Imminent Danger: And How to Fly Straight Into It Read online

  “It’s not parking, it’s landing,” he corrected. “And what do you think all these sensors are for?” He gestured toward the screens showing topographical maps, weather conditions, and even the phase of the moon.

  “Well then, please don’t land too far from campus,” Eris said. “But not too close either. We don’t want anyone seeing the ship.”

  Varrin gave an exasperated sigh and returned his focus to the navigation controls. He dropped them out of the bottom of a cloud just above a large clearing near the outskirts of town. Swinging the ship in a large circle, he flew lower and slower until they touched down softly on the wet grass.

  “I’ll lower the ramp,” Varrin began, but Eris was already racing for the ship’s exit.

  At the top of the ramp, she reached down to pick up the skirts of her dress so she wouldn’t trip on the way down. “Oh, no!” she shrieked. She had just realized she was wearing one of the dresses she’d acquired on Vega Minor—a poufy affair of green fabric and large yellow gemstones.

  “What’s wrong?” Varrin demanded, rushing to her side and pulling out his striker. He scanned the clearing with keen eyes. “Is there danger?”

  “No, don’t be ridiculous,” Eris snapped. “It’s this dress!”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Varrin asked.

  “It looks very nice,” Miguri said.

  “I can’t wear this!”

  “Why not?” Varrin demanded.

  “High school students don’t walk around in fancy dresses worth a fortune.”

  She mentally ran through her wardrobe but couldn’t think of any of her new outfits that would be suitable. And my jeans and favorite purple hoodie are probably locked in some Chakra Corp. storage bin twenty light-years away, she thought.

  “I might have some clothes that would fit you,” Varrin offered. Eris gave him a disbelieving look. “Not my clothes. Just leftovers from some of my … previous passengers.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Eris muttered.

  They went back inside the Nonconformity. While Miguri waited in the rec room, Varrin led Eris to the one room on the ship in which she’d never been—his cabin. He motioned her inside and told her to wait while he found her some clothes. “Don’t touch anything,” he ordered before disappearing through another door.

  Ignoring his command on principle, Eris took the opportunity to explore his sleeping quarters. Maybe I can gain a deeper insight into the mind of Varrin Gara’dar, exiled Rakorsian prince turned mercenary, she thought. After a few minutes of poking through his drawers, cabinets, and under the bed, Eris came to an interesting conclusion—the man was astonishingly well organized.

  “You touched my things,” Varrin observed when he returned. He laughed when Eris flushed bright pink and started to stammer a denial. “Never mind. Here.” He handed her a bundle of shiny material. “These look your size.”

  They stood silently for a moment staring at each other. Finally, Eris raised an eyebrow.

  Varrin blinked. “Right. I’ll leave you to that, then.”

  Eris suppressed a laugh as the Rakorsian, looking unexpectedly flustered, did his best to saunter casually from the room.

  It turned out the entire outfit wasn’t shiny—only the top, which was made from a reflective, silvery fabric. It was low-cut, long-sleeved, and tight-fitting. Eris found it kept her surprisingly warm despite the thin material and her strategically exposed skin. Next she pulled on purple camouflage pants and found they also fit her remarkably well. Should I be alarmed he guessed my size so perfectly?

  Eris turned to examine herself in the mirror. The image facing her—spunky, red-streaked hair, ostentatious top, baggy pants—was so unlike how she’d left Earth that she almost didn’t recognize herself. If it hadn’t been for the familiar emerald eyes peering back at her through dark lashes, she would have thought she was looking at a total stranger. But she had to admit the outfit was actually very flattering. More importantly, it made her look like a student, albeit one with an unorthodox fashion sense. Thank God it’s the weekend, she thought. Somehow I doubt Varrin has a private school uniform stashed aboard his spaceship.

  When Eris returned to the rec room, Miguri clapped his hands delightedly at her new look. Seeing Varrin enter from the direction of the cockpit, she did an experimental twirl, interested to see his reaction.

  “That outfit is … very becoming,” Varrin said, slowly running his eyes over her body.

  She felt breathless. “I—thank you.” Damn! How does he do this to me?

  “Oh, for Kari’s sake, you two! I am still in the room!” Miguri huffed. “Honestly! Can you two please focus?”

  Varrin was still staring at Eris, his eyes locked on hers. “I am focusing,” he said.

  “I meant focus on the plan!” Miguri scowled.

  “What plan?”

  Eris wrenched her gaze away. “Miguri’s right. Come on.”

  They went back down the ramp and squished out into the clearing. The rain had abated for the moment, but the sky was still overcast. Crouching down, Eris sank her fingers into the lush grass, reveling in the sensation of finally being on familiar soil.

  “Happy to be home?” Varrin asked, standing beside her.

  “You have no idea.”

  “Take this,” he said, shrugging out of his black jacket and draping it over her shoulders as she stood up. “It’ll keep you dry.”

  “Thank you for bringing me back,” Eris said softly, pulling the jacket around her. “I’m serious. You could have just as easily dropped us off on some random planet and left us to fend for ourselves, but you didn’t. It was decent of you.”

  A panicked expression flittered across his handsome features. “Now don’t go and start misjudging me,” he warned. “I’m still as treacherous as ever.”

  “Of course you are,” Eris agreed, smiling.

  “Here,” Varrin said, pulling something from his pocket. He handed her a translucent wristband. “It’s a communication device,” he explained. “Press this button to call the ship. Press that button to reply if I call you. It can also track your location.”

  “Thanks,” Eris said, pulling it onto her wrist. “I’ll be back soon.”

  28

  Eris arrived on campus just under two hours later. It had been a long, damp walk into town, but she was too thrilled about being back on Earth to care.

  When she marched through the front doors of her ivy-covered dormitory building, the residence secretary looked up, smiled, and asked, “Are you visiting someone, dear?”

  “I live here, actually.”

  The secretary peered at her curiously and then snapped her fingers. “I remember you! You’re the girl that disappeared a few months ago.”

  Eris winced. “Yup. That’s me.”

  “Does the dean know you’re back?”

  “Um, I doubt it.”

  “Well, I’d better call him then,” the secretary said. “Are you going to your suite?”

  Eris nodded.

  “Okay, then please wait there until I contact you. We don’t want you disappearing again!”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” Eris agreed.

  She took the elevator up to the sixth floor and walked down the long hall to her suite. The door was unlocked, so she let herself in. Her roommates were sitting on the sofa in the common room watching a reality show on Mallory’s laptop.

  “Hi,” Eris said.

  The three blondes looked up.

  “You’re back!” Lisa exclaimed. “Where’ve you been?”

  Mallory leaned toward Janice and whispered, “Do we know her?”

  “She’s our roommate, you idiot,” Janice snapped. “The one who disappeared a few months ago. Remember?”

  “Oh yeah!” Mallory waved at Eris. “Hey, Erika! You look way cooler than you used to. Did you go to Paris?”

  Eris stared at her. “No. And my name is Eris, not Erika.” Then, remembering Lisa’s question, she added, “I wasn’t kidnapped or anything. I just went to
, uh, visit some relatives for a while. My grandpa was sick. But he’s better now, so I’m back.”

  “That’s great!” Lisa said. “And hey, you’re just in time for the spring formal. Josh is dead set on wearing this hideous powder-blue tux he found in his basement. He claims it’s retro, but I just think it looks stupid.”

  “It won’t look stupid if you wear a powder-blue dress to match,” Janice lectured.

  “Yeah!” Mallory chimed in. “Matching couples are way in right now. You guys would look totally adorable. Way cuter than me and stupid what’s-his-name.”

  Janice and Lisa exchanged knowing looks.

  Seriously? Eris thought. I vanish for two months, and all they can talk about is boys?

  “By the way,” Lisa said, “your mother called a few times. You should probably call her back.”

  Mallory’s eyes widened. “Oh! That’s who that woman was! She kept calling, like, all the time. I had to get my geeky little brother Marvin to block her number. Ugh. Now he says I owe him but, like, I don’t think so.”

  “Ugh,” Eris agreed. “Listen, I need to go call my mom.” She turned to walk to her room and then paused. “Um, do you happen to know where my key card is?”

  “No, but …” Lisa hopped to her bunny-slippered feet and padded over to the kitchenette. She opened a drawer and pulled out a butter knife. “Follow me,” she said, marching down the hall toward Eris’s room.

  This will end well, Eris thought.

  At the door to Eris’s room, Lisa wedged the knife into the lock and wiggled it around for a few seconds.

  Click.

  “There you go,” Lisa said, saluting Eris with the knife.

  “Uh, thanks.”

  As Lisa returned to the common room, Eris entered her bedroom. It looked more or less the same as she remembered, save for the layer of dust covering everything. Her phone was where she’d left it two months ago—plugged into the wall, recharging. She picked it up, swiped it on, and scrolled through her list of contacts. When she reached, “Mom—cell,” she pressed the call button.

  The phone rang three times, and then a strong female voice said, “Karen speaking. Go.”

  Eris took a deep breath. “Hi, Mom.”

  Her mother gasped. Then Eris heard a clunking noise. She realized her mother must have dropped the phone.

  “Darling, hold on, I have to …”

  There was a scuffling noise and the sound of rapid footsteps.

  “Mom?” Eris asked.

  “Sorry. I’m here now. I’m at work, sweetie. I had to find a private place.”

  “Still busy promoting the rights of women in the most liberated country on Earth?”

  “Don’t joke, Eris, you know how important it is that—And don’t change the subject! Where have you been? I thought you’d been kidnapped! I’ve been harassing the police for the last two months! Your useless dean kept trying to convince me you were so intimidated by the workload at his ‘prestigious’ school that you just ran off, but I know you’re too smart for that. Were you kidnapped? Are you all right?”

  “I’m perfectly fine,” Eris said. “And it was more of an abduction than a kidnapping.”

  “I knew it! I’m going to march right down to the police station and give them the lecture of their lives! And that snooty dean! You leave men in charge, and look what happens! And how can a student be abducted in the middle of a private campus, anyway? Were you drinking? I bet you were drinking. I’ve always told you that drinking only lowers you to the level of men, gives them power over you because you’re too drunk to think straight—”

  “I wasn’t drinking, Mom. Listen, there were—”

  “It was a boy, wasn’t it? Men are bad news, Eris, every one of them! I bet he filled your innocent little head with all sorts of grand ideas, promised you the world, and then dumped you the first chance he got!”

  Eris frowned down at the phone. “As nice as it is that you have so much confidence in my judgment—”

  “I’m coming to see you right away,” her mother declared. “Where are you? It doesn’t matter; I’ll get there somehow. I’m taking you home.”

  “Mom, don’t pack your bags yet. I have stuff I need to take care of first before—”

  “I’m booking a trip right now. Where are you?”

  I did not survive the last two months just to fall back under my mother’s thumb, Eris thought angrily. I love her, and I know she cares about me, but I don’t need her telling me how to live my life. She has no right to treat me like this. “I’m not telling you,” she said firmly.

  “What?”

  “Mom, I may be only seventeen years old, but I can take care of myself. I missed you, and I can’t wait to see you, but I have things I need to do where I am. I can’t drop everything to be whisked away by you and locked up in the house while you replan my future.”

  “Eris, this new-found rebellious attitude is completely out of line. Wait! Is someone forcing you to say these things? You’re in trouble, aren’t you? Tell me where you are this instant!”

  I can’t believe I wanted to come back to Earth so badly, Eris thought. My life here was miserable. What am I going to do with myself now? I can’t go back to the way I lived before, not after the things I’ve seen.

  “Bye, Mom,” Eris said. “I love you, and I’ll come see you as soon as I can.”

  “Eris! Don’t you dare—”

  Eris shut off the phone.

  A moment later, Mallory’s platinum blonde head poked into her room. “That lady at the front desk—”

  “The secretary?”

  “Yeah, her. She said she called the dean, and he wants to talk to you, like, right away.” She glanced around. “Wow, Erika, this place is filthy.”

  Leaving her door open, Eris left her residence and headed for the admissions building on the other side of campus. As she walked past Cambridge Hall with the flag on its Notre Dame-esque spire flapping against the dark and roiling sky, she felt something on her wrist vibrate. Looking down, she saw that the wristband Varrin had given her was glowing.

  She ducked behind one of the majestic old oaks that lined the path and pressed one of the buttons on the communication device.

  “Varrin?” she whispered.

  “Yeah. Listen, we have a—”

  “If you say a problem, so help me, I will shoot you,” she snapped.

  “Good luck with that. Anyway, here’s the thing—Kratis managed to get a lock on us. Don’t ask me how. He’ll be here in a couple of days, probably less.”

  “And?”

  “You need to come back to the ship as soon as possible.”

  “Why? What do you want me to do?” Eris demanded. “It’s not like I can stop Kratis from finding you. Besides, I’m finally back home again, and I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.” Even as the words left her mouth, she knew they weren’t true. But she wasn’t ready to admit to anyone, especially Varrin, that her return to Earth wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped.

  “Look,” he said in clipped tones, “as much as I hate to say this, I’m no match for Kratis’s armada. The rat and I could get off this planet, but I doubt we’d get past Jupiter before he intercepts us.”

  “Why don’t you just Pull?”

  “With the engines in the state they’re in now?” he grumbled. “I’d need to be completely out of the system before I could even try a Pull. I may be crazy, but I’m not insane.”

  “Then why don’t you just stay here on Earth? Maybe he won’t find you.”

  “Maybe not, but he’s going to come looking, that’s for sure. And you really don’t want Kratis anywhere near your planet.”

  “Why not? What would he care about a bunch of terrestrials?”

  “Kratis has a short temper. He’s likely to just start blasting everything in sight until he finds me. You’ve heard the rat mope about Claktilla—I’m sure you can imagine what might happen to Earth.”

  “But I thought there was a Tetrarchy ship guarding Earth!”
/>
  “There’s a Tetrarchy ship guarding the system,” he corrected. “Actually, it’s a Psilosian ship. Kratis must’ve slipped past them, the same as we did. It was certainly easy enough to pull off.”

  Eris silently cursed the Psilosians and their inability to be useful at anything. “Can we contact the Psilosians? Tell them there’s a Rakorsian armada headed for Earth?”

  “I tried that about five minutes ago. Kratis must have dropped a comm interrupter somewhere on his way into the system, because I can’t get through.”

  “What does that do?”

  “It blocks all transmissions—forms a communication barrier around a specific area. In this case, the perimeter of the system. You can communicate within the system, but not past the barrier. And the Psilosians are past the barrier.”

  “Okay, fine. But what can I do about any of that?” Eris demanded.

  “That’s why I’m calling you. I have a plan.”

  “Why does that not fill me with confidence?”

  “Look, it’s simple. All we have to do is intercept Kratis’s flagship, sneak on board, get to the communications room, disable the interrupter, and send a message to the Psilosian ship.”

  “Oh, is that all?”

  “Easy, right? Then the Psilosians will come investigate, and Kratis and his armada will have to leave or else risk starting an interspecies incident. If all goes according to plan, you’ll be back on Earth in less than a week.”

  “Putting aside the fact that your plan is doomed to failure, why do you need me?”

  “The Claktill is great for jumping around and biting people’s kneecaps, but he wouldn’t be much use infiltrating a Rakorsian warship.”

  “And I would? Look, Varrin, I just got home. I’m sick of space travel, and Pulling, and strikers. I know nothing about infiltrating starships or disabling comm thingies, and … well … I just don’t want to be part of your insane plan!”

  “Fine,” Varrin drawled. “Then when your little Claktill friend is captured and gets his head chopped off, don’t come crying to me.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?” Eris demanded. Why is he so insistent that I go along? she wondered. She bit her lip and peeked around the tree toward the pathway. Groups of students hurried past, complaining about their upcoming exams, giggling over the latest juicy gossip, or making plans for the upcoming football game. I’m not ready to go back to this yet, she realized. I don’t even know if I want to.