The Navigator (3 page)

WE THROW ON ILL-FITTING SPACE SUITS PULLED
out of an exploration exhibit, slipping them on over our own clothes. They’re supposed to help with the changing pressures as we exit the atmosphere, but I’m more concerned that the refurbished ship holds together through liftoff at all. Besides, if we get to a point where a space suit is the only thing keeping us alive, we’re probably dead already.

The ship is housed inside a cavernous domed exhibit, alone in the center of the stone floor. Zophie and I enter the room first, followed by the herd of Chimærae and finally Crayton, who drags Raylan’s supplies on the floating lift. All three of us start shouting orders at the same time, trying to figure out what to do. Caught up in the madness and fear of what’s happening. I slip into a hyperproductive stupor, opening the ship’s main loading hatch and grabbing the first
of many boxes. Interactive panels line the walls of the room detailing the primitive nature of old vessels like ours. How inefficient and poisonous fossil fuel was before we switched to synthetics and then eventually the power crystals we use now. Zophie taps on one of the displays a few times, and it slides away, revealing a fuel pump. She plugs it into the ship and then joins Crayton and me as we load supplies as fast as we can.

“Can’t these damned Chimærae help at all?” I ask.

“Feel free to ask them,” Crayton says. “Not that they’ll understand you. Besides, they’re scared.”

“
I’m
scared,” Zophie says, her breath heaving as she somehow manages to lift a box that must weigh as much as she does up to me inside the ship. “I’ve never wished I had telekinesis more than I do right now.”

When the supplies are taken care of, the Chimærae flood in, shrinking into smaller animals. They flank the sides of the cargo hold as I rush down the narrow hallway that leads to the cockpit, past the small private rooms, galley and common area. In the pilot’s seat, I pause for a few moments as I try to recall the countless hours I’d spent inside this ship, helping to repair its systems—but I’ve crammed a lot of information into my brain since then. I think back to all the old guides and books I’d read and simulations I’d programmed; my fingers start pressing buttons and flipping switches. By some miracle I manage to get the ship powered on.

“We’re ready,” Zophie says as she appears beside me, taking a seat in the copilot’s chair and buckling herself in. Crayton drops into a seat behind her, the swaddling backpack spun around so that the baby is in front of him.

“Everybody hold on.” I press a few more buttons.

The loading door closes, and the ship tilts up, pushing us back in our seats. From the cockpit, we stare at the roof of the domed room, which is only a foot away from the nose of the ship.

“I’m guessing this thing’s not retractable,” I say.

Zophie shakes her head. She reaches out a hand and grasps my upper arm. A bead of sweat runs from my forehead down the side of my nose, stinging my eye.

“I guess we’re about to find out how good a job we did of refurbishing this thing.”

Zophie squeezes my arm. “Let’s do this.”

I flip a switch, and it feels like I’ve just detonated a bomb. Fire fills the room. The craft shakes so hard that I’m sure it’s going to fall apart, ending our journey before it ever begins. But it doesn’t, miraculously. Instead, we punch through the ceiling. The thick glass of the dome shatters, exploding out into the red night sky, glittering as it catches the light from the flames around us.

We’re up in the air.

The cockpit offers a sweeping view of Capital City, and even though I’m focused on the control panels and
onboard monitors, I can see how widespread the damage to Lorien is. Fire and smoke fill the horizon. On our right, a beam of purple light shoots down from the sky beyond the outskirts of the city. I don’t know if it’s a Herald or something far more ominous. From the air, many parts of the city are unrecognizable, smoldering scars where vibrant neighborhoods once stood. There’s something strange about the skyline too, but I don’t figure out what it is until I realize that we should be flying past the Spires of Elkin. But they’re gone. The structures that held a third of our city’s people have been obliterated.

I go numb. I can’t look at it anymore. My focus shifts solely to the instruments in front of me.

“It’s gone,” Zophie whispers. “Our planet. Our home.”

Our trajectory has more of an arc to it than it should, and I pull on the flight yoke, desperately trying to keep the ship’s nose up. The sky is too dark, full of smoke from our burning city. But the ship presses on, and we punch through the haze. It’s only then that we can see the enemy warships. Jagged and gray. Countless in number. Firing on our planet. Smaller ships shuttle down to the surface. In the middle is a pearly sphere, floating like a dim moon that the other vehicles orbit.

“How can this be happening?” Crayton asks.

We shoot past the fleet; by some luck our course sent
us through a hole in their formation. And then we’re jetting into the blackness of space. Despite the ship’s primitive nature, I have to admit it’s
fast.
At least on takeoff.

And just like that—in the course of a few minutes—we’ve made it. We’ve left Lorien behind.

I tap on the radar screens, trying to make sure no one’s following us, but I don’t see anything. Once I figure out how to set the artificial gravity and autopilot, I finally allow myself to breathe. Clayton bounces the baby in his arms and whispers shaky reassurances to her, but his eyes are wide and watery.

“By the Elders . . . ,” Zophie mutters. She leans forward in her seat, staring out into space. “Where’s the other ship? Can you find it?”

It takes a little while to navigate the controls, but eventually I figure out how to expand the radar’s search.

“I’m getting a Loric signature from a ship that appears to have stopped some distance from the planet,” I say. “But it’s a weak signal. We’re so far away from it already.”

“Turn back.” She starts to nod. “Head towards it. We’ll travel to Earth together.”

After swiping through a few galaxy maps, I find Earth. Various figures start to populate the cockpit screens.

“I don’t think we can.” I stare at the instrument panels in front of me, doing calculations in my head. “It’s too far away from us right now, and we barely have enough fuel to get to Earth as it is. We’re going to have to rely on momentum more than I would want to already. Unless you know of a fueling station somewhere between here and there. Besides, we were lucky to escape unharmed. Turning back around and getting close to those enemy ships again could be suicide.”

“Then contact the other ship,” Zophie says, an edge to her voice. “They’ll be operating on an emergency channel. Or maybe the official Council channel. I’m not—”

“We can’t,” I say.

“What are you talking about?”

“Those alien ships might intercept the transmission,” Crayton says. “What if they use it to follow us?”

“We’re in a giant white rocket that just shot into the sky,” Zophie shouts. “We didn’t exactly make a subtle exit.”

“We
can’t
,” I say louder. The baby in Crayton’s arms wakes up. “We can’t contact them because this ship was refurbished to be an exact replica of the older models, meaning its communications systems were never upgraded. Their ship runs on a completely different comm system.”

Zophie starts to say something but instead lets out a whimper. The baby begins to shriek. Crayton looks
back and forth between us, confused.

“So what does that mean?” he asks.

I turn to one of the port windows. In the distance, Lorien burns. Our world is weeping fire and smoke and death, and for a moment memories flash through my head. Happier times long since passed—chasing my brother through lush green fields, laughing over home-cooked meals, the faces of people I haven’t thought of in years. It’s so overwhelming that I have to swallow down the urge to cry, or be sick, or scream.

In all my years of hating Lorien and the way it was run, I never expected to see it like this. I wanted to change the planet, not watch it be destroyed.

“It means we’re alone,” I say.

Crayton stares at the floor.

“We left them,” he says quietly. “We left everyone to die.”

He starts to mutter names and then apologies. Tears stream down his cheeks. Zophie isn’t crying, though. Her eyes look out into space, searching for something but finding only stars and planets and other celestial bodies light-years away, and a cold, black expanse of emptiness.

I tap on the instruments again, confirming our course—breathing out a sigh of relief to find that the navigational system I helped to reinstall is actually working.

But that’s the last of the good news.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter.

“What is it?” Zophie asks.

“We made a fast start, but it cost us a lot of fuel.”

“Right . . . ,” Zophie says, bracing for bad news.

“Which means it’s going to be a long flight,” I say.

“How long?” Crayton asks.

I turn back to the control panel, staring at the number on the screen in front of me.

“About one and a half years,” I say.

CRAYTON FINDS SOME PILLOWS AND PUTS ELLA
down for a nap in a pulled-out drawer in one of the private rooms. Afterwards, we sit on benches in the little common area beside the galley and go over the events of the last hour so many times that they begin to feel unreal, like an old myth told to scare children into doing their chores. I have to keep reminding myself that every word spoken is true. I think we’re all in shock.

I know I am.

“All those ships,” Crayton says. “Those bastards.”

“Who were they,” I ask. “
What
were they? When they were wounded, they just disintegrated.”

Zophie narrows her eyes, staring at the ground. I recognize this look from the days at the museum when she would work out complicated problems in her head or try to figure out how we were going to get vintage wiring and fixtures for the refurbishment. Back when
the rocket was just a project I was working on for some money and not the only thing keeping me alive.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Well . . .” Her nose crinkles a little. “There were always rumors at the museum of an old conflict between us and another planet. Tales archivists and historians told when too many ampules had been passed around at parties. There was no hard evidence to substantiate these stories, but there
were
hints that there was some truth in the claims—telling gaps in our historical record and allusions to terrible casualties and vicious otherworldly beings found in diaries and letters. We couldn’t help but speculate.”

“You’re talking about the Mogadorians,” Crayton says.

She seems a little surprised that he knows the word. It means nothing to me—and yet I feel as though I’ve heard it or seen it before. In encrypted messages I didn’t think were important, or whispered in the halls of the LDA when I was there so long ago.

“Raylan talked about them often,” Crayton says. “He had all these theories about secret wars just like you described. He was sure that his father had been not only a key figure in the conflict between us and the Mogadorians, but an Elder, and that there was some sort of conspiracy that led to the number of Elders being reduced to nine.” Crayton shakes his head. “Raylan’s
claims changed all the time, but he was obsessed with trying to prove them. I always thought he was a little crazy, but . . .
this
is crazy.”

Zophie keeps nodding.

“There were . . .
whispers
that Raylan’s father had been a traitor to the Loric,” she says. “Again, there’s no hard evidence there even
was
a ‘secret war,’ but Raylan had probably heard these rumors at some point or another. I think it’s one of the reasons he was so keen on donating money to the museum and getting this ship rebuilt. He wanted to show that his family was doing something positive for the people of Lorien.”

“That’s all well and good,” I say. “But what else do we know about these . . . Mogadorians?”

Zophie lays it out for us—everything she’s heard during her time at the museum. According to rumors and legends, generations ago the Loric reached out to the planet Mogadore, trying to form diplomatic bonds with the planet. But their civilizations were barbaric and not ready for contact with more advanced beings. Something happened there—the details vague and sometimes contradictory, depending on who was telling the story—but from what Zophie could gather, many Loric lost their lives during the expedition, and subsequently all contact with the planet and its people was forbidden.

We try to digest this. Eventually we sit in silence,
none of us knowing what to say. None of us sure how to react to the fact that our planet might be completely obliterated by these monsters.

My thoughts race as I try to make sense of all this, piecing together a bigger picture of what happened. I think back to the message I’d intercepted earlier. About the airstrip. The prophecy.

“The evacuation,” I say. “Do you know who is on the other ship?”

“Janus wasn’t supposed to say anything,” Zophie says. “It was highly confidential. He was breaking his highest oaths by telling me.”

“I understand,” I say. “But it’s not like the information is going to go past this rocket.”

Her shoulders sag. She relents.

“I don’t know much. Something about nine chosen Garde. The Elders assembled them. Or Loridas alone, I’m not sure. They—along with their Cêpans—are the ones in the other ship. They’re the last hope.”

“For what?” Crayton asks.

“For the survival of our people.” Zophie smiles a sad little smile. “Well, other than us, I guess. I don’t know why they were chosen, but that’s what Janus said. They’re going to be . . .
blessed
with something. Maybe they already have been. Some charm to protect them. It sounds crazy, I know. Why would the Elders try to save a handful of us while the rest of the planet
is sacrificed?”

I clench my jaw. Of course this is how they faced the planet’s destruction. By using us. By treating us as pawns as they always have.

“That can’t be right,” Crayton says.

“It is,” I say. “Right before the first wave of attacks, I intercepted a message sent out to nine Mentor Cêpans telling them something about meeting at an airstrip—that the prophecy was coming true. The Elders abandoned the rest of us.”

“That’s insane,” Crayton says. “What are these nine supposed to do on Earth? Everything I know about that planet sounds like it’s far inferior to Lorien.”

“It could be worse,” Zophie says. “We could be headed to Mogadore.”

Crayton opens his mouth to say something else, but the baby starts to cry again. He excuses himself and heads down the hall to tend to her.

“I guess we have to get used to that sound,” Zophie says. She stands. “I’m going to start taking stock of our supplies. We’ll need to ration. And I need to do something with my hands right now. Anything.”

A question has been circulating through my mind.

“Why did you ask me to come with you?” I’m still trying to fit everything together. “Surely there was someone else. Someone in the department who’s studied this damned relic. Why me?”

“You got us up here, didn’t you?”

“It’s going to be a long flight if we’re keeping secrets the whole time, Zophie.”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t want to stay and fight,” she says finally. “There was no time to argue with anyone about what our duty was. I don’t know exactly what you’ve been doing for the last few years, but I knew, even when you were working at the museum, how unhappy you were with Lorien and its leaders. Not that I blame you after what’s happened.”

I stare up at her, not saying anything for a little while. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about any of this.

“And you?” I ask. “Why didn’t you stay and fight?”

She turns away from me, staring out one of the portholes.

“My parents died last year. Janus is the only family I have. I thought we’d be able to talk to the other ship. I thought . . .” She wipes a tear from one of her eyes. “I was stupid. Everything happened so fast. As soon as I disconnected from Raylan, I called Janus and told him to meet me at the museum, but he was already being taken to the airstrip. He told me to find shelter. He was going to Earth. I didn’t understand. That’s when he told me about Loridas and the Garde. And then everything was on fire, and I couldn’t reach him. I didn’t even know where his ship was. At first I thought he was
breaking all his sworn oaths as a member of the LDC by telling me this classified intel, but now I realize he only told me because he assumed I wouldn’t survive. He was saying good-bye.”

“Why didn’t he bring you with him?” I ask.

Zophie shakes her head. “Loridas was there. The LDC was involved. You know how strict they would be about who could be on that ship. Besides, if they made allowances for one person, they’d have to start letting everyone on.”

“Heaven forbid they protect their people,” I mutter.

“I had to come,” she says. “I had to go. I had to follow Janus.”

“And you needed a pilot who was a shitty citizen and wouldn’t have anything to leave behind.”

“He’s my family, Lex,” she says, not looking at me. “He’s all I have. You of all people know how important that makes him to me.”

And with one sentence the already-tiny common room seems to shrink around me as I think of my own brother. My chest buzzes and my throat tightens—after all these years, he can still take me by surprise, causing my heart to clench and dragging me down into a deep, palpable hurt.

Zophie smiles weakly. Unconvincingly.

“Earth is ten times bigger than Lorien, Lex. And it’s so different. How am I supposed to find him there?”

I stare at the metal floor of the ship, trying to think of something to say. Some kind of reassurance.

“You don’t give up faith,” I say. “Even when common sense tells you that you should.”

She must know I don’t believe this, but she does me the favor of not pointing that out.