had tried to pull her into a dream. But she had not traveled at warp speeds on that ship.

  Would warp on their ship be like when she traveled with the tribunal enforcers? That warp field had made her feel oddly out of sorts, but the mild sensation of wrongness had died the moment they had left warp. That would be livable to experience again.

  But what if it was like the ship they stole from Shi Jian, with its ultrafast warp technology? In that warp field, Scout had felt beyond disoriented, scarcely able to walk. Her brain insisted she was constantly tumbling forward at high speeds. And more than a few minutes of that had made even maintaining consciousness a challenge.

  And it had taken weeks to recover from the experience. What would be the point of reaching Amatheon if she was useless until after everything was all over, for good or ill?

  And what if it didn’t matter what kind of engine it was this time? What if her last experience in a warp field had changed something in her brain, had made any warp travel debilitating for her now?

  She wouldn’t know for sure until she tried it. It was going to be a huge risk.

  “Scout?” Sparrow asked.

  But the frown on Daisy’s face didn’t have the same confusion in it. “What about the dogs?” she asked.

  “The dogs,” Sparrow repeated as if she had just remembered that they existed.

  “The dogs,” Scout said, trying not to sound like she had forgotten them herself. But the
y were a consideration too. “Smuggling them in through a kitchen is going to be much harder. We’ll be much likelier to be caught.”

  “Can’t you leave them behind?” Tom Tom asked, and Scout shot him a glare. “Not forever, just until you get back,” he quickly amended.

  Scout didn’t answer. In her life, getting back to places was never a given. There was no way she would leave her dogs behind.

  “I already have a ship lined up for us to travel in,” Daisy said. “I hired the whole ship out, so we won’t have to hide, and the dogs will be with us openly.”

  “So, you two go out on that and meet us at Amatheon,” Sparrow said, tapping a fingernail against her teeth as she pondered.

  “It’s already getting too complicated,” Tom Tom said. “Multiple pickups?”

  “You were already planning multiple drop-offs,” Scout pointed out.

  “We should stick together,” Daisy said. “Scout and I have been working on a plan to bust your three friends out of the Months’ compound since we got here. We’ve worked out every detail, practiced every skill that will be required. To wait to break them out of a ship that’s unfamiliar to me . . . I don’t like those odds.”

  “I agree,” Scout said. “We should get them now.”

  “That might work,” Sparrow said, her voice muffled as she continued to tap her teeth. “Yes, I can swing it. I’m in charge of the three of them, sort of. If you get them out tonight, I can help. I’ll make the compound people think they’ve already gone up to the ship. I might even be able to trick the ship’s systems into thinking they’re already up there. That won’t last, but it might last until they’ve gone to warp. They are in a hurry.”

  “You can do it?” Scout asked. Sparrow still looked unsure.

  Sparrow furrowed her brow, but then she dropped her hand away from her mouth and broke out in a wide grin. “Yes, I can.”

  “Then we’ll arrange for our ship and get the dogs on board. After that we’ll get the three of them out,” Daisy said.

  “You’ll be with them? You’ll come with us?” Scout asked.

  “Of course,” Sparrow said. “Then Tom Tom will meet your ship, and we can work out from there who’s going where.”

  “It makes the most sense for your three Space Farer friends to head to Amatheon Orbiter 1, while Scout and I go down to the surface,” Daisy said.

  “And you should go with them,” Scout said to Sparrow, as Daisy apparently didn’t realize the girl was also a Space Farer.

  “The groups aren’t equal,” Sparrow frowned.

  “Won’t matter,” Tom Tom said from up on the screen. “We’re meeting with allies in both places. They need your intel, not your physical bodies.”

  “You have secret ways to get us where we’re going?” Scout asked.

  “For the space station, we’ll go in through the impound lot.”

  Scout bit her lip but nodded, ignoring Daisy’s look of concern. Shi Jian had thrown Seeta out through that airlock when Scout and her friends were attempting to flee that station. Seeta had all but died. Just the idea of going back there gave Scout the shivers.

  But she wouldn’t be going back there. She was on the other team.

  “And on the planet?” she asked.

  “The rebels have moved since you were with them,” Tom Tom said. “They’re higher in the mountains now, closer to the gun. But there’s a hidden hangar deck on the opposite side of the mountain peak from their encampment. It will take some fancy flying on my part, but that’s no problem.”

  Scout was still lost in thought and didn’t really register the glow of self-pride he was radiating. Not until Daisy noticed it and gave him a scowl. Tom Tom slumped a bit.

  “We’ll land on the hangar deck, then what?” Scout asked.

  “I’ll be off again, but you’ll be in good hands,” he said.

  “Good hands,” Scout repeated. “Whose hands?”

  “The best of hands,” Tom Tom said hurriedly. “He can get you inside with no one the wiser and take you directly to anywhere you need to go. He’s willing to do anything you need and will give his life if that’s what it takes to keep you safe.”

  Scout felt Daisy’s eyes on her, questioning, but she felt too many other eyes also on her and kept her expression guarded. Daisy turned back to Tom Tom.

  “I know we just met, and I don’t really know any of you, but it sounds like you’re being deliberately vague. I have to wonder, with all that’s going on, why?” Daisy said.

  “Because it’s Tucker,” Scout said with a sigh, “isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Tom Tom said. He looked like he was ready to flinch if she struck out at him, which was ridiculous given how many light-years there were between them.

  “Is this a problem?” Sparrow asked.

  “What about someone else?” Scout asked. “Joelle is better connected and far more capable. I would even trust Ken or Bente more,” Scout said.

  “Look, it has to be Tucker,” Tom Tom said. “And you know how sorry he is for everything that happened. He’s risking a lot helping you out with this. He’s doing it because he feels like he owes it to you.”

  “He doesn’t owe me anything,” Scout said.

  “Not you you,” Tom Tom said hastily, although Scout knew that was exactly what he had meant. “The . . . all of you, doing what you’re doing now to stop the war. I guess we can’t call you rebels since there already are rebels. Disruptors, maybe?”

  “We don’t need a name,” Daisy said.

  “He owes it to you. Anything he can do up to sacrificing his own life. To stop the war,” Tom Tom said. Scout was certain he could continue spouting out short, choppy sentences forever until she gave in.

  “Scout? Is this going to be a problem?” Sparrow asked. Her eyes were wide with worry. She had spent a lot of time working on the plan for this. She had invested a lot of emotion in it too. Scout remembered she had just lost her brother. Had she pushed her grief aside to focus on this?

  Daisy was looking at her too, her eyebrows raised as she waited for Scout to answer. Scout could see the same feeling in her eyes that she felt herself. What she wouldn’t give for a quiet, spy-free space and five minutes alone with her best friend to talk it all over before she decided.

  But she was never going to get that.

  “No,” Scout gave in with a sigh. “It’s not going to be a problem.” She’d find a way to deal with it. Starting with never being alone with the boy who had betrayed her. She didn’t care what he was willing to do; nothing was going to take back what he had done.

  “Then it’s all settled?” Sparrow asked. She still sounded anxious.

  “It better be,” Daisy said. “We don’t have much time. Scout and I will get the dogs on the ship, then break into the compound. You do what you need to do on your end, and we’ll see you there . . .”

  “At 2000 hours,” Sparrow said. “Just long enough past the dinner hour for things to be settling down in the compound, but not so soon that anyone will be checking for what’s been left behind before the ship departs.”

  “Then we’ll see you then,” Daisy said. She gave a tight smile to Sparrow, then an unsmiling glance up at Tom Tom still on the communications screen.

  Scout let herself be guided back up to street level. She half expected it to be dark when they emerged, but even if it had been the middle of the night, the sky would still have the same rosy glow. That never changed.

  “I hope you weren’t bluffing about having a ship,” Scout said.

  “Of course not,” Daisy said, not quite sounding offended. “I set up that contract days ago with some of the money from selling the other ship. I picked that public house to work in for a reason.”

  “All the ship crews drink there,” Scout guessed.

  “Not just crew, captains,” Daisy said. “And I have one who’s agreed to leave at a moment’s notice, to take us and the dogs and however many passengers we require to Amatheon. Her name is Jocquette Dieu-le-Veut.”

&nbs
p; “And we can trust this Captain Dieu-le-Veut?” Scout asked. She thought of the people she had seen that morning hunched over tables. Had anyone there struck her eye as being noble or trustworthy?

  “You actually sort of met her already,” Daisy said.

  Scout gave her a puzzled glance. She couldn’t mean Sammy. Aside from being clearly an employee of that public house, Sammy had been a he.

  Slowly, it dawned on her who Daisy was eluding to.

  Away from the gazes of strangers, Scout made no effort to keep her feelings from washing over her face.

  “Scout, it’s going to be fine,” Daisy assured her. “She was a bit drunk this morning, sure, but she’ll be fine now. When you saw me throw her out of the house, I was reminding her she was being paid to be ready at all times. I’m sure she took that to heart.”

  Scout said nothing. Somehow, it wasn’t the worst revelation of the last several minutes.

  After all, this drunk captain hadn’t actually betrayed her. Yet.

  9

  The dogs were ecstatic to see both of them coming home at once. Scout took them down to the cave to run off all the energy they could, and by the time she took them back to the room, Daisy had what few belongings that mattered to them packed in a small, sealed plastic crate.

  There was another crate beside it, a bit larger with small holes drilled through it in several places. Daisy dropped to her knees, and Gert ran to her, tail wagging so hard the motion started at her forelegs. Daisy snuggled her and petted her and cooed over her, then snatched her up and stuffed her inside the crate. Scout scooped up Shadow and pushed Gert to one side to make room for him. Before either of them knew quite what was going on, Daisy had shut the lid and sealed it shut.

  “How do we do this?” Scout asked, looking from the delicate glider in her hand to the two crates they had to carry.