Chapter Three:

Akbar’s Floating Rest Stop

One of the perks of being a taxi driver (even a space taxi driver) is that you can always get a ride when you need one. It only takes a few minutes before one of Dad’s friends arrives to take Mom and Penny home.

Dad hooks up Penny’s car seat in the back while Mom fusses over me. I know she’s not too happy with my new job, but being a copilot is a Morningstar family tradition. You can’t argue with tradition.

“Promise you’ll be careful up there,” she says, hugging me tight. “Do what Dad and Pockets tell you.”

I hug her back until Dad honks for me.

I’m so excited that my legs won’t stop bouncing in my seat. Or maybe I’m just cold because I’m in a wet bathing suit. Nah, I’m excited! Our first official mission!

“All right, Pockets,” Dad says once we’re headed toward the airfield. “What’s this all about? Start from when we dropped you at the groomer’s.”

I twist around in my seat and wait for Pockets to answer. He’s refilling his pockets with all his gadgets. “It is pretty simple, really,” he says. “In the middle of my so-called bath, the tiny interlink hidden inside my ear started beeping. It was my father calling from ISF headquarters. He said that the planet Nautilus in the Triangulum Galaxy is experiencing a very strange weather situation. We are the nearest officers, so we’re being sent to check it out and file a report.”

“You’re not making this up just to get out of the bath, are you?” Dad asks. He narrows his eyes at Pockets.

“Of course not,” Pockets says. “I’m as disappointed as you are about the bath being cut short.” His lips quiver and I know he’s trying to hide a smile.

“I’m sure,” Dad says.

“How did you find us?” I ask. “I bet it was some supercool locator device that lets you track people down anywhere on the planet with a press of a button, right?”

“Nope,” Pockets says, tapping his nose. “Cats have an excellent sense of smell, you know. You should probably bathe more often. No offense.”

It’s hard not to be offended when someone basically says you stink so bad they could track your scent across town. “Well, you don’t like baths, either,” I remind him.

“I told you,” he says. “Cats are self-cleaning.”

I glance at his matted, tangled fur. “Is that a leaf stuck to your tail?”

He turns around in circles in his seat, trying to catch his tail, but he can’t. I start to laugh, then reach over to pull the leaf off for him.

“Thanks,” he grumbles.

“Boys,” Dad says. “You can argue about who needs a bath more when we get home. Right now we have to prepare for the mission.”

The com line crackles with a call from Home Base. “Morningstar!” the female mouse squeaks. She comes from a planet where mice can talk, and it’s her job to keep track of all the space taxis. Dad told me her name is Minerva. He warned me not to call her Minnie for short, though. One of the newer space taxi drivers made the mistake of calling her Minnie the Mouse—or Minnie Mouse for short. She didn’t like being compared to a cartoon character, so she sent the poor guy to pick up a fare on an ice planet where the temperature was two hundred degrees below zero. It took him a week to thaw out.

I can’t wait to meet her.

“We have received your information from the ISF,” she continues. At the sound of Minerva’s squeaky voice, Pockets’s ears stand at alert and his nose twitches. “We have cleared the airfield and made arrangements for you to stop at Akbar’s Floating Rest Stop on the way to the planet Nautilus. You will get some special mods for your visit there.”

“Roger that,” Dad says.

The voice continues. “We miss you at Home Base. Some of your usual fares aren’t happy about your… ahem, vacation.”

“Things will be back to business as usual soon, I’m sure,” Dad says.

“Are you certain you can trust this… this cat?” she asks, unable to hide her dislike. Turns out cats and mice are sworn enemies everywhere in the universe, not just on Earth.

“I can hear you, you know,” Pockets calls from the backseat. He has pulled out a towel and is trying to dry his wet, matted fur.

“I trust him,” Dad assures her.

“Fine,” she snaps. “You are cleared for takeoff. As usual, be careful up there.”

“Always am,” Dad says. “Morningstar over and out.”

The second set of straps pins us to our seats and the taxi speeds up.

“What are mods?” I have to shout over the noise of the engine.

“Modifications,” my dad shouts back. “Changes we need to make to the taxi.”

I grip the seat as the front tires lift off the ground and we begin to zoom toward the blue sky. I forgot how fast we go at takeoff. I swallow hard and wait to catch my breath before shouting over the roar of the rocket boosters. “Why do you need to change anything? What’s wrong with the taxi?”

“Nothing,” Dad yells, pulling down on the throttle as we pass through the clouds. “Nautilus is a water planet. Our space taxi will need to become a space submarine.”

Underwater Deputy Archie Morningstar has a nice ring to it! “Do you always have to do this when you go to Nautilus?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’ve been to Akbar’s for repairs many times, but I’ve never been to Nautilus.”

This surprises me. Hasn’t my dad been everywhere? “But I thought your job took you all over the universe.”

“The universe is a really big place, Archie,” he says as the taxi picks up speed. “Even after all these years of traveling through it, I’ve only seen a tiny slice.”

I turn to look behind us. The sun is now a small glowing blob as we head out of the solar system.

“This would be a good time to start guiding us to Akbar’s,” Dad says. “It’s orbiting near the outer arm of the Milky Way.”

I stowed the tube under the backseat earlier this morning. Pockets hands it to me, and I hurry to unroll the map. Then I stop. What if my being able to read the map was a one-time thing? What if all I see are dots and squiggles again and Dad has to go back to Earth to find a real space taxi copilot?

I guess I’m about to find out. I lay the map open in my lap and hold my breath. Nothing happens. I focus on the paper, silently begging it to work. A few seconds later the map springs to life, sending stars and planets into the air above my lap.

PHEW!

“Akbar’s Floating Rest Stop, please,” I say out loud. The map zooms in on a small object out past a triple star system. I scan the area to see the best route. “Okay, Dad. Left past the third red star, then a quick right.”

Dad follows my instructions, and we’re on our way.

“Good job, Archie,” he says.

“So what’s the big weather emergency, anyway?” I ask Pockets.

“Nautilus is covered in water,” Pockets tells us. “Half the people live under the ocean, and the other half live on islands they built on the surface. But the water level is going down fast. No one knows why. That’s what we’re going to find out.”

“How are we going to do that?” Dad asks.

“Because I’m on the case.”

Pockets is a very confident cat.

A few minutes later we approach what looks like a gigantic shopping mall floating in space. A huge flashing billboard sticking out of the top announces: AKBAR’S FLOATING REST STOP, FOR ALL YOUR TRAVEL NEEDS. Then underneath, in smaller (but still huge) letters, it says: IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU’D BE HOME NOW. Then in even smaller (but still really big) letters it says: JUST KIDDING. YOU CAN’T LIVE HERE. BUT STOP BY FOR A VISIT. WE’RE ALWAYS OPEN.