29

“PROXIMITY ALERT,” the ship warns. “CONTACT IN ONE MINUTE.”

We’re sitting at the table in the middle of the cafeteria. Ari is in the center and Becka and I are sitting on either side of him. We’re facing forward, staring at the approaching tow ship and the blockade separating us from freedom.

Becka turns to me. “How many do you want?”

With Principal Lochner flying the 118, we need to split up responsibility for remotely flying the shuttles. Two, two, and one.

“Why don’t you each take two?” I say.

Becka’s eyes light up. “Are you sure?” she asks.

“Positive,” I say, meaning it. I have a feeling that she’s going to be pretty good at this. Probably better than me. And Ari controlling two is a no-brainer: he’s been training for a moment like this his whole life. So I call up controls for one of the five shuttles and Becka and Ari do the same for the other four.

“You okay?” I ask Ari.

He shakes his head and looks over at me. “I’m sorry about the mutiny,” he tells me. “You’re my best friend. And I never—”

“I know,” I interrupt. “I’m sorry too. And it’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. We’ll make it.”

“And, um,” he says, squirming to face Becka. But he draws a blank and trails off.

She smiles at him. It’s almost—and please don’t quote me on this—sweet. “We can do this,” Becka declares.

“Yeah,” he says back, his voice calm. “Okay.”

“PROXIMITY ALERT,” the ship says again. “CONTACT IN FIFTEEN SECONDS. IT’S NOW OR NEVER.”

“This is it,” Principal Lochner’s voice booms over the loudspeaker. “I’m going to take the 118 straight out, away from the planet. As soon as we’re beyond the jamming—the moment you can, Jack—use the light speed engine to get us out of here.”

“Got it,” I say.

Principal Lochner restarts the engines with a rumble. “See you on the other side.”

The 118 lurches forward, squeaking past the tow ship just before its jaws close around the hull.

At the same time, a few of the blockade ships break off from their revolutions around the planet. They’re coming to intercept us. Three of them—no, four. Four of the arrowhead-shaped fighters are heading straight for us.

“Opening the aft doors,” Principal Lochner announces. “Take ’em out.”

The 118 shivers as the two large hangar doors open up at the back of the ship. For now, the fighters heading our way think they outnumber us four to one. But they’re about to be surprised. As soon as the shuttles are out there, it’ll be five—six, if you include the 118 itself—against four. Although, considering that it’s also four ships with guns versus six ships with no guns, it doesn’t exactly even the odds.

I use my screen to move one of the shuttles out of the hangar bay, positioning it at the very front of the ship.

Becka moves her two shuttles in formation with mine, putting one directly above the ship and the other below, while Ari places his on either side, surrounding the 118.

“Uh oh,” Ari says. Two more Elvidian ships have broken off from the blockade and are heading straight toward us. Six against six. Great.

“I see them,” I say.

“Hold tight,” Principal Lochner says, tilting the 118 to the side in some sad attempt at a zigzag evasive maneuver. He’s actually a decent pilot—but the schoolship wasn’t built for a dogfight. “Don’t be afraid to lose the shuttles. Do what you have to.”

The gun turrets on the enemy ships shine purple and electric, like pent-up balls of lightning about to unravel. The lights give the hulls of the black ships an eerie glow, which makes them even scarier. Their hulls are flawlessly sleek. No doors. No windows. Aside from the guns, the ships don’t look like they have any parts at all. Part of me suspects—hopes, maybe—that they’re unpiloted drones.

“One is firing!” Ari says, reading a display on his screen.

We watch helplessly as the leader of the four fighters gets a shot off. I consider trying to fly my own shuttle into its path. But it’s too late. Lightning crackles toward us, nothing like a laser. It’s both more natural and more unnatural at the same time.

“Hold on!” Principal Lochner shouts.

But miraculously, we barely feel it.

“Damage report?” I ask.

Ari checks. “We’re okay,” he says, relieved.

“SPEAK FOR YOURSELF,” the ship adds.

“But it only grazed us,” Ari explains. “Scorched the upper hull. No breaches.”

“Ha,” Becka says, laughing. “Bad shots, huh?”

“No, they’re testing us,” Principal Lochner says. “They want to see if we’re going to fire back. What our capabilities are.”

The ships are getting closer, weapons still charged and locked on. In a few seconds, the other two will catch up and we’ll be in even worse trouble than we are now.

Time to punch a hole in this blockade.

I crank up my shuttle’s engines to full speed and aim it straight for the group of four fighters. I flash its front lights, hoping that they make it seem like our (unarmed) shuttle is charging up to fire its (nonexistent) weapons.

They’re expecting me to shoot at them. They’re not expecting me to ram them. So I get pretty close before one of the Elvidian fighters fires directly at the shuttle, striking its engines and throwing it off balance. I try to regain control and make its path too erratic to follow. The shuttle is moving fast. But another ship fires at it and that second lightning strike hits it in the nose and splits it in two, like a knife slicing through bread.

On the bright side, I still caught them off guard. I was moving the small ship so fast that, when it finally comes apart, one of the halves breaks off and hurtles back toward the fighters.

It connects with one of the Elvidian ships, which gets knocked off its own course, spins wildly, and passes directly in front of a second fighter that’s just now shooting off another lightning bolt. That bolt hits the out-of-control fighter head on, at close range. It explodes into a ball of fire and goes hurtling toward the surface of Elvid IV.

The other three fighters scatter in the chaos as Becka pushes another remote controlled shuttle forward. One of the Elvidian ships does a last-minute barrel roll away from the wreckage of the destroyed fighter—and Becka moves her shuttle into its path, forcing a direct collision.

“That’s two down!” I yell, pumped up on my own adrenaline.

“Yeah!” Becka shouts. She’s sacrificed one of her shuttles too, but we’re making progress.

“Take my other shuttle,” Ari tells me, transferring control of one of the two he’s operating.

“Thanks!”

“ALMOST THERE,” the ship says. “THIRTY SECONDS UNTIL WE’RE BEYOND THE JAMMING.”

My heart is pounding. I’m not sure we have thirty seconds. The two fighters that were farther out have closed in and joined a loose formation with the other two, surrounding us on all sides. We’re again facing four Elvidian ships. But we only have three shuttles left. And while our attackers are all close to us, they’re staying far enough away from each other to make themselves less vulnerable to debris.

“I’m sending one in,” Ari says. “I’ll—”

Before he can do anything, the ships around us open fire simultaneously.

In an instant, Ari’s and Becka’s shuttles both explode. I try to move the last of the small ships—the one Ari gave over to my control—to the front, where we need the most protection. We’re almost there. Come on. Come on. But the Elvidian ships open fire again, blowing the little shuttle into a thousand shards of metal. The 118 shudders and groans as it’s hit by the pieces. The room rocks to one side. And the table we’re sitting at slides across the room and into the wall. We manage to stumble off of the attached bench before it drags us down along with it. But it hits the digital paper so hard that the wall cracks from the floor to the ceiling and the display disappears, leaving us with a huge blind spot to our left.

“LIFE SUPPORT AT 74 PERCENT!” the ship informs us. “HULL BREACH IN LOWER CREW QUARTERS!”

“That sounds bad,” Becka says, staring out at the blockade of ships.

“YOU THINK?” screeches the ship. “LIFE SUPPORT AT 68 PERCENT! YOU’LL BE OUT OF OXYGEN IN MINUTES!”

That last blast threw us off course and we’re now drifting sideways, instead of straight away from the planet. Principal Lochner has lost control. But worse, we’re no longer being hunted by only four ships. The entire blockade is moving toward us now.

“Principal Lochner?!” I yell, hoping that he can still hear me from the bridge. I try to push down the nausea that’s overwhelming my brain. The room shakes and the remaining digital paper panels show our surroundings going around and around.

He doesn’t answer.

“Ari?” I ask. “I don’t think Principal Lochner’s piloting us anymore. Can you control the ship from here?”

“I don’t know!” he screams.

We’re yelling at the top our lungs, both because of the rising panic inside our heads and because the ship is blaring out warnings—proximity, targeting, damage.

Ahead of us—no, now that we’re spinning out of control, behind us—one of the fighters fires again. All the wallpaper goes black, plunging the room into familiar darkness that’s only broken up by the blinking red emergency lights running along the edges of the ceiling. The ship banks hard to one side and Ari jumps up to his feet.

“I’ve lost the networking feed!” he screams, terrified. “We need to get back to the bridge! I can’t control anything from here!”

We’re hit again. And hit again. I don’t know how the ship is holding together. I guess the 118 is stronger than the shuttles. But it’s still creaking and groaning, threatening to come apart at the seams. The alarms are shrieking and the ship is screaming out its unhelpful warnings: “AHHH! SECONDARY FUSION REACTOR CRITICAL! HULL BREACH IN LOWER CREW QUARTERS! LIFE SUPPORT AT 62 PERCENT!”

“Shut up!” I yell.

“I CAN’T! IT’S PART OF MY PROGRAMMING—HULL BREACH IN FACULTY OFFICES. LIFE SUPPORT AT 57 PERCENT!”

We run—stumble—out of the cafeteria and down the hall back toward the bridge. We can feel the ship straining to keep itself together. “HULL BREACH IN SCIENCE LAB 2! LIFE SUPPORT AT 56 PERCENT!”

As we sprint down the corridor, sparks fly out from a nearby computer console. One of them hits the sleeve of Becka’s T-shirt, which catches fire.

“I’m fine!” she yells, slapping her shoulder to put out the flame. “I’m fine! Keep going!”

“I WAS WRONG ABOUT HAVING MINUTES! OXYGEN DEPLETION IMMINENT!”

The doors to the bridge are stuck shut. The controls don’t work, so I have to kick-smash the glass in a small manual override underneath the computer access panel and crank one door open by hand. We squeeze painfully sideways to enter the room.

“LIFE SUPPORT AT 51 PERCENT! OH NO, OH NO. NOT THE—FUEL LEAK IN PROGRESS! FUEL LEAK IN PROGRESS!”

It’s a disaster in here. The main front window looks dangerously cracked. One more direct hit and it’ll probably shatter, sucking us out into open space. Ari’s old computer station is on fire, crackling as the flames reach up to the charred roof. A broken sprinkler system spits out a little water that evaporates before it even hits the ground.

There’s a fire extinguisher attached to the back wall by the door. Becka grabs it and puts out the flames before they spread to the thick carpet and blaze out of control.

Principal Lochner is slumped over in the captain’s chair, buckled tight into the seat. I grab hold of his arm and feel for a pulse. He’s alive. Passed out—with a bruise on his head where he must’ve been hit by something—but alive.

And even though he’s unconscious, his fingers are gripped tight around Doctor’s Shrew’s cage, which he must have picked up and kept safe. Doctor Shrew looks fine. He’s still going to town on that one stalk of celery I gave him, totally oblivious.

I tuck the cage underneath Becka’s computer station, hoping he won’t rattle around too badly down there.

Ari runs over to Becka’s station too. He touches it. And nothing happens. I’m scared that we’ve lost total control up here too. That there’s nothing we can do.

“Ahhh!” Ari screams. He clenches his fists and brings them down hard onto the computer screen in frustration—bringing the console back to life.

“WEL—ZONA—MAN.”

Barely.

We sit down and strap in—Ari and I by Becka’s computer station, and Becka by Ari’s old and busted console. We see one of the fighters zip past us, firing at the hull as it flies by.

“Are we almost in the clear?!” Becka screams.

“I have no idea!” Ari replies. “The ship’s lost its navigation scanner!”

The ship is still spinning in the right direction, away from the planet—but in the chaos, we’ve lost ground. We’re surrounded on all sides and these fighters seem bent on blowing us up right here and now. “Ship?” I ask. “Are we out of range of the light speed jamming?”

“NEGATIVE! LOW ORBIT LIGHT SPEED INTERFERENCE REMAINS—”

We’re out of time. The rest of the ships are almost on top of us. Their weapons light up, a thousand electric purple lights on a thousand open gunports, all aimed at our little schoolship.

“Can this thing still fly?” I ask.

“Not for long,” he says, pulling back on a lever. “But I’ll get us as far as I can.”

We keep speeding away from the planet. But it’s just not fast enough.

“Ship,” I ask again. “Can we use the light speed engine?”

“NO! LOW ORB—SPEE—RENCE—”

The 118 is dying.

“Ship!” I shout desperately, one last time, just as the Elvidians open fire. “Can we use the light speed engine now?”

I hold my breath. Everything’s hanging in the balance. All I can think about is my dad and how—even if you mean well, even if you try to do the right thing—you never know where your choices are going to lead.

“AFF—”

Good enough for me.

“Light speed engine, now, destination, Earth,” I say, looking over at Ari and Becka. “Engage.”