14

“We did it,” I say, as we head toward the front of the ship. Once the guard explained how to scan for the light speed jammer, Becka stunned him one more time and we left him outside on the prison roof. Now we’re ready to go.

“Shhh!” Ari snaps. “Don’t say that!”

“Why?” I ask. “We have the ship. We know how to get us off the planet. And we have my dad’s engine to get us home. What could go wrong?”

Ari shakes his head like I’ve just doomed us all.

“Are you trying to jinx us?”

But I’m feeling optimistic for the first time in days. We’re almost to the command bridge now. We’ll get off this terrible planet. Fly to a distance beyond the range of the jammer, where we can safely use my dad’s engine. Go home. Tell everyone what’s happened. And bring back help.

Of course, we still don’t know what happened with that quarantine. Something attacked us near Jupiter and started counting down. And my dad was so scared of it, he had us run away farther than anyone’s ever run before. Whether he was right to be scared or not, I don’t know. But I can’t wait to make it back to Ganymede and finally get some answers.

First, though, gotta get the ship in the air.

“Whew!” I grunt, as the door to the command bridge slides open and I’m hit with a whiff of old hamburger.

Becka pinches her nose. Ari plucks a plastic plate—with its now greenish meat and stale french fries—off of one of the computer consoles and tosses it down the trash chute. The crew obviously left in a hurry.

I’ve been here a few times on our “field trips” and the bridge never fails to disappoint me. Wall-to-wall purple shag carpeting that’s spotted with more than a few coffee stains. A ceiling that’s painted three different shades of yellow, like they ran out of paint in the middle of the job and don’t care that it looks like the ceiling of a mustard factory had a terrible accident. And a sign hanging next to the door: “No eating. No loud music. IDs must be worn at all times.” Judging by the spoiled lunch, I’m betting Harriet doesn’t strictly enforce these rules.

Size-wise, the oval-shaped bridge is pretty small—no bigger than my living room on Ganymede. Along the length of the front wall, there’s a large window that doubles as a viewscreen. There’s a freestanding captain’s chair in the center of the room, facing the window. And behind the chair there are two small computer stations, also facing front. The consoles are bulky and old. Even the captain’s chair looks like it’s from the twenty-second century. It’s covered in loose, scratched-up white leather and, while the armrests each have small access panels at the edges, the one on the left is cracked and clearly broken.

So, yeah, a perfect command bridge for the PSS 118.

“Ari,” I ask, “think you can figure this out?”

“Think so.”

Ari sprints over to one of the two computer consoles behind the captain’s chair. We’ve all had basic flight lessons, but he’s got the most experience. And by “the most experience,” I mean “holds the high score in Neptune Attacks 2,” our favorite first-person spaceshooter. Well, my favorite first-person spaceshooter. Ari thinks the first Neptune Attacks was better. But both games have realistic flight simulators.

“I’m locked out,” he says. “It won’t let me access flight controls.”

“Oh yeah.” I press my hand to the flight station. “I forgot. Let me try.”

“WELCOME, JACKSONVILLE GRAHAM.”

“Hey, Ship. Can I use the flight controls?”

“I DON’T KNOW,” the ship says back. “CAN YOU?”

“That’s never a funny joke,” I tell it. “You know that, right?”

The ship replies, “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE. YOU KNOW THAT, RIGHT?”

“I do, Ship. But those aliens could find us any second. Now do I have access to flight controls or not?”

“WELL, YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET UPPITY ABOUT IT,” the ship says. “AND YES, YOU HAVE ACCESS. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY OR HOW. BUT YOU DO.”

“Great,” I reply. But I can’t manage the whole ship by myself. I wouldn’t know how if I wanted to. “And what if—? Can I grant access to Arizona Bowman?”

“AFFIRMATIVE. ALL SYSTEMS TRANSFERABLE EXCEPT LIGHT SPEED CAPABILITIES.” A pause. “WAIT. DID I JUST SAY LIGHT SPEED CAPABILITIES?”

“We’ll explain on the way,” I tell it, kind of glad that Ari won’t get to use my dad’s engine. I can’t help but want to keep that to myself. I can’t explain why, but I do. “For now, give Ari flight controls.”

“ACCESS GRANTED.”

Ari and I look at each other.

“Well? What’re you waiting for?”

Ari smiles huge and starts clicking away at the screen. He presses down on one switch and pulls back on another. I feel the ship rumble beneath my feet and look out the window to see us rising—unevenly at first, but slowly leveling off—up into the air. One foot. Two feet.

“Wahoo!” Ari yells, like he’s riding a bull and not gently lifting a hulking ship one inch at a time, very carefully up into the sky.

But quickly, things pick up. Ari grows into his “wahoo.” Within seconds, we’re high above the crystal skyline, speeding toward the upper atmosphere.

Becka’s been pretty quiet this whole time, staring at the tacky chair in the middle of the room. But now she says, “Give me access too. I can scan for the light speed jammer and other ships while Ari’s doing the piloting.”

I hesitate. Having Ari as co-pilot is one thing. Giving Becka access is something else entirely.

“Come on,” she says. “Someone needs to monitor how far we’ve gone so we’ll know when it’s safe to go to light speed. And it wouldn’t hurt to have a heads up if an Elvidian ship is coming our way and decides to shoot at us. Ari’s doing the flying, you’re doing, um, the light speed stuff, and I should do scanning and comms. Like a real crew.”

I’ve been trying not to think about what’ll happen if anything decides to shoot at us. The 118 has no weapons. Like most public schoolships, it was a commercial freighter in its past life. We’ll be sitting ducks in a fight, no matter what. But I guess it can’t hurt to have someone looking out for danger.

“You heard her,” I say to the ship. “Give Beckenham Pierce computer access also.”

“DO I HAVE TO?”

“What? Yes, you have to.”

“FINE. ACCESS GRANTED. BUT I’M NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT.”

Becka hustles over to the other console and starts fiddling with her control panel. The ship starts broadcasting the code we got from the Elvidian guard. A minute goes by, and nothing attacks us. Nothing even approaches. Instead, the dark blue sky gives way to starry space and I can see the entire Elvid system stretched out in front of us, all the way down to the three stars in the center.

“How far can autopilot take us?” I ask Ari as he leans back into his chair.

“Not far,” he says, pointing to the screen. “There’s a counter here. When it’s up, I’ll have to take direct control.”

“How long do we have?”

“A few minutes, maybe.”

“Will we be far enough away from the planet to use the light speed engine?”

“Just about,” says Becka, looking at a display on her screen.

I nod and lean against Ari’s station.

“Did you figure out what you wanted to change the call sign to?”

Every ship, including ours, has a call sign—a signal that broadcasts out to all other ships and tells them who we are. But now, we’re fugitives on the run from the alien police. And flying inside a chunk of metal that’s screaming, “We are the PSS 118! We are the PSS 118!” might not be the best way to stay under the radar. So when we decided that Ari would be the pilot, we gave him the job of choosing what to call the ship. If he’s got to fly it, he may as well name it.

“I’ve got just the thing,” Ari says, grinning and typing something into his console.

I glance down at the screen.

“No,” I tell him, shaking my head. I should have figured. “We are not renaming our ship the Millennium Falcon.”

“Why not? I thought you said that the only rule was that I couldn’t name it the Starship Ari.”

“Yeah, but shouldn’t we come up with something original?”

Before Ari can pout too much, Becka shoves us both out of the way, types a couple of words on his screen, and asks: “What do you think of this?”

Ari and I look down at the screen and back up at each other in surprise. Who knew she had a sentimental side?

“Okay,” I tell her. “The Ganymede it is. That’s actually a good name, Becka. I’m—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Who cares? Now that that’s over with, we have something more important to talk about.”

Uh oh. Is something wrong? Is someone coming for us?

“Who gets the captain’s chair?” she asks.

So that’s why she’s been staring at it.

The idea of an official seating arrangement hadn’t even occurred to me. We’re not going to be out here for long (I hope). But maybe she’s right. Two back computer consoles. One captain’s chair up front. Three of us. Someone should play captain, right?

I watch as Becka steps over to the seat in the center of the room—running her hands over the old leather and staring down at the controls on the arms—and I realize something: now that she seems to really want it, so do I.

Before you go thinking that I’m just being a baby, let me clarify that I don’t only want it because Becka does. I just know that if Becka gets it, she’ll confuse sitting in the captain’s chair with being the captain. And I am not taking orders from Captain Becka, even if we’re going straight back to Ganymede. But as I look at Becka looking at Ari looking at her, I know that she knows what I know: I don’t stand a chance if we put it to a vote.

“So let’s put it to a vote.” Becka smiles at me. Told you. “That seems like the fair way to figure it out.” She pauses for like half a second. “And I vote for me,” she adds, raising her hand.

I walk over to the captain’s chair and put my hands down on one of the armrests, directly opposite Becka.

“And I vote for me,” I say, staring her down.

She purses her lips and looks over at Ari.

“And Ari,” she asks, “who do you vote for?”

“I . . . uh . . . I . . .”

Which is when Ari shocks me.

“Jack,” he says, looking down at his shoes and gulping. “Jack should be the captain.”

“What?” Becka shrieks. “Jack? Why?!”

She storms over to his waist-high computer console, which he is wisely standing behind. But it won’t offer him any protection if T-Bex comes out to play. I’ve seen Jurassic Moon III. Dinosaurs in space are very dangerous.

“It just makes sense, doesn’t it?” Ari explains, circling the console as Becka slowly chases him around it. “Jack’s the only one with any real control over the ship, right?” He turns to me. “Without you, I couldn’t fly it. Without you, Becka couldn’t do, um, whatever it is Becka is going to do. You’re the only one who can actually get us home. So you’re kind of already the captain, aren’t you?”

I hadn’t thought of it like that. He’s right. I am kind of already the captain. Captain Jacksonville Graham.

I don’t mind the sound of that at all.

Becka lets out a snort and closes her fists. I watch as her knuckles turn red and expect her to punch a hole in the wall or something. But instead, she shocks me too.

“Fine,” she sighs. “Ari’s right, I guess. And the vote’s the vote.” She moves to stand behind the other back computer console.

I really (really!) want to give Becka the credit she deserves for being so calm and reasonable. She wanted to be captain and she’s giving it up fair and square. I definitely should not rub it in her face. Definitely not.

“You’ll have plenty to do,” I tell her, taking my seat in the center of the bridge. “All that scanning, right? And comms! You’ll be great at that. I’m sure it’ll be just as fun as being captain.”

“Shut up,” she says, gritting her teeth. “You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”

Well. I tried not to rub it in her face. Half-tried.

I swivel around to look at my crew. Ari is staring apologetically at Becka who is giving him the coldest—most freezing—shoulder ever. I stretch my hands out to try to touch the small control pads on the armrests. The chair is actually a little too big for me and I can’t reach the consoles without leaning forward. My feet don’t even touch the floor.

Becka is taller and probably would’ve physically fit here better than I do.

But I belong here more than she does.

“We’re approaching the end of autopilot control,” Ari announces as the room lets out a one-second siren. “I think I can fly it myself, if I need to.”

“Don’t think you’ll need to,” says Becka. “We’re outside the range of the light speed jamming.”

“Cool,” I say and turn to Ari. “But when we get to the other side, think you can bring us into Ganymede’s orbit?”

Ari presses a few buttons and slides a lever back and forth. “Aye, aye, Captain!”

I sit back and grin, interlocking my fingers behind my head.

“Ship,” I say, “turn on the light speed engine. Destination: Ganymede.”

Like before, the regular engines shut down.

“ENGAGE?” the ship asks.

I nod. “Engage,” I say, much less conflicted this time around. “Bring us home.”

Right on cue, everything goes dark for a second. A fraction of a fraction of a second. Even less time than before. But it works. We move faster than the speed of light, overwhelmed with this strange feeling. We travel in a way that breaks every rule of physics, all because of my dad. Because of him, we move through the fabric of the universe and emerge . . .

. . . um . . .

. . . about thirty or forty feet from where we were before, the three Elvidian suns right where we left them.

“LIGHT SPEED ENGINE OFFLINE,” the ship announces. “FUEL DEPLETED.”

“What?!” I yell. “Fuel depleted? Ship, why didn’t you tell me we were running out?”

“YOU DIDN’T ASK,” the ship says.

So we just drift there, staring at the alien solar system, with no way home.

“Yeah,” Ari grunts. “What could go wrong?”