“Except Sedaya is a creepy asshole who wanted to marry an eight-year-old girl, and when he didn’t get his way, he stole her planet and chased her away.”

  “It seems to me that’s just the way politics work here. We need to go with the flow. Besides, we might enjoy our futures more if we didn’t have his Niflin breathing down our necks. We’re free to do whatever we want.”

  “But we’re in this fifty-fifty, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So we’d have to agree.”

  “Yeah. I’m not going to make unilateral decisions.”

  “What’s the tie-breaker?”

  “Alter, I guess. Unless you want to fight me for it?”

  “Only if you’ll video game me for it.”

  He smiled. “Alter it is.”

  “Well, I doubt she’d agree with selling the ship to the Duke, and I’m not with you on that either.”

  “I know. Like I said, we shouldn’t just dismiss the possibility. We have forty-eight hours before we have to worry about it, so let’s not worry about it…yet.”

  “Agreed. Deck four, please.”

  “So polite,” Matt said.

  The elevator doors closed, opening a few seconds later to dump us out in a corridor dimly lit with dangling incandescent bulbs and lined with slightly rusted metal bulkheads. Four closed hatches led to a larger blast door at the far end.

  The flight deck.

  I couldn’t wait to see it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I practically ran down the passageway in my eagerness to see the flight deck. Expecting the doors to open as I approached, I nearly collided with them when they failed to budge, coming to a quick stop. “Open the flight deck hatch!” I ordered gleefully.

  They still didn’t move.

  “Open the flight deck hatch!”

  Nothing.

  “The flight deck is secured,” Matt said. “Hold up.” He tapped on the phone as he approached. “There’s a setting for biometrics. Put your thumb on the screen.” He turned it to face me, showing me the thumbprint pattern. I placed my left thumb against it, and the lines of the pattern turned green. “That should give you full clearance if I’m reading this thing right.”

  I glanced at the bulkhead next to the door, finding the biometric scanner there and putting my thumb against it. A small green bulb above it flashed and the flight deck hatch parted in the center.

  I hurried through, eyes wide as I took in the arrangement. A long console sat just behind the transparency at the front of the ship, following the curve of the robot head about fifteen feet to either side of center. Two pilot stations were about ten feet behind the window, separated by a narrow center console fronted by a large display angled toward the stations. It currently displayed what looked like an animated screensaver of a…a kitten rolling around on a carpet?

  Each pilot station housed a seat upholstered in distressed brown leather in the middle of a set of controls. It surprised me to realize that the setup didn’t just resemble the simulator from VR Awesome! It matched it, right down to a stick with both a primary and thumb trigger, a full-handled throttle, and a pair of foot pedals at each station, along with a helmet that plugged into the system. I suddenly had the feeling that Keep hadn’t just plugged into Star Squadron to search for qualified pilots.

  He had helped design the game, or at least the simulator itself.

  A shiver ran through me at the thought of his involvement. A VR game to test potential pilots for aptitude. When I had read about the simulator in Engadget, it had mentioned the rigs were also available for private sale, the cost of which wasn’t disclosed. In other words, if you had to ask, you couldn’t afford it. No doubt people with the funds to buy the ship had purchased one for their personal use, and maybe that’s where Keep had hoped to find a buyer. After all, he had said he spent twenty years searching and had never had a hit before. Desperate times may have called for desperate measures.

  And both he and I had gotten incredibly lucky.

  The flight deck didn’t begin and end with the two pilot’s seats. A second row of seats rested behind them in the form of a faded and worn leather sofa that had been modified with three point restraints and bolted into the deck. Behind that, just to the left of the hatch, stood a cylindrical device composed of dozens of narrow bands of metal and lights, a wired harness, and a floor that matched the omnidirectional treadmills I had seen at the arcade. Directly opposite the device, on my right side rested a large box similar to the mainframe on Deck Seven. I figured it was either a backup control system or subprocessor that helped move data from the brain to the flight deck and vice versa.

  Like the corridor I had just passed through, the deck’s illumination came from incandescent bulbs hung from wires wrapped around wiring and pipes that traveled along the top of the flight deck before vanishing into the superstructure.

  “Geez, Ben,” Matt said, entering behind me and looking around, deflated. The hatch slid closed behind him. “I’m so stupid. We’ve totally been rugged. Hard.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, turning to face him. “This is so cool.”

  “What? Look around, bro. This room looks more like a cheap erotic film set than a functional flight deck. He even used the same rigs from VR Awesome! as the pilot seats.”

  “Because he used them to vet potential pilots,” I replied. “He helped make the VR rigs. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Are you mental?”

  “Are you?” I retorted.

  “The passenger seat is a frigging sofa. What if Keep arranged this elaborate hoax to bilk me out of four million dollars? I mean, all of the bad guys were wearing helmets, Keep left, Alter is MIA. It fits.”

  “Did we not experience the same Deck Three? You know, the one that was twice the size of the ship?

  “How do we know that was Deck Three and not some extra room hidden beneath the ship?” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m so damn gullible.” He lowered his voice to mimic Keep’s. “You haven’t been on Earth for about three hours now. Welcome to Caprum, in the Fertile Quadrant of the Manticore Spiral.” He spat out an angry breath. “Yeah, right. I’m an idiot, so desperate to save your life or at least give you one last adventure that I just let some conman steal my inheritance. Damn it!” He shouted the last part and slammed his fist down on the subprocessor.

  “I think you’re overreacting,” I said. “For one thing, even if this is a rug that’s been pulled out from under us, you aren’t an idiot for trying to make what’s left of my life something special.”

  His eyes whipped up, finding mine. His jaw clenched, and the anger fled from him. “Maybe not for that,” he agreed. “But the rest. How much do you want to bet that when you put that helmet on and use the controls to fly the ship, it’ll all just be more virtual reality bullshit?”

  “I don’t believe it. We both saw what Alter did to the Duke’s mercenaries. How could they fake that?”

  Matt laughed. “Haven’t you ever seen a movie before? They probably practiced the whole setup a hundred times, just waiting for the right rubes to—”

  He clammed up instantly when the flight deck hatch slid open again and a woman stepped through.

  “Who are you?” I asked, staring at the woman. She had shoulder-length, dirty blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, and wore a loose-fitted silver flight suit pulled in at the waist by a black utility belt. A holstered gun hung from the belt on her left side.

  “Co-pilot Alter reporting for duty, sir,” she said, coming to attention and saluting as if she were in the Air Force.

  “Alter?” I replied, squinting my eyes in a futile effort to find the childlike waif I had watched kill half a dozen individuals in a matter of seconds. Maybe there was a little resemblance in the eyes and the general shape of her face, but otherwise she seemed like another person entirely. She had even somehow managed to grow in height, the top of her head closer to the midline of my neck than the bottom of my shoulders. “You look…”

  “...different,” Matt finished. “Completely different.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Alter replied, glancing at him. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “The last time I saw you,” Matt pressed. “You had pink hair and were at least six inches shorter. You can’t be the same woman. What kind of game are you playing?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not here to play games, sir. I’m here to help prepare for everything that lies ahead.”

  “And what lies ahead?” Matt asked.

  She smiled, and I thought I saw a flash of Alter’s grin in it. “I don’t really know. But you’re in the Manticore Spiral. You’re unaffiliated, and you own a killer starship. Whatever we do, I’m sure it’s going to be a hell of an adventure. Shall we get to it?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I smiled widely, casting my best I-told-you-this-wasn’t-a-rug-pull look at Matt before following Alter to the pilot seats. She dropped into the one on the right, so I claimed the one on the left. Matt trailed behind us, plopping himself into the middle of the sofa and pulling the restraint over his head, snapping it into the receiver at the front of the cushion.

  “This had better not be fake or—”

  “Or what?” I broke in, looking back at him. “Did you not notice she has a gun strapped to her thigh?”

  Matt’s attention shifted to Alter, proving he hadn’t noticed. “Okay, I get your point,” he said flatly.

  “How would you like me to refer to you, sir?” Alter asked, looking over at me.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She rattled off a few titles. “My Lord. Captain. Supreme Leader…”

  “Oh. How about Ben?”

  She paused as if she was considering the request. “Very well. Ben.”

  “And Matt,” he added, jamming a thumb over his shoulder.

  “Ben and Matt,” she repeated.

  “And please don’t call us sir,” I continued. “That makes us sound like a couple of boomers.”

  “Boomers?”

  “Old people,” Matt explained.

  “Understood. In that case, permission to speak casually, sir?”

  “Granted, especially since I have a few questions I wanted answered before we lift off. And don’t call me sir,” I repeated.

  “Since you’re new to the Spiral, I imagine you have more than a few questions,” Alter replied, her military-like stiffness fading. “But I do highly recommend leaving the planet as soon as possible. We only have six minutes before our last paid hour is completed, and as far as I know, neither one of you has any electro to pay for a prolonged stay.”

  “Electro?” Matt asked. “I guess that’s the currency here?”

  “Yes,” Alter answered.

  “If we don’t have any electro, how are we going to pay for supplies?” I asked. “Food, clothes, that sort of thing.”

  “We have enough to last a few days.”

  “Well, I guess that’s something,” I said, suddenly feeling a lot of pressure. The thought of Duke Sedaya’s hypercom identifier sitting in the ship’s datastore crossed my mind, but I rejected it. We had to try to make a go of this. For forty-eight hours, at least.

  She pulled her helmet over her head and lowered the visor. Unlike at VR Awesome!, it wasn’t completely opaque.

  I matched her, donning my helmet and lowering the visor. I flinched, confused when the entire front portion of the ship disappeared, giving me a full view of the stacked containers around us. When I raised the visor, the inside of the ship reappeared ahead of me.

  “This is a serious upgrade from the simulator,” I said, raising and lowering the visor a few more times, amazed by the augmented reality.

  “You haven’t seen anything yet,” Alter replied. “You have the stick, Ben. I’ll take care of launch control and help guide you if you run into trouble.”

  Butterflies filled my stomach, my hands turning clammy on the controls. My heart pounded with excitement, and I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face if I wanted to. “How do I start the engines?”

  The toggle on the console, just above the throttle,” she replied.

  I leaned forward, eyes fixed on the toggle as I flipped it up. The lightbulbs overhead flickered, the floor vibrated, and a slight hissing sound passed through the superstructure. A green light flashed below the toggle.

  “Reactor online,” Alter said. “Thrusters online.” A different light on the console fleshed red. “We have a problem. Standby.”

  My excitement turned to despair almost instantly as I looked back at Matt. Thanks to the visor, I saw right through him. I saw through everything as if there was nothing between me and the shipping containers behind the ship. Lifting the visor, I could tell he was nervous.

  Alter raised her hands, tapping at the air. Looking forward again, I didn’t have any kind of augmented reality controls hovering in front of me. “What are you looking at?” I asked.

  “Systems control,” she replied. “I’ll teach you how to use it later.” Her head swiveled toward me. “Did you think taking care of a starship would be easy?”

  I swallowed hard. “Yeah, kind of. Mister Keep said the ship was low maintenance.”

  Alter laughed. “That’s because he isn’t the one who maintained it. Don’t worry, Ben. You have me.”

  She had just finished saying that when she pulled off her helmet, unbuckled herself, and jumped out of her seat. “I just need to go to Deck Seven and make a minor repair. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She hurried off the flight deck.

  “This isn’t how I expected things to go,” I said.

  “And yet, somehow I’m not that surprised,” Matt replied. “Even if this thing is the real deal, it’s been parked here for twenty years.”

  “Do you think what we paid would even cover the parking for that much time?”

  “I don’t even know how he plans to spend four million United States Dollars on the other side of the universe. Or how he can access my bank account from here.”

  “Maybe he just saved your info and didn’t really make the transfer,” I guessed. “He obviously has a way back to Earth. He could always convert your fiat to gold or diamonds or whatever else is valuable here to bring back and sell.”

  “Hearing the words coming out of your mouth, I feel like I’m in the middle of the weirdest dream I’ve ever had. Even scarier is that everything you just said makes sense.”

  “I know. It’s unbelievable.” The red light on the console stopped flashing. “I guess it really was a minor problem.”

  “Starship Identifier CUL8T3R,” a woman’s voice echoed in my ears. “This is the Hestus Spaceport Bursar. Our sensors have detected primary thruster power up. As per our agreement, all accrued storage fees are due at the time of primary thruster ignition. I’m transmitting the final invoice to you now.”

  I swallowed hard again, for a completely different reason. Accrued storage fees? Didn’t our contract cover all payment through the current hour? “Uh. Thank you, ma’am,” I replied. “We’re, uh…we’re reviewing the invoice now.”

  “What’s going on?” Matt asked, unable to hear the bursar since he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

  “Accounts receivable wants us to settle the tab. Keep’s tab.”

  “We’re not supposed to pay his bill.”

  “Tell that to them.”

  Matt sighed. “Hopefully Alter can clear this up.”

  The bursar’s voice returned. “Be aware, CUL8T3R, that failure to pay prior to departure will result in the distribution of an automated notice of delinquency. A bounty will be placed on your vessel for ten percent of the accrued fees, which looking at your final bill is rather substantial and will make you a very attractive target.”

  I cringed at her statement. She had already taken the attitude that we didn’t intend to pay the bill. How much did Keep owe?

  “Understood, ma’am,” I replied. “Standby.” I looked at Matt again. “I don’t know what’s going on, but if we don’t pay up we’re screwed.”

  The flight deck hatch slid open. Alter hurried in, the front of her flight suit streaked with grime. “Problem solved,” she said, slowing when she noticed my expression. “Is the light still blinking?”

  “No,” I replied. “It’s not that. The Hestus Spaceport Bursar is requesting payment. I don’t even know how to look at the invoice, nevermind send whatever money Keep left for us to cover it.”

  “Okay,” Alter said. “Stay calm.” She returned to the co-pilot’s seat, leaned over and tapped on the center console display. The kitten screensaver vanished, replaced by an interface almost identical to the one on Keep’s phone. Expertly navigating the system, she pulled up the invoice in no time.

  My eyes nearly rolled back in my head when I saw the number at the bottom of it. I didn’t know the spending power of one electro, but seeing two commas gave me goosebumps, and not in a good way.

  I glanced over at Alter. She didn’t seem concerned by the cost, at least not at first. She tapped on the transmit payment button on the bottom of the invoice, confident the funds were available.

  My gut dumped when the dreaded dialog appeared over the invoice.

  PAYMENT DECLINED. INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

  “Shit,” Alter cursed softly. “That son of a bitch.”

  “He took the money and ran, didn’t he?” Matt said from the back seat.

  “That can’t be right,” Alter said. “He wouldn’t do that.”

  She cleared the dialog and hit the button again, receiving the same result.

  “Damn it,” she hissed.

  “Starship Identifier CUL8T3R, our systems have flagged your payment transmission as declined,” the bursar said, her voice only audible to me. “The spaceport authorities are being dispatched to ensure you remain grounded until payment arrangements can be made.”