Starsight

I’d just have to be sure not to end up like them. I turned M-Bot as two ships approached from the distant station. Boxy and painted white, they were like the Krell shuttlecraft I’d seen at the space station near Detritus.

The two ships leveled off with mine, rotating to the same axis so we could see each other through the glassy fronts of their crafts. The pilots were a pair of aliens with crimson skin. They didn’t wear helmets, and I could see that they were hairless and had prominent eye ridges and cheekbones. They looked basically humanoid—two arms, one head—but were alien enough that I couldn’t distinguish their gender.

M-Bot patched through their communication, and alien chatter filled my cockpit. I dug out Alanik’s translating device and clicked it on, and the chatter was translated into her language, which didn’t do me a whole lot of good.

“M-Bot,” I hissed. “You said you’d fix that.”

“Whoops,” he said. “Hacking into the pin’s language interface . . . Ha! I activated the English setting.”

“Unidentified ship,” an alien said. “Do you require assistance? Please classify yourself.”

I launched right into it. No choice now. “My name is Alanik of the UrDail. I’m a pilot and messenger from the planet . . .”

“ReDawn,” M-Bot whispered.

“From the planet ReDawn. I have come to be a pilot for you guys. Um, in your space force. Like you asked?” I winced. That wasn’t terribly convincing. “Sorry about the odd communication earlier. My computer can be a real pain sometimes.”

“Ha ha,” M-Bot said to me. “That was sarcasm. I can tell because it wasn’t actually funny.”

The two patrol ships were silent for some time, probably having switched over to a private comm line. I was left to wait, hanging there in space, worrying. I examined their boxy white ships—and oddly, I couldn’t find any weapon ports on them.

“Emissary Alanik,” one of the aliens said, coming back on, “Platform Docking Authority sends you welcome. It seems they have been expecting you, though they note that you’re later than you said you’d be.”

“Um,” I said. “Some unimportant troubles back home. But it’s possible I might have to leave in a little bit, then come back again.”

“Whatever you wish. For now, you’ve got dock clearance. Berth 1182, which is in the seventh sector. An official will meet you there. Enjoy your visit.”

With that, they turned around and flew back toward the station.

I remained tense. Surely this was a trap. Surely they’d seen through my crude attempt at subterfuge. I eased forward on the throttle, following after the two ships—and they didn’t react.

I had them right in my sights. I could have blown them both from the sky, particularly with how closely—and lackadaisically—they were flying. How in the name of the Seventy Saints could they stand having their backs to me? The smart thing would have been to have me fly on ahead at a safe distance, so they could watch me from a position of power.

I accelerated, but stayed in range to fire on the ships if they turned on me. They didn’t seem to even notice. If this was a trap, they were doing an awfully good acting job.

Doomslug fluted nervously. I agreed.

“M-Bot,” I said, “have you calculated where we are yet?”

“Indeed,” he said. “We’re not too far from Detritus—only some forty light-years. This station, which you correctly named Starsight, is an important trading waystop. It houses the Superiority regional government.”

“Give me the coordinates—the direction and distance—to Detritus.”

“Easy,” M-Bot said. “Data is on your screen.”

Several long numbers popped up on my proximity screen’s readout. I frowned, then reached out to locate them with my fledgling cytonic senses. Only, reached out to . . . where? Those numbers were so large, they barely meant anything to me. Sure, they told me where Detritus was, but I still didn’t know where it was. Couldn’t feel it, like I had when Alanik sent me her cytonic impression of Starsight’s location.

“That’s not going to work,” I said. “I won’t be able to get us out unless I figure out more about my powers.”

“Theoretically,” M-Bot said, “we’ll be leaving with a stolen Superiority hyperdrive, right?”

“That’s the plan. I’d just feel better about this if I knew we had an escape route. How long would it take to fly back to Detritus the long way?”

“By the ‘long way’ you mean at sublight speeds?” M-Bot said. “That would probably take us roughly four hundred years, depending on how close to light speed we managed to get before using half our power, then accounting for deceleration on the other end. Sure, time dilation would make it seem like less time passed for us—but only about four years’ difference at that speed, so you’d still be super-dead by the time we arrived.”

Great. That wasn’t an option. But Jorgen and I had both known that I might end up trapped here. This was the mission. It was unlike anything I’d undertaken before, but I was the only one who could do it.