“Can we outrun them?” I asked doubtfully.
Mort whistled. “You’re just full of terrible ideas today, aren’t you, sweet cheeks?”
I glared at him. “I don’t see you offering up any suggestions.”
“You also don’t see me stealing from port-planet pawnshops.”
“Very clever,” I muttered.
“’Tis my specialty.” He held out his hand to Angie for a grisly high-five. She reluctantly conceded, and the floppy skin of his palm collided wetly with hers, drawing a disgusted look from Bashrik, who wasn’t dealing with this new friendship particularly well.
“We’re running low on fuel. There’s nowhere we could hide, even if we could outrun them for a while,” Navan said, reaching out to take my hand. It was all the comfort I needed.
“How about a shootout? I’m pretty handy with the big guns,” Ronad offered, before flashing a warning look at Mort, who raised his hands in innocence.
Navan shook his head. “Our guns are still on the blink. If we use them, we risk frying the whole system and ending up dead in the water.”
“If we do nothing, we’re already dead in the water,” I countered.
“Even if we could use the guns, the Fed firepower is way stronger than what we have on board. They’d decimate us in minutes,” he replied, giving my hand an apologetic squeeze. “There’s nothing we can do but follow their orders.”
“Do we go back to Pulsyde?” Ronad wondered.
“No, it’s easier if we press on to Wander. It’s not far, and it might give us a chance to think about what our next move is,” Navan replied. “Bashrik, can you set a course for Wander?”
Bashrik nodded. “Putting on our surrender lights and setting a course for our inevitable demise.”
I wanted to get out of this cockpit and find a place to hide, not from the Fed but from the disapproving looks of my crewmates. Yes, I’d been reckless in stealing the compass, but I refused to give up hope that it would take us to Lauren and the notebook. And when it did, I prayed this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach would go away.
Looking dead ahead, a breath caught in the back of my throat, my chest tight, I watched as we approached this new port-planet of Wander. It was small and blue, with marbled green and white across the surface, looking just like a miniature version of Earth. Although I’d been away from home for a long time, I’d never felt as homesick as I did in that moment, viewing Wander through the windshield. It was like seeing a familiar landmark on the final stretch to your front door… only we were still light-years away from home.
“Making our descent,” Bashrik said, sounding like an airline pilot.
I looked up at the shifter, who was picking at his elbow folds, humming the words to Whitney Houston. “Mort, when we land, can you pretend to be one of Brisha’s soldiers?” I asked hopefully. “You can tell the Fed officer that there’s been a misunderstanding of some sort, and we’ve been given this vessel for an exploratory mission—something like that?”
He pulled a face. “I’d rather pretend to be a Sonoran and tell them you’ve taken me from a lunar farm,” he muttered. “Or maybe I’ll masquerade as a wealthy regent and tell them you’ve kidnapped me and are holding me for ransom!”
“Mort, please do this for us! You might be the only chance we have of getting out of here without being clapped in cuffs.”
He grinned, waggling his bald brows. “I don’t mind cuffs, in the right setting.”
“I’m being serious, Mort. You’re the only one who can get us out of this.”
He paused, for what I was fairly sure was meant to be dramatic effect, before flicking out his fleshy hands. “Fine, I’ll do it. I shall coldblood up one last time,” he said, relenting. “Although, I’m warning you now, I’m too hungry to hold on to a different form for long.”
Chapter Three
We landed on a stretch of open, grassy plain that had been turned into a repair shipyard and was filled with dilapidated vessels of all shapes, sizes, and origins. A chain-link fence ran around the perimeter, but there weren’t many people about, only weary-looking mechanics smeared in dirt and oil. They wandered around the place, ripping panels and parts from the worst-looking ships and piling them into wagons.
The Fed ship was still descending, but I was already standing on solid ground, waiting for everyone else to come out of the hatch. A figure strode down the gangway behind me. My eyes went wide with fear, and I staggered back in shock as Pandora approached.
“What the hell, Mort? You nearly gave me a heart attack!” I hissed, clutching my chest as realization dawned.
“You like it?” Mort purred. “I’m especially enjoying these.” He cupped his newly forged boobs, jiggling them in such a way that I didn’t know whether to slap him or laugh. Somehow, it made the way he looked seem marginally less frightening.
“Why did you have to choose that form, out of every coldblood in the universe?” I asked, shaking my head in despair.
He grinned with Pandora’s lips. “She’s the coldblood I know best from Brisha’s side of things. After the near-miss with Captain Splatter, I thought it best to go with someone I’ve seen properly before. It’ll be more convincing this way, trust me.”
I grimaced at the mention of Commander Korbin. “Can you not call him that? Have some respect for the dead.”
“Still too raw? I guess it wasn’t too long ago you were still finding little bits of him in your hair.”
“Anyway, I thought we agreed I wasn’t going to trust you,” I replied, ignoring his comment, though I could feel a shiver of disgust running up my spine at the memory. “I trust you even less now that you look like her. How do you even know what she looks like?”
Mort shrugged. “She was always popping up on Orion’s monitors, chatting about something or other,” he explained, taking up his position next to me, changing his voice so it matched the flat, cold tone of Pandora herself. “What’s the matter? This bringing up some bad memories? You remembering how it felt when you—”
“Stop it!” I growled, flashing him a warning look. The others were coming down the gangway to join us, looking just as horrified as I had upon seeing Mort as Pandora, though they quickly covered their surprise as the Fed ship touched down with a hiss of its engines. I didn’t want to hear another word out of Mort’s new mouth, or any of his mouths for that matter.
The hatch in the side of the Fed ship opened, and an officer walked toward us. He was dressed in a smart uniform of maroon military fatigues, with a beret-like hat of the same color angled on his head. The clothes contrasted starkly with the shimmering tone of his pale blue-and-silver skin, which covered his body in interchangeable stripes, like the ripples of an ocean tide. He was bald, aside from the hat, with two conch-shaped protrusions, one on either side of his head, which I presumed were his species’ version of ears. There were three sets of gill slits, too—two running up the sides of his neck, and a narrow train of indentations along the front of his throat, which opened and closed every few seconds. As he came to a halt in front of us, I found it almost impossible not to stare at them.
“Criminals, I would like to introduce myself as Agent Xiphio,” he announced, putting his hands on his hips. His voice was clipped and oddly British-sounding, but far posher than anything that came out of a coldblood mouth.
Realizing how rude I was being by staring at his gills, I looked up, only to find that he had the most mesmerizing blue eyes. They looked like two whirlpools, standing out from a very aquatic face. His nose was almost indiscernible above a pair of full, fish-like lips. However, his smile was a bright white, his teeth strangely humanoid. If my heart hadn’t been thundering in my chest, I was pretty sure I’d have been struggling with a giggle. I mean, there was definitely something handsome about him in a curious kind of way, but he took some getting used to.
Mort stepped forward in his Pandora disguise. “Agent Xiphio, there seems to have been a misunderstanding about the status of our ship,” he said, his voi
ce sending a chill through me. “This vessel wasn’t stolen from Vysanthe. It is being used on official royal business for Queen Brisha.”
“And who might you be?” Xiphio asked, lowering his voice as if to act tough, which was pretty difficult considering he sounded like Mr. Darcy.
“I am Pandora, Queen Brisha’s advisor, and you are preventing us from continuing our reconnaissance mission related to the current war, which you have no doubt heard of?”
“Yes, a nasty business from what I hear,” Xiphio replied, pulling a disapproving face that he quickly covered, evidently not wanting to show any bias toward the state of the coldblood planet. “If what you say is true, we shall soon have all of this ironed out. Regardless, I will have to go through with standard procedure. I can’t have you zipping off on your exciting adventure without checking the details. That just isn’t the Federation’s way, I’m afraid.” He chuckled to himself, seeming friendly enough. Maybe we’d actually get away with it.
I turned to steal a glance at Navan, but he was already staring pointedly at Bashrik and Ronad, the three of them sharing a baffled look.
“You wouldn’t happen to be the Agent Xiphio, would you?” Navan asked hesitantly, turning back to the Fed officer.
Xiphio puffed out his chest with pride, his gills flapping rapidly. “So, you’ve heard of me?”
Ronad struggled to hide a smile. “You could say that.”
“Which of my triumphant endeavors have you been told of?” he asked excitedly. “Was it my work in preventing the trafficking of innocent Sonorans? Or my well-documented feats of charity with the Darian refugees? Or, was it the de-escalation of the Brimenian conflict, perhaps?”
Bashrik stifled a laugh as Navan made a tentative reply. “Uh… none of those, exactly.”
I stared at them, utterly confused by what was going on. Ronad was barely holding it together, and Bashrik was on the brink of collapsing into all-out giggles. Even Navan had a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.
“We were thinking more along the lines of what happened to the planet Tiburon. You know, the accidental blowing-up of the asteroid that was threatening to destroy it—only, the charges were set on the wrong asteroid and Tiburon ended up getting hit anyway?” Navan ventured.
Bashrik nodded, chiming in. “Thankfully, the planet had already been evacuated, but there was an Agent Xiphio in charge of that mission, if I remember right.”
“I’m sure that was some other Agent Xiphio, though,” Navan added hastily.
An interesting shade of purple rose to the cheeks of the poor agent. He was blushing, evidently embarrassed. I wanted to turn to them and tell them off for being so childishly cruel, but I held my tongue, not wanting us to lose face in front of the Fed officer.
“I cannot confirm or deny what you have said,” Xiphio retorted, the warmth in his tone gone. “Now, if you would be so kind as to join me aboard my ship, we may proceed with the facial recognition screening. Since you seem to think you know so much about me, it is time to see if you are who you say you are. Oh, and please don’t try to run. I do not wish for things to turn violent.” He turned on his heel and returned to his ship, beckoning for us to follow.
“That was really mean,” I whispered to Navan as we hurried after the agent. “You embarrassed him!”
Navan pulled a face. “He’s earned the reputation, believe me! The Fed just won’t fire him, for some reason.”
My curiosity was piqued. “Why, what else has he done?”
“He’s the king of friendly fire. People across the universe call him ‘the Black Spot’ because if you see him, you know there’s a good chance you might end up dead,” he explained quietly.
“Well, that’s comforting,” I muttered.
“He crashed a cargo-freighter into a quarantine facility, releasing a toxin that turned patients into crazed zombies. He ended up giving fifty thousand credits to a bunch of gangsters, who ran off with the cash. He got honey-trapped into giving away Fed secrets to a Brimenian con artist, resulting in a universal scandal. And, he handed twenty crates of Sonorans to the very people he was supposed to be keeping them from—and those are just in the last year! He’s the laughingstock of the Fed.”
“Anyone can make mistakes,” I murmured.
“Not when their job is to protect the universe.”
I had to admit, that was quite the trail of chaos and embarrassment that lay behind Xiphio, but it only made me pity him more. I hated people being picked on or being made to feel like less than they were. In any other situation, I might have tried to befriend him, or at least attempted to make him feel better about what the boys had just said. Now, however, I was more nervous about getting through this scan without being arrested, especially given Mort’s disguise.
Xiphio led us to a flat metal screen in the middle of the main bay of the Fed ship, and had us line up in a row, facing the screen, standing shoulder to shoulder. As soon as we were in position, he walked over to a set of controls.
“Face forward and keep your eyes open for as long as you can,” he instructed, before pressing a large green button.
We all did as he said. A moment later, a bar of bright green lights emerged from a narrow panel in the floor and rose up, scanning us one by one. Mort was first. The lights moved across his body before coming to a halt in front of his face. I held my breath the whole time as the lights twisted and turned, processing every angle of his features, before the bar disappeared again with a loud clunk. Would it see straight through his Pandora disguise?
I couldn’t help but glance at the control panel, where Xiphio was working away at a computer, checking some unseen database for any recognition of our identities. A hologram of Pandora flashed up, her body spinning on a plinth.
“Pandora, you may step away from the screen. You are clear,” Xiphio said. A sigh of relief hissed from my throat.
Mort stepped back as the bar of lights emerged again, scanning Bashrik next. After another all-clear, it moved on to Ronad, who was also safe. Angie came after him, but no hologram emerged from the database. Fearing the worst, I looked to Xiphio, but he just shrugged.
“It would appear you are not in the database, miss,” he explained. “Not to worry, it can happen sometimes. It’s better not to be in here, honestly, because otherwise, you’re more likely to have a rap sheet!”
“Can I step back?” Angie asked anxiously.
“Of course. If you aren’t on here, you aren’t a wanted criminal.” He chuckled, gesturing for her to move away from the screen, which she did as quickly as she could.
Glancing at him, I wondered if he might be precisely what we were looking for, despite everything Navan had said about him. With a database that stored the names and identities of known criminals, Stone had to be on there. A third eye that could freeze people was exactly the kind of skill that made someone an ideal thief, and I’d already seen him and his band of merry men looting ruined houses. Even if he wasn’t in the database, surely the kidnapping of a young woman would be just the kind of case that would interest the galactic police—especially an officer who was probably looking to improve his reputation.
I mean, even if he was crap at his job, Xiphio was still a Fed agent. When were we going to get an opportunity like this again? We still needed allies, since the only ones we’d managed to get were Mort and Cambien, and Cambien wouldn’t be of long-term help. This was the perfect chance to gain more support. We could even tell him about the immortality elixir and ask for his aid in preventing Brisha and Gianne from creating it. At the very least, we could ask him to pass the message on to his agent buddies, who might be better at coming up with a solution.
The bar of green lights emerged again, distracting my train of thought. It ran up the screen to scan Navan, who was standing beside me. I watched as a hologram sprang up from the computer, showing Navan in all his glory.
“All clear, Navan Idrax,” Xiphio declared. “You may step away from the scanner.”
Navan gave my hand a
comforting squeeze before stepping away to let the lights scan me.
My pulse quickened as the bar of lights shot up, stopping in front of my face. Green flashed in my eyes, temporarily blinding me, and the sound of the whirring mechanisms made my muscles tense up. It was like leaving a store and walking through the beepers, feeling guilty even though I knew I hadn’t stolen anything. Being human, I knew I wouldn’t have a record, just like Angie.
An alarm sounded as a hologram shot out of the computer, showing an image of me. Only, my picture wasn’t one of the dignified spinning figures that I’d seen for everyone else. Instead, it was a wanted poster, showing a blown-up image of my face and playing a short clip of me smashing the glass cabinet and taking the compass from the pawnshop.
“Stealing a valuable item and a dangerous weapon, destruction of private property, grievous bodily harm, unpaid toll fees… Well, well, well, it seems we have a criminal after all,” Xiphio said solemnly, peering at me over the top of his monitor.
Chapter Four
I turned to make a run for it, but steel bars shot up out of the ground, surrounding me. The more I pushed against them, the more they pressed into my body.
“You’re making a mistake!” I said, desperate to get out of here, even though I had earned that wanted poster.
“You cannot run from the law, miss. There is no place you can hide from Lady Justice. She is all-seeing, all-knowing, all… justifying!” Xiphio stated proudly, puffing out his chest again. “We are the peacekeepers; we are the defenders; we are the ones who come for the monsters under the beds of children and lock them away… after a fair trial, of course. I mean, we wouldn’t simply lock people away without first ensuring we had all the facts. That just wouldn’t be good policing. Although, if someone was hiding under a child’s bed, I presume there would be just cause for concern,” he rambled, having gotten himself confused.