by Kristy Evangelista
Kristy Evangelista lives in Australia, a country that loves its giant things. She grew up down the road from an enormous banana and drove past a mighty prawn on the way to visit her grandparents, who lived near an oversized pineapple. With her very first author paycheck, Kristy bought a large rusty pear for her backyard. She is very fond of it, even though the pear barely reaches her chin and cannot exactly be called gigantic. The Sting of the Irukandji is Kristy’s first foray into the world of middle-grade fiction. She chose to write about a giant space jellyfish in order to honour her Australian heritage and also because giant things are just really cool.
My name is Kishi, and I live in a jellyfish.
Not a real jellyfish of course; they only grow up to two metres wide. I am a regular-sized ten-year-old girl. I need way more room than that.
I’m talking about a space jellyfish: an Irukandji Class A mining ship.
Irukandjis are wicked. In the old Earth oceans, they were teeny-tiny little sea creatures, but in the space mining world, they are giants. Their tentacles are strong enough to crush even the biggest asteroids. When I was little, I used to be scared of the creaking and groaning that shook the ship when we were in the middle of a mine. But then Dad told me that it was the sound of success, and now it doesn't bother me.
I’ve lived in the Iruki with just my two fathers and my little sister for as long as I can remember. We’ve been happy as we travel through the galaxy, feasting on the stars, and then visiting a planet or space station to sell our goods. We never visit the same place twice; Dad says that the universe is too big for that.
We would have stayed happy if my cousin Andro hadn’t arrived. Stupid Andro, turning up his long face at everything. Stupid Andro, with his heavy bones and expensive netgear.
It was his fault we were attacked by space pirates.
I didn’t realise how stupid Andro was at first. In fact, when my fathers first told me he was coming, I was excited at the thought of spending time with someone my own age. Abby is a dear, but she is only eighteen months old, and her favourite game is peekaboo.
I’d never had any problem making friends whenever we visit a space port; I’d go straight to a spiderball court, find a bunch of kids, and ask if I can join in. I didn’t think Andro would be any different.
On the day that Andro arrived, Papa, Abby and I waited for him in the mud room. If you picture the dome shape that is the body of a jellyfish, the living quarters and flight deck are located at the bottom of the dome, right near the tentacles. In fact, the longest jellyfish tentacle ends right in the mud room, which is a large room filled with space suits.
We use that tentacle as a sort of travelling tube to get in and out at a space port. It’s fast and fluid and fun. Way better than any of the rides on a theme park planet.
The travel hatch opened, and Dad helped a heavyset, slightly dazed boy out. I marched right on over to him, gave him my best smile and said, “Welcome, Cousin Andro! I’m Kishi. We have our own spiderball room, want to play sometime?”
Andro didn’t smile back. He didn’t even look at me, “No, thank you,” he said, ”I don’t enjoy zero G-ball.” And then he vomited right onto my new spiderball shoes.
It took a lot of scrubbing to get all the vomit out.
“Are you sure we’re cousins?” I asked Papa as I helped him get dinner ready. “He doesn’t look anything like us.”
It’s super dangerous to have an open flame on a space ship, so when we make dinner, we put everything in plastic pouches and cook them really slowly in hot water. It’s a method of cooking called suvee, and it’s been around since the Earth ages.
While we worked, Papa kept an eye on a black and white hologram of Abby; she was napping in her room.
“Andro has the same black hair and eyes as you,” Papa pointed out as he pulled the chicken out of the suvee machine.
“But he’s so... wide.” Andro has a thick neck and serious muscles, which is weird, because as far as I can tell, all he does all day is sit in his room and play virtual reality games.
“That’s from living on a planet with heavy gravity.” Papa explained.
“And his skin is brown!” We were all deep-space white.
“That’s from living on a planet with a sun,” Papa said. “You know, a sun? Those giant flaming balls we fly past sometimes?” He pulled the suvee’ed chicken out of the bag; the chicken was cooked but still as pale and pasty as I was.
“Ohhhhh right,” I said, “he’s been chargrilled.” I ducked as Papa swatted me.
“What’s this about, Kishi?” he asked. “Is it because he doesn’t play spiderball? Why don’t you try something he likes instead? You might find you like it, too.” He poked at the chicken with a fork. It looked juicy. “This is ready. Can you call everyone in for dinner?”
Andro was strapped into his VR goggles and gloves. I wrinkled my nose when I saw the state of his room; it was like a mining site, with debris piled up on every surface. As I entered, he punched something in the air, and laughed.
I didn’t know he could do that. Laugh, I mean.
“Hey, Cuz,” I said. “Papa’s got dinner ready in the mess.” Andro took off his goggles. By the time he did, his smile had turned back into a flat line. “Thank you, Kishi,” he said formally.
I remembered Papa’s advice. “Maybe we could play that game together sometime?”
Andro paused. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not meant to share my netgear.”
I shrugged, like no big deal—even though it felt like a very big deal—and went to find Dad.
The flight deck isn’t too far from Andro’s room. Inside is a large table in the shape of a semicircle, which sits flush against the viewport. A 3D colour holographic appeared in the air above it; right then it was charting the course to the nearest asteroid belt. Dad was sitting on a chair looking at it.
“How long is Andro staying again?” I asked as I jumped into the second seat. Directly in front of me was a joystick and a console that looked a bit like a round chess board.
Dad was nobody’s fool; he narrowed his eyes and looked at me closely. “You guys aren’t getting along, huh?”
“He doesn’t play spiderball,” I explained, “and he won’t let me borrow his netgear.”
“Well, we need to cut him a little slack,” Dad said. “Andro is in a new place, with people he doesn’t know well. And he’s had a tough year.”
I mulled that over for a parsec. “What happened?”
Dad leaned over and tweaked my ponytail. “You should ask him that sometime.”
At dinner, I watched as Andro ate a tiny bite of chicken, made a face like someone burped in his space suit, and then put the fork down. He didn’t even try the vegetables. (I don’t blame him for that, they were grey and slimy; less like beans and eggplant and more like the snails that ate the beans and eggplant.) I glanced at Papa to see if he’d noticed, but he was cutting up some food for Abby.
It’s against the cousin honour code to tattle, I decided reluctantly.
“Excuse me, Uncle,” Andro said, halfway through the meal. “Why can’t I connect to GalaxyNet?”
“We’re too far from any of the settled regions,” Dad explained, “and unlike a space cruiser, we aren’t set up with the right kind of comms gear. We have lots of games on board, though, and the latest version of Encyclopedia Galactica.”
Andro’s broad face dropped faster than his fork had.
“Don’t you like your dinner, Andro, dear?” Papa asked in concern.
Papa’s finally noticed! I thought, glad that I hadn’t had to break the cousin honour code.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Andro was always polite. It was one of the worst things about him. “But this isn’t like the food back home. And my stomach is still unsettled from the travel tube.”
“That’s okay, honey,” said Papa kindly, taking the plate away. “We’ll sort something else out. Kishi, eat your vegetables.”
“But he doesn’t have to eat them!” I objected.
“He has a name, Kishi,” said Papa sternly. “And Andro is our guest. Eat your vegetables.” My nose scrunched as I looked at a snail-y bean. I gathered my courage and forced a spoonful into my mouth. The old Earthans used to eat snails, I thought as I chewed the grey mush. They were a delicacy. I swallowed and then watched in disbelief as Papa placed a bowl of ice cream in front of Andro.
“That’s so unfair!” I said in outrage. But part of me wondered: What could be so bad that you get ice cream for dinner?
It took a few days, but eventually I found something that Andro and I both liked: chess. So I brought my board to his room and challenged him to a game.
I moved out my bishop and tried to work up the nerve to ask him about his life. I wasn’t sure why it was so hard, it was just a simple question. Something, like Hey, I heard you’ve had a rough year… what happened?
I’ll ask the next time I move my knight, I decided. Knights are brave.
“May I ask you a personal question, Kishi?” Andro asked.
“Fire away,” I said, moving a pawn.
“Don’t you ever get crazy in this place?”
“Sometimes. But then we visit a new spaceport, and we get to go out and see something new. Last month we went to a zoo. It was wicked. They had old Earth monkeys!”
Andro seemed unimpressed. I guess he saw animals all the time, being planet-born and all.
“Do you have any friends?” he asked. “I mean, you don’t dock at the same place twice, you can’t contact people on the net…”
I wasn’t sure I liked the faintly superior tone in his voice. “Sure I have friends,” I said. “I have Papa and Dad and Abby.”
“They’re not friends, they’re family.”
I shrugged and moved my queen to take one of his pieces.
“You know it’s not normal, right? You and your family, living the way you do, never seeing anyone else, barely connected to the rest of the world. My dad says you’re missing out.”
We got to live on an Irukandji. We got to see the universe. We weren’t the ones missing out on anything. “Your Dad doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” I said angrily.
“You’re just saying that because you don’t know any better.”
“I know plenty,” I said and took his queen.
Andro’s thick neck went bright red. He took a deep breath. “Congratulations,” he said, but his voice had lost its cool superiority. “You’re going to win this game. So if you excuse me, I think I’ll just call surrender and have an early night. I’m not feeling very well.”
I was taken aback. “You don’t want to finish the game? But we’ve barely started.”
Andro shook his head. His chin wobbled, and he stared at the board.
“It doesn’t matter who wins,” I said. “You only get better playing against someone who is better than you.”
Andro didn’t say anything else; he just turned away and faced the wall until I left.
I have chores, just like anyone. Sometimes, after we’ve been carrying a lot of water, we get space barnacles growing on the inside of the cargo hold. They aren’t actually living creatures but minerals that come from the water.
The surface of the Iruki is a special kind of membrane. It’s slightly wobbly, even on the inside. If we’re carrying helium, I strap on my space suit and jump to the barnacles like I’m on a giant bouncy castle. If we’re carrying water, I put on my diving suit and swim through the water like a mermaid.
Well, okay, like an over-dressed mermaid with strange fashion sense.
It can take some scrubbing to get rid of the barnacles when I find them, but I don’t mind. I’m very strong.
Other times, a piece of space rock will pierce a hole in the membrane, and I have to walk around the outside of the space ship to patch it up. I use my spiderball shoes; they’re sticky on the bottom, which stops you flying into outer space, but not so sticky that you can’t unstick them as you step.
When I get to the hole, I unclip the giant bottle of Fill-Gap from my back and squirt it inside. It comes out like a puffy white foam and dries really quickly into a strong flexible plug. Once I stuck my feet in by mistake; I was there for hours. Dad and Papa only noticed I was missing when I didn’t turn up for dinner. They laughed and laughed about it, and the next day Papa served some kind of meringue dessert with a little figure in the middle. Then they laughed some more.
My favourite, favourite job is helping Dad mine an asteroid. And a few days after Andro arrived, we found a good one.
Just like always, the computer detected it first. It let out a cheery wimp womp that could be heard throughout the living quarters. I rushed straight to the flight deck. Dad was already in his chair, looking over the asteroid stats on the hologram. It was a big rock, about the same size as the Iruki.
There are a hundred different tentacles on the Irukandji ships, and they all do different things. The big frilly ones heat. There are some jagged ones that saw. And a bunch of long hollow ones suck up the water and helium like giant straws.
To use a particular tentacle, you select the matching piece from the chessboard and place it into a slot in the console.
Dad picked up the drill tentacle; there was helium trapped in the centre of this ’roid. Helium is hard to catch and super rare, which means it’s really valuable.
I watched as Dad’s large, capable hands moved the joystick. He had the finesse of a surgeon, drilling just far enough that he reached the helium and not an inch farther.
“Care to help me with the water, Kish?” Dad asked, and I grinned at him. Not many parents would let their kid mine a ’roid with them.
Mining water is easiest if you have two people working together, one to extract and melt the ice, the other to suck up the water onto the Iruki before it refreezes or floats away.
“I’ve just heated some H2O,” Dad said. “Get that ball of water before it gets too far away!”
I switched out my drill for a sucker tentacle and swung the joystick towards the wobbly ball of liquid. “Got it, Dad!”
“And another! This one’s floating to starboard.”
“Aye aye, Captain!”
We were having so much fun that it took me some time to notice Andro standing in the passageway, watching us with interest.
“May I have a go?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said, copying his formal politeness. “These are the only controls. And you’re not supposed to share gear.”
His face turned hard, and he stomped out of the flight deck.
“That wasn’t very nice Kishi,” Dad said.
Does anyone like apologising? I know I don’t, but I don’t know if that’s normal or not.
Before Andro, I never used to wonder if I was normal. I just assumed that I was.
I found Andro in the mess. He was looking through the glass of the freezer, looking slightly green. Planet-boy had a weak stomach.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Did your Dad make you apologise?” Andro asked.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Well, you don’t have to. And you don’t have to try to be my friend. We both know that we actually have nothing in common, and we don’t really like each other. So do us both a favour—stop pretending like you do and leave me alone.”
Spiderball is a fantastic game. When I’m old enough, I’m going to go pro.
It’s played in zero gravity. You can play it in any kind of large room, but the pros use a special shaped court, one with fourteen sides, like one of those special dice from Dungeons and Dragons, if you’ve ever played that.
There is one hoop, right in the centre of the court, and two balls. You get points every time one of your team members gets a ball through the hoop.
Have you ever tried moving around in zero gravity? It’s not that easy. You have to push yourself off a wall, and you can’t change direction until you reach something else with enough resistance. You can bounce off the walls, and sometimes another player, but it’s a big court, so if that’s all you use, it’s a verrrrry slow game.
That’s where the spiderball gloves come in. They shoot out a web; you can use them to swing in an arc from one side of the court to another, releasing and retracting them once you’re done. You can also use them to fix ropes in different positions across the middle of the court. Once they’re established, you can swing on them to change directions or even use them as a catapult to change direction mid court.
Wicked, huh? So you can understand my outrage and betrayal when Dad told me that I couldn’t play anymore. Because of stupid Andro.
Usually we keep the Iruki gravity at Earth norm. Dad says that it is the best for our bodies; humans haven’t changed all that much since old Earth, and if we live in 1G, we have fewer health problems.
All humans except for Andro, anyway. Even after a week on the Iruki, he’s pale and shaky and prone to spewing his guts out. So Dad pushed the gravity up to 1.5G, which is the same as Andro’s home planet. But that means that the spiderball room is now a P5G room. Point five gravity. Way too high to play ball.
Not being able to play made me MAD. Hopping, spitting, flaming, boiling mad. Whenever Papa sees me like this, he says, “Careful Kishi! We’re not allowed an open flame on a spaceship!”
So I’ve been trying to suppress it. I’m ten now. A mature ten. And I’m going to be a gracious host. I’m going to show Andro that even if you live on a mining ship, that doesn’t mean you don’t have class.
I peeked my head around Andro’s door. He does look a bit better with 1.5G. He’s looking at a photo; it’s a picture of him with his arms around a little girl, maybe four or five years old. She is chubby and built solidly like Andro but with bouncy golden curls.
“Who’s that?” I asked. “She’s cute.”
Andro whipped his head around. “Nobody,” he spat.
I was taken aback by his rudeness. It was very un-Andro. Then my own temper rose. I’d lost spiderball because of him, but he was acting like I was the jerk. “If she’s nobody, why do you have a picture of her?”
Andro’s face went red. He took something out of his pocket, and before I even had time to see what it was, he used it to set fire to the photo. The picture flamed brightly, like an orange butterfly, its fiery wings reaching up to the ceiling. “See?” He said, “It’s nothing. Now get out!”
I shrieked, grabbed a blanket from the bed and stomped on the butterfly until it was nothing but ash. Then I ran out to the passageway. The red fire extinguisher is always kept there for emergencies, right next to the blue Fill-Gap.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher and squirted the ash, just to make sure it was safe. “Are you STUPID?” I screamed at him. “You can’t have an open flame on an Iruki!! When Papa and Dad find out about this, you’ll be getting out, out of the whole darn ship!”
I was wrong. Papa swept the ashes away like they were no big deal.
When I’m feeling really upset, I like to sit on one of the comfortable chairs on the flight deck. There’s nothing like the gentle thrum of an Iruki as it flies through the stars. When we have a cargo of helium stored in the bulbous head, the ship glows violet, and the tentacles trail purple lines in our wake as we glide through the deep night of space.
Dad knows this, of course. Not long after the fire, he came into the flight deck. He didn’t say anything, just sat down in the chair next to me.
We watched the stars for a while in silence. I could see a space cruiser in the distance behind us; this is a common space lane. At first it was just a green blip in the sky, but it quickly got closer and bigger. When it was pea-sized I could tell that it was a Whale Class cruiser.
Andro should be on that, I thought bitterly, he’d have access to the net and food that is cooked in the oven. And other kids who are ‘normal.’
“It’s not fair,” I said, at last. “He doesn’t have to eat his vegetables or do any chores; he’s spoilt. He almost set fire to the whole ship. And he’s crazy polite and a guest, so I’m always the one in trouble.”
“I get that,” Dad said quietly. “I get that it’s hard having to accommodate someone new in our space. And I’ll have a talk with Papa and see if we can’t change things to make it easier for you. But there’s something I want you to think about, Kishi. Fair doesn’t mean treating people exactly the same. It means treating people with consideration of their different circumstances.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Think about this: if Papa were in a wheelchair, would you expect him to climb a set of stairs?”
“Of course not!” I said.
“Why not?” Dad stood up to leave. “The rest of us don’t need a ramp. If fairness means equality, shouldn’t we treat him exactly the same as the rest of us?”
I was still thinking about Dad’s words a few hours later when the pirates found us.
Earth Irukandjis are barely a few centimetres wide. Don’t let that fool you, though—they are probably the most dangerous jellyfish of all. They are so toxic that their sting can kill a grown man.
Unfortunately, the people who designed our Irukandji didn’t include a stinger, so when the pirates came, we were defenceless.
The emergency alarm is a panicked A-whee-ooo, A-whee-ooo; its shrill shriek squirms unpleasantly under your skin, like maggots made of fear.
I didn’t panic when it went off, though, because I knew what to do: we drill for this all the time. I got quickly into my space suit, then went into Abby’s room to help her.
Papa was already there. “Go help Dad,” he said. He pulled me into a quick bear hug before pushing me out the door.
I ran down the corridor towards the flight deck. Dad was there already, of course, frowning at the holodeck. He zoomed in until we had good look at the incoming vessel. It had an impenetrable shell, and the blunt turtle head was just starting to creep out. “It’s a War Turtle,” Dad said. “You know what that means.”
I did know. “Space pirates.” Scum of the ’verse, scourge of the seven galaxies. That turtle would open its jaws and use them to lock onto the Iruki, creating a bridge between the two ships. But… “Why would they attack?” I asked. Our valuables are helium and water, and their ship isn’t designed to hold them. “What do we have that they want?” A shiver tickled my spine. “Not… the Iruki itself?” Not our home…
Dad looked behind me; Andro had appeared at the doorway. His tanned skin turned a sickly mustard yellow as he looked at the holo. Stupid planet-boy wasn’t in his space suit; he’d die if the hull were breached.
“They don’t want the ship, Kishi,” Dad said. “They want him.”
PlanetBoy? “What? Why?”
“There’s no time to explain now. Help Andro get into his space suit,” Dad said. “Then you two go and hide.” He looked at me meaningfully. “C16, Kishi. Just use close comms.”
“Got it,” I said, dragging Andro to the mud room. I might not know what was going on, but I knew Dad’s serious voice when I heard it. I knew that he was trusting me to keep Andro safe.
Andro was slow on his feet and clumsy, but I managed to help him into a suit. I was just in time—almost as soon as we clicked our helmets on, a ripping, shrieking sound tore through the ship. My ears popped, and a wind dragged at my feet. I felt zero gravity kick in.
The pirates had blasted the living quarters.
Fighting the turbulence, I typed C16 into the travel door, counted to twenty, and pushed Andro inside. Then I pulled myself in after him.
The travel tube isn’t just for transport to space docks. You can also use it to get to other parts of the ship.
My stomach did a somersault as I dropped through the tentacle feet first. I kept my arms folded on my chest. The air whooshed me along at incredible speeds and then got slowly denser as I reached C16.
The travel door was open at the other end, and so I shot out into a cloud of purple—the largest helium hold in the jellyfish. I tumbled and spun out of control until I hit the bouncy membrane on the far wall. Then I flailed some more until I hit the other side of the hold. This time I managed to hit the wall feet first; my sticky spiderball shoes meant I stayed there.
I pushed myself over to Andro, my breathing loud and shaky in the space suit. He was sitting slumped by the travel door.
I twisted as I floated towards him and landed feet first on the wall near his head. He started in surprise.
I put my hands on my hips and glared down at him. “What the heck is going on? Why do they want you?”
Probably every boy’s parents tell him he’s a prince at some point. But most don’t have the creds to back it up. Andro’s parents do: they’re king and queen of a whole world.
As we bobbed around in the purple haze of helium, Andro finally shared his story.
Over the last year, a plague swept through his planet. When Andro’s little sister fell sick, his parents decided to send him away to keep him safe.
“You should have told me earlier,” I said, slightly cross. “I thought you were being mean when you wouldn’t share your netgear.”
“I was being mean,” Andro said miserably, “although maybe not about that. About the chess and the photo of my sister. Everything here is so strange, and every time something goes wrong I just want to cry or punch something… I’m a prince. I’m not supposed to lose control.”
“Will your sister be okay?” I asked, thinking of the small blonde girl in the photo.
“She’s really bad,” he said. “When I logged onto the net yesterday, she was critical.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said, awkwardly patting him on the back of his space suit. I tried to pat him, anyway; with my big puffy glove, it was more of a soft thump. “Wait a parsec—how did you log onto the net?”
“You remember that whale cruiser that passed us?”
I nodded.
“I jumped onto its comms. I think… I think maybe that’s how the pirates found us.”
“This is your fault?”
“I was trying to find out how my sister was!” he said. “I thought it was a secure comm.”
“Yeah, well, now they have my sister,” I said. “And my parents.”
A thought occurred to me. If the pirates wanted Andro so badly, maybe… maybe I could somehow trade him for my family.
We sat a while in silence, wondering what was going on. I kept sneaking glances at Andro, wondering if maybe I should pretend to leave and call the pirates.
It was only fair, I thought. It was his princely worth that had attracted the pirates, his comms that had given them our location. But I could hear Dad’s voice in my head. Is that really fair, Kishi? Consider his circumstances.
Dad was right; when Andro sent that comm, he was just worried about his sister. It wouldn’t be fair to turn him in.
All of a sudden, I slapped Andro on the helmet. “You idiot!” I said to him. “We can use the baby monitor to find out what’s going on!”
I pressed a button on my space suit, and a black and white holograph appeared. It was Abby, sitting on Papa’s knee. They were hiding in the pantry. Abby was crying, and Papa was whispering to her, trying to get her to shush.
Where’s Dad? I wondered uneasily.
The pantry door was kicked open with a crash. Abby screamed.
A giant stepped into the range of the holo monitor. He pointed a blaster at Papa and grinned shark-like at Abby. “Coupla strags ‘ere, Surra. No prince, tho’.” Papa drew Abby closer to him.
A woman—Surra—entered the holo. She had dark curly hair seasoned liberally with salt. She smiled, squatting down so that she was closer to Abby’s height. “Hey, pretty.” Surra didn’t look like a pirate. She looked nice. Her smile tightened and became sharp at the edges. Not so nice after all. “Won’t you fetch a good price at the slave market, little one?”
I glared daggers at her hologram. No she WON’T, I thought fiercely, clapping down on the image.
“We can’t just stay here,” I said. Andro nodded; he looked as horrified as I felt. “Can you jump onto the turtle’s comms, like you did the cruiser? If we can send a message to your parents, they could send us some Class A military ships. Then they’d blow the pirates to space-dust.”
Andro’s fingers started to move; he was already using his VR gloves within his suit. Even in the puffy outer gloves, his fingers moved faster than I’d ever seen. “Done,” he said in no time at all.
“You, sir, are a net master,” I said, feeling very glad that I had not turned him in.
But Andro wasn’t finished being awesome. His eyes flicked from side to side as he read something I couldn’t see. “How do you feel,” he asked slowly, “about sneaking onto their ship and disabling their hyperdrive?”
I thought about little Abby in a slave market. “I feel very good about that.”
“The pirate ship—it was a War Turtle, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know which class?”
“No. Does it matter?”
Andro made a flicking gesture, and the plans for two War Turtles appeared on my suit visor.
“Look, this is Class A and B,” he said. “Their hyperdrives are in a completely different part of the ship.” Andro was right; in Class A, it was in the lower, flatter part of the shell, and in Class B, it was in the turtle’s, er, bottom.
“I guess the only way to know is to actually board the turtle,” I said.
The cargo hatch wasn’t designed to be opened unless the travel tube was in place. And the travel tube wasn’t in place; I had programmed it to detach from C16, and I wasn’t going to draw attention to our location by calling it back. To get through we needed a lot of muscle.
It was a good thing Andro grew up in 1.5G.
“Do you have a crown?” I asked as he heaved against the transit hatch. I couldn’t imagine Andro in a crown.
“No,” he said. He grunted slightly, and the hatch moved an inch. “My father does, though.”
I tacked a spiderball web to the door. “Do you have servants?”
“Yes.”
No wonder he can’t keep his room tidy. “How about enemies? How many of those do you have?”
“Are we counting space pirates?”
“No,” I decided.
“Then one.”
“Is that all?” I asked, disappointed.
Andro turned the cargo hatch another click. “But she’s one really good enemy. She’s an expert ’roid miner, and spiderballer. She’s wicked good at chess, and she knows her way around a jellyfish.”
A glow warmed the pit of my stomach, and I gave him a friendly shove.
Andro turned to look at me. “Are you ready?” he asked, and I saluted. He turned the hatch one last time, and then we were blown out into the empty vastness of space.
Andro and I floated together, tiny babies in the vast womb of the universe. The only thing stopping us from drifting into the darkness was a single strand of spiderball web, the umbilical cord that kept us attached to the Iruki.
I was worried about Andro—all this zero-G stuff was starting to get to him. He looked like he might vomit. I hoped he wouldn’t; vomit is a nightmare in a space suit.
A second later, Surra’s warm honey voice purred into our helmets, and I had a lot more to worry about.
“Prince Andro.” Surra was broadcasting on all frequencies. “I was expecting a proper welcome from you, my lord. At the very least you could have met me at the transit door. Don’t you know it is rude to neglect your guests?” She waited a moment to see if he would respond, but Andro’s lips were clamped tightly shut. “No matter. I can live with your bad manners, my prince.” She paused, and her voice turned into a claw, ready to strike. “But I’m afraid your host family cannot.”
Fear trickled into my heart.
I couldn’t see Surra, but I could hear her cruel smile. “You have one minute to respond before I shoot the grey one.”
Papa.
With a shaking hand, I turned on the baby monitor. A holo of Abby appeared above my forearm; she was clutching Papa’s legs.
And then Surra pointed a gun at Papa’s head. I swallowed, and Andro actually swore. “Wait,” he said through his mike.
But Surra didn’t seem to hear him. She kept counting. “Forty seconds…”
“Surra! I said wait!” Andro looked at me in panic. “Why can’t she hear me?”
“It’s your radio!” I realised, “it’s still on close comms.”
“Twenty seconds.”
Andro fumbled with the buttons on his glove, trying to increase the range of his comms. Abby started to cry.
“Fix it!” I bellowed.
“I’m trying …”
“Close your eyes, Abby, sweetheart,” said Papa.
“Ten, nine, eight...”
“STOP!” Andro shouted. “I mean, please stop, ma’am, I’m here. I’m outside the ship, near C16. That’s one of the cargo holds.”
There was a tense moment, and then Surra smiled. “Wait there, your highness. We’ll send someone to you.”
I slumped in relief as she removed the gun from Papa’s head, and I watched him hug Abby. Now that the moment of panic had passed, I realised that they weren’t on the Iruki anymore. They were on the War Turtle. Its deck looked a lot like the deck of the Iruki, though. I took in every detail that I could see, and an idea started to form.
“Well, it was a good plan,” said Andro in defeat.
“It still is a good plan,” I said. “They don’t know about me yet.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to take them out,” I said. I quickly gave him a few instructions, then raised a hand, shot out a spiderball web to the jellyfish, and pulled myself away.
Spiderball is based on real zero-G equipment and real space manoeuvres. It was turned into a game by ’roid miners just like me, who were keen to pit their space skills against each other.
If the spiderball scouts could have seen me that night, they would have recruited me on the spot.
I ran down the outside of the jellyfish as fast as I could. The metallic taste of adrenalin added an extra burst of speed to my legs.
When I reached the bottom of the Iruki, I launched myself into the jungle of tentacles. I floated for a while, then lifted my arm and shot a spiderball web towards a tentacle, swinging myself around.
After a while I settled into a steady rhythm. Aim at at a tentacle, shoot my web at it. Swing myself forward, release the web and aim again.
I needed to reach the flight deck before the pirates got Andro and took him back to their ship. If I wasn’t quick, I would never see any of them again.
I flew from tentacle to tentacle, never missing a shot, never misjudging my release. I was a spider, a squirrel, an eagle. I swooped towards the flight deck and landed next to it in a triumphant crouch.
As I stared at the flight deck hatch, my triumph faded.
I didn’t have Andro’s muscles. How would I get inside?
The air in my space suit was starting to taste like stale fear. I made a small sobbing sound deep in my throat as I twisted the handle to the flight deck. I took a deep breath, anchored my spiderball shoes more firmly on the outside of the ship, and heaved. The hatch did not budge.
My adrenalin was spent. I couldn’t get in this way.
Think, I said to myself. Why can’t you get in?
The flight deck hatch was only for emergencies. It wasn’t designed for everyday use, so it didn't have an airlock. That meant I was fighting the pressure inside of the ship. Even Andro and his 1.5G guns would have had trouble getting through this door.
So… I needed to find a door with an airlock.
I ran toward the hatch in the mud room; lucky for me it wasn’t far away. I peeked inside the nearby port window. I was fairly sure that the pirates had left, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
The airlock was clear, and so was the room beyond. I tugged at the handle and almost cried when it opened.
I got through the airlock as quickly as I could and sprinted through the living quarters and onto the flight deck. At the entranceway, I slipped and skidded on something wet. Something red. Blood.
Dad’s chair was tipped over; I picked it up and sat down in it, trying to ignore the stickiness on the seat. My heart bashed against my ribs, like a wild bird trying to escape its cage.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to puke. But most of all I wanted to know that my Dad was okay.
I set up the baby monitor by the chessboard and tapped it to turn it on.
Abby was sitting on Surra’s lap in the flight deck. As I watched, the giant bearded pirate entered the holo and pushed Andro onto the deck. He immediately kneeled in front of Surra, as if she were the royal, sitting on a throne of gold.
I’d made it in time. I picked up the drill tentacle and placed it in the console.
Surra lifted Abby off her lap and walked over to Andro. She grabbed him roughly by the hair and yanked his face up so she could inspect it. After a moment she smiled her shark smile. “Jo-Lee,” she said to someone off the holo, “start the hyperdrive. We have our cargo.”
“May I ask you a question, Captain Surra?” Andro asked politely.
“You can ask, my prince. I may not answer.”
“It’s about your ship. I was impressed by its power.”
Surra smiled smugly. “Yes, it made short work of that pathetic sea jelly, didn’t it?
Pathetic? My blood boiled at her words.
“Is it a Turtle Class A?”
“Yes, my prince, it is. You have a good eye.”
Turtle Class A. I moved the joystick and drove the drill tentacle right the soft underbelly of the pirate ship.
Not so pathetic now.
The deck of the War Turtle bucked under foot, taking everyone by surprise.
Well, almost everyone; Andro was waiting for it.
While the pirates were stumbling in confusion, he pushed himself off the ground and ran to the right of the flight deck. There was an emergency can of Fill-Gap there, right where we keep ours. Andro sprayed it onto the bearded pirate, still scrambling on the deck. It covered him in fluffy white foam. The giant went for a knife and tried to stand, but his leg caught in the Fill-Gap, and he fell. The knife clattered harmlessly away.
I cheered.
Surra growled and launched herself at Andro. She was stopped short by Papa; he had the giant’s knife in his hand and looked like he was ready to use it.
Back in the Iruki, I cheered and spun around in my flight chair. A ding drew my attention to the radar—a royal warship had appeared. It was a Sea Star Class A. Andro’s friends, I assumed.
I opened comms to the War Turtle. “Now that you have been skewered by an unknown but very awesome enemy,” I said, “where is my dad?”
It took us a long time to find Dad. The pirates had stabbed him and dumped him into a cupboard. They hadn’t bothered to bandage his wounds or anything, and by the time we found him, he was really bad.
The navy had a medic. She did the best she could but said that he had lost a lot of blood and needed a hospital.
The Sea Star took us straight to Andro’s planet. It turns out that Andro really is our cousin, and that makes Dad very important. They spared no expense to make him better, so I guess there is some use to being royal after all.
“It’ll be ok,” said Andro, “We have the best doctors in the galaxy.” They’d saved his sister, so I hoped he was right. “You must stay at my place until he gets better,” Andro insisted. “We have plenty of room.”
Andro’s castle is HUGE, with white towers and turrets just like the rooks on my chessboard. Andro says that it is their smallest castle, but sometimes I got lost looking for the bathroom. It’s nice, I guess, but way too big for a regular-sized ten-year-old girl.
The doctors wouldn’t let us see Dad. They told us that he had been stabbed in the kidneys, and he might not wake up. I started to cry when they said that, but Papa gave me a hug and whispered that Dad was strong and not to worry.
Each day we attended the royal court for lunch (or nuncheon, as they call it). I got to eat all kinds of fresh fruit, grilled meat, and vegetables that are crisp instead of slimy. But I was so worried about Dad that I barely ate anything.
The king and queen are even more polite than Andro. “How do you like court, Kishi?” the queen asked one day.
“It’s okay,” I said. “The spiderball court is better, though.” Everybody laughed, which was embarrassing, because I wasn’t trying to be funny.
Andro tried to distract me with visits to the zoo and aquarium; he said they have actual Earth jellyfish there, and turtles, and monkeys, too. It sounded really great, but it didn’t seem right to go without Dad. And besides, living in 1.5G all the time was exhausting. By mid-afternoon I really It was while I was napping that everything changed. I woke to find that Papa was carrying me somewhere. I was still bleary-eyed with sleep, but I knew something big was happening; Papa hadn’t carried me like that since I was just a littly.
“Is it Dad?” I asked in a small voice.
“Yes, Kishi, honey,” Papa said. Except his voice wasn’t sad, it was happy. “He’s going to be okay. He’s awake and asking for you.” We stopped in front of a large white door, and he put me down. “You can’t hug him, okay, sweetie?” Papa said, and I nodded. “But you can hold his hand.”
“Like a hand hug?”
“Exactly, hon.”
“Isn’t Abby coming?”
“I think it’s a bit early to bring her just yet. Don’t be scared—everything inside is to make Dad better.”
Inside the room, Dad was propped up on a tall hospital bed. Tubes ran from his nose and his stomach to a machine near his bed. The machine made rhythmic grinding sounds, which freaked me out.
“Hey, Kish,” Dad said. He was so skinny, and his eyes were sunken. “Papa tells me you saved the day. I’m so proud of you.”
I leaned against the bed, trying to get as close as I could without bumping any of his tubes. “The king fixed the Iruki for us,” I told him. “It was only a little banged up by the pirates. We’re ready to go as soon as you’re better.”
“I’m really sorry, sweetie,” said Papa, rubbing my back, “but that might not be for a really long time. Maybe not ever. Dad has to stay near the hospital.”
My face crumpled. My beloved Iruki. My home. “But we can’t stay on one planet!” My voice wobbled. “The universe is too big for that. That’s what you always say.”
”I’m sorry, Kish,” Dad reached out a trembling hand. His grip, which had been so strong and steady on the joystick, was now weak and flimsy. Abby could probably beat him in a wrestling match. “I know… I know it’s not fair.”
Fair.
I wiped my tears away. “It wouldn’t be fair if we left you behind.” I thrust my chin up sternly. “We have to consider the circumstances.”
Dad squeezed my hand, and I squeezed it tightly back, the biggest hand hug ever.