Stowaway Read online

  Dedication

  To Mom. Miss you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue: Chasing Ghosts

  1. Better Than Nothing

  2. The Ones Left Behind

  3. The Worst Pirate in the Universe

  4. The Turtle and the Exile

  5. An Uneven Exchange

  6. A Narrow Escape

  7. The Ache of Memory

  8. Lost and Found

  9. One Man’s Trash

  10. The Price You Pay

  11. The Battle at the Bridge

  12. A Unanimous Decision

  13. Captain Corea’s Mean Left Hook

  14. Behind Closed Doors

  15. Same Story, Different Side

  16. The Wail of the Queleti

  17. Promises

  Epilogue: Taking Sides

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by John David Anderson

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

  —Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1994

  Never judge a planet by its crust.

  —Aykarian proverb

  Chasing Ghosts

  THEY WERE PLAYING TAG WHEN THE FIRST TORPEDO HIT.

  In the narrow hallways of the crew quarters, the clomping of their standard-issue Coalition boots echoing down the corridors. Gareth chasing Leo, gaining, cornering him at a dead end, reaching out to make the tag.

  Only to find his hand pass right through his brother’s chest.

  Hologram. Again.

  “Cheater!”

  The holo flickered, the prerecorded video of a sprinting Leo finally timing out, the illusion dissolving into pixelated bits. Leo laughed, and Gareth turned to see his brother in the flesh, standing right behind him.

  A moment’s hesitation, muscles tensing, traded smiles. The one saying, You’ll pay for that. The other: You’ll have to catch me first. Then Leo turned and bolted back the way he came, Gareth launching himself in pursuit.

  Leo knew there was no way he could outrun his older brother; Gareth had been a middle school track star back on Earth, now a tall, wiry seventeen-year-old. It wasn’t a matter of winning for Leo. It was a matter of holding out as long as possible. A question of survival. They’d played this game a hundred times before.

  He turned a corner, headed toward the commissary, conscious of Gareth’s feet pounding on the steel grating. Louder. Closer. Maybe if he could make it to the door he could duck inside, find somewhere to hide, delay the inevitable.

  But he wasn’t fast enough. Gareth’s hand whipped out, grabbing Leo by the shoulder, not so much tagging him as lassoing him, pulling him to a stop.

  “Gotcha.”

  Leo spun around, hands on his knees, sucking in recycled air.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine,” Leo huffed. “Just . . . catching . . . my breath.”

  “You cheated again. I told you you aren’t allowed to use that thing.”

  That thing was Leo’s watch. A gift his parents had given him years ago. A hybrid of human and Aykari technology—like so many things nowadays—it could be used as a data viewer and a communicator. It kept track of his vitals (his heartbeat was currently 142 beats per minute). It could tell you where it parked your car. Almost incidentally, it told time.

  But the watch’s most advanced feature was its miniaturized holographic generator, capable of creating three-dimensional projections of prerecorded vids. Like the one of Leo running, recorded with the express purpose of fooling his brother in games of tag or hide-and-go-seek. The projections looked real enough until you got up close and could start to make out the digital imperfections. Their parents had given Gareth the same watch, but he’d lost his long ago, left somewhere in the house they grew up in. On the planet they’d left behind.

  “Dad says technology is the tool that allows us to overcome our limitations and sets us free,” Leo reminded his brother.

  “Except you’re not free. I still caught you.”

  “Because your legs are twice as long as mine.”

  An exaggeration. At one time it might have been true, but a couple of growth spurts since they’d come on board and Leo was no longer the scrawny runt whose head fit underneath Gareth’s armpit. Not so easy to boss around, though Gareth could still wrestle him to the ground and rip the watch from his wrist if he wanted. Not that he would. Leo knew Gareth would never hurt him; he just wanted to give Leo a hard time. That’s what big brothers were for. . . . That and pretty much everything else. Especially out here, on this ship, where Gareth was the only real friend he had.

  Besides, as long as they played nice, their father wouldn’t interrupt to badger them about their studies. As important as it was to Calvin Fender that his two sons learn how to balance chemical equations or calculate the masses of nearby stars, it was more important that they got along. And chasing each other around the Beagle was always preferable to reading a chapter of galactic history.

  Leo’s breathing finally evened out. He brushed the brown mop out of his eyes, his bangs hanging like curtains, in sore need of a trim. The Beagle didn’t have a barbershop, just Leo’s father, whose DIY haircuts often resulted in disaster. Cosmetology was one of the few things his father wasn’t good at.

  “You have to give me at least a ten-second head start,” Leo said. “And you have to count loud so I know when you go.”

  “Fine. Ten seconds. But seriously, no more cheating. If I catch you—”

  “You won’t,” Leo shot back with mock confidence.

  “Right.”

  Leo coiled, ready to sprint down the corridor as soon as his brother started counting. But Gareth never even made it to one.

  The explosion nearly threw them off their feet as the Beagle lurched sideways. The steel beams shuddered. Leo’s ears rang. The lights blinked off, on, then off again, triggering the fluorescent yellow emergency lighting that ran along the floor. Leo put a hand on the wall to steady himself. His brother’s eyes shone like moons. “What was that?”

  The question was answered with a second explosion, the ship quaking again. Every alarm screamed at once. Leo stumbled, falling into his brother’s ready arms. From down the corridor he could hear the crew of the Beagle shouting to one another, though it was impossible to make out what they were saying. It was impossible to hear anything over the ship’s wounded bleating until the captain’s voice echoed over the coms.

  “Attention crew of the Beagle. We are under attack. Security personnel report to the bridge immediately. Engineering to the drive chamber.”

  Leo looked up at his brother, still holding him tight. “Did she just say we’re under attack?”

  Gareth nodded, then looked sideways, startled by the sound of boot heels clomping down the hall.

  Leo knew the sound. He’d learned to recognize the rhythm of his father’s footfalls. Like the sound of his brother’s snoring or his mother’s pensive sighs. Leo spied his father turning the corner, his eyes falling on him and Gareth, pressed together. Dr. Calvin Fender’s face softened, then hardened again. He spoke in a whirlwind. “What are you two doing out here? Didn’t you hear what Captain Saito said? You need to hide. Hurry!”

  Their father pointed to the nearest door, leading to an empty bunk room barely half the size of the one the Fenders shared. He hustled Gareth and Leo into a corner, his whi
te lab coat flapping on both sides like broken wings. Leo could tell he was scared—he could see it in his father’s eyes, even if he couldn’t hear it in his voice.

  His father was seldom scared.

  Dr. Fender tipped over a metal desk, making a barrier, concealing the boys from anyone passing by the door. “Stay right here. Do not move. Understand?”

  “What’s going on?” Leo asked. “Are we really under attack? Is it pirates?”

  “Worse,” their father said.

  Worse than pirates? The Djarik, Leo thought. And from the look on Gareth’s face, he knew it too.

  “They’ve knocked out our engines and navigation systems,” Dr. Fender continued. “Communications too. I believe they intend to board us.”

  “You mean they’re coming on the ship?” Leo felt his chest tighten, a coil wrapping tight, working its way up to his throat. He wheezed in a painful breath.

  “Dad, I think he’s about to have an attack,” Gareth said.

  Dr. Fender bent over, patting down Leo’s pockets. Leo reached for it as well, finding what he needed, fumbling with the cap of his inhaler, squeezing the trigger and hearing the familiar hiss of medicine, the cool sensation as it snaked its way into his lungs, loosening the noose. Leo took a shuddering breath.

  “You’re okay,” his father whispered, hands on Leo’s shoulders. “It’s okay. Just breathe. I’m right here. We’re both right here.” Leo closed his eyes and took in his father’s voice, the hint of coffee on his father’s breath, the feel of his father’s hands. And for a moment, he was somewhere safe. He imagined himself back at home. Home home.

  Until another, smaller blast caused the ship to shiver again, bringing Leo back. In the corridor, even the emergency lights started to flicker. The Beagle was wounded, limping, its engines disabled. The Djarik were preparing to board.

  Dr. Fender leveled a finger at his sons. “Whatever happens, you two stay here, understand? Gareth, you’re in charge. You keep your brother safe. I will be back as soon as I can.”

  Gareth nodded, but Leo reached out for his father’s coat. “Wait—where are you going?”

  “To engineering. To see if I can do something to help with the navigation system. Hopefully the security team can hold off the Djarik long enough for us to break free and make a jump. Stay here. Keep yourselves hidden.” Dr. Fender gathered his sons in an embrace that lasted all of ten hammering heartbeats.

  “I love you both. More than anything.”

  And then he was up and out the door, letting it whisper closed behind him, leaving Leo and Gareth huddled together, trembling in the dark.

  “Gareth?”

  “It’s okay, Leo. I’m here. And Dad will come back. He’s going to get us out of this.”

  Leo felt his brother’s hand smoothing his hair, working his way from front to back. It was something he remembered their mother doing whenever they got sick, running her forked fingers through their sweaty bangs, softly blowing on their foreheads to cool them. Her breath always smelled like mint from the gum she chewed. Everything’s all right, she would say. Everything’s going to be just fine. He always believed her.

  But Leo knew it wasn’t always true. Of all the things that could happen—of all the things that had happened—this was as bad as it could get. The Djarik were sworn enemies of the Coalition, a plague on the universe. Brutal and bloodthirsty, with little care for humanity—or any species other than their own. They had no qualms attacking an unarmed ship, stripping it of its fuel and leaving it to drift, its crew to suffer and starve. Leo had heard all the stories, but he didn’t need them to know what the Djarik were capable of. He’d seen it firsthand.

  Leo tried to take deep breaths, but they still hitched and sputtered. “What will they do . . . if they find us?”

  “They won’t find us,” Gareth whispered.

  “What will they do if they find Dad?”

  Gareth didn’t answer at first. Their father was one of the highest-ranking science officers in the Coalition. That alone made him valuable. “Dad’s smart,” Gareth said at last, understating it by a mile. “He’ll think of something.”

  A final explosion drew a whimper from Leo as the alarms abruptly shut off, making it easier to hear the muffled chaos from the other side of the door. Shouting. Gun blasts. The Beagle’s limited security forces making their stand against the Djarik boarding party.

  It didn’t last long.

  Leo pressed even closer to his brother as the sounds of battle gave way to silence. The room was bathed in an eerie yellow glow that made the shadows loom large against the wall. He wanted to call out for their father. Why couldn’t he have just stayed with them? Why did he have to leave them here, alone? Leo knew the answer, of course: Calvin Fender would do everything he could to save the ship. The crew. As many as possible.

  The silence was interrupted by voices from beyond the closed door. They weren’t ones Leo recognized. They certainly weren’t human.

  “Gareth? What’s happening?”

  His brother clamped a hand over Leo’s mouth, but a moment too late.

  The door slid open softly and Leo nearly jumped, giving them away, but Gareth held him, both arms knotted around his chest. Leo peeked through a slit in the metal desk that provided their only cover and barely choked down his scream.

  It was one of them.

  He had seen them before—in pictures, vids, but never so close. Close enough to see the skin of diamond-shaped scales stitched together, hard as a sapphire but ashen gray in color. The ridge of spikes running along the jawline, mirroring the rows of serrated white teeth inside. The gill-like slits along their necks, rippling with each breath. Scalies. Lizzies. Gray devils—the nicknames given to them by humans to degrade or diminish them, to make them seem less scary than they were.

  It didn’t work.

  The Djarik’s giant, lidless black eyes swept the room. Like a spider’s eyes, a glossy black mirror that gave away nothing, showed no sign of pity or fear. The soldier’s spindly arms held its rifle at the ready. It was said that the Djarik were somewhat humanoid in shape, with their straight spines and short necks, their splayed, unwebbed fingers, their prominent skulls, but to Leo they looked as far from human as possible.

  The creature raised its chin, giving a sniff through two thin slits. Its eyes came to rest on the desk and on the two boys cowering behind it. It made a sound, a clicking from somewhere behind its pointed teeth. A warning. A call to others. Or maybe just some note of satisfaction at having discovered such easy prey.

  Tag, you’re it.

  Leo wondered if they should make a run for it. Try to squeeze past the Djarik marauder, slip into the corridor, make their way to engineering. To Dad. But his limbs were stiff with fear. The Djarik’s rifle swept across the room, those black, unblinking eyes reflecting everything in miniature. Leo thought of his mother and a hot anger surged inside him.

  The alien’s head whipped sideways, the sound of more gunfire from farther down the corridor catching its attention. With another click of its tongue, it slipped back through the entry, leaving the door open, the brothers still bunkered behind the desk.

  Leo felt his brother’s breath on the back of his neck, the one Gareth had been holding. “Okay,” Gareth whispered. “It’s okay. He’s gone.”

  But he wasn’t. He was out there somewhere. They were inside the ship. There was no safe place. No matter what Leo’s father said.

  The brothers huddled in their shadowy corner for five minutes, ten, thirty, their legs cramped, afraid to stand up to even activate the switch on the door, feeling the cold sweat stain their uniforms, twitching at every sound. Until, at last, they heard their names being called.

  “Gareth? Leo?”

  This voice was familiar, though it wasn’t the one Leo had been hoping for. “We’re in here,” Gareth shouted.

  Leo pulled himself to his feet just as Captain Saito appeared in the doorway. She looked different from when he’d seen her earlier that day: her normally t
ightly buttoned uniform hung loose on her shoulders, one of which supported a makeshift sling for her arm, a spot of crimson soaking through.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  Leo shook his head. “The Djarik? Are they . . .”

  “Gone,” she finished. “They took what they wanted and left.”

  What they wanted. No doubt in Leo’s mind what that could be. Ventasium. More fuel for their fleets. The Beagle wasn’t a military ship. It was a scientific research vessel. They didn’t have any weaponry aside from what their small security force carried. Captain Saito was the most valuable officer on the ship. The only other passenger who was even a ranking member of the Coalition was . . .

  Leo saw the look in the captain’s eyes and felt a chasm instantly open inside him, a black hole forming at his center. He knew without even asking, knew by the twist in his gut, the tightness in his chest.

  Captain Saito didn’t look away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to steady her voice. “We tried to stop them. We did. But it was no use.”

  Leo reached out for something to hold on to and found his brother’s hand as his whole world crumbled.

  Again.

  Day after day, day after day,

  We stuck, ne breath ne motion;

  As idle as a painted Ship

  Upon a painted Ocean.

  —Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere,” 1798

  Better Than Nothing

  THE FIRST TIME LEO SAW AN AYKARIAN SPACESHIP up close he peed his pants. Just a little.

  It wasn’t his fault. He’d warned his parents he needed to go. They’d been driving for two hours already, headed to the California coast—at least one of the stretches that the steadily rising oceans hadn’t reclaimed—when the soda cans in the cup holders started to rattle, a low growl creeping up behind them. Leo and his brother looked through the windshield, and that’s when they saw it rumbling up behind them: an Aykari transport, gleaming silver, its hull glinting against the light of Earth’s modest sun. Bigger than a football stadium, its belly bristled with gun emplacements—even their transports were well armed. It soared directly over their heads, its sleek, sharklike shape casting a giant shadow along the road as it passed, its neon-blue engines too bright to look at for long.