“Allegra. We’ll talk about it later,” Jazen said.
Jack grunted in agreement and focused on keeping Khalix quiet and shooting down more Shardwings. It took some concentration, but he did it. He was grateful that he was still able to hit the mute button on the Rüstov prince if he really put his mind to it. The last thing he wanted to hear right now was his “roommate’s” smug voice in his head. Jack’s shots continued to hit their marks, but no matter how many enemy fighters he, Jazen, or Allegra took out, it wasn’t getting any easier. The Shardwings darted through space with incredible dexterity and force, and they just kept coming. “There’s too many of them,” Allegra said. “What are we still doing here? Can’t we just jump to hyperspace already?”
“Don’t look at me,” Roka said. “Talk to the warp drives. We need to phase first.”
“We need to what?” Jack asked.
“Traveling at light speed means flying too fast to steer,” Roka explained. “We’d crash into meteor showers, stars . . . even planets if we tried it without phasing.”
Still confused, Jack did what Roka suggested and reached out to the ship’s engine to get some clarity. He learned that the Harbinger’s Ghost Box needed to render the ship intangible before they could safely engage the hyperdrives. The box needed to scan the ship and everything on it so that it could throw everyone’s molecules into flux for the jump to light speed, and then properly realign them afterward.
“Shouldn’t we be ready to punch it by now?” Jazen asked. “What’s the hold up?”
“I am,” Jack said. “The scan’s taking longer because the ship is having a hard time mapping my body.”
“Because of your infection?” Allegra asked. “Just talk to the ship’s computer and tell it what the Rüstov did to you.”
“I can’t,” Jack said, scratching his chest uncomfortably. “I don’t even know that myself.” His chest felt heavy underneath his space suit. Jack would have chalked it up to anxiety, but it hurt when he coughed. He could tell that his infection was advancing.
The Harbinger took a direct hit, and the ship was thrown onto its side, heading into a flat spin. Powerful centrifugal forces pinned Jack forward against his gun’s firing controls as Roka fought to regain control of the ship. The Harbinger leveled off, and Jack felt the pressure ease, but the damage had already been done.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Roka announced once he’d gotten the ship back under control. “Which one do you want to hear first?”
“Give me the bad news,” Jazen said.
“We just lost the Ghost Box.”
“What?” Allegra asked.
“It’s gone,” Roka said. “That last shot fried it. No Ghost Box, no light speed.”
“What’s the good news?” Jazen asked.
Roka shrugged. “Sorry, I lied about the good news. Anybody got any ideas?”
Silence fell over the cabin as the realization sank in that the ship was trapped in enemy territory. They were hopelessly outnumbered and there was no chance of outrunning the Rüstov Armada without light speed.
“Anyone?” Roka asked again. No one said anything.
“Don’t tell me that’s it,” Jack said. “We’re done?”
Roka shrugged. “Unless one of you can fly this bird at light speed manually, we’re not going anywhere.”
Jack thought about what Roka was suggesting. He left his gun station and ran to the captain’s chair. “Give me the stick.”
Roka looked at Jack like he was crazy. “Kid, I was being sarcastic.”
“I know you were. I’m not. Let me fly this thing. I’ll get us through at light speed.”
Roka squinted up at Jack. It took him a second to process that Jack was serious. “I’m not just good with machines,” Jack said. “I can talk to them. I can talk to the ship. I can do this.”
“No,” Roka said, pointing back at Jack’s empty gyro-chair. “Get back to your gun. I need you shooting down Shardwings while I figure this thing out.”
Jack planted his feet. “There’s nothing to figure out. There’s no other way out of here. I’m the only chance we’ve got.”
“That’s not a chance. That’s suicide.”
The Harbinger sustained another hit, and red lights started flashing throughout the cockpit. “So’s staying here,” Jazen shouted, talking over the sirens as the ship shook back and forth. “You want to die out there, or you want to die here? We’re dead either way.”
Jack put a hand on the ship’s controls. “There’s no time to argue. Please. You have to trust me.”
Roka scowled at Jack. “I just met you.”
“If Jack says he can do it, he can do it,” Allegra said.
“You said you wanted ideas,” Jazen reminded Roka.
“I meant good ideas,” Roka shot back. “You can’t navigate light speed manually. No one can. You’re talking about flying through a rainstorm without getting wet. It’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” Jack said. “The only thing faster than the speed of light is the speed of thought. I can save us if you’ll just get out of the way and let me do it!”
Roka gave Jack a hurt look. “That is the most ungrateful way to talk to someone who just busted you out of the Magus’s personal flagship.”
“Just do what he says already!” Allegra screamed.
“Roka!” Jazen shouted as a squadron of Rüstov fighters closed in. More alarms started blaring. “They’ve got missile lock on us. Get up and let Jack fly!”
Solomon Roka looked back and forth at Jazen and Allegra, then shook his head and unbuckled his seat belt. “This is mutiny, is what this is,” he said, getting out of his chair. Roka stepped aside to let Jack sit down in his place. He eyed Jack nervously as he looked over the ship’s controls. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever flown one of these before. . . . That’s probably too much to hope for, isn’t it?”
“Don’t worry,” Jack said. “I learn fast.”
CHAPTER
3
Jack’s Back
Jack found out two things rather quickly. The first was that space was an endless minefield of comets, meteors, planets, stars, satellites, spaceships, and more. The second was that the speed of thought did not necessarily exceed the speed of light. If anything, the two speeds were equal at best. Flying the Harbinger through hyperspace by himself was like running across a firing range and trying to dodge the bullets.
Luckily, Jack’s powers made dodging the bullets possible, letting him bypass the Harbinger’s controls and fly the ship with his mind. His reaction times were amplified by a direct connection with the ship’s radar and navigation systems, allowing him to anticipate obstacles and chart a course that was light-years ahead of what he could see with his own eyes. Even so, it was by no means a smooth ride. Navigating light speed in real time took perfect concentration, and Jack was anything but perfect. He bobbed and weaved his way across the universe, narrowly missing head-on collisions by inches and grinding through enough minor scrapes to keep Roka screaming about his ship the entire ride home. By the time the Harbinger reached the Milky Way galaxy, the ship was so banged up it could barely stay together.
Jack pulled out of hyperspace as the ship limped into Earth’s atmosphere, held together mainly by the sheer force of his will. Landing was not even a consideration. He was just looking for a soft place to crash.
“Hold on tight!” Jack shouted as the Harbinger streaked across the sky like a shooting star. The heat of reentry burned away at the ship’s protective layers, and it struck the earth like a fireball. It hit the earth hard and kept right on going, charging ahead like a runaway train tearing down the track.
Roka shouted out the obvious command to the ship’s computer: “Eject! Eject! Eject!”
The cockpit shot backward and skidded out into marshlands as the rest of the Harbinger raced forward, carving a path through a swamp. The ejected capsule skimmed across a hundred yards of shallow, slimy water like an out-of-control airboat. Event
ually, it spun out and settled into the muck, where it sank a few feet and hit bottom. Roka popped the hatch, and Jack and the others climbed out unscathed. The rest of the Harbinger was anything but. Roka’s ship didn’t stop until it crashed through a fence and into a small cinder-block shed, effectively demolishing the structure. The resulting explosion left Roka’s ship somewhat intact, but the front end was on fire and the hull was riddled with holes big and small. Roka put both hands on his head as he stared out at the flaming wreck of the Harbinger. He looked like his dog had just died.
“My ship . . .”
Jack walked up alongside Roka and took in the fiery view with him. “Sorry, Roka. I did the best I could.”
Roka stared in silence for a few moments, then finally answered. “I thought you said you control machines. You couldn’t bring us in any softer than that?”
“I control working machines,” Jack said. “I can’t make them not be broken. Look on the bright side. We’re alive, aren’t we?”
Roka rubbed his thick, stubbly beard as he considered Jack’s logic. “You got us out kid, I’ll give you that. But still . . .” Roka lifted a hand toward the Harbinger and dropped it to his side with a heavy sigh.
“The important thing is we made it back in one piece,” Jazen said. “That’s all that matters.”
“Maybe to you,” Roka said. “Where am I going to get the credits to fix this? I’m not even getting paid for this job.”
“Where the heck are we, anyway?” Allegra asked.
Jazen looked around. “I don’t know. It looks familiar, though.”
Jack agreed, taking special note of the tall, fluttering reeds in the marsh that reminded him of his childhood. Sparks were shooting off the broken fence that the Harbinger ran through, and there was an oddly shaped building off in the distance surrounded by construction vehicles. Jack’s powers picked up on the work they were doing. They were adding a new floor onto the building’s roof. He shook his head in disbelief. “No way. It can’t be.”
“What in the name of Dixon Ticonderoga is going on here?” a booming voice called out. The next thing Jack knew, his old school’s head disciplinarian, H. Ross Calhoun, came bounding across the swamp wearing knee-high mud boots over his suit pants. Jack couldn’t believe it. He was right back where he started: St. Barnaby’s Home for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Forgotten, and Lost.
When Calhoun saw the blazing starship that had just crashed into his orderly little world, he put his hands on his head, striking a pose much like the one Roka had taken up a moment earlier. “My generator . . . My beautiful new generator!” Calhoun hung his head, looking defeated by life. “This can’t be,” he said, tugging at his hair. “We haven’t had anything like this happen since—”
Calhoun stopped short as he looked up and laid eyes on Jack. “No,” he said, turning white. “No, no, no! Not you! What are you doing back here?”
“Hey, Mr. Calhoun,” Jack said. “Nice to see you, too.”
“Don’t get smart with me, boy,” Calhoun shot back, sticking a finger in Jack’s face. A switch had been flipped. The distraught headmaster was gone, and the hardened tyrant masquerading as an educator was back. “You’re not supposed to be here. You were supposed to be gone . . . for good!” Calhoun curled his fingers, looking very much like he wished he were closing them around Jack’s throat. “You’re going to pay for this. You just ruined my brand-new power generator and my electric fence!”
“Really?” Jazen asked with a mischievous grin. “How do you like that? Déjà vu all over again, huh, Jack?”
“And you!” Calhoun said, spinning around to face Jazen. “What are you doing bringing this boy back here to cause trouble?”
Jazen patted Calhoun on the shoulder, leaving mud stains on his suit. “Sorry for the inconvenience, sir. Couldn’t be helped. Don’t worry. The bureau will take care of everything.”
“The bureau?”
“The Bureau of Bureaucratic Operations. Just send the bill to me. My office will cover all the damages.”
Calhoun puffed up his chest. “I should say you will! There wouldn’t even be any damages if you had done your job in the first place.” He pointed an accusing finger at Jack. “That child is not supposed to be here! You said he was getting deported. You said if he was lucky, he’d never see me again!”
Jack shook his head. “You can call me a lot of things, but I don’t think ‘lucky’ is one of them.” He looked around at the orphanage of his childhood, barely able to comprehend all the ways his life had changed since he’d left this place. Another lifetime, Jack thought. He was a different person back when he’d lived at St. Barnaby’s. Back then he had no friends, and his biggest problem was a bully named Rex Staples. Today he had far worse things to worry about.
Calhoun let out an exasperated sigh and looked around. He chewed on the inside of his cheek a moment, then shot a hand to his brow and leaned forward to take a closer look at the flaming wreckage. “Is that a spaceship?” he asked, just now noticing the Harbinger.
“It was,” Roka said. “Will it be again? That’s the question.” He pulled a fire extinguisher out of the scuttled cockpit and went to tend to the flames. Calhoun followed him a few steps to get a closer look at the burning ship. His head snapped around to stare at Allegra, whose gleaming silver skin reflected the light of the fire as she passed him by. Calhoun’s jaw fell open as the reality of the situation began to dawn on him. Jazen stepped forward and gently pushed his mouth shut.
“There. That’s better.”
As the Harbinger burned, a glint of light reflected off a broken corner of the ship, and Jack froze. Something about it triggered a memory for him. Not a full memory. Just a flash. A fleeting moment. He stumbled as the flashback hit and grabbed on to Jazen for support. The light gleaming on the ship became the shining tip of the Magus’s iron horn. Jack saw it in his mind’s eye, and the unexpected jolt of that vision nearly knocked him to the ground.
“Jack, what is it?” Jazen asked, but Jack wasn’t there. For a few terrible seconds, he was right back in the Magus’s throne room. The world shook and he was transported to a Rüstov prison lab. He was strapped to an operating table, struggling to get free. He heard the cling-clang of surgical tools rattling on trays he couldn’t see. He was staring at a holo-screen with his eyes taped open. He saw the Rüstov Armada on the march. The extent of their forces was almost impossible to comprehend. Images of explosions and war—real-life footage from the Rüstov’s many conflicts and conquests—played in an endless loop before Jack. A cavalcade of death and destruction paraded around his brain. What were these images? Where were they coming from? Why wouldn’t they—
“Stop!” Allegra pleaded. “Jack, please stop. You’re going to hurt yourself!”
Jack blinked his eyes open and saw that Allegra had wrapped her silvery metal arms around him several times. He was fighting hard to break free, but she had bound him too tight to move. Jack looked around. He was dripping with sweat. He stopped struggling and took a deep breath.
“What just happened?” he asked.
Allegra loosened her grip and let Jack go. “You had a seizure,” Jazen told him.
Jack stretched his arms out and looked around. He was back in New Jersey. Everything seemed okay again, but he knew it wasn’t. Jack shook his head. “That wasn’t a seizure. It was a memory.” And maybe something else as well, Jack thought but didn’t say.
“That’s some memory,” Allegra said. “What was it?”
Jack’s whole body shuddered. He rubbed his head. “Last year, I think.”
Allegra put her hand on his shoulder. “What did they do to you?”
Jack took Allegra’s hand. “I can’t say for sure. I have a bad feeling we’re gonna find out, though.” Jack noticed Calhoun studying him with a cockeyed expression. Jack was grateful for his silence, if nothing else. He’d just caught a glimpse of the yearlong nightmare he’d endured, and he didn’t need to hear Calhoun ranting and raving while he tried to figure out
what he’d been through. Jack’s eyes turned back to Jazen and Allegra. He may not have had any friends when he was an orphan in Calhoun’s care, but today things were different. He had friends—real friends—and he needed them now more than ever. Jack reached out to Jazen and Allegra and pulled them in close for a hug. It was the first chance he’d gotten to do so since the breakout. The escape was hairy enough all by itself, and the ride home demanded such incredible focus that Jack didn’t even speak to anyone the whole trip. There wasn’t time to take comfort in his friends’ arms before, but Jack needed them now.
“I can’t believe it’s been a year,” Jack said when he finally let go. His eyes were welling with tears. “All that time, and you didn’t give up. Thank you.”
“You didn’t give up,” Jazen said. “We didn’t know what to do or even where to look until we got your messages.”
Jack looked up. The messages again . . . “I don’t understand. What messages?”
Allegra cocked her head sideways. “You know. You sent out distress calls telling us where you were. You led us right to you. I couldn’t believe you were able to contact us without the Rüstov finding out. How did you do it?”
Jack squinted at Jazen and Allegra. “What are you guys talking about?”
“You don’t remember?” Jazen asked.
Jack shook his head. “I don’t remember anything.” As soon as he said it, he shrugged, making an allowance for the flashback that had just hit him like a bag of anvils. “Well, hardly anything. It’s coming back, but . . .”
“It’s okay,” Jazen said, patting his shoulder. “Give it time. It’ll come. In the meantime, we can fill in the gaps. You sent out an SOS that reached the Calculan Planetary Conglomerate. That’s where you were. Calculan space . . . or what was formerly Calculan space. The Rüstov took it over years ago. Luckily we had access to a famous space-pirate who was used to operating in Rüstov territory.”