Chapter 19

We raced down the hallway together—me, three other humans, and a birdwoman who outdistanced us all, clicking along on her taloned feet. I lost track of all the turns we made, but eventually we entered a large room staffed by Siitsi and one lone human. There was equipment on every surface, holograms and flat screens showing images of what I assumed to be parts of the ship. Some kind of engineering space, I assumed. The quiet sound of Siitsi whistles and chirps came from some of the machines.

I suddenly felt incredibly alien.

This was their ship. Their language. Their technology, and their science. In the years since they had allied with the humans of Horizon Alpha, they had apparently made a place for our kind, but everything around me screamed that all the things I’d assumed my life would hold were gone. No matter what happened, if we rescued my brother or not, this was my life now. Forever an alien, no matter what world or what ship I lived on.

Shiro whistled to one of the birdmen, an aqua-colored male. The words translated into my ears, and the male cocked his head, listening. He turned back to his instrumentation and tapped on the panel. The hologram in front of him changed from an image of some part of the ship into lines of Siitsi language. His talons manipulated the data, and Shiro stepped back to where I was standing.

“It might take a little while to find it. Once they find the frequency, they’ll have to figure out which one is coming from the Delta and which one is the shuttle. Should be able to tell from the movement, since the Delta is just drifting. And it might not even be possible. We don’t know what their ship is really made out of.” His face lost some of the hope that had blazed from his eyes. “It might block the signal.”

My shoulders sagged. He’d seemed so sure.

“But if they find it, we can catch it?” I looked around the room from bird to bird. The intensity of the whole place had ratcheted up. Talons moved faster. The cacophony of whistles flew by too fast for my ear cuff to translate.

Shiro nodded, and Priya smiled.

“We have gravity propulsion,” she said, eyes shining with pride. “The Siitsi have been working on it for centuries, and it’s made us some of the fastest ships in the galaxy. If we can find them, we can catch them.”

I had no idea what gravity propulsion was, but the question was obvious. “What if they have it too? If they’re going a different way, they have a huge head start.”

Corey sat down at an empty console. His fingers flew across the panel, calling up image after image on the screen in front of him. “I doubt it. No way to know for sure, but there are only a couple of species that have faster-than-light travel. Unless they stole it from someone else, I doubt they would have developed it on their own. They never seem to be in much of a hurry.”

“That’s true,” Shiro said. “They don’t need to be. Either they’re heading somewhere to trade or they’re heading to some uncharted world to take it over. They’re like a flood, really. They don’t have to rush.”

I hoped he was right. Go slow, I silently willed them from across the blackness of space. Wherever you are, just wait. We’re coming.

A quiet alarm jingled, and Corey smiled. “Okay, I have a reading.”

My heart pounded. “You found them?”

He stared at his screen, Siitsi words and images flying across it at his direction. “Hang on. Needs to triangulate.”

I held my breath for long moments while he worked. Priya stepped up beside me and laid a hand on my back. The touch of a human comforted me in that alien place.

“I think it’s . . .” Corey’s tongue stuck out the side of his mouth as he worked. “Okay. It’s the Delta.”

My chest deflated. Not the shuttle. Not Shane.

Corey’s fingers flew over the panel. “Now that I know what to ignore, I can set it for a fainter signal.”

I wondered how far he could scan. I wondered whether the beacon from the shuttle would ever be audible to whatever sensors on this ship were listening for it. I wondered . . .

“Found it!”

I pressed up behind Corey, looking for anything in the stream of scratches I could recognize. “Where? Where are they?”

He didn’t answer for a while, working on his screen. “Hang on.”

My hands were shaking. I couldn’t stand still. I paced around the room, waiting for him to finish whatever calculations he was doing. Where was the shuttle? How far? How were we going to catch it? I rubbed my arms, stomping between rows of Siitsi in rainbow colors, all intent on whatever they were doing.

Shiro caught my elbow and guided me back to Corey’s workstation. “Calm down. You’re making me crazy, flapping around like that.”

I stood still but couldn’t hold still. My nerves were jumping. So close. So close to finding them. And then what? I had no idea. But Shiro would know. I was sure of it.

“Okay.” Corey’s word cut through my reverie. “I have them, and they’re not too far yet. Heading out toward open space, but at their speed, we can catch them.”

I whirled around to Shiro. “Okay then, what do we do? How do we rescue them once we get there?”

“First things first,” he said and turned to Corey. “What’s the heading? Where are they going? If it’s toward a trade world, we might be able to beat them there if we really open up. Maybe set up some kind of ambush for when they land. If they’re heading for a travel node, maybe we can get there first.”

Corey’s fingers slowed on the screen. He glanced back at Priya, and she peered more closely at the image in front of Corey. The back of her neck turned pink.

“Oh. They’re . . . oh.”

“What? What is it?”

Shiro and Tishi were also focused on the letters or numbers, or whatever was glowing in front of Corey.

Finally, Shiro muttered, “Oh, this is bad. This is very bad.”

“What!” My shout made every Siitsi in the room pause. The clicking of talons all over stopped, and the chirping murmur died away.

Shiro kept his eyes on the screen, not looking at me.

“If the trajectory is correct, there’s only one place they could be heading.”

I waited for him to continue, pulse pounding behind my eyes.

“They must have sorted it out from the Delta. Or maybe they can access the computers.”

My patience was almost at an end, but I refrained from grabbing him and shaking the words out of him.

“But I think it’s obvious,” he continued.

He turned to look at me finally, and his face held no expression.

“They’re heading for Earth.”