Seventh Grade vs. the Galaxy Read online

  I knew it was too easy.

  “I assumed you would return for your fellow prisoners eventually. And here you are! In the wake of this violation, I can convince the others that the Quarantine is warranted again—to send you all away for good.”

  I feel sick. We walked right into the Minister’s trap. And it was all for nothing.

  I try to send a telepathic message through space and into Bale Kontra’s mind. (Hey, nothing’s impossible anymore, right?) Help us! Do something! But he doesn’t react. I can’t really blame him. He warned us, and we didn’t listen.

  “Now,” the Minister concludes, “I’m afraid that your little adventure is over. Shut down your engines and wait. One of our tow ships will be along to link with your vessel in exactly eleven minutes. It will bring you to a secure location from which you will await the Quarantine.” When she says that last word, a chill runs down my spine. I wonder why she doesn’t just Quarantine us on the spot, but I remember what Bale Kontra said about the Minister’s committee being “secret.” I guess even her fellow Elvidians would think she’s off her rocket if they knew what she’s been up to.

  The screen shuts off and we’re left with the view of the three suns and a tiny speck rising from the surface of the planet: the tow ship, heading toward us. I look over at Becka and regret my “I told you so.” We were all wrong. (Some more than others, but who’s counting?) She’s frozen, staring ahead out the window.

  “So I assume that wasn’t part of the plan,” Principal Lochner says.

  “Becka?” I ask, ignoring the principal for a second. “You okay?”

  I stand up and she turns around to face me, wiping her cheeks with her palms.

  “I—I thought we could help,” she says.

  “I know.” I’m not mad at her anymore. How could I be? She was just trying to do the right thing.

  She looks right at me, blinking hard to ward off any more tears. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.” I take a deep breath. “But we’re still a team. And we can still get out of this. Together.”

  She nods and presses her hand down onto one of the screens on the captain’s chair.

  “WELCOME, BECKENHAM PIERCE.”

  “Ship, give light speed access back to Jacksonville Graham.”

  “ACCESS RESTORED,” the ship says. “BUT I DON’T THINK I’M GOING TO CALL HIM CAPTAIN, IF IT’S ALL THE SAME TO YOU.”

  Principal Lochner raises an eyebrow and just asks, “Captain?”

  Becka sighs, gets up from the leather chair, and nudges me away from her old station, her eyes puffy and red. “You can take all computer access away from me if you want,” she offers. “Totally shut me out of the system. I’d understand.”

  It’s tempting. I mean, this is Becka: The girl who mercilessly humiliated me just a few hours ago. But she’s also the girl who turned our cafeteria’s digital paper into an epic diversion. The girl who pulled a stun gun on our alien prison guard. The girl who came charging back here to rescue everyone. I haven’t agreed with everything she’s done. But without her, we never would’ve made it this far.

  It’s us against the galaxy. We need each other.

  “No,” I say. “You keep computer access. But thanks. And you know what? The ship’s right.”

  “ALWAYS,” it interjects.

  “I’m not the captain,” I clarify. “From here on out—for however long we’re on this ship, anyway—let’s all take turns sitting in this seat. Deal?”

  I extend a hand.

  “Deal,” she agrees, shaking it.

  Ari grins at me.

  I take a deep breath, sit back down in the captain’s seat (for now), and think.

  The Minister told us to stay put. But do we really have to listen? I don’t see any other ships out here. We can still make it. I mean, she doesn’t know everything, right? She told us herself: She didn’t expect us to get off Elvid IV in the first place. Which means she can’t see what happens inside our ship—so maybe she doesn’t know that we refueled the light speed engine.

  If she still thinks we’re running on empty—

  “Ari?” I ask. “Are we far enough away to use the light speed engine?”

  He looks down at his console. “I don’t think so. We’re probably one or two minutes out still.”

  “Becka?” I ask. “Any ships out there?”

  “No.” Her voice is steadier—the confidence is coming back. “Nothing. It’s all clear.”

  Almost there.

  “Ari, take us straight out and away. Let me know the second we’re far enough from the planet.”

  “Aye, aye,” he says.

  The ship rumbles and we begin to move away from Elvid IV. The Minister can give whatever orders she wants, but she can’t shoot us down with her laser-red eyes alone. The tow ship is still ten minutes away, out of range, and there’s nothing else around. By the time even one ship blasts off from the surface of the planet and gets within firing range, we’ll be long gone.

  As expected, our screen gets hijacked again.

  “I believe I instructed you to stay put.”

  “We just wanted to get one last look at your solar system before the Quarantine,” I tell her. “It’s just so beautiful.”

  Behind her, Bale Kontra gives the tiniest shake of his head.

  I ignore him. If he doesn’t want to help us anymore, we’re going to have to help ourselves.

  The Minister eyes me suspiciously. “Shut down your engines and await the tow ship or I’ll give the order to have your ship destroyed. It will be an easy order to give, believe me.”

  “Oh yeah?” Becka says, and she doesn’t sound shaken anymore. She’s back to being the T-Bex we all know and fear. “What’ll you shoot us with? There’s nothing out here.”

  “Becka,” Principal Lochner warns quietly. He’s right. We don’t need to egg her on.

  “Nothing out here,” the Minister echoes, flashing a toothy, yellow smile. “Ah, of course. How silly of me.”

  The Minister leans backward and turns her head to the side, speaking directly to Bale Kontra. “Tell the defense squadrons to suspend cloaking.”

  Bale Kontra leans forward and whispers a question into her ear, staring directly at me as he speaks.

  “Yes,” she answers, turning back to face us. “All of them.”

  28

  With a final smile, the Minister disappears again. The screen goes dark, back to being a window.

  Suddenly space itself seems to shift in front of us. Where there should be nothing, where there was nothing, the blackness is shaking. And now dozens of ships appear out of nowhere, between us and where we need to go. Blocking our way out.

  “Oh,” is all Becka says, her voice unusually quiet.

  The dark spots aren’t easy to see against the blackness of space. But unlike before, when they were cloaked and completely invisible, we now know that they’re here. The planet is protected by a blockade of ships, evenly spread out around Elvid IV like a net.

  We’re completely surrounded.

  “They’re everywhere,” Ari says. “And we need to get past them to use the light speed engine.”

  It’s hard to tell for sure, but it looks like all the ships are the same: small, speedy, triangular fighters. They’re circling the planet in perfect formation, drawing crisscrossing lines with their exhaust smoke. The fighters are made of the same crystal as the buildings on Elvid IV: they’re black and shiny and seem carved rather than constructed.

  And each fighter has four large gunports—two on either side, facing front.

  “Is this also part of the plan, Jack?” Principal Lochner says.

  “No,” I answer, staring into space. We can’t use the light speed engine this close to the planet. And we can’t go any farther ahead. “Shut the engines down.”

  It’s over.

  We’ve lost.

  The ship jolts to a stop and we just drift—although maybe that’s all we were ever doing.

  “So that’s it?” Ari asks
.

  I nod.

  “No!” Becka insists. “That can’t be it. Isn’t there anything we can use to fight?”

  “The ship doesn’t have a firing system,” Principal Lochner says, shaking its head.

  Becka unbuckles her seatbelt and stands up. “What about the shuttles? Can we use the shuttles?”

  “I don’t think that evacuating this ship will do any good at this point,” Principal Lochner says. “We’d still be trapped by that blockade.”

  “That’s not what I mean!” Becka says impatiently. Her eyes are darting back and forth as her mind works something out. “I heard you down in the hangar bay one time, mentioning a remote flight portal to Harriet. We don’t have to use the shuttles to escape. We can use them to fight!”

  Understanding dawns on Principal Lochner’s face.

  “You might be onto something,” he says. “But we’ll have to move quickly.”

  ***

  “PROXIMITY ALERT,” says the 118, tracking the progress of the tow ship. “CONTACT IN THREE MINUTES.”

  We’re in the cafeteria, and Principal Lochner is frantically pressing instructions into the main control panel. His fingers are swiping so fast across the screen that they’re basically invisible. But he’s still Principal Lochner: Even though pressing buttons isn’t exactly extreme exercise, his forehead is covered in sweat and his cheeks are bright red. And for some reason, he’s still wearing his suit jacket.

  Becka runs in carrying four screens from the computer lab. “Got ’em,” she reports.

  “Good,” Principal Lochner says without looking up.

  She places the four screens down onto the only table left in the room. While she was gone, Ari and I shoved all the other tables, benches, and chairs into the kitchen. We’re going to need a clear view of every surface. The room needs to be completely empty—except for the one table and bench we pushed to the center, and the four screens Becka just put down.

  “How do you know how to do all this stuff?” Ari asks Principal Lochner. I’ve got the same question. I had no idea that he was capable of doing anything except giving boring speeches and putting people in detention.

  Principal Lochner smirks. “First,” he explains, “I wasn’t always a principal. I did a few years in the coast guard around Callisto. Picked up a thing or two. And second,” he gently pats the wall nearest him like it’s the fur of his childhood dog, “I’ve been on this ship for almost twenty years. I know it inside and out. It’s a hunk of junk—”

  “THANKS.”

  “—but it’s got some tricks left in it yet.”

  Tricks like the five shuttles in the hangar bay.

  Rule Number One of computers is that if you have two of them—in any form—you can connect them to each other. You can link your ring to the 118’s comm system. You can hook up your Pencil to the ice machine in the kitchen (which Ari did when we first left Elvid IV; he now gets crushed ice if he clicks five times and cubed if he clicks six times). And you can network a bunch of old shuttles into the ship’s flight systems and operate them from inside the ship. Which was Becka’s brilliant idea. It’s possible that—between her secret parties, regular sneak-offs, and constant prank wars—she knows as much about the ship as Principal Lochner does.

  The shuttles can’t act as long-range drones or anything. We couldn’t send them off to deep space. But as long as the 118 stays close enough to them to maintain an active signal, we can fly them from here. And with all their power diverted to the engines, they’ll be speedy and hard to hit. We hope.

  Five remote controlled shuttles. Our only protection. Our only weapons against a massive alien army. But we don’t have to fight off the whole blockade. Only a few ships. We just need to poke a hole big enough to fly through, and then we’re gone.

  “There,” Principal Lochner says, pressing down one last time on the room’s main control panel.

  “SHUTTLE NETWORK INTERFACING COMPLETE,” the ship tells us. “FLIGHT SYSTEMS ARE NOW INTEGRATED WITH REMOTE ACCESS TABLETS. NICE JOB, BY THE WAY.”

  “Ha!” Principal Lochner laughs. “A compliment from you? We really are in uncharted territory, aren’t we?”

  The moment we restart our engines—which will also be the moment those blockade ships come after us—Principal Lochner’s going to open the hangar bay doors. Then, while we make a beeline for the blockade, we’re going to remotely pilot the five shuttles as interference, as shields, maybe as giant missiles. Whatever it takes. All from this room.

  “Ready?” Principal Lochner asks.

  We just nod. We’re about as ready as we’re going to be.

  Principal Lochner flips one more switch on the wall, activating the digital paper. See, just like on the inside of the ship, there are cameras all along the hull, facing out in every direction. But the bridge can’t display everything going on outside the ship all at once. And according to Principal Lochner, if we’re going to fend off an attack, we’ll need to see everything, in 360 degrees.

  “Cool,” Becka says, as the cafeteria disappears.

  It’s like we’re floating in space, with no PSS 118 around us. The planet is to our backs. Beneath our feet, above us, and in front of us are the stars and the moons and the ships blocking our way home. And far in the distance, we can see the suns at the center of this solar system. It’s like we’re inside a planetarium.

  “This is awesome,” Ari says.

  “Except for that,” I say, pointing to the long, black tow ship that’s been speeding toward us from the surface of the planet.

  “Right,” Principal Lochner agrees. “And where’s Harriet?”

  Becka looks at me. “I thought you called her up here.”

  “I did,” I answer. “She said she was coming.”

  “Harriet?” Principal Lochner speaks into the room’s comm. “Your access to the ship has been restored, and we need you in the cafeteria immediately.”

  Static. And finally: “I’m so sorry,” she says through the speaker. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “Harriet,” Principal Lochner repeats. “We need your help.”

  Ari, Becka, and I look at each other nervously. Five shuttles equals five remote pilots. Me, Ari, Becka, Principal Lochner, Harriet.

  “PROXIMITY ALERT: CONTACT IN TWO MINUTES.”

  “Please,” she says. “You can handle it, right? I mean, those kids. They’re incredible. Please don’t make me.”

  Principal Lochner sighs and takes his hand off the comm button.

  “I knew it was a bad idea to hire family,” he says. “Harriet’s actually my niece. She’s a capable schoolship pilot. She can circle Ganymede over and over, slowly, and without any trouble—”

  “AND EVEN THAT’S MOSTLY JUST ME,” the ship interrupts.

  “—but this is different,” Principal Lochner says. He touches the screen again. “Okay, Harriet. We’ve got it here. Just keep everyone safe in the gym, okay?”

  “Oh my gosh, thank you. Thank you, thank you.”

  Principal Lochner turns to us. “She’s not totally off base, though, you know? You kids have been pretty incredible—”

  We smile.

  “—which is why I’m going to leave it to you here.”

  We stop smiling.

  “What do you mean?” I ask him.

  “I’ve decided to fly the ship from the bridge.”

  “But why?” Ari asks. “Can’t you operate things from here? Isn’t that the whole point?”

  Principal Lochner nods. “This is the right place for you to fly the shuttles. But if we lose the networking feed, the 118’s pilot needs to be up there. I’ll be with you the whole time via the intercom. Don’t worry.”

  “Principal Lochner?” I blurt out. I’m glad he’s got faith in us. But I’m not stupid. We’re just kids. “Shouldn’t we see if Tim or Georgia will come up here and take Harriet’s place? They’ve got to be more qualified than us, right?”

  He gives us a face like—Well . . .—and asks, “Have you played Neptune
Attacks?”

  Not the response I was expecting.

  Ari’s eyes bug out of their sockets. He is more shocked that Principal Lochner has heard of our favorite video game than he was when he found out that aliens are real.

  “Yeah,” he whispers.

  “Neptune Attacks 1 or 2?” I ask back.

  Principal Lochner shrugs. “Doesn’t matter,” he answers. “But I like one better than two.”

  “Ha!” Ari shouts at me.

  Principal Lochner turns to Becka, who says: “Of course I’ve played them. And you and Ari are right. One is so much better than two.”

  I look over at Ari, who is staring at Becka. And maybe it’s because Becka already knows about Ari’s crush. Maybe it’s because we’re about to fly headfirst into a space battle. Or maybe it’s because, after you’ve escaped from jail and gone back in time and flown a spaceship, everything else is a breeze. So Ari stutters: “Would you, would you want to play multiplayer some time?”

  And Becka doesn’t hesitate. “Sure!”

  Principal Lochner clears his throat. “Good.” He heads toward the doors. “Then you’re all just as qualified as the crew. This is going to be a lot more like those games than what the 118 experiences day-to-day. Now divide the shuttles among yourselves and wait for my signal. Good luck.”

  And with that, our middle-school principal leaves us alone to take control of the only things that can protect us from a giant alien army, the only things giving us any hope of getting home alive.

  You know, usual summer vacation stuff.

  29

  “PROXIMITY ALERT,” the ship warns. “CONTACT IN ONE MINUTE.”

  We’re sitting at the table in the middle of the cafeteria. Ari is in the center and Becka and I are sitting on either side of him. We’re facing forward, staring at the approaching tow ship and the blockade separating us from freedom.

  Becka turns to me. “How many do you want?”

  With Principal Lochner flying the 118, we need to split up responsibility for remotely flying the shuttles. Two, two, and one.