Imminent Danger: And How to Fly Straight Into It (28 page)

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.

Varrin continued to argue his case, unaware that he had already won. “Come on, we need you for my plan to work. And as soon as the Psilosians come and save the day, I’ll swing back here and drop you off. My ship can’t outrun Kratis, but the Psilosians will be easy to escape.”

“What about the supplies? What about the engines?”

“We’ll make do with what we have. Besides, the repairs aren’t that complicated.”

Her jaw dropped. “I thought you said they’d take weeks!”

“I overestimated. We shouldn’t do any Pulls, but we can handle getting to Kratis’s ship and back. So are you going to help or not?”

I could say no,
Eris thought.
I could say no and leave Varrin and Miguri to escape on their own.
But the thought of never seeing the two aliens again was unbearable—Miguri because he was a true friend, and Varrin because he was … well, Varrin.
When I put it that way …

“Fine. I’m in,” she said, knowing she would probably come to regret these words before long. “Wait for me. I’m on my way.”

Now that her choice was made, Eris considered just calling a taxi and hightailing it back to the
Nonconformity.
But she couldn’t quite shake her sense of scholarly duty—she had been summoned by her dean, and she couldn’t just not show because she had to go do something as trivial as saving mankind from an alien invasion.
Anyway,
she reasoned,
an hour or two won’t make any difference
.

Eris arrived at the dean’s outer office and approached the receptionist, a middle-aged woman with frizzy red hair and spectacles. The receptionist was sitting at her desk, scowling and yelling into the phone. “Fifty dollars for a used textbook? What … well, you have a
wonderful
day too, you smarmy excuse for an educational supplier!” The woman slammed down the receiver, resettled her spectacles, and then looked up at Eris. “Sorry, dear, you know how it is. Textbook prices skyrocket, and the school pays for it.”

“Yeah,” Eris said awkwardly. “Um, I’m Eris Miller. I think the dean wants to see me?”

“Miller … Miller …” The secretary bobbed her head and started shuffling through a pile of folders on her desk. “Yes, the dean has been expecting you.” She peered up at Eris. “I must say, after reading all those newspaper stories about your disappearance, I expected you to look a little more … Anyway, you certainly don’t look like you were kidnapped.”

“Well, I’m better now,” Eris said.

“That doesn’t—”

The intercom on the desk crackled to life. “Mrs. Barker, I’m ready for my next appointment.”

Shooting Eris an odd look, Mrs. Barker hit the reply button and said, “Eris Miller is here to see you, sir.”

“Ah, excellent. Send her in.”

Eris took a deep breath and then marched through the heavy oak doors.

The dean’s office was large and spacious, with an air of sophistication and age. Huge windows with crimson drapery covered one wall, and bookshelves lined the others. Behind an antique mahogany desk sat an elderly man wearing a tweed jacket and bowtie. A small brass plaque on the desk read Albert Gresham, Dean of Admissions.

“Ah, Miss Miller, come in,” the dean said, gesturing for Eris to take a seat across from him.

Eris eased herself into the leather-backed chair and crossed her legs uncomfortably. She remembered the last time she had been in this office—receiving her scholarship and a letter of acceptance into the prestigious private school.
Somehow I doubt things will go quite as smoothly this time.

The dean leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk, bushy gray eyebrows furrowed. “I just got a call from your residence secretary, Eris. She told me of your miraculous reappearance, and so I summoned you here to see for myself.”

Eris was not sure what she was supposed to say, so she stayed silent.

“The official police report suggested you were kidnapped,” the dean continued. He looked at her intently. “Is that what happened, Eris? Are you all right? Were you kidnapped?”

“I, erm … sort of?”
Does alien abduction count as kidnapping?

“I see. Well, you appear to be healthy and unharmed. So that is a blessing. However, as dean of admissions, it falls on me to determine the reason for your lengthy absence. Any information you can divulge will only help your case.”

I doubt that,
Eris thought.
If I tell the truth, I’ll either get expelled or thrown in an insane asylum.
She suppressed a sigh and turned to look out the window. Rain had begun to fall again, and it pattered lightly against the thick panes of glass. “I don’t know what you want me to say, sir.”

“Eris, you need to tell me what happened. The truth, now.” The dean favored her with a fatherly look. “Were you kidnapped? Did you run away? Was it all just a desperate plea for attention?”

Eris didn’t know how to respond.
Should I just lie? Make up some story that would convince him not to expel me? Or tell the truth, even though there’s no way he’ll possibly believe me?
Oh, screw it.
“All right,” she said. “It all started when I was walking to math class one morning …”

29

“A
nd that’s pretty much what happened. We came back to Earth, and as soon as I leave your office, I’m going back to the ship, and we’re going to go intercept Kratis,” Eris concluded.

The dean leaned back in his chair, hands steepled together, an expression of disbelief not quite concealed behind his façade of calm understanding.

I knew he wouldn’t believe me,
Eris thought, sighing.
Why did I even bother?
“I know it sounds insane, sir, but I swear I’m telling the truth.”