Matt caught his cleanly, turning it over to examine it. I had gone to the range with Matt and his father once, where his dad had let us shoot his pride and joy, an AR-15. This gun was about the same size, but a lot lighter and much more sleek and round. Instead of a wider body and narrower barrel, the whole thing was the same diameter front to back, with a huge opening in the muzzle that looked big enough to fire a bazooka shell. The stock, just behind the thicker-than-normal grip, bulged out like a hernia. There was no magazine well or anything that suggested the weapon fired bullets. Instead, a simple switch sat on the side, currently in the locked position.

  Alter didn’t wait for us to finish looking over the guns. She skipped past, drawing the two rods from her back and spinning them like a cheerleader’s batons.

  “Should we follow Insane Clown Posse?” I asked.

  Matt flipped the switch on his gun, causing it to emit a light hum. “I don’t know how she knew we were coming down here after telling us to wait on the flight deck, but I don’t think she expected this many soldiers to come aboard either, which is a good indication she needs our help.”

  “Or maybe she just wants us to feel useful?” I suggested.

  Alter skipped into the elevator and turned around. Seeing us still near the open armory door, she made an impatient face and used the batons to wave us in as if we were a pair of airplanes.

  We ran to the elevator, and I stepped in front of her. “Which floor?” I asked.

  She sighed as she slipped between us, clipping the button for Deck One with her baton. The hangar. Of course. As far as I knew that was the only way in or out of the ship.

  “You are Alter, right?” I asked in the breath it took for the elevator to drop one deck. I was starting to feel as if there was an army of different women hiding somewhere on the ship.

  She glanced back at me over her shoulder and winked. The door slid open at almost the same time a second bang sounded, this one much, much louder than the first.

  Smoke already filled the hangar, though it wasn’t thick enough to fully obscure the movement of the soldiers entering through the main hatch. And yet, the air wasn’t being sucked out of the space the way it was in movies. The way it should have been. In fact, the air wasn’t leaving the hangar at all.

  I knew better than to try to ask Alter about it, especially now. Not that I had the chance. Before I could even finish thinking about the lack of exposure to space despite the open hatch, she ran out of the elevator and vaulted the overhang’s railing, jumping to the lower deck.

  Into the middle of a dozen soldiers.

  “Shit,” I said, a step behind Matt as we rushed forward.

  The thick smoke down there made things hard to see, but when Alter’s two rods lit up in their fiery glow they were impossible to miss. Dark shapes spun toward Alter. She hit the closest with one of her weapons before he could lay into her. He collapsed in a heap on the deck, and she used his body as a springboard to jump out of the middle of the soldiers. An energy blast barely missed her.

  She hit a second soldier with her baton on the way past him. He cried out before collapsing like a deflated balloon. Hitting the deck, she slid under the purple starfighter, using it as cover as a rain of blasts trailed behind her, the little starfighter taking the hits.

  Matt reached the edge of the overhang and aimed his weapon down, squeezing the trigger and sending a thick toroid of plasma at one of the shapes. It hit the soldier in the chest, burning through his suit. He screamed, hunching over for a moment before Matt turning his attention to the next target.

  I aped Matt’s attack, reaching the railing and taking aim at one of the soldiers. My finger froze on the trigger as I wondered if he had a wife and children. If he was a nice guy. If he really wanted to shoot us or was just following orders.

  While I hesitated, he spun on his heel, swinging his rifle up toward me. His bolt would have put a hole in me if Matt hadn’t shoved me aside, knocking me on my ass. He sent a return volley that took the soldier out of the battle.

  “Come on, Ben. Get with the program,” he hissed, kneeling over me and watching for the soldier. “They want to kill us. We need to kill them first.”

  I stared up at him. His entire demeanor had changed, from the carefree rocker I knew to a tense warrior. The shift felt almost as dramatic as Alter’s turn from pilot to clown. He had gone into life-or-death mode. What was my problem? Was I hesitating because my options were death or death?

  I collected myself and pulled into a crouch beside him. Beneath us, the soldiers continued firing on Alter, trying to track her as she circled the starfighter and leaped out from behind it. She swung the baton to bat one of the bolts fired at her into a soldier we hadn’t seen climbing the stairs toward us. She stabbed a second soldier in the chest, letting go of the baton and turning him around in front of her to block the bolts tracking her.

  Matt returned to the railing around the overhang, crouching down to again shoot at the soldiers below. A couple of them fired back, missing Matt because they didn’t have a good angle of attack.

  Another soldier emerged from the smoke on the opposite stairs on the other side of the overhang, his rifle trained on Matt. I didn’t think about it. I turned my rifle toward him and squeezed the trigger, holding it down. He grunted in surprise as the plasma stream knocked him back down the steps. I froze in surprise, half-tempted to throw the gun to the deck and retreat to the elevator, but then Matt’s words came back to me.

  They want to kill us. We need to kill them first.

  It really was that simple.

  I hurried over to Matt. He stood beside me at the railing, both of us firing over the side until the enemy gunfire faded to nothing. Looking down, I no longer saw any dark shadows moving among the smoke. Only the top of Alter’s head, the rest of her obscured in the smoke. I knew the fight was over when she deactivated her batons.

  “I think we won,” Matt said, glancing over at me. “You saved my ass, man.”

  I smiled back at him before dropping the rifle and turning away. I had already puked up my burger earlier, so this time all I could do was dry heave.

  A gentle pressure came down on my back as I choked out the last of my nausea, the fading adrenaline leaving me cold. I glanced over my shoulder, looking up at Alter while she rubbed my back, her eyes thick with compassion. She didn’t need to speak to show me she understood. I had killed…maybe not a man. Maybe an Niflin. Did it matter? A living thing. To save Matt’s life, sure. But that wasn’t me.

  At least, it wasn’t the old me. Earther me.

  They want to kill us. We need to kill them first.

  I had a feeling that wouldn’t be the last time those words popped into my head. Circumstance had pulled us halfway across the universe and turned us into unwitting fugitives, with no way out and no way home. If we were stuck here, then I had a responsibility to make the best of the situation and do what needed to be done to survive for as long as I could. However long that proved to be.

  As if my thoughts had somehow triggered the cancerous cells growing in my body, a wave of dizziness and sudden weakness crashed into me.

  I fell forward and the darkness swallowed me whole.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Ben! Ben, can you hear me?”

  The voice echoed my name in the back of my brain, coming at me a second time as if it were racing down a dark tunnel, straight at me.

  “Mom?” I asked, searching for the voice in the darkness. My head tingled. My body felt numb. Had I died?

  “Ben, open your eyes.”

  “I don’t want to open my eyes. I want to stay here. It feels safe here.”

  “You are safe. Come on. Open your eyes. I won’t bite.”

  The voice changed as it spoke, losing Mom’s rougher tone, gained from years of hard work around sawdust and other contaminants. Consciousness followed with it, rushing toward me down that tunnel like a freight train in a loud whoosh that drowned out whatever it was the voice said next.

  My sense of smell returned. Breathing in deeply, I picked up the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Damn, it smelled good.

  “I had this crazy dream,” I said, eyes still closed. “Matt and I bought a spaceship. And there was this strange woman on board, and this evil guy who looks like an elf was chasing us. I almost died, but something about it was still fun.”

  “It sounds like you were having quite an adventure,” the woman replied. “How do you feel? Still dizzy?”

  “No. I think it’s passed.”

  I opened my eyes. A thin woman with shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair stood over me, dressed in a white flight suit with a red cross patched to the left breast. She had a tray balanced in one hand while the other snapped open a small table, which she placed across my lap before lowering the tray onto it. Looking past her, I noticed I was in a small bedroom. A frosted glass light fixture in the shape of a ball hung from the center of the ceiling. Soft peach walls led to an open hatch, a soft orange-carpeted corridor beyond.

  I returned my attention to the woman. “Alter?”

  She smiled warmly. “I brought you some breakfast. Coffee and a bacon and egg croissant. Matt said that was the closest thing the assembler had to your favorite.”

  I continued staring up at her while she picked up a control pad wired to the side of the bed and used it to lift my upper body, putting me into a seated position so I could eat.

  “I’m confused,” I said. “I heard my mother’s voice. And then I thought I was dreaming.”

  “You passed out,” she explained. “I carried you to sickbay and ran a few scans. You have cancer.”

  “I know.”

  “I gave you some medicine to help with some of the swelling and moved you here to rest.”

  “Deck Three?” I guessed.

  “Yes. I thought you would be more comfortable. You should eat.”

  “Thank you for taking care of me.” I looked at the croissant. My mouth watered at the sight of the melted cheese running down the side. And the smell of the bacon… “It looks delicious.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “How long was I asleep?”

  “Nine hours.”

  I picked up the coffee and took a sip, surprised by how smooth it was. “This is good.”

  “The assembler has the full atomic structure for multiple varieties of coffee in its datastore. It always makes a perfect cup.”

  “We need these on Earth. Where are we now? Still in hyperspace?”

  “No. We dropped out of hyperspace three hours ago. We’re currently at a dead stop in open space. A mote of dust in the eye of a giant. I disabled our identifier to take us off the grid.”

  “Isn’t that risky?”

  “The risk is minimized by our position. I chose it for that specific reason. Of course, we can’t stay here forever. But at least you can have a little time to get your space legs under you.”

  “Without being shot at?”

  “Yes.”

  “So I can just relax and eat this sandwich?”

  “Yes.”

  I picked up the croissant. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. Where’s Matt?”

  “He’s sleeping also. He refused to rest until I promised I would look after you.”

  “Thanks, but what about you? You must be exhausted.”

  “I’m not tired,” she replied. She patted my leg. “Now that you’re up, I’m going to take care of some other business.” She turned to leave.

  “Alter, wait,” I said. “I have questions. A lot of questions.”

  “We’ll have time to talk later. Eat your breakfast, spend some time on your hygiene. I’ll be back.”

  “My hygiene?” I said, turning my head to sniff my armpit. I needed a shower. Badly. “Okay. How about just one question?”

  “What is it?”

  “Who are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…who are you? So far, I’ve met a pink haired killer, a blonde pilot, a brunette karen, and a ginger nurse. Every one of them look different, but they’re all you. Or at least, they all answer to the name Alter.”

  She stared at me like I had three heads. “I don’t understand.”

  I stared back at her like she had four heads. “You seriously don’t know what I’m talking about? Did I dream up the whole fight in the hangar? The one where I…” I trailed off, suddenly losing my appetite. “Where I killed someone.” I did my best to ignore the tray of food.

  “No, that was real,” she confirmed.

  “And you were there, right?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “And you had pink hair and a colorful outfit, just like you did the first time we met, when you crashed the limo into Duke Sedaya’s mercenaries.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Did I?”

  I stared at her, locking on her eyes. I didn’t get the impression she was playing games with me. It was as if she had no idea she had taken on completely different personas. It didn’t seem to bother her at all.

  “I guess it’s not important,” I said, forcing myself to look at the food again. I had decided I would do what needed to be done, and that soldier would have killed Matt and probably me if I hadn’t shot him first. There was no reason to be so hung up over it. “I’m going to eat this and then find a shower. I’ll see you in a bit?”

  “There’s a phone in the living room. It’s connected to the ship’s intercom. You can reach me through it wherever I am.”

  “Okay. Thank you again for helping me.”

  “You’re welcome, Ben.” She smiled warmly again before slipping out of the room and leaving me alone with my coffee and croissant.

  It took a minute for my appetite to begin worming its way back into my consciousness, and I started with a few small nibbles on the edges of perfectly crisped bacon. If the battle in the hangar had been part of a game like Jungle Invasion instead of real life, I wouldn’t feel guilty for winning.

  That was the bit of logic I needed. The reason that helped me make sense of what I had done and turn it into something good. My appetite returned full force, and I polished off my breakfast in no time.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I hopped out of bed a few minutes later, surprised to find myself in only my boxers. Maybe I was overly shy, but the thought of Alter removing some of my clothes and seeing me in my skivvies sent a flash of heat to my cheeks. Thankfully, Matt wasn’t around to see it.

  The bedroom didn’t have an attached bathroom, but it did have a closet. Flipping a switch on the side retracted the doors, revealing bars and shelves for clothing and nothing else. I groaned at the sight, unsure of where I was supposed to get some new threads. Alter had said the phone in the living room would activate the ship’s intercom. I could give her a quick call and get the lowdown.

  Making my way from the bedroom to the corridor, I was surprised by how good I felt. Despite the stressors of the last twenty-four hours or so, my head felt clearer than it had for months, my body stronger and lighter. Had Alter done something to me in sickbay that had helped alleviated my symptoms? Or had she just given me the meds I had brought from Earth? Either way, I liked it.

  The hallway led to a pair of double doors on the left, suggestive of a master bedroom, and an apparent stairway on the right leading to the living room. A second door sat directly across from mine, with two more on either side of the passage. Like the hallways downstairs, framed classic art prints lined the walls. In this case, a series of Caravaggios, starting with the Conversion of St. Paul. I wasn’t much of an art aficionado, but Art History had been an easy elective to score an A.

  I had just reached the top of the steps when I heard a soft swish from the opposite end of the corridor, followed by a sharp whistle.

  “Looking good, Bennie,” Matt called out.

  I turned around, chagrined to see him standing there in a pair of silk pajamas and a microsuede bathrobe. “You’ve got to be kidding me. One, where did you get those PJs? Two, why the hell do you get the master bedroom?”

  Matt’s spirits seemed vastly improved from the time he had spent strapped to the sofa on the flight deck. A big grin covered his face as he left the master bedroom and came down the hallway toward me.

  “One, the assembler makes more than breakfast. Two, because I paid four million dollars for this thing.”

  “Fifty-fifty, remember?” I said.

  “In operational decisions, yes. When it comes to the king sized bed with the crystal chandelier hanging over it, no.”

  “You have a crystal chandelier? I’ve got a frosted glass ball that looks like it came from a seventies Sears catalog.” I shook my head. “At least you seem to be in a better mood.”

  “I’ve reached the acceptance stage of grief. Honestly, the Deck Three creature comforts helped a lot. So did Alter telling me the tech in sickbay can help keep your cancer manageable, at least for the short term. How are you feeling? Most of your symptoms should be gone, or at least reduced.”

  I nodded, happy to hear the news. “They are. I feel better than I have in months, to be honest. I guess it’s a fair trade to have one of the small bedrooms. And by small, I mean tiny. I bet you have your own bathroom, too.”

  “On a ship, it’s called a head,” Matt corrected. “And yes, I do.” He laughed. “I’d offer to let you use it because you reek like you spent the last nine hours sleeping in a pile of dirty gym socks, but honestly the head downstairs is bigger and nicer. Just a little less convenient. And you need to go down there anyway to assemble some clothes. Unless you want to stick with the boxers. I’m sure Alter wouldn’t mind.” The comment set my face on fire again, to Matt’s continued amusement. “I’m just kidding.”

  “She’s already seen me in the boxers anyway.”

  He made a face I didn’t like. “Yeah. About that.”

  “What?” I said, the heat building.

  “She’s seen you in less than your boxers.”

  “What?”