The spacecraft Laika Academy had were advanced, far beyond what any Earth government had built. Jade never got to meet the people in charge that Fields alluded to. She wondered if they were all human.
The simulations didn’t prepare Jade for how rough takeoff would be, but she got the team out of Earth’s atmosphere in one piece. The pitch-black sky above the academy’s remote hangar was quickly broken by the sun appearing on the horizon while Earth shrank beneath them. Gravity lessened. The takeoff engine—red engine—disconnected from the ship and drifted away.
Jade took a moment to catch her breath, to recover from the rough escape, to slide off her helmet. Her fingers drifted to her seat belt.
Click.
She floated out of her seat, grabbed the back of the chair, and turned herself around. “Welcome to space.”
The others undid their seat belts. Thea pushed herself toward the cockpit to gaze out the front window. “Whoa,” she breathed.
Dax drifted to her side, and Holly to his.
“Huh,” Dax said. “All of Earth—all the geography and history we’ve ever learned—it’s all right there.”
“All of our problems are on that tiny rock,” Thea added with a solemn nod.
Not all of Jade’s problems. She shared a brief look with Holly, and a sense of understanding passed between them.
The radio in front of the pilot’s seat crackled. “This is Laika to Tracker 1. Come in. Our monitors say you’re stationary.”
Jade grabbed the console and pressed a black button. “This is Tracker 1. We’re outside Earth’s atmosphere. Takeoff was successful.”
“Activate the blue engine and proceed toward the target.”
“Will do.” Jade slid back into her seat. “Seat belts back on, everyone. At least until we’re stable.”
The others tore their gazes from Earth and returned to the back of the ship. Jade settled in. Helmet on. Seat belt on. She oriented the ship in the right direction. Monitors beeped. Numbers flashed on screens.
“Activating blue engine,” Jade announced.
With the press of a few buttons and the flip of a switch, the team’s journey began.
Over a month passed of eating weird food, performing periodic equipment calibrations and assessments, exercising in their limited space, reading the material Laika had given them, and sending updates back and forth. In the spare time they had between Laika’s assignments and requirements, they talked. Shared theories about what the anomaly was.
And little by little, pieces of their lives slipped out. Dax had a little sister and loved taking pottery classes at school, despite not being very good at it. Thea had her school’s record for typing speed and wanted a pet dog once she had a place of her own. Jade even found herself sharing stories from her time in elementary school, though she dodged any mention of her life after.
Holly—well, Holly remained a locked box, for the most part.
Jade was shaken from sleep one—well, there wasn’t exactly night and day in the void of space. But her clock told her it was roughly three a.m. in New York when Holly woke her.
“Engines have started the auto shut off procedure,” Holly said.
“We must be close.” Jade rubbed her eyes.
“Uh, yeah. Come look out the window.”
Jade hurried to the cockpit, where the others already waited, wide eyed. Outside, it looked as if the fabric of space itself had been ripped apart. The hole left behind glowed with shifting, iridescent light.
It was unsettling.
Jade recovered her train of thought and called Laika. “Tracker 1 to Laika. We’ve reached the anomaly.” Maybe it was a space warp, a naturally occurring one. Did those even exist? And if so…where did it lead?
As the ship had moved farther from Earth, it took longer and longer for Laika to respond to messages. The academy may have been swimming in advanced spacecraft tech, but they lacked the warp networks that allowed instantaneous communication in other parts of the galaxy. Now, it took a few minutes for ground control to answer.
Finally, the response came. “Message received. Begin investigative procedures.”
Holly pulled her spacesuit from the locker and put it on. Thea and Dax helped her hook up to the cord that would tether her to the ship. Meanwhile, Jade ran another engine analysis. And threw frequent glances at the anomaly.
“I’m ready to go,” Holly announced.
“You’ve got all your equipment?” Jade asked.
“Duh.” Holly held up the bulky computer box Laika had given her. The screen indicated it was powering on. It would transmit readings and photos to Laika as they were recorded.
“Great. Have fun.”
Jade, Thea, and Dax watched through the front window. Jade turned on the camera at the front of the craft to take footage of Holly for Laika.
A number on one of the screens in front of Jade changed, catching her eye. She frowned and watched it change again. “Hey, Holly, are you picking up any gravity readings?”
“No.” Holly’s voice mixed with crackling interference. “I don’t think this thing even has mass—wait. I do feel like I’m being pulled toward it.”
“Ship’s moving,” Jade said. They should have been holding still. She tried to keep panic out of her voice. “We should pull her back in. Now.” The numbers changed faster. “I want to back away from this thing.”
Thea and Dax rushed to the airlock at the back of the ship. Jade sat down and started the engines. Minutes passed in what felt like mere heartbeats. She sent a brief update to Laika.
Jade glanced back and frowned. “Why are you guys putting on spacesuits?”
“Whatever force is pulling on her, it’s stronger than us,” Thea said. “The cord won’t budge. We’re taking the backup thruster packs.”
“Okay.” Jade swallowed. “Be careful. I’m moving us as fast as I can.”
Thea and Dax appeared in the front windshield a minute later, attached to their own cords. They each grabbed one of Holly’s arms and activated the thrusters on their packs. If they were moving away from the anomaly, it was too slowly for Jade to tell.
“Tracker 1, this is Laika,” a voice said over the radio. “Pull back if necessary, but stay as close to the anomaly as possible for accurate readings. Make sure Farr keeps the box on at all times.”
Holly, Dax and Thea were silhouettes against the bright light. Jade stared at the nearing tear in space until the engines finally came online. She turned the ship—cutting off her view of the team—and increased power. Their movement toward the anomaly slowed, but the pull was still strong.
“Jade,” Holly said over the radio. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” Jade pushed the ship to full power. “It seems like the force is increasing. I’ve got the engines at their max.”
“There has to be something else we can do!”
“Thea?” Dax tried.
“I’m working through the ship,” Thea said. “I don’t think there’s anything my power can—” her voice cut out.
“Thea?” Jade frantically fiddled with the radio dials. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”
There was one last one shot at gaining enough power to escape the anomaly. But it was also the only way home: the green engine. Without it, they might make it back, but it would take…months? Years? Would the regular fuel supply last that long? The food certainly wouldn’t. Jade rubbed her forehead. Laika could intercept them with another spacecraft, right? Send more supplies?
“Tracker 1 to Laika. We can’t escape whatever force the anomaly has. I’m activating the green engine. It’s our only hope.” No time to wait for a response. Jade started up the green engine.
The ship’s backward speed gradually increased. Jade’s fingers tapped impatiently against the dashboard as she waited for the green engine to finish prepping. The radio crackled a few times, but none of the team’s voices came through. Probably interference from the anomaly. Jade wondered if the box was still sending signals to Earth.
She couldn’t see the others, but they had to be nearly to the anomaly now. Or touching it. Or—
An alert signaled that the green engine was ready. Jade slammed buttons and flipped the activation switch so hard it snapped off. Warning lights flashed on the dashboard. Jade only understood half of them. From what she could gather, they were too close to the anomaly for anything to function.
Except the engine.
Slowly but surely, the ship’s backward momentum slowed. Stopped. Reversed. Jade’s hands tightened and loosened around the steering wheel with every shaky breath she took. She eyed the radio call button. She reached for it, pulled away, reached for it, pulled away—
The radio came on. “Tracker 1, this is Laika. Give us your status.”
With a trembling hand, Jade undid her seatbelt. She had to go to the back window. She had to see if the others made it.
She floated to the back of the ship and pressed her hands to the window. The cabin lights flickered. The anomaly glowed menacingly in the distance. Jade swore it was brighter than before.
The team’s cords had been severed.
It took a few minutes for Jade to overcome her paralysis, to swallow her nausea and return to the cockpit. She fumbled with the buttons for a few minutes more until she found the right one. “Tracker 1. This is Armstrong. The others were pulled into the anomaly. Green engine’s gone. How should I proceed?”
Minutes passed without response. Too many minutes. Jade tried another message. “Should I start heading for Earth with the remainder of my fuel? Or wait? Can you send something to intercept me?”
They had the technology. Dozens of ships and probes ready for launch.
The response that eventually came wasn’t promising. “Tracker 1, thank you for your work. The readings from the box before it entered the warp are coming in.”
Shouldn’t the green engine have lasted longer? Was the anomaly really that strong? Jade checked the fuel levels while she waited for a follow-up. She checked the records from the blue engine. No, no, the numbers were way off.
“Laika, I think there was an issue with the green engine. Fuel levels should have been higher.” Five times higher, at least.
“Thank you, Tracker 1.” It was a voice Jade recognized this time: Commander Fields.
Jade’s hand hovered over the button. Choking, she pressed it. “We were the dog.”
Minutes passed. “I’m sorry, Tracker 1, could you repeat that?”
“No more Tracker 1,” Jade said. “It’s just me. We were the dog. You didn’t give us enough fuel.”
Fields’s next reply came after excruciating silence. “You might have made it. But giving you any more fuel would have made it impossible to get you there in the timeframe we wanted,” she admitted. “In fact, without the others, you still have a chance. Bring the ship back and we can discuss options as you get closer.”
There was a chance. A chance to get back to Earth.
There was also a spacecraft warp station to Kronos hidden somewhere in the asteroid belt.
“Fields, full offense intended, but I’ve got a destination of my own in mind.” Jade began setting her course.
“Armstrong, if you aren’t going to attempt a return to Earth, please leave Tracker 1 in its current location so that we can retrieve it in the future.”
“Well, I would have preferred not to be sent on a one-way mission without my knowledge or permission, but life just doesn’t work out sometimes, does it?” Jade examined the barely functioning radar screen, ready to head for anything that looked suspiciously un-asteroid-like. “Listen, Fields, I have a long list of asses to kick. You better hope I don’t get around to your name. I’m muting this thing now, so don’t bother replying. Over and out.”
It took hours to reach her destination. Every passing minute heightened Jade’s anxiety. She may have very well thrown away a slim chance at survival for an even slimmer one.
But, for better or worse, she found her way to the warp station.
Jade wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but a massive metal ring floating in space wasn’t it. No building, no structure—she’d envisioned some sort of spaceship parking structure, maybe, with a tiny booth and an alien attendant who’d charge her ten bucks to enter.
She approached slowly. Was she supposed to just fly through the ring? Was anyone going to—?
The radio crackled. “Hello? Hello?” a high-pitched voice asked.
Jade leaned forward. “Hello?”
“Identify yourself.”
“Uh, this is Tracker 1.”
“What is your purpose?”
“I’m—trying to get to Kronos?” Jade tried. “I was a part of an investigative mission. I’m my team’s only survivor.”
“Okay. Enter the warp.”
That was it?
“Be sure to have your paperwork ready when you reach your port,” the voice added.
Screw ports. There had to be somewhere relatively flat where Jade could land, right? “Thanks,” she replied. She eased forward.
She was about halfway through the ring and still nothing had happened. She was ready to get back on the radio with whoever was watching when a flash of light blinded her. The entire world went white. Jade felt ripped from her body. No, ripped from reality. She was suspended in a dream.
Then, she was back in her seat.
The city lights of Kronos glittered below, interrupted in patches by dark seas. The entire ship shuddered. Clearly, the warp had exerted a little more force than the poor thing could handle.
Oh, and the fuel was gone.
Jade climbed out of her seat and stumbled to the storage locker, unused to the gravity that came with being in the sky over Kronos. The ship drifted through the air for a moment before gliding turned to falling.
One last spacesuit waited in the storage locker. Jade pulled it on and grabbed a thruster pack. She slid on her pilot’s helmet before making her way to the rear door.
The sight of Thea’s handheld computer lying on the ground made her pause. She picked it up, popped out Mia’s chip, and slid it into an inner pocket that she hoped would protect it.
The airlock door crawled open, inch by painstaking inch. Wind whipped by, carrying the scent of the ocean and a warning that Jade wasn’t far from smacking into water that may as well have been concrete. She dropped to her stomach and crawled to the edge. As soon as the door was high enough, she pushed herself out.
Thrusters activated, jerking Jade from a free fall to a somewhat controlled descent. They weren’t meant to be used like this, and it was doubtful the pack would last long, especially with the added pressure of Kronos’s atmosphere. She turned the thrusters back off.
The ship hit the water below. Freezing spray came high enough to make Jade yelp. Thrusters back on. Up a few feet. Off. Drop again.
She turned them back on one last time, and when she was only a few feet above the water, she turned them off for good.
The swim to shore was a breeze compared to that night after Naomi—
Jade shook the thought off as she pulled herself onto the docks. She tossed the thruster pack into the sea, along with her helmet. Then, ignoring strange looks from onlookers, she set off into the city.
Alone again.