Gabriel buckled and groaned loudly, crashing to the floor. Well, bouncing to the floor was more like it. The room was padded with gymnastic mats, and both he and Piper were dressed in comically-thick foam sparring suits. They looked like miniature sumo wrestlers. Piper had just barely been able to stuff herself into her air chair, which now looked like an overfull laundry basket floating in midair. An overfull laundry basket with a face.
Dash started laughing. “Nice shot, Piper,” he said. “Nice, err…tumble, Gabe.”
Gabriel flopped over onto his back and flailed his arms and legs, unable to roll over and get up. “Falling well is a skill, and don’t you forget it,” he said, raising a finger. It seemed to be the only part of his body he could effectively move.
“I think you have it mastered,” Dash said.
Gabriel shot him a good-natured dirty look. Then he glared at Piper. “No fair—that chair is like armor,” he protested. “I call foul.”
“It’ll be with me in real combat,” Piper argued cheerfully. “That makes it fair game.” She sheathed her blunt-tipped sword alongside the air chair and swooped down beside Gabriel. She offered him her hand and helped him stand up.
Dash grinned. “I’m with Piper. All’s fair in war…and the Simulation Suit.”
Gabriel staggered to his feet. “The best part about using these Simu Suits is taking them off after.” He started to unzip, revealing his Voyagers uniform underneath. He tucked in the arms and legs of the Simu Suit and then kept folding it in half. As he pressed on each fold, the two-inch-thick foam suit grew thinner and thinner. It folded up remarkably small for something so thick. Gabriel carefully stuffed the suit into a flat black pouch that was barely bigger than a pencil case.
“What are you guys doing, anyway?” Dash asked. He picked up Gabriel’s discarded sword. “What’s with these new swords? How come you’re not using the regular fencing gear?”
The Simu Suits had typically been used for wrestling and other mobility training. If you could learn to move and fight wearing one of those suckers, you could move way faster when you only had your own body to worry about.
“Chris gave them to us,” Piper said. “He said we might need them soon.”
Dash felt a surge of frustration. “That’s weird,” he told them. “He never said anything about this to me.” Dash studied the sword. It was long, like a fencing foil, but not as thin or flexible. It was flat and wide at the hilt and tapered to a wicked point. Luckily, it had been blunted with a ball of metal for sparring purposes.
“Were you looking for us?” Piper said.
Dash nodded. “We’re nearly to Infinity.”
“Meet you on the flight deck?” Gabriel asked.
“Yup. And go direct,” Dash ordered as he spun toward the door. “No time for winding through the tunnels.” The contest was good-natured fun between the crew members, but Dash still wanted to win. And Chris, the crew’s alien chaperone, had hinted that there would be some kind of reward or prize for the person who discovered the longest path.
“Yeah right,” Gabriel called after him. “Like I’m going to fall for that one.”
Dash grinned. He rushed into the hall, heading toward Chris’s quarters.
He knocked on the door.
It was opened almost immediately by a blond teenage boy. At least, that’s how it appeared. Chris was actually much older than he looked, and he came from a distant planet known as Flora.
“Here for your injection?” Chris said.
“After the Gamma jump,” Dash said. “It’s time.”
Chris frowned and went to the cabinet where he kept his stash of the age serum. “The injection timing is very important,” he reminded Dash.
“So is not being pounded to smithereens by the brakes on this thing,” Dash commented. But Chris seemed to be taking his time anyway. “We only have a couple of minutes,” Dash informed him. Fewer than five, by his inner counting. Which could be off base. It could be even less.
A happy golden retriever bounded off Chris’s bed and came to stand by Dash as he waited.
“Hey there, Rocket.” Dash ruffled the dog’s fur. Rocket was Chris’s dog, but he had become something of a team mascot for the whole crew. “You’ll have to go in your crate for the Gamma jump, okay?”
Rocket snuffled a protest against Dash’s leg.
“Trust me, I feel your pain,” Dash assured him.
“It’s for your own protection,” Chris commented. He could have been talking to Rocket, or he could have been talking about the syringe he was about to inject into Dash.
The rest of the crew had no idea about the risk Dash had taken in agreeing to join the mission. Gabriel, Carly, and Piper had all been twelve years old when they left Earth. As long as the mission lasted a year or less, they’d return safely. But Dash was several months older—too old for safe travel at Gamma Speed. So Dash had to take injections filled with an age-slowing serum to fool his cells into thinking he wasn’t aging at all.
Commander Shawn Phillips, the man back on Earth who had orchestrated the Voyagers mission, had taken a serious gamble by putting Dash in charge. But he had believed strongly in Dash’s leadership capability. The Voyagers mission had the best shot at success with Dash at the helm. It was worth the risk, they had agreed.
After the last planet, Dash had broken down and told Piper about the serum. It had caused a bit of tension actually. As the ship’s medic, Piper wanted to control Dash’s injections, but Chris felt it was his responsibility. Dash had left the serum with Chris. He didn’t want Piper to have to sneak around. He hoped his choice hadn’t hurt her feelings too badly.
Dash rolled up his sleeve. Chris held up the clean syringe. Dash reached for it, prepared to inject himself as usual, but Chris pulled it away. “You’re pretty bruised,” he said, studying Dash’s bare left bicep. The skin was mottled faintly purple and yellow. Chris kept the syringe. “Give that side a break. I’ll do it in the other arm.”
Dash wiped a spot on his right arm with an alcohol swab, then turned his head away while Chris administered the injection. He felt like a little kid for doing it, but not looking really did make the shot a little less painful. His other arm did ache from the repetitive injections, but he would’ve died before admitting it.
“There. That’ll keep you young for the next day or so,” Chris said. Dash rubbed the spot with the swab again, lifting away the bead of blood that had formed on the skin.
“We have to get up to the flight deck,” Dash repeated. “We’ll arrive at Infinity any minute.”
“Well, that’s good,” said Chris in a tone that suggested otherwise.
Dash’s smile slipped a notch. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s all taking somewhat longer than expected,” Chris said. “You hadn’t noticed?”
Dash shrugged. “I’ve been kinda busy fighting Raptogons, solving Meta Prime, and negotiating with the AquaGens.”
“Yes, I suppose,” Chris murmured. “It’s my job—and the ship’s job—to keep us on time.”
“We’re doing great,” Dash said. But he wasn’t as confident as he sounded. They had a Raptogon tooth from J-16 and a slogger full of Magnus 7 from Meta Prime, but they hadn’t gotten the Pollen Slither they needed from Aqua Gen. Still, it wasn’t entirely out of reach….
“We’re doing really great,” Dash repeated, as if trying to convince himself. “Aren’t we?”
Rocket nosed himself closer to Dash. Like most dogs, he had a sixth sense for when someone was about to need some comfort.
Chris looked grim. “Look at your serum stock,” he said, waving his hand over the box where he kept the loaded syringes. “How much remains?”
“I dunno….I guess I’ve used more than I have left,” Dash said slowly, realizing it as he spoke. Chris was in charge of Dash’s entire supply. Early in the trip, he’d moved the stash from the boys’ dorm so that Gabriel wouldn’t stumble upon it.
“And yet, the mission is barely half over,” Chris said. His voice was heavy. “Only three planets done, and three still to go.”
“It’ll be fine,” Dash said. “You can make more of it, can’t you?” Chris was the one who had designed the biologic injection in the first place.
“I don’t think you understand,” Chris said. “You can’t take the age serum indefinitely. If this mission isn’t completed in the next eighty-four days, you’ll be dead.”