“Where have I heard that before?” Tyler deadpanned.

  I ignored him, looking back over my shoulder for Alyssa. She’d vanished from her spot near the railing. I could only imagine how she’d just reacted to the news. For my part, I was almost pleased. I didn’t want to go back to Earth. I had nothing to go back to. Shifting to Tyler, I could see he was pissed, his body tense, jaw clenched.

  Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was a reason to go home.

  “I don’t accept that,” Ben said.

  “I don’t expect you to accept it,” the Warden replied. “What fun would that be?” He snapped his fingers, and a group of Prall emerged through the hangar bay door. In one hand, each of them carried a velvet pillow with a small, metallic pill resting in the center, a glass of what appeared to be water in the other. They stopped in a line behind him. “Here’s how it works. Each of you will swallow a pill. The pill will allow me to keep tabs on you without needing to be overly intrusive. I’m even going to return full control of your ship’s computer to you. Once we’re done here, you’ll be free to roam about the galaxy to your heart’s content.. However, should you become boring, I’ll have no choice but to assign tasks for you to complete. Whether you pass or fail the tasks are of no concern to me. What is important is that you try to do them to the best of your abilities. If you refuse, one of you will die. If you refuse again, two of you will die, and so on and so forth until there’s no one left. The pill contains a toxin similar to the venom your little pet releases. I can trigger it remotely at any time, but I have no reason to do so as long as you comply with the few directives I issue. Do you understand?”

  Our heads bobbed in acknowledgment. Tyler put up his hand.

  “Yes, Tyler?” the Warden said.

  “Can you give us an example of a task?”

  “No. Any other questions?”

  Tyler put up his hand again.

  “Yes, Tyler?”

  “What’s in it for us? Other than not dying, I mean? Like, what do we get if we’re entertaining?”

  “You’ll be rewarded with boons based on your performance.”

  “You mean like a loot box?”

  “Something like that. Are there any other questions?”

  Tyler put his hand up a third time.

  The Warden sighed heavily. “Yes, Tyler, what is it now?” the Warden said, visibly losing his patience.

  “If we do your assigned tasks and keep you entertained, will you help us get home?”

  The Warden hesitated before answering. “I will consider it. What else?”

  “What if we refuse to take the pill?” Matt asked.

  “You can take the pill, or you can die. There is no third choice.”

  Tyler’s hand went up again.

  “What now?” the Warden snapped.

  “Space is really big, and we don’t know our way around this part of the universe. How will we know where to go?”

  “A star map of the surrounding galaxy has been added to your ship’s database. It will get you off on the right foot.”

  Tyler nodded. “I think that’s all I have right now. Anyone else?”

  When no one spoke up, the Pralls approached, one for each of us, Shaq excluded. One of them even went to the back of the hangar and up the steps to give a pill to Ally.

  “Bottoms up,” the Warden said.

  Tyler was the first to pick up his pill, stick it in his mouth, and down it with a sip of water. We all stared at him, and I, at least, waited for him to change into an ogre. He didn’t.

  I picked up the offered pill and stuck it on the tip of my tongue. It tasted like a dirty penny, so I quickly grabbed the water and forced it down. Within a couple of minutes, the others had all done the same.

  “That’s all for now,” the Warden said, silently ordering his Prall back onto his ship. “Welcome to Warexia. I do hope you enjoy your stay. I know I will.” He smiled like a fox in a henhouse before spinning on his heel and following the Prall back to his ship.

  We all remained silent while the small door closed behind him. Head Case vibrated slightly as the Warden’s craft disengaged.

  “Captain,” Levi said over the loudspeakers. “The contact is moving away from us. The threat is averted.”

  The absurd severing of our silence barely served to jog us from our stunned stupor. It was only after Tyler spoke that we finally broke the Warden’s spell.

  “Well, wasn’t that a bitter pill to swallow.”

  CHAPTER 24

  “What now?” Alyssa asked, approaching us from the back of the hangar, clutching her plasma rifle like a security blanket. We’d reacted to Tyler’s bitter pill comment with nervous laughter that had all but died out by the time she reached us.

  “Okay, what the hell just happened? Shaq jabbed his claws into me to wake me up because the RFD was freaking out.” He retrieved it from his pocket. It looked a lot like a Steam Deck, with thumb controllers on both sides and a bright screen in the center. As it activated, it projected the sensor grid into the air, showing we were all clear. The Warden’s ship had vanished. “Everything seems normal out there now.”

  “You had the RFD this whole time?” Matt said. “I was looking everywhere for it.”

  “I always carry it when we go Earthbound. You should know that.”

  “I never needed it before, during or after a pickup. Until now.”

  “Well, now you know.”

  “We already know what happened to us,” I said, a bit more boldly than normal for me. It had to be what remained of the adrenaline. “What happened to you?”

  Ben looked at Matt. “Do they know about Sigiltech?”

  “Yeah, I already went over the basics. But I deferred a lot to wait for your participation.”

  Ben nodded wearily. I could tell he was still exhausted, but he knew he had a responsibility to his passengers. “Did you sign the rental agreement?”

  Alyssa huffed. “You’re still worried about that damn contract? I didn’t sign it.”

  “Yeah, I guess the agreement doesn’t matter at this point,” he agreed. “Sorry, I’m not fully myself right yet.”

  “I don’t think any of us are,” Tyler said.

  “Yeah.” Ben paused, glancing at Ally, Tyler, and me. “I owe you a major apology, and even that isn’t nearly good enough for the situation we’re in, but it’s the best I can do. We’ve done the Earth to Mars run over a dozen times without a hitch. There was no reason to expect this one would be any different. I don’t know who attacked us in Earth’s orbit or why. I don’t know where it came from. Once we’re more settled, we can start digging into the sensor data we collected on it to determine the origin, but that’s not a high priority right now. That ship’s a long way away. I also don’t know what happened with the rift. I’ve done the transit from Earth to the Spiral dozens of times, again without a problem before today.”

  “The Warden said the exit rift had a different signature,” I told him.

  “In simple terms, it means I didn’t open the same rift that brought us out of the void. I thought I had because of the volume of chaos energy I absorbed. I would still think I had, except we should be near Neptune, not wherever here is. Someone either opened the barn door for us, or at the very least interfered with my chaos energy and redirected it to bring us out here.” He paused again, likely considering the possibilities in his own mind before voicing his thoughts. “The thing about creating holes in spacetime is that you need to know your exit point beforehand. I can’t just say I want to visit the Trappist system and transit there unless I have a visual of what the transit destination looks like. Either from personal experience or an image or something. And I can’t just think about deep space, because that could take us anywhere.”

  “So whoever interfered already knows about this place,” I surmised.

  “More than that. They know about this specific location. Which, looking at the sensor grid and the lack of uniquely identifying markers like planets, stars, nebulas, and the like… I don’t know how they managed it. Unless…” He stopped to consider again.

  “Unless what?” Tyler pressed. “The suspense is killing me.”

  “Unless we didn’t come out where they wanted us to,” Ben finished. “The Warden said the signature change was interesting. He didn’t act like he expected or understood it. I think the interference from the second party muddied the water rather than sending us down a different fork in the river.”

  “If that’s the case, we’re lucky we came out anywhere near anything,” Meg said.

  “Considering what just happened, I’m not sure that means we’re lucky,” Leo countered.

  “If our arrival was an accident, how did the Warden find us so fast?” I asked. “We’ve been here less than an hour.”

  “He understands chaos energy,” Ben said. “He might be a technomancer himself. He could have sensed the shift in the flows.”

  “Or maybe it wasn’t an accident,” Alyssa suggested. “Maybe he took advantage of the muddy water to catch us by surprise.”

  “We can’t rule it out,” Ben agreed.

  “Who would interfere with your rifts?” I asked. “I know you have enemies in the Spiral galaxy. Could they be responsible?”

  “We can’t rule that out, either.”

  “The question that’s stuck in my mind is if that ship near Earth was there to destroy us, or if it was there to force us to make a quick getaway,” Matt said.

  “They targeted the area of the ship where a solid hit would knock out the hyperdrive,” Meg said. “But it’s near the direct line from the thrusters to the reactor, so it’s not a guarantee it was the target.”

  “Who’s to say blowing us up wasn’t Plan A, and casting us off across the universe wasn’t Plan B,” Tyler said. “The point is, we’re here now, and I think I speak for Ally and myself at least when I say we want to go home.”

  “And that’s my highest priority right now,” Ben said.

  “You heard the Warden,” I said. “You can’t create a rift here. And we’re too far away to go the FTL route. We’re stuck.”

  “I don’t accept that,” Ben said. “We got here. There has to be a way to get back. Maybe I just need to rest up and get back to full strength.”

  “It’s not just you,” Matt said. “We noticed the problem with the sigils on the elevator, too. It’s drawing way too much power to scale between decks. Something’s up with the chaos energy here, just like the Warden said.”

  Ben shook his head. “That makes no sense. Chaos energy comes from another dimension. Once you have the tap open, it should always flow the same.” He closed his eyes and almost immediately began trembling. “It’s like trying to drink milk tea with a boba wedged in the straw.” He opened his eyes. “Something is blocking the transfer.”

  “How is that possible?” Matt asked.

  “It shouldn’t be.”

  “I bet the Warden knows,” Alyssa said. “He talked about this galaxy like it’s his own personal playground.”

  “Maybe it is his playground,” Matt suggested.

  “And we’re his new toys,” Tyler agreed. “This sucks.”

  “I promise, we’ll figure all this out,” Ben said. “We seem to be okay for the moment. Let’s just try to take a few breaths, get our heads straight, and regroup.”

  “That’s all we can do right now,” Matt added. “What do you three think?” He looked at us.

  “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” I replied. “I don’t blame you for any of this.” I turned to Ally and Tyler. “I’m sorry. This is my fault. If I hadn’t dragged you out to the farm⁠—“

  “Don’t, man,” Tyler cut him off. “You couldn’t have predicted this. I hate the situation, but like you said, there’s not really anyone to blame. Sometimes, bad stuff just happens.”

  “Yeah,” Alyssa agreed. “I’m worried about Kaiju and my rent. But continued whining won’t get us anywhere. I need a quiet corner to go cry in, but once I calm down, I want to help.”

  “I appreciate that,” Ben said. “And I appreciate your understanding. This is as bad for us as it is for you. We have people who will worry about us, too. And Matt has a race in three days.”

  “With a killer entry fee that I’ve already paid,” Matt added. “I’m out of the money whether we show up or not.”

  I did my best to keep my emotions steady. Everyone had someone to care about them, who would miss them, except me. I was sure my auntie and granny would once they heard about Mom, but it wasn’t quite the same. Beyond the occasional FaceTime and a couple of trips overseas when my age was still in single digits, they didn’t know me at all. Death had stolen my parents. It hadn’t sapped me of my compassion or empathy. I wanted Tee and Ally to get home. I wanted Ben and Matt to get back to their regularly scheduled lives.

  As for myself, at this point I figured I would just take whatever life threw at me and run with it.

  “Meg, Leo, I want you to get back to the repairs,” Matt said. “Once you’re done with the physical fixes, let’s focus on the PCS. We need to harden it as best we can, and also make sure there’s no residual zero-day hiding in the logic.”

  Ben scoffed. “Did you understand a word of what you just said?”

  “Only the first part. Not quite as geeky as you, but it sounded good, didn’t it?”

  “Pretty good,” Ben agreed. “Matt’s right. If you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not, Captain. We’re on it,” Meg said, turning toward the stairs.

  “Let us know if any more bubble ships full of clones show up,” Leo added, following Meg as she hurried up the stairs to the elevator.

  “We’ll need to give the elevator batteries time to recharge once they go back up to Three,” Matt said. “Ally, there’s a dark corner back there for you, if you need some privacy.” He pointed to the rear corner, beneath the upper deck where the lights didn’t penetrate.

  Alyssa half-smiled. “I was half-joking about the corner. But I do sense a breakdown coming at some point before the day is over. It won’t be pretty.”

  “I second that emotion,” Tyler said. “I’m still in a bit of shock.”

  “Me, too,” I agreed.

  “Since it seems you’ll be stuck with us for a while, we’ll show you to quarters as soon as we can,” Ben said.

  “In the meantime,” Matt said, motioning to the small ship in the hangar. “Have you ever seen a hop racer before?”

  CHAPTER 25

  By the time Matt finished giving us a quick tour of his hop racer and explaining how it worked, I was more than ready to give the sport a try.

  The goal of hop racing, like any other race, was to reach the finish line ahead of your opponents. It required a combination of quick reflexes and precision timing. In this case, that was accomplished by making multiple quick hyperspace jumps where a millisecond of latitude on either side could make the difference between victory and defeat. A poorly executed maneuver, on the other hand, could send a racer careening irreparably off course.

  Advanced racing, a newly introduced form of hop racing, added additional tasks like target shooting, vectoring maneuvers, and obstacle courses between hops. By the way he spoke about it, I could tell how much Matt had been looking forward to the race. Unfortunately, he would miss the inaugural event unless he made it back to the Spiral in three days. It was too bad his odds of making it back in time looked slimmer by the minute.

  He didn’t let that disappointment affect the way he handled Alyssa, Tyler, and me. Both he and Ben were kind and easy to be around, their attitudes generally positive despite everything that had happened. As the adrenaline wore off and the truth of my personal situation returned with full force, I aimed to mimic their demeanor instead of letting my emotions turn me bitter and angry.

  Once the elevator batteries recharged after Meg and Leo used it, Ben and Matt returned us to Deck Three, bringing us up the stairs to the guest rooms adjacent to the lounge. There were five rooms in total, including one at the end of the corridor with a fancier outer door against a wider bulkhead. As captain’s quarters, I thought that one would be Ben’s room, but Matt told us he had claimed it, and Ben would have to pry it out of his cold, dead hands.

  “Ally, I’d like you to bunk with Meg, if that’s okay,” Ben said, pointing to Meg’s door to the right of the captain’s quarters. “I know it isn’t ideal, but⁠—”

  “It’s no problem,” Alyssa broke in. “I have a roommate back in Des Moines, and our apartment only has one bedroom. I’m used to sharing space.”

  “I appreciate your flexibility.” He tapped his comm badge. “Hey, Meg.”

  “Hey, Captain,” she cheerfully replied as if the whole episode with the Warden had already been forgotten. “I know you don’t expect me to have finished with the hyperdrive yet, so what’s up?”

  “I’m just planning out berthing for the duration of our stay in Warexia. I want to pair you with Alyssa. Is that okay?”

  “Sure,” she replied without missing a beat. “It sounds like fun.”

  “Do you mind if I have Levi open your door for her?”

  “Go right ahead. I’ll be busy here for a while, but Alyssa if you can hear me, my quarters are your quarters.”

  “Thank you,” Ally replied.

  “I’m picturing you wearing Meg’s clothes,” Tyler said with a grin, the elfish engineer a full head shorter than her. “Sexy.” She gave him an annoyed look. “Or maybe not.”

  “Levi, open the door to Meg’s room,” Ben said.

  The lock clicked and the hinged door swung open, revealing a very tidy and bright room. White and pink wallpaper surrounded a pink duvet on a pink acrylic queen-sized bed, a pink steamer chest at the end of it. Pink curtains hung over a large display along the side of the compartment, currently displaying the limited view outside the ship. A pair of pink doors were on either side of the bed. The open one led into a personal pink bathroom, or head considering we were on board a starship. The other likely went to a closet.