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  • • •

  Mi Sun opened the door to her room and smiled at Charles, like they were really good friends, the kind of friends who didn’t always need to say a whole lot to understand each other. Like me and Tamret, maybe. I didn’t know they’d become close. I didn’t know much about these people, and now they wanted me to trust them. I still wasn’t sure if I should.

  Nayana had been lying on her bed and looking at her data bracelet, but now she looked over at me and blinked irritably. “Why is everyone in my room?” she said by way of greeting.

  “You are going to help us figure out what the Phands are up to,” Charles said.

  “Not with that attitude I’m not,” Nayana said.

  “Yes, you are,” Mi Sun said. “Just stop being such a princess.”

  “I don’t like to be ordered around,” Nayana said. “My time is valuable.”

  “This was a bad idea,” I said. “I’ll figure it out on my own.”

  “Wait.” She sighed and sat up. “Fine. I’ll help you, but only because I’m nice. And because I think there’ll be experience points in it. For me.”

  • • •

  “Okay, to figure out the strategy, we need to see the pieces,” Nayana said.

  The four of us sat on the floor in a circle while Nayana busily typed on her projected keyboard.

  “The Phandic Empire and the Confederation,” I said.

  She snorted. “Those are the players. The pieces, the ones that count, are us, the initiate species: humans, Ish-hi, Rarels. Let’s see what they look like.” She programmed in some data, and hovering in the air before us she projected a three-dimensional map of a big chunk of the galaxy, highlighting the Phandic Empire and the Confederation and the locations of our three home worlds.

  The two big territories spread out in weird blobs and at sharp angles, looping in and out and spiraling off in different directions, approaching, but never touching. The map showed Phandic territory as yellow, Confederation space as green. Earth, Ish-hi, and Rarel were all in the black space between. All three were lodged snugly between borders.

  “Interesting,” I said. “Can we see Ganar?”

  Nayana highlighted it, and we could see it much farther galactic south of Earth, much farther outside the border territory. It was easily the most distant world from the heart of either the Confederation or the Phandic Empire.

  Nayana bit her lower lip. “Maybe this piece wasn’t important, and that’s why it was taken out of play.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “They tried to destroy us as well.”

  “Unless they didn’t,” Mi Sun said.

  I glowered at her.

  “I’m not taking their side,” she said, “but what if they weren’t actually looking to destroy the Dependable? What if they were looking to disable the ship and capture us? It’s possible.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But why? Why would they want us alive and the Ganari dead?”

  “Let’s consider what was said at your hearing,” Charles said. “The Phandic ambassador claimed that our worlds were chosen not because they are good fits for the Confederation, but because we are violent species, which perhaps the Confederation needs.”

  “What do we know about the Ganari?” I asked. “Are they bloodthirsty barbarians like us, or are they more chill?”

  “Looking it up,” Mi Sun said, tapping her data bracelet to call up her own keyboard. “You guys keep going.”

  “If we are a more violent species than the Confederation norm,” said Charles, “and our worlds are in space between the two sides, doesn’t that suggest we were more apt to be annexed by the Phands than the Confederation?”

  “So the Confederation grabs us first?” I said. “They want tougher citizens to help balance the scales. Maybe use us as cannon fodder since we’re on the borders.”

  Charles nodded. “It makes sense.”

  “Yes it does,” Mi Sun said. “According to what I’m reading about the Ganari, they are omnivores and complex thinkers. They have their history of war, but no worse than the rest of us for most of their history. Then, a few hundred years ago, during their industrial age, all major global violence ended. They started resolving conflicts with a series of extremely intricate strategy games. As a result, their national leaders are selected for their intelligence and insight.”

  “So they’re a more traditional pick,” Nayana said, “but a tactical one. They could be of real use in helping the Confederation choose a strategy, so the Phands take the Ganari out of play. They keep the rest of us because they think we’re not as smart and they can recruit us to their side. So maybe they were going to capture us—to convince us to defect.”

  “Then Zeke destroyed their ship,” Charles said, “and they replaced their strategy with a need for revenge? It is not very intelligent.”

  “It might be cultural,” Mi Sun suggested. “Maybe honor and revenge are just really important to them.”

  “We’re talking about beings who hurl in public to make a point,” I said.

  Nayana sighed. “We’re still just looking at pawns.”

  “There are too many players we haven’t seen,” Charles observed.

  Nayana looked up, smiling. “Maybe we can’t see them because they’ve been captured.”

  “The selection committee!” I nearly shouted it. She was onto something.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “Think about it. They’ve been captured, but they’re still in play. Vusio-om tried to use them as a bargaining chip at your hearing, and that’s where all of this begins. The committee picked our planets. They had a grand strategy in mind.”

  “But we don’t know what it is,” Charles said. “What can we find out about them?”

  I cleared my throat. “I, uh, have it on good authority that the Confederation has buried their service files. They can’t be hacked.”

  “Good authority,” Nayana said with a sneer. “What, your pet kitty?”

  “Nayana,” Mi Park said. “Remember, we’re all on the same side now.”

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “It’s just who I am.”

  “Yeah, don’t be who you are in front of Tamret,” I said. “It might be bad for your health.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Your girlfriend’s hacking skills aside, did you ever consider that you don’t always have to break the law? The government service files may be hidden away, but there’s info on these people in the public domain. Interviews, biographies, public writings, media appearances. Did you look at any of this?”

  “No,” I admitted, feeling kind of foolish. I’d been so dispirited at the thought of what was being kept from us, I hadn’t even bothered to look at what was readily available.

  She tapped on her data bracelet for a second and then looked up, grinning, like she’d stumbled on a secret stash of goodies. “You know what? I think we’re on the right track.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because,” she said, “I just leveled up.”

  • • •

  We stood looking over Nayana’s shoulder as she began scrolling through data on the selection committee members. I thought that even if she was right, and we were onto something, we weren’t going to make any big discoveries tonight. There were five members of the committee, and they all had long records of public service, most of the context of which was totally inscrutable to us. Duggsur Yikyik Eeee had spent four years as chairbeing of the Rimerian Lower Educational Reform Council, but really, so what? Was that an impressive position or a laughable one? Influential or pointless? None of it meant anything to us.

  I could tell that Nayana was growing frustrated too. She read through a lot of data on Mr. or Ms. or whatever Eeee, but the second member got a much more cursory glance.

  “Maybe we should get Dr. Roop in on this,” Mi Sun suggested.

  “That might not be a bad id
ea,” Nayana conceded. “Assuming we can even trust him.”

  I hadn’t told them what we had discovered about Dr. Roop, and I still didn’t know if I wanted to. I remained silent while Nayana summoned up the image of a third committee member.

  He was a big guy, muscular and humanoid, looking different from an Earthman only in minor details. He had green skin and a large protruding brow, the same as Hluh. In the picture he stood, looking at the camera or image taker or whatever, arms crossed. He wore a theatrical cape with a high collar. He wore no shirt, but there were two red bands crossing his muscular chest.

  Nayana must have seen me staring. “Yeah, I noticed him too,” she said. “That’s some idiotic getup, right? He’s a Yionian, like your data-collector friend, but that doesn’t look like a Yionian name. They always have lots of repeated sounds, like his, but they are usually longer.”

  “Maybe he is a convert,” Charles said. “I read of this—beings who transform their appearance to look like members of other species.”

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice distant. I was thinking that too. I looked at his face. I looked at his name. I had no doubt he was a convert. A convert was exactly what he had to be.

  I sat down next to Nayana.

  “Not so close.” She shoved me.

  I ignored her. What I saw on the screen made everything else insignificant.

  The numbers on the bottom of my HUD were rolling upward at a dizzying speed as the system struggled to keep up with the torrent of experience points. It was like I’d hit the bonus level on an old-school video game. The only time I had ever racked up so many points this quickly had been when I’d saved the Dependable from the Phandic saucer. I was going to gain a whole bunch of levels, but I didn’t care about that.

  “Hey, I’m suddenly gaining a ton of experience points,” said Mi Sun.

  “So am I,” Charles said. “I think we hit on something.”

  Their words were a distant noise, almost like they were speaking a language I didn’t understand. It was one of those moments when everything comes together. Or maybe it was one of those moments when nothing comes together and you realize just how little you actually know. I wasn’t sure which, but I knew that this was one of the most important moments of my life—and that was coming from a guy who had already gone into outer space.

  I looked at Charles. He had the most influence in the trio, and he was the one whose loyalty I had to make sure of. The others would follow him.

  “You said you regret how you’ve treated me,” I told him. “Did you mean it?”

  “I just picked up two levels,” Charles said. “Whatever is going on is important. I am with you.”

  “But do you trust me?” I demanded.

  He considered this for a moment. “Yes,” he told me, his voice solemn.

  “Maybe,” Mi Sun said.

  “Trust isn’t really my thing,” Nayana said.

  “I’m not joking,” I said. “I saved all your lives on the Dependable, and I’ve got more levels than any of you. I need to know if you are willing to do some risky things if I can convince you it’s for the right reasons.”

  “I don’t understand,” Charles said.

  “I need to confirm some stuff,” I said, “but you have to tell me if you are in or out.”

  “In or out of what?” Nayana said irritably.

  “If there’s one thing Ms. Price said we can believe, it’s that Earth is in danger. I don’t think making our eighty is going to make a difference to Earth if the Phandic Empire and the Confederation decided to fight over our planet.”

  “No,” Charles agreed. “It won’t.”

  “Do you want to save our planet from the Phands?”

  He nodded.

  “You’ll follow me?”

  “Doing what?” Mi Sun asked.

  “Breaking a lot of laws,” I said. “Probably getting our delegation kicked off the station, unless we’re really lucky. But what I have in mind might just save our world. You in?”

  “Yes,” Charles said.

  “Yes,” Mi Sun said.

  “No!” Nayana nearly shouted. Then she sighed. “Fine. Okay.”

  “I need to check some things out. Be ready.” I said. Then I ran as quickly as I could.

  • • •

  I pounded and pounded on the door. Finally Thiel, Tamret’s roommate, answered. She looked like she’d been sleeping, which made sense because it was now pretty late at night.

  “What?” she said.

  “I need Tamret.”

  “Yeah, we all know that. The whole galaxy saw the picture of you two making lovey eyes like a couple of dopes.”

  A white hand landed on her shoulder and yanked her back. I heard her crash into something, breaking glass, and a loud hissing sound.

  Tamret smiled at me. “What do you need?”

  I pulled her out into the hallway. “You told me you could hack into the secret files on the selection committee,” I said quietly. “Did you mean it?”

  She set her gaze at me. “I can do anything.”

  “But you can do this?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “It’s easy to do, but impossible to conceal. They’ll find out, and they can track it to me within a few hours.”

  I nodded, thinking this through. “Can you find out where they are being held prisoner?”

  “The Phand said the Confederation knows, which means it’s in the system. That means I can find out. But again, they’ll know I’ve been snooping around. What’s this about?”

  I called up the data file on my bracelet and showed her the picture. “It’s about him.”

  “That’s one of the committee members,” she said. “I remember his nutty outfit.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I was grinning so hard my mouth hurt.

  “So, what’s the deal? Who is this J’onn J’onzz to you?”

  “That’s not actually J’onn J’onzz,” I told her. “J’onn J’onzz is the real name of Martian Manhunter, a core member of the classic Justice League lineup and my favorite comic book character for as long as I can remember.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about. If he’s not this J’onn J’onzz, then who is he?”

  “He’s a human,” I said. “He’s from Earth. He’s altered his appearance, but his name, that look—it’s a flag that only the right person would recognize. And I’m that person.”

  “And how does this selection committee member fit in?”

  “He’s the reason why the randoms were chosen,” I said. “Sessek, the Ganari, because she could break into secure buildings. You, because you can hack. And Steve. It all makes sense now.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Who is this person?”

  “His name is Uriah Reynolds,” I told her. “He’s my father.”

  • • •

  Tamret took hold of my hand. “Anything you need. Just say it.”

  I closed my eyes, basking in the warmth of her touch and her willingness to help me. “Things might get really bad.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Okay,” I said, as much to myself as to her. I needed to clear my thoughts. Was I really going to go through with all this? Was I really prepared to risk so much? “I have to make sure Steve can do something. If he can, I’ll need you to start looking for that prison. And then the clock will be running.”

  “What is Steve supposed to do?” she asked.

  “Exactly what Dr. Roop brought him here to do,” I told her. “He’s going to steal us a spaceship.”

  Part Three

  THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  * * *

  We moved the operation to my room so Tamret’s roommate wouldn’t bother us. I explained everything to Charles, Mi Sun, and Nayana—that the Phandic
Empire had my father as their prisoner, and how we were planning to find him and get him out. Tamret had been reluctant to take my word for it when I told her that the other humans were on our side, and she had regarded their apologies with contempt, but in the end she had been willing to suspend her disbelief. I took a break to pack an overnight bag with at least a couple of changes of clothes and some spare underwear and I told the others to do the same. It was something to do, and it seemed like a good precaution against the interior of the ship getting too rank. I also suggested they load up on food rations and hydration packs. I had no idea how long this trip was going to take, and we needed to be prepared for anything. Afterward all we could do was sit quietly until Tamret was able to hack into the Confederation governmental system and find the location of the Phandic prison where the selection committee was being held.

  For more than an hour, there was no sound but the soft tap of her pads against the glossy surface of the holographic keyboard. Then she looked up, and she was smiling. “Got it,” she said. Then she activated the comm feature on her data bracelet.

  “Oi!” Steve’s voice came over the system.

  “I’ve got the destination. You good on your end?”

  “It’s like they’re asking me to take their ships. I’m sending you the location of the meet right now.”

  “See you in a few,” she said. Then she looked up. “Are you guys ready?”

  If they were half as nervous as I was, they must have been telling the most serious lies of their lives, but everyone nodded. Almost everyone.

  “Wait, why are we doing this?” Nayana asked. “If he wants to go after his father, that’s his business. What’s it to us?”

  “Because he is going to go no matter what we do,” said Mi Sun. “And if he gets killed or captured, we’re done.”

  “There will be many experience points for us if we do,” Charles observed.

  “Fine,” Nayana said. “But I won’t like it.”

  “There’s more, too,” I said. “I’ll explain it on the way, but this could basically secure Earth’s entry into the Confederation and its safety from the Phands.”