“Just three crew?” He injected as much doubt into his voice as possible, making the innocuous seem ludicrous. Earnie had warned Molly it would go like this, every question meant to make bad people lie over stupid stuff, trapping them in a corner they weren’t prepared to fib their way out of.

Cole wasn’t fazed. “Just?” he asked. “We left Earth with two and picked up a deck hand in New Caledonia. Hell, either of us could do this run by ourselves, but you know how insurance companies are these days.”

The mustached man looked up and smiled knowingly. Molly wondered if anyone was immune to Cole’s charm. Besides Walter, of course.

“What’s in the cargo holds?”

Cole loaded his voice with disgust. “Not enough, that’s what. Some computer parts, mostly. Our major trade was outbound. We’re bringing back credits for the company and some software updates. Which means not much of a bonus for the crew.”

Mustache used one of the documents to gesture toward Walter. “And you picked up the Palan on Farar?”

Walter looked up at this. Molly hoped he wouldn’t hiss a sound.

“That’s right,” said Cole. “He was getting off another ship. It’s all in there, the captain’s name and what-not. I never met the guy. I’m sure he ditched the kid for slacking, but we’ve been working him hard, no problems. Isn’t that right, Rudy?”

Walter didn’t move. He’d already forgotten his new name.

Cole turned to look at him. “Isn’t that right?” he asked again.

Walter sat there for a second. Molly thought she could hear his brain whirling into motion.

“That’ss right,” he finally said.

Cole looked back at the inspectors and pointed to one of his own ears. “A little hard of hearing. Probably spent a lot of time in loud engine rooms growing up. You know, degreasing anything the color of his mama’s face.”

The three humans laughed at the alien’s expense. Molly tried her best to join in.

The two Navy men stared at the three young crew members, one after the other. Molly expected them to start poking around, do a full systems scan, check their retinas against the Navy computers. The galaxy had given her a three-week course in cruelty. She tensed for the next lesson.

“Well. Everything here seems to be in order. You enjoy your jump to Menkar. It’ll be outbound lane three and you’ll probably have a half-hour wait.” They each tipped nonexistent hats toward Molly, who waved back in mock-salute. She had to force her arm to do it lazily, years of habit threatening to give her away with a militarily-precise snap of her wrist.

She gave them their helmets back and the airlock shuffled the duo through with a sigh.

Cole turned to Molly. “Well, now. That was easy.”

She gave him a stern look while unspent adrenaline worked its way through her body. She felt nauseous, on the verge of throwing up.

Walter had already gone back to his video game.

••••

The jump out and into Menkar went just as easily. Molly’s nervousness shifted to a dull realization: this was commercial space travel. In a trade of instantaneous movement from point A to point B, it was the inspections and the loading/unloading that ship crews got paid for. The long hours of moving by thruster remained a Navy-only affair as they searched for the unscrupulous jumpers that sneaked into busy systems. Legal trade coursed along known paths between peaceful worlds, shuttling goods and bodies back and forth along queues of ennui.

After a few weeks of nonstop excitement, Molly couldn’t tell if she’d enjoy that life or not.

She pulled forward in the outbound lane at Menkar. They’d passed another round of inspections; the next jump led to Earth’s orbit. While they waited, she examined how differently this trip had gone compared to the one she’d expected. They should be flying back aboard the Parsona. With a chaperone. Instead, their chaperone was dead and in his place they had an illegal alien who had nearly gotten them killed. The craft they would arrive in belonged to an arms dealer, while her father’s ship, not even flight-worthy at the moment, underwent extensive repairs by a sworn enemy and the last of a mysterious race.

Molly thought back to that conversation with Lucin under the pink blossoms of the cherry tree. Back then, she’d concocted a fairy tale out of this trip’s potential. So far, it had all gone the opposite direction.

With uncanny timing, Cole reached over and rubbed her forearm as she brought Lady Liberty into Menkar’s L1. The gravity sensors went to zero, the Orbital Station ahead cancelling out the mass of ships behind. She interlocked her fingers with Cole’s and smiled at him. At least one part of her fantasy had come true.

Cole engaged the hyperdrive, and the sprinkle of stars disappeared, replaced with the familiar sight of Earth. Molly felt a pang of regret. Part of her wished she could finish school at Avalon and maybe find work with her father’s old ship. She hadn’t even ruled out the option of selling it and starting a terrestrial business. The dream of reconnecting with her parents had been another massive failure—all she’d found was danger and betrayal. Part of her wondered if digging into her past any further would be a bad idea, just piling up the disappointments.

Fortunately, these doubts comprised a very small part of her. Too much else had changed for her to regress and pine for a lost childhood. She’d become a woman, somehow. She had responsibilities and others to think about—an entire crew of lost youth that relied on her, one of whom she was madly in love with.

Thrusting toward Earth, Molly felt an odd trepidation. Instead of feeling ecstatic to arrive home, she saw the ball of swirling blue and white as just another trap. A gravity well she could fall into and not be able to escape. She glanced at Cole and wondered what he thought about this mission of theirs, if the answers could possibly prove worth the risks. Or . . . would they have been wiser to run and just keep running?

••••

They cleared into a private space pad in New Mexico, just a few hours from the Academy. Molly had one more talk with Walter, making it as clear as possible that he wasn’t to touch anything while they were gone. Anything.

“Yesss,” he said over and over. Molly told him to just keep playing that video game of his. Not to stop, even if he got thirsty.

Walter seemed to like this plan a lot. She closed the cockpit door and locked it, just in case.

Cole pounded up the boarding ladder and into the cargo bay. “I’ve got a rental waiting for us with a full charge. We should get going.”

Molly agreed. They both changed into clothes that Earnie had procured for them. Molly wore plain canvas pants and a loose white top probably meant for boys. Cole had on similar pants, but baggy with large pockets, and a tight T-shirt. They both appeared to be wearing their siblings’ clothes, rather than their own.

Molly gathered her things together. Her assignment on this mission couldn’t be simpler or more rewarding: ask questions and demand answers. The only weapon she needed was the small recording device to transfer everything back to Cole.

Cole’s job was to talk their way in. And, if things went sour, fight their way back out. Molly watched him dig something out of Lady Liberty’s smuggling compartment that she hoped would not be needed, even if his secondary task became their primary concern. She’d tried everything to talk him out of purchasing it, but Cole’s paranoia made compromise impossible.

••••

As they drove down the interstate, they went over the plan for the umpteenth time. Cole spent most of the time talking while Molly craned her neck at the scenery speeding past.

Her own planet looked alien.

Glemot green lined the steel highway, fading to dry earth that could use a Palan rain. An incredibly blue sky hung overhead. The sun and the air were crisp and strange after so much time spent inside one ship or another. Molly’s fears about returning to Earth transformed into a dread of leaving. Her thoughts drifted to Edison and Anlyn and how impossibly far away they were. It required three hyperjumps just to get back to them. They weren’t even in this arm of the Milky Way.

The distance made Molly sick. When they formed this plan at Earnie’s, each event was as near as the next word uttered—as close as points on a paper chart. The unfathomable distance that would divide her crew couldn’t be appreciated while they huddled together in Parsona’s cargo bay.

Molly felt an enormous doubt envelop her, followed by a certainty: she would never see her friends again.

“Right?” Cole asked her.

“Yeah. Of course,” she responded.

Cole glanced over from the driver’s seat. “Were you even listening?”

She couldn’t lie to him. “Actually, I was thinking about Edison and Anlyn. How we just left them at Earnie’s and whether we’ll ever see them again.”

He didn’t respond at first, just peered forward while the road slid under the rental. “We will. In a few days, max. We just need to find out if anyone outside of the Academy cares where we are. We’ll never be free until we know.”

“How’d we get like this? I mean, with you devising a plan that takes us to the Navy and me wishing we could just fly away?”

“I think we both went from curious to angry, and you and I react oppositely to each. Now stop dwelling on our friends, we’ll see them soon enough.” He looked at her. “I promise you.”

She really wanted to believe him.

34

Geting into the Academy contained as many risks as jumping through to Earth. They had to rely on the guard at the gate not recognizing Cole as he filled out a visitor’s pass. It wasn’t as if they were ever passing through here while they were cadets, but they couldn’t know how guards rotated out with the rest of campus security.

Cole used one of the underclassmen he knew as an excuse, pretended to be his older brother. The credentials they purchased from Earnie had last names that matched, and Cole turned on his charm. After a few minutes with a clipboard, a new pass was programmed and their rental was waved through.

He handed Molly the visitor’s pass and she tucked it under her seat. It wouldn’t open the one set of doors she needed to get into—but Cole’s badge would. She checked that she had it in her front pocket and adjusted the recording device under her collar.

They circled the parking lot several times to find a suitable parking space. Cole backed the rental up so his window faced the Academy. They both peered at the wall that housed the administrative offices. and Cole’s finger jabbed out as he counted the windows from right to left.

“That’s Saunders’s office,” he said, pointing. “The one with the lights off.”

Molly leaned forward to look through his window, but she didn’t need to know which office belonged to the Captain. She just wanted him to be there when she came calling. “How long before the cadets are in the simulators?” she asked.

Cole already had the small heat scope up to one eye, scanning through the windows for signs of life. He pulled it away and looked down at his watch. “Another half hour. Hopefully Saunders is back by then.”

“If not, I wouldn’t mind talking to Lucin first. Once we clear him, we could probably use his help in confronting Saunders.”

Cole turned and frowned at her. “You need to keep in mind how badly Lucin is gonna take this, even if he is innocent. Dropping out of Avalon and taking to the stars is not going to be a fun conversation to have with the old man. And if he isn’t involved, he’s gonna want the authorities so wrapped up in it that your fear of never seeing our friends will become a reality—”

“Okay. Gods, I get it. This isn’t going to be easy no matter what we find out.”

“Darn right it’s not.” Cole squinted back through the scope while Molly watched the clock. Once again, she appreciated the Navy’s precision. Right then, for the brief respite it offered.

••••

At 1430, Saunders’s lights still had not come on. Molly looked to Cole for permission to move and he nodded. They both got out of the car, Molly heading for a side entrance and Cole stepping back to the trunk. They both had serious military faces sticking up out of their civilian disguises.

Molly strolled swiftly to the administrative entrance by the corner of the building. She felt exposed in front of all those windows, but anyone who might recognize her would soon get a personal visit, anyway. She felt better concealed as she sank into the pocket by the door, visible now only to the security gate across the lawn.

With the first pass of Cole’s badge, Molly watched the red light blink off—and then back to red. Her heart skipped a beat. She waved it again and it had the same effect. She looked around at the empty lawn and parking lot, sure that someone would be watching her and growing suspicious.

After the third pass, the light went green. A pleasant beep rang out followed by a mechanical click as the internal lock released. Molly blew out her held breath and pressed the door open, entering air-conditioned halls with checkerboard floors that smelled of industrial cleansers. The familiarity of the scene rocked her. She approached Saunders’s office, compelled to reach out and rub her fingers along the walls, greeting, if not a friend, at least an old acquaintance.

The Captain’s lights had been off as she rounded the building, but her anger drove her there first. She hoped Cole was already in position as she banged on the thick oak.

Nothing.

She waited a few moments in frustration, her body eager to wash away its memories of their last confrontation. She couldn’t wait to be the one performing the dressing-down.

The silent door denied her that satisfaction and the worn bench mocked her. She gave up and walked down the hall toward Lucin, trying to push aside the adrenaline coursing through her from just being near Saunders’s office. She worked to replace her anger with the hope of seeing an old friend.