The more that happened to her, the quicker she grew up—making the idea of going back seem impossible.

Then again, if she was right and Cole was wrong, what would the Navy say when they showed up with Parsona armed to the teeth? Calling this the prudent option was stretching it. Cole, of course, insisted the additions would be defensive in nature, but Molly knew how the Navy would see it.

Cole continued to debate entry points and jump offsets while Molly thought about the overall direction they were heading and how far they were from reaching their goal. What was their goal? To get home? Was home still Earth? Or was it becoming this ship?

“Cole.” She interrupted his argument for Darrin I, which was just as well since she wasn’t listening to a word of it, “How long ago did we leave Earth?”

Cole looked up to the ceiling as if the answer was on one of the readouts there. “Let’s see, how many 24-hour cycles did we spend between Palan and Glemot?”

“Four,” Molly offered.

“Okay. Fourteen days, total. Counting today. Oh, man. Really? Has it only been two weeks?”

“I was just thinking the same thing. And about our final destination. Beyond arming the ship and challenging the Navy to a fight, what’s our ultimate plan, here?”

“What? I don’t want to fight the Navy, I’m in the Navy. I just don’t trust whoever is screwing with us. And that’s my final destination. Standing in front of the person who toasted our simulator and watching their nose bleed.”

“So this is all about the Tchung simulation for you?”

“Yeah. What else is there? We’ve had some crazy stuff go down in the last two weeks, but it isn’t that strange when you consider we landed in a pirate zone the day of the rains with our Navy contact shut out, and then we jumped into a civil war on a planet nobody has ever returned from. In all likelihood, you and I have used up our Crazy Quota for the rest of our lives. Hey, we can’t go into every situation expecting to plan a prison break or to pick up another runaway.”

“Says the guy who thinks the Navy is after us.”

“Would you rather jump to Canopus, Menkar, and then Earth? You really think we’d get past Canopus?”

“I think I’m with you on feeling naked without any way to defend ourselves. And Edison’s toga is no good if we have to press some Gs.” Molly sighed. “Okay. Let’s hit Darrin, get some jump suits, add a few discrete defensive options, and then see about Canopus.”

“Excellent. Glad we agreed on this. Again.” Cole gave her a lopsided grin. “Now, are we settled on Darrin I over Darrin II?”

“Fine. But if they brag about how their ‘new houses are older than Darrin II’s old houses,’ I’m leaving.”

Cole laughed at his own Euro/American joke and started keying in the jump coordinates.

Molly couldn’t help herself, she began double-checking him, fighting the rise of nausea in her stomach ahead of the jump. Her intestinal tract could anticipate them just from her thinking about it. The simulators were great at inducing the nausea that was supposedly common to hyperflight, but after a few jumps in Parsona, Molly was starting to think the Navy had the volume too high. Her stomach hurt far more in training than it had during the flight to Palan or Glemot. In fact, she couldn’t remember getting sick when her father brought her to Earth from Lok. It seemed like one more thing the Navy thought best to overdo.

Still, as Cole punched in the arrival coordinates to the spooled-up hyperdrive, Molly could feel something gnawing at her. Maybe this time her stomach knew something she didn’t? Cole counted down out loud and placed his finger over the jump switch. Molly gazed through the porthole on her side in anticipation, expecting the familiar sight the Navy had gotten right: stars shifting a little in space.

Instead of this, however, Molly was treated to the jarring horror of all those pinpricks of light simply disappearing.

A Darkness took their place. Poised to strike.

25

“What the hell?” Cole asked.

Molly assumed he referred to the new void they’d entered, but she turned and found him fixated on the SADAR. She looked at her own screen—the normally black and green display was slathered in red warning lights. She’d never seen anything like it. She leaned forward and peered through the canopy—into the impossible blackness beyond. Where in the galaxy had they ended up? How could it be devoid of stars?

The emptiness had bits of detail: a fuzzy line of lighter gray, a jagged string of deepest black. It looked like a wall of charcoal shifting before her.

And then it hit the carboglass, right in front of her nose, with a jarring thunk.

Molly nearly flew out of her skin, yelping like a girl in a horror holo. She instinctively threw her right hand up to shield herself from the thing coming at them, her elbow catching in the grass sling. Cole shifted the flightstick back, moving the ship away from whatever it was.

They crunched into something behind them. A sickening thud and the screech of twisting metal tore through the hull, setting Molly’s nerves on fire. The familiar shiver of a bad docking maneuver overcame her, but this time it wasn’t a simulator. She glanced at the SADAR; red flashes filled the entire screen. Parsona crept forward again, toward the mysterious darkness that had left a mar on the carboglass.

Molly peered through her side porthole and caught a glimpse of a star—it was quickly obscured by something black, and then it flashed out again. When it disappeared once more, she realized where they were. Her chest filled with the dull terror that overtakes someone when they realize, only too late, what sort of danger they’d just avoided. It was the same feeling she’d had a week ago when the hyperdrive nearly zapped her arm off. Only this could have been worse. Much worse.

“Don’t move the ship, Cole.” She reached across with her left hand and rested it on his. “We’re in an asteroid field.”

“Bad noisse in the back!”

Molly turned to see Walter behind their seats, one hand on her headrest, the other pointing toward the rear of the ship. Edison was twisting around in his crew seat and looking forward, a quizzical furrow in his brow.

“Oh my gods—” Cole squinted through his own porthole, watching black shapes twist by, the occasional star poking through. “It’s dense!” he said.

Molly tasted adrenaline in her mouth. That they were alive wasn’t accessible to the part of her brain that knew they’d very nearly disappeared forever. She tried to plan the next move, but she was still admonishing herself for what a stupid thing they’d already done. She watched Cole zoom the SADAR all the way out, but it just turned the display solid red, unable to distinguish individual contacts. He shook his head. “We should totally not be here.”

“You’re right, we should be in the L3 off Darrin I.”

“No, I mean we shouldn’t be here here. In the cockpit. Talking about this. Existing. I’m looking at, say ten meters to the rock behind us and about twelve to the one that bumped the nose. There’s a biggie to my right and a cluster of junk on your side. WHOA!”

Molly flinched. “What?!”

“Man, something just moved across the edge of my range fast. Not all of these are just milling about. We need to get out of here, and quick-like.”

Walter hovered between and behind them, hissing at the bad news.

“Go strap in, buddy,” Cole advised.

He put his hand on Molly’s shoulder. She could feel the cold through her flightsuit.

“It’s okay, Walter, I need you to go buckle up. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

He nodded vigorously and backed away, his eyes fixed on the shapes beyond the glass.

“How’s your wrist feeling?” Cole asked.

“Better. Why? Do you want me to take this?”

“Either that, or we need to switch sides. I’m not comfortable over here at all.”

“I’ll take it, then. It’s been feeling better, I’m just getting in the habit of letting you drive. Do me a favor and call out distances if I get too close.”

“You’re too close right now.”

“Hilarious. Now . . . watch me get closer.” She pulled the sling over her helmet, the brown Glemot grasses stabbing her with memories. She dropped it in her lap and rubbed her wrist before gripping the flight controls. They felt strange and familiar at the same time; Molly nudged Parsona forward with the smallest of thrusts.

“Uh, you want to fill me in with your plan?” Cole pressed his helmet back into the chair, turning it away from the looming mass as it drew near.

“Making some room. How close are we?”

The nose of the ship banged softly into the meteor, answering her question. She gave a twitch of extra thrust to keep the hulk from bouncing away, a ship-to-ship docking trick that prevented multiple impacts.

“We’re pinned,” she said. “Increasing thrust, let’s hope there isn’t anything bigger on the other side.”

Ramping up the throttle, Molly pressed Parsona forward. She was a porpoise pushing a black ball through water. Out of balance, part of the meteor jutting toward the windshield got closer. Molly gave one more burst of thrust before pulling back. Plumes of forward thruster kicked up dust from the rock ahead, but there was no impact as the massive wall rotated and receded, clearing out the space beyond.

Like Cole had said, it was dense. Dangerous boulders and wannabe moonlets drifted lazily on every side, like primordial monsters grazing on vacuum. Molly held her breath, as if a noise could spook them and create a deadly stampede. A small, skittish lump of rock smashed into one of the larger ones, sending it twisting amid a cloud of quiet debris.

Molly flipped on every exterior floodlight and set the external cameras to cycle at one second intervals. She needed three more brains to process it all. Cole, at least, gave her another. “Incoming, starboard side,” he said.

Molly twisted the ship down and away, like a bullfighter sucking his cape into his side. It wasn’t a big one, she noted as it slid past, but it would’ve made a dent. “Any idea which way is out?”

“Not from the SADAR.” Cole whipped his head around, look-ing at each portal. “There!” he said. “I just saw a cluster of stars at ten o’clock.”

Molly turned to port a few degrees. She saw the flash of lights beyond the weaving shapes of black. She moved forward with as much trust as skill, feeling like any second could be the beginning of something bad.

“Should we have the boys on lookout?” she asked.

“Good idea. Walter, Edison,” he shouted over his shoulder, “get to some windows in the airlock or the staterooms, holler if anything gets too close!”

“Definition of ‘too close’?” Edison asked.

“Uh, fifty meters, pal.” To Molly: “Two o’clock.”

“I see it.” She flicked the flightstick around with ease. Her wrist was stiff, but it didn’t hurt as bad as it had just two days ago; she needed to remember to ask Edison what had been in that balm. She was starting to suspect it wasn’t just topical.

She dodged another small rock; it felt good to be flying again. Every now and then the moving shapes dictated a new “up,” and Molly rotated Parsona, providing width for the wings and readjusting her sense of top and bottom. After a few close calls she started to feel the thrill of being in the simulator, running down canyons in atmospheric flight, banking around sudden turns with a blue ribbon of water below. And Lucin thought those games were a waste of time.

“Is it thinning?” she asked.

“I can’t tell yet. I think we’re in a bit of a pocket here. Yeah, I can see the edge on SADAR now. Keep going this direction.”

More stars were visible, but the motion of the asteroids became more violent as they neared the periphery. A small chunk the size of one of their escape pods crashed into a monster in front of them, calving the latter in two and turning the former into dust.

“Damn.”

“As soon as I see nothing but stars, I’m making a run for it,” Molly said. “Some of these puppies are blazing out on the edge.”

Edison roared from the airlock. Molly saw it and dodged out of the way, pulling between two large, slow moving moonlets. They were coming together, about to pincer Parsona, when suddenly the path ahead looked mostly clear.

“I’m going for it,” she said, thrusting forward and out into clear space, free of immediate danger.

They both breathed a sigh of relief while Cole dialed out the SADAR, adding some range to the display. They could now make out the edge of the massive asteroid belt. The location indicator—a device that took the arrangement of the stars outside and compared them with known charts—beeped. It had reacquired their position.

“Where are we?” she asked. She was dying to know, desperate to determine what had happened with the hyperdrive. She hoped it wasn’t something the Glemots had reinstalled improperly.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Cole said.

Molly looked away from her flight path long enough to check for herself. They were right where they had intended to be. Just outside of Darrin I’s third Lagrange point. The problem: Darrin I was no longer where it was supposed to be.

“Flanking Drenards,” Cole said. “I think I know what we were just flying through.”

“Educate me.”

“That, back there—that was Darrin I.”

Molly glanced at the SADAR overlapped with her star charts and she saw what he was getting at. “Wait,” she said. “What are those?” She pointed to the large contacts ahead of them, well beyond the wall of dangerous rock they were leaving behind.