Was this the afterlife?

  The thought passed through my mind when we reentered space, nowhere near where we had left. A planet emerged from the darkness immediately ahead of us.

  And not just any planet.

  “Earth?” I said, recognizing it immediately by the outlines of the continents visible beneath the clouds. “Keep, you teleported us back to Earth?” He didn’t answer right away. “Keep? Hey.”

  I shifted as best I could to look at his profile. His eyes were closed, head lolled as far to the side as it could get in the confines of the cockpit. Unconscious. Out of juice, as he had put it. Getting us here had used everything he had left, and apparently some of what I had. Remembering my hand caused it to start stinging again. I turned it over to look at the small puncture, the bleeding already slowing.

  I had thought buying a starship was unbelievable. Seeing the Manticore Spiral, meeting Alter and Shaq, that had also been unreal. Sashkur sigiltech was next level crazy.

  “Keep, wake up,” I said, shaking him a little harder with little success. I used my good hand to remove his from the stick, wincing as blood dripped out of his wound. I closed the top of the stick and took hold of it, keeping us on a direct path to Earth.

  Home.

  I wasn’t sure why Keep had brought us here, or even if it had been intentional rather than a desperate maneuver to get us away from Sedaya as quickly as possible. With Keep unconscious, I couldn’t ask him. I knew we couldn’t stay inside Flippy’s cockpit together like this forever. That meant I had to land the starfighter somewhere.

  A panicked chill ran down my spine. Would NASA spot me out here? Would they be able to track my course from orbit into the atmosphere? Would the military scramble fighters to shoot me down or at least follow me to wherever I landed? How could I explain any of this to them in a way that made any sense? Would they make Flippy, Keep, and me disappear?

  I didn’t want to be back on Earth. Not yet. Not when Matt wasn’t even with me. But what else was I supposed to do?

  I heard Matt’s voice in my head, telling me to chill the hell out and be reasonable. I took a few calming breaths, my mind settling. Flippy was smaller and faster than a fighter jet. If they managed to pick me up on radar, I could still outrun anything they sent to intercept. Or I could always return to orbit where they couldn’t follow and try again. But maybe they wouldn’t even notice I was here. Keep had obviously added the sigiltech to Flippy with the intent of using it one day. Surely he must have provided a means to evade detection. Unless he planned to use the same sigiltech to hide the ship, something he couldn’t do as long as he was out cold.

  I used my free hand to open the AR menu, scanning it for a possible cloaking solution. While I hadn’t experienced that kind of tech in the Spiral so far, that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. Even if a cloaking solution couldn’t defeat sensor technology in the Quad, maybe it could still be useful here. After all, we were thousands of years behind in our advancement.

  I slipped through the menus, all the while drawing ever closer to Earth. The planet went from pea-sized to apple within a few minutes and would be filling up the canopy soon enough. My search stopped when I came across a stealth setting. That sounded promising. I entered the option and flipped it on. A small green box with STEALTH printed in it appeared on the upper left corner of the HUD, my only indication it was active.

  “I hope this works,” I said out loud, even though Keep couldn’t hear me.

  Having a few minutes left before we reached Earth’s orbit, I took a closer look at Flippy’s diagnostics. Sixty-two percent of the shield nodes were down, leaving the majority of the ship’s stern unprotected. Damage to the right wing had taken the ion cannon at its end offline. Also, the reactor core temperature appeared to be steadily increasing. That couldn’t be good.

  My thoughts turned to where I would land Flippy once we reached Earth’s atmosphere. Somewhere relatively remote and generally uninhabited, but close enough to civilization that we wouldn’t be stranded in the middle of nowhere. The midwest maybe. If I could find something like an old homestead or abandoned warehouse or factory, we could plan our next steps once Keep felt better. Whatever they might be, I had a feeling Flippy would need some work before the starfighter would be ready to fly again. The reactor temperature was still going up. Even when I cut the thruster and maintained velocity, the heat still accrued.

  Definitely not good.

  By the time I entered Earth’s orbit, my thinking had gone from wondering where to land to hoping we would get to the surface before the reactor overheated, melted down, or exploded. I didn’t know the nature of the power source, so I had no idea how it would react to the excessive buildup. An orange warning light started flashing over the HUD, suggesting it could be any one of those things. No matter which way it went, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to still be inside the cockpit when the orange warning switched to red alert.

  I guided Flippy into the atmosphere, staying at sixty thousand feet as I used the HUD to mark an area close to California, picking out a spot that appeared to be mostly wilderness. With the help of the ship’s computer, I descended toward the mark, keeping my attention split between the flight path and the threat display. The sensors remained clear so far, but I didn’t have a lot of faith in stealth mode doing what I hoped it would, or that the damage to the starfighter didn’t extend to the system. At the same time, I half-expected Sedaya to have followed us through the void and that Eviscerator would appear at any moment, ready to rain hell down on the planet.

  I slowed Flippy considerably as we descended, flying at airliner speed by the time we reached ten thousand feet. The landscape beneath us was dotted with hills and lined with outcroppings of trees around plenty of farmland, split by multiple tributaries and streams and a pair of narrow roads. Each farm was at least a few miles away from the next. The setup offered plenty of open space to bring Flippy in for a vertical landing and plenty of cover to hide the starfighter afterward. For all the remoteness of the area I could see a larger town relatively nearby, though my aerial geography wasn’t quite good enough to name the place.

  My worst immediate fear became realized before I could pick out the perfect spot. The reactor core temperature reached the frontside of critical, the flashing on my HUD turning deep red as a blaring tone pierced my skull.

  “Warning,” the computer said, speaking for the first time. “Reactor meltdown imminent. Power down immediately. Warning. Reactor meltdown imminent. Power down immediately.”

  “Yeah, that’ll work out real well at ten thousand feet,” I replied as if the computer was a person. “We can either plummet to our death or risk blowing up.”

  Even so, I nudged the nose down harder, accelerating the descent by diving toward the planet similarly to how I had landed the prison escape ship on Kasper. The computer kept complaining the entire time, the flashing message intensifying as the reactor threatened to blow.

  There was no time to find the perfect landing spot or to slow for a vertical landing. I spotted a dirt road leading toward one of the farms and guided Flippy toward it, pulling up hard on the stick to level off the descent. G-forces, magnified by Keep's body weight, pressed hard into me, sending fresh waves of pain through my body. When the computer warned me about the meltdown for the twentieth time, I wanted to rip off my helmet and smash it against the instrument panel.

  Of course, I didn’t. I extended Flippy’s landing skids and then stretched past Keep’s limp body to deactivate the reactor. No sooner had I flipped the switch then the computer stopped whining, the HUD message vanished, and everything went silent.

  But not still.

  We hit the dirt a half-second later, the skids skipping over the earth, jostling Flippy with enough force to throw Keep and me from side to side in the cockpit, both my shoulders bouncing off the interior. Without power, I couldn’t really steer. All I could do was hold on.

  We continued sliding, each second bringing us closer to a barn at the end of the dirt path. I cringed when I saw the farmer standing in front of his pickup near the barn, watching us approaching with intense interest.

  There was nothing I could do about it now. I held on while friction brought Flippy to a stop a few hundred feet away from the barn and the farmer.

  “Keep,” I said, hoping that the landing would have woken him up. “Can you hear me?” No response. I sighed as I managed to get a hand on the manual canopy release and pull it. It hissed as it opened, and I breathed deeply in the fresh air. “Keep, come on. We’re here.”

  He still didn’t respond.

  I heard the farmer approaching before the man ducked under the wing and appeared beside the cockpit.

  And aimed his shotgun directly at my face.

  CHAPTER 8

  “I surrender,” I said, keeping my hands up.

  “Well, if this ain’t the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” the man said, eyes flicking from me to Keep and back again. Middle-aged, dark hair with streaks of gray, a well kept beard and kind eyes. He wore a plain white t-shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots, all of them dirty from his days’ work. “I thought maybe you were a test pilot from Nellis, run into some trouble. But a test pilot wouldn’t be riding Elliot Ness in his lap. You must be having engine trouble or something though. I can feel the heat of it from here.”

  So could I, now that the canopy was open.

  “My name is Benjamin Murdock,” I said, thinking fast. “My father’s an engineer. He works for Tesla. We’ve been building this plane in our spare time for almost a year now. It’s a hobby we share. We were bringing it out for its first test flight when he collapsed in the field, and then our truck wouldn’t start. So I was trying to get him some help. Please, can you help me?”

  I wasn’t sure much of the story made sense, but I had told it quickly enough I hoped the farmer wouldn’t spend too much time repeating it in search of logic. He didn’t seem to give the story much thought. He dropped the shotgun onto the grass and jumped onto the wing.

  “Damn, son. Let me help you with him.” He leaned over the cockpit, getting his hands under Keep’s shoulders and lifting him off me. It was the greatest relief I had ever received from any act of kindness. “That’s a crazy instrument panel you got there,” the farmer said. “I’ve never seen anything so sparse. It definitely reminds me of a Tesla. Do you know what’s wrong with him? He’s burning up.”

  “He has hyperphagic chondroitin,” I added, making up a disease on the spot. “It causes him to overheat and pass out. Mental exhaustion. That sort of thing.”

  “It looks like he cut his hand, too.”

  “Yeah, I got it caught on the edge of the cockpit when I lifted him in. I did the same thing.” I showed him my wound.

  “What about your neck? You look like you tried to hang yourself.”

  I stumbled on that one. How was I supposed to explain that a power hungry wannabe elf choked me with a scarf? “Please. He’s in really bad shape.”

  “What can I do?” the farmer asked.

  “What he needs more than anything is water. Cold water. And probably something to eat and some rest. He usually recovers okay, but we were so far from the house and this was the only way to get anywhere quickly.”

  “Well, I’ll hold onto him. You scoot to the ground and I’ll slide him down to you.”

  “Okay. Thank you, sir.”

  I stepped onto the wing, doing my best to stay facing the farmer as I dropped to the ground. My neck was bad enough. I didn’t want him to see the hole in my coat that led to a burn on my behind.

  “My name’s George. George Frasier.”

  “Thank you, Mister Frasier,” I said, holding out my arms to receive Keep as George gently lowered him to me.

  “That’s some getup you’re wearing,” George continued, noticing the empty holster on my thigh. “You look kind of like Han Solo. Except for the boots. They’re a little short.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s what I told the lady who made the costume for me for a party. I was trying it on when all this happened with my dad.” I held Keep up under his arms as George climbed down from Flippy’s short wing.

  “Let me get my truck,” George said, pointing to it. “We can drive him to the hospital.”

  “How far away is it from here?”

  “About thirty miles.”

  “That’s pretty far. I hate to be a burden to you, Mister Frasier, but is there any way he can rest in your house for a little while. An hour or two? I know it’s a lot to ask. We have money. We can pay you for the trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble,” George replied. “I’ve never been one to turn away anyone in need, and you seem like a good kid, trying to take care of your dad. I’ve got a first-aid kit in the kitchen, I can disinfect and bandage your dad’s hand. And yours too. And you can call me George.”

  “You’re too kind, George,” I said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. Let me get my truck and I’ll drive you down to the house. I’ll be right back.”

  George ran back to the barn to get his truck while I lowered Keep to the ground, propping him up against my legs. He groaned softly but didn’t open his eyes. Leaning down to put my undamaged palm on his forehead, he felt like he had a hundred and two-degree fever.

  It only took a minute for George to come back with the pickup. He pulled up right beside Flippy, and then helped me lift Keep onto the flatbed. I rode back there with him as George drove down the road I had landed on, through a small copse of trees, and past a large planted field to a moderately sized farmhouse, with a wraparound porch. He stopped the truck right in front of a flight of steps leading to the front door. He jumped out and ran to the back of the truck.

  “Hand him down,” he said. “Nice and gentle.”

  I lowered Keep to him before climbing down and taking his feet. We went up the stairs and into the house, a bright and cheerily decorated home with yellow walls and plenty of family pictures on the walls.

  “There’s a guest room this way,” George said. “It’s got a tub we can put him in.”

  I didn’t respond, letting him lead me to the guest room. We bypassed the four-poster bed and went around the corner to a bathroom decorated in fake wood flooring and brick. A claw-foot porcelain tub, probably older than I was, sat off to one side. We lowered Keep into it, his feet at the spigot end.

  I honestly had no idea if submerging him in cold water would help at all. He was burning up, but I knew he wasn’t ill. And it wasn’t like I could take him to a doctor anyway. We had no cash. No identification. My wallet was back in my quarters on Head Case. I figured the cold might shock his system, and if nothing else hopefully wake him up long enough for him to tell me what he really needed. If there was anything critical I should or shouldn’t have done, any outcome was his fault for not telling me about it beforehand.

  George turned on the water, putting his hand under the flow to check the temperature. He cringed from the cold, surprised when the initial contact between Keep and the water didn’t wake him up.

  “Come on, Keep,” I whispered, standing over him.

  The water continued to pour into the tub, quickly rising enough to soak Keep’s entire back. The initial shock still didn’t cause him to stir.

  “Are you sure this is the right way to go about this?” George asked. “Maybe I should call 911.”

  “It takes a few minutes,” I said. “He’ll come out of it.”

  A few more minutes passed. The water covered Keep’s legs completely. He still didn’t open his eyes, but when I put my hand on his forehead he definitely felt cooler.

  “He’s cooling down,” I said. “We can fill it up to his chest and then—”

  Keep’s eyes snapped open. His hand shot up and grabbed my wrist before I could pull it away, squeezing tightly.

  One of the sigils on his sleeve began to glow.

  “Dad, wait!” I said. “It’s Ben. You’re safe.”

  He let go immediately, the light of the sigil fading. I glanced at George to see if he had noticed the light under Keep’s skin. It didn’t look to me like he had.

  “Ben,” Keep said, looking down at himself. “Where are we? What am I doing in a tub of water?” His eyes lifted to George. “Who are you?”

  “George Frasier.”

  Keep smiled and relaxed against the back of the tub. “George Frasier. Okay, sure.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, kid. Why wouldn’t I be? We made it, didn’t we?”

  “I thought you were going to die.”

  “Please. I’ve been through a lot worse.” He put his arms on the sides of the tub, almost annoyingly calm. “You could have at least taken off my coat before you tossed me in here, though.”

  “You aren’t mad about the cold water?” I asked tentatively.

  “Do I look mad? I think I needed a cooldown. Thank you, Mister Frasier, for the use of your tub.”

  “Anytime,” George said, eyes flicking from Keep to me and back again. “You look like you two could use a minute alone. Mister Murdock, are you hungry? I’ve got some cold cuts in the fridge. I can make you a sandwich.”

  “I’m starving,” Keep said. “A sandwich would be perfect. You don’t have fries with that, do you?”

  “Sorry,” George replied with a laugh. “No fries. But I do have chips.”

  “If it’s greasy, it’s good.”

  “Alright then. Just come and get it when you’re ready.”

  ‘“Thank you again, George,” I said as he left the room. I heard the door to the bedroom close a few seconds later.

  As soon as it did, Keep pulled himself up, practically falling over in his rush to get out of the tub. “Geez, Bennie. Cold water?” He shivered as he started peeling away his clothes. “You’re going to give me hypothermia before I can recover from the drain.”