Dad set two guns on the table.
“There are a lot of details I hope you never learn about this case,” he said as he checked the laser specifications. “Many people at Apex Genetics have no remorse for what they’ve done, or for what they’re doing.”
Abel sat with his hands in his lap, twisting his fingers. Dad, Mr. Haines, a man with a scraggly goatee, and a woman with cropped silver hair were all preparing themselves to face Evie’s kidnappers. They sat in the passenger compartment of a small, but speedy spacecraft that had been stashed near Dad’s hideaway on Earth—where Wes was still recovering. Alone. They’d locked down the whole building and promised they’d be back in 24 hours.
Wes had caught Abel’s sleeve before he left.
“Be careful,” Wes had said.
“I will,” Abel replied. “And don’t go anywhere, for goodness sake. Or do anything, or talk to anyone.”
For a moment, Wes had looked like he was going to say something, but then he shook his head.
“Just come back, okay?” Wes asked.
And now Abel was here. In space. It was unreal. He’d never expected Dad to let him come, but he supposed anyone would cave under pressure like this. He hadn’t been very kind to Dad, either. He knew that. When he pulled Dad aside outside Wes’s room, he had spouted some things about responsibility and trust, and how with the amount of people Dad had lost to Striker’s team, there was no way he could afford to leave Abel behind.
And Dad agreed. It was a rushed decision, Abel could tell, but in the hurricane of Dad’s apprehension and amidst the frenzy of mission prep, he didn’t risk bringing it up again.
Needless to say, he was pretty proud of himself.
Dad’s gun clicked. “Which is why you’re staying on the ship while we get your sister.”
“Wait, what?” Abel jolted back to awareness. “I came all this way, and you’re going to make me sit around while you actually go get Evie?”
“Yes,” Dad said. “It’s far too dangerous out there for you, a normal civilian. Instead, you’ll keep the ship cloaked and waiting for us when we come back.”
“It really is an important part of the plan,” Samir said, cocking his shotgun. “Otherwise they could eject us into space or something. Not good for the health.”
“Right…” Abel said.
“Please, Abel, do this for me,” Dad said, putting his hand on Abel’s shoulder. “You’ll still be helping, just in a much safer way. And besides, the only reason I even let you come is because I didn’t have time to reach my other contacts… we have to find Evie as fast as possible. The longer we wait, the more risk we have of losing her.”
“I know, Dad,” Abel said. “I just… I want to help. It’s my fault she’s gone.”
“No, it isn’t. If anything, all of this is my fault for leaving you in the first place. Which… is something I’ll sort out when we get back. For now, stay here, and stay safe. Keep the ship running.”
“It’s not your fault, either,” Abel said.
“Stay,” Dad said. He steered Abel to the cockpit and plunked him into the pilot’s seat. “You know how to fly one of these things?”
“Uh… no? I can’t even drive a car.”
“Oh. Well, here, it’s easy. Just keep this lever in that position, and then as soon as we get on board, press these three buttons in a row, and make sure you don’t bump any of these, because that will disable the cloak.”
“And don’t touch the weapons controls,” Mr. Haines piped up.
“Or the communications,” the woman said, her voice heavy with an unfamiliar accent.
“Except the earpiece,” Dad said. “Which connects to the radio here.”
“Just not communications,” the woman said again. “The kid’s never operated a space ship before, Lance. You can’t expect him to learn it right away.”
“He’s smart, he’ll figure it out.”
Abel’s brain was whirling. “Um, guys, I don’t know if—”
The woman said something in a foreign language, waving her hand at Dad, who rolled his eyes and answered in the same language. They bantered for a few moments before Dad threw his hands up.
“Anyway!” Dad said. “Abel, just be ready. It could get hectic when we return, so just make sure you’re prepared. Remember, these three buttons when we board. Samir will take over as soon as he can.”
“O...okay.”
Dad squeezed his shoulder. “You’ve got this, I know you do. Do you remember when the holo broke and you were the one who fixed the projector card while I sat on the couch trying to read the manual?”
“Dad, that was a holo. This is a spaceship.”
“You were six years old. And what about the time you repaired the security lock around our house? You programmed it all on your own and made our home the safest one on that half of the city.”
Abel rubbed his eyes. “Still totally different than driving a ship. Cybertech knowledge won’t help me.”
“The point is that you learn fast, and you learn well,” Dad said. “I’m trusting you because I know you can, and if anything goes wrong, you’re bright enough to find a way out of it. You wanted to come, and this is the responsibility that comes with it.”
“You don’t think this is all too sudden? What if I can’t—?”
“You will. There’s no other option.”
“But Dad, I…”
“I trust you.”
He motioned at the others, who stood up and slung their secondary weapons over their shoulders. Each had a fully-loaded gun in their hands. Next to Abel, Samir used the co-pilot’s yoke to ease their small ship closer to the approaching space station. Two small patrol fighters cruised past, but passed them by thanks to the cloak. Abel swallowed hard.
Dad was already standing beside the hatch. “Everyone be ready. Once we dock, we’ll only have a couple minutes before they realize they’ve been boarded. Vida, you’ll disable the alarms and then lock down the entire deck. Then we’ll have to clear our way.”
Samir pulled back on the yoke—the ship slowed. They continued to slow until they were right against the station’s broad hull. It was a clean, creamy white, and their particular windshield-filled view was featureless save for the small door with which they were about to dock.
“Ready?” Samir asked.
“Yes,” three voices answered. Abel was silent.
They were almost at a standstill now. Abel gripped the arms of the pilot seat and tensed. The station side loomed. A small tremor went through the ship and they stopped.
“Here we go,” Samir said. He got up and jogged to the door. A hiss of steam came from underneath.
“W-wait!” Abel cried. “What if something happens?”
“Then keep your head,” Dad said. “If you need something, just hail me over the earpiece. I’ll be there to help you.”
The hatch whizzed open. Abel reached out, a hundred more questions on his tongue, but Dad was already gone. The hatch clanked shut, like a guillotine. Abel waited, straining to hear the other side, but he could hear nothing.
He eased back into the pilot seat and stared out the windshield. He still faced the side of the station, although when he glanced to the left, he could see two screens that showed camera footage of all angles around the craft. Just empty space.
Abel drummed his fingers on his leg. He was shaky.
The fact that Dad trusted him with all this was a bit overwhelming. He thought he’d be helping more with the run-and-shoot-enemies stuff, although he couldn’t deny Dad’s logic in making him stay here. He’d never fired a real gun, anyway, and doubted that he’d be able to really do it in the moment of truth. Now, if he’d had a gun when that Striker man had first cornered them… that would’ve been different.
But he hadn’t. And now he was sitting in space, hoping and praying Dad could rescue Evie.
He dropped his face to his hands. He was worried about her. Evie was his baby sister, the one he’d looked after since her birth as a kind of precious, annoying gem. Letting her run free after school three days a week was hard enough, especially in the kind of neighborhood where they lived, but between his two jobs, it was hard enough just to find time to sleep. He hoped they hadn’t grown apart. Considering what they’d been through in the last three days, he supposed they would be closer than ever, now. He loved her. He wanted nothing more than to see her and hug her again.
If she made it.
Something started beeping. Abel jumped. One of the screens showed the two patrol cruisers he’d seen earlier. They were coming from the opposite direction from before. They rounded the station’s corner and zipped straight toward him on the left side.
They were moving fast, and both had red flashing lights. Abel gripped the arms of his seat.
“Um…”
The two ships shot by, trailing something behind them. It looked like a net, except the rope was a glowing blue.
Detection devices.
“Uhh… uhh… um…” Abel fumbled around and grabbed the earpiece. He slipped it on and fingered the side until a green light came on. “Dad? Dad, come in, it’s Abel.”
“Abel? What’s wrong?” Dad’s voice cut through static—there were gunshots in the background. Abel thought he heard a scream.
“Th-the patrol ships came back. They released a net of lasers, and they look like they could pick up the ship.” He waited for a response, but there was only silence. “Dad? Dad!”
Abel switched the earpiece off and back on, but the connection was dead.
“Oh no, oh no,” Abel said.
He looked at the screen again and saw the net of detectors closing in. He had maybe thirty seconds before it reached him. The closer it got, the more clearly he could see the tiny, blinking receptors strung between the energy. It ballooned to blanket the entire area around the hangar door.
“I gotta move,” Abel muttered.
He took a deep breath through his nose and held it. Without giving himself time to think, he pushed the three buttons and flipped the switch Dad had pointed out earlier. A loud shriek went through the whole compartment, followed by the sound of metal cranking against metal. Abel grabbed the yoke with both hands. As soon as he touched it, the whole ship dipped to the side.
He gasped. But there was no time to panic. He took another deep breath and tried to right the ship again. The net of trackers was closing in from the left. Another few seconds and it would wrap around him.
“Dad,” Abel said into the earpiece. “I don’t know if you can hear this, but I had to leave the hatch. I’ll find another way to pick you up, I promise.”
He pressed the thrusters on the yoke—he’d seen Mr. Haines do the same thing during their flight. The ship lurched into motion, away from the side of the station. A few pieces of metal debris floated by the screen. A flash of terror rocked him. Maybe he hadn’t disconnected properly, and something had broken. Maybe the entire ship was about to implode. Maybe the air was leaking out a hull breach. Maybe-
“Just go,” he growled to himself.
Abel eased the spacecraft out from under the tracker net at the last second. Between guiding the ship as slowly as possible along the side of the station, he glanced at the screens and watched the tiny blue strings settle atop the station’s hatch where he had been parked moments ago. They glowed brighter, vibrating. A translucent blue shield sprang to life between them.
Abel looked back out the windshield, his throat tightening. He had avoided the trackers, but now Dad and his team were trapped inside. They probably didn’t even know he had left them.
“God, please keep them safe,” Abel whispered.
The last thing he wanted to do was witness his father and sister come back to the hatch only to find him gone, and then to fall right back into the hands of their captors—or worse—die. Because of him.
“Please keep them safe.”
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