The columns of escape pods marching in stately formation next to the crippled Morning Star served only to further Laena’s desperate frustration. Six-hundred and twenty-five pods carrying twenty-five hundred survivors; and now to make it worse, Ren was missing. She hadn’t realized how much better off they’d had it with Ren, but now with Ren gone, it was awful. Only ten percent of the pods had pilots, and some semblance of freedom, everyone else was locked down. Markus’ lieutenants, the sixteen members of his High School G-Ball Team, had performed a nearly impossible task and visited all six-hundred and twenty-five pods, and locked every pod without a qualified pilot to prevent kids that didn’t know better from accidently opening a hatch, firing the thrusters, or turning off the oxygen generator. When Gaethon, a very large defensive line guard arrived to lock her pod, she’d tried to argue against it, but he only shook his head and said, ‘I’m sorry, Captain Markus’ orders, you’re locked down until you have a pilot’. And then she understood how all the other kids trapped in their pods felt, but at least Gaethon had left the front shield partially raised so she could see outside; most of the kids in the fleet didn’t have even that much. Survival had become a prison. Laena glanced at Toma sitting in the pilot’s chair reading a technical manual. At least he’d stopped watching the video of Taslaen’s pod accelerating away with Ren inside. Kirae sat in the jump seat next to Toma writing in one of Ren’s school notebooks. Laena didn’t see any harm in the activity, the notebook was actually a tablet with a paper-like surface and could store a nearly infinite volume of electronic pages. She knew what paper felt like, the ship’s library had a large collection of real paper books, but they weren’t for casual reading; you had to have a teacher’s permission to view a paper book, and then only under the supervision of a librarian. She let her mind and body drift in the zero-gravity environment of the pod, thinking only about all the books stored in the library vault. She hoped the books were safe, it would be a terrible loss if they had been destroyed. There was a good chance the vault was floating around with all the rest of the debris. Maybe they would be able to find the vault and save the books. Her eyes grew heavy with exhaustion from the last three days of stress while the vibration of the engines soothed her nerves and… Laena’s eyes flew open, the engine thrusters were firing! She twisted around to see the control panel lights were on, and outside the front window, the pods of the fleet falling away as they banked out of formation. “Toma! What are you doing?” “I’m going to find my brother.” “But… how’d you unlock the pod?” “Dad used to keep the pod locked, but Ren said there was a switch to unlock it.” “Oh, that’s why you were reading a technical manual… please tell me you actually know how to fly a pod?” Tomo shrugged and held up his tablet. “I’ve beat every level on Pod Flight, it’s my favorite game.” Laena blinked twice. “What! You can’t fly a pod just because you played a video game? We’re going to die.” “I’ve got the twenty-sixth highest score on the ship. I usually only blow up when I’m docking–docking is hard.” Laena swung herself into a bench seat and quickly pulled the harness over her shoulders as a warning beep sounded from the navigation console. Twenty-sixth highest score in a video game did not instill confidence in her that Toma had the skill to fly the pod. A pod loomed into view in front of them while Toma frantically slapped at the control panel. The pods grew closer until Laena closed her eyes and waited for the end. “Wow, that was just like Level 3, Collision Alert over Tauros Prime,” exclaimed Toma with a whoop as the two pods barely escaped colliding with each other. Laena opened her eyes and took a deep breath. “Maybe you shouldn’t be trying to fly, or at least let the autopilot fly.” “That was the autopilot,” said Toma. “Kirae worked out the flight path, but a bunch of Rositite pods pulled out at the same time. I had to take over to keep from hitting that pod.” “But the autopilot has a collision and avoidance detector,” replied Laena unbuckling from her seat and pulling herself forward to the controls. “I’ve seen Ren use it.” “There isn’t one in the game, so I don’t know where it is,” said Toma. Laena reached across Toma to the far edge of the control panel and pushed a button. “This one, you’re only supposed to turn it off when you’re docking manually, or the computer will think you’re crashing and take over.” “We’ve programmed the autopilot to fly and dock for us,” said Toma. Laena glanced down at Kirae’s notes. Had she seen them earlier, she’d have known what the two were doing; the page was filled with the algebraic equations needed to program the autopilot. Laena held her hand out for the notebook. Kirae handed the tablet over, and Laena ran her eyes down each of the equations, searching for mistakes; she found none, but then she didn’t expect to, it would have been very unusual for any Darian to make mistakes with such simple math. Laena handed the notebook back with a nod of approval. “Where are we going?” “The Morning Star Bridge,” replied Kirae. “Are you kidding, why the Bridge?” asked Laena. “Taslaen kidnapped my brother, I need to use the computer to find him.” Laena sighed. “Toma, we don’t know what happened.” Toma pushed the play button on the monitor. The video clip he’d been watching played again. “See, Ren isn’t flying that pod.” “We can’t see who’s flying in that video,” said Laena. “It’s not Ren,” insisted Toma pushing the replay button. “See, the thrusters fire, then it starts moving, and then it banks around and heads for the fleet. Whoever is flying that pod is a bad pilot and wasn’t taught right.” Laena leaned in and studied the video. “What are you seeing that I’m not?” “Dad said I couldn’t start flying until I was twelve, but he said I could sit in on Ren’s lessons and get a head start. I remember Dad was always saying, ‘spaceships aren’t like flying with your wings, they only go in straight lines and it takes a lot of fuel to change direction once you’re moving. So, before you use the thrusters, you give a little tap on the attitude adjustment jets on the side of the pod to pivot around to the direction you want to go, then you fire the thrusters. See, whoever is flying that pod wasted a huge amount of fuel. Ren wouldn’t do that.” Laena nodded. “Makes sense, I guess, good eye, well done! But, you do know there’s no power on the Morning Star, the computers won’t work.” “Sure they will,” argued Toma. “I bet the Bridge has emergency batteries like at school.” “Someone probably turned them off to keep from damaging the computers,” added Kirae. “They just didn’t have time to turn them back on after the meteor hit.” Laena thought it was more likely they didn’t turn them back on because they were dead, but she kept that to herself. She scanned the control panel, looking for anything she’d seen Ren do that Toma might have missed. She saw a red flashing light on the radio. “Did you turn the radio off?” asked Laena. “Yeah, it was bugging me. All they ever talk about is food, or fuel, or blah blah blah, ‘I’m running out of air’–bunch of babies.” Laena glanced at Toma. Both brothers were reckless, but in different ways. Ren would jump out the hatch without a thought in his head to save someone, but Toma seemed like the kind that would methodically think about it first, and then jump out regardless of any danger. “It’s a fleet-wide message, play the recording, it might tell us why all the Rositites are leaving the formation.” Toma pressed the button on the radio to play the waiting message. The voice on the radio was an older teenager, hard and dangerous sounding; the voice scared Laena. “This is Falor, the Falcon, acting Executive Officer of the Morning Star. We have discovered the identity of the Alarian. He is the youngest of the Alarians, and most likely the only surviving Alarian. His name is Ren, and we believe he has been injured while selflessly rescuing a pod at great risk to his own life. However, it was a trap. Ren has been kidnapped by Taslaen of the Rositites. I have questioned the senior surviving members of the Rositites and we believe Taslaen and his brothers were acting alone. We will give the Rositites one hour to find and bring Taslaen and his brothers to justice, and clear the Rositite name of this horrendous criminal act. No true Darian would ever lay hands on our beloved Alarian. Acting Captain Markus has declared Taslaen and his brothers to be terrorists and traitors to the Morning Star. If the Rositites cannot find Taslaen within the hour, all pods with a pilot are free to join the hunt for Taslaen. I am offering a reward of one-million in silver coin for the safe recovery of the Alarian, and the capture of Taslaen and his brothers, dead or alive. Taslaen, if you are listening, surrender now and I promise you will receive a fair trial and painless execution, but if you make me hunt you, I will tear the wings from your body and stuff you in a bird cage for the remainder of your miserable life. –Falor out.” There was a long moment of silence inside the pod before Laena let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Holy ancestors! Someone should explain to that guy what ‘fair trial’ means. I remember him, he’s that kid that broke an innocent boy’s wings with his bare hands. He spent a year in prison for it.” Toma twisted around in his seat to glare at Laena. “What did you do?” hissed Toma between clenched teeth, the tone in his voice low and angry. “I sent the video of the rescue to Markus,” admitted Laena. “You betrayed Ren,” said Toma. “I did the right thing,” said Laena. Toma turned back to the control panel. “I hope Ren throws you out of this pod.” Laena flinched back, she hadn’t expected such a violent response from Toma, she was certain she’d done the right thing. Ren needed help, and what was Toma going to do? He was just a nine-year old kid… but then, so was Taslaen, and he’d managed to kidnap the Alarian. How had he pulled that off? The Alarians were the strongest, fastest, and smartest of all Darians. And now that she thought about it, Ren was really big for his age, with incredibly agile wings. He was so graceful that he practically used his wings as a second set of hands. Ren’s adopted dad had wings like that also, she’d always thought Maeken had the strongest wings of anyone she knew. If it wasn’t for the fact that Maeken’s wings were solid white, she would have thought Maeken was an Alarian. She pushed herself back to the bench and strapped in. She closed her eyes and listened to the hum of the engines. Let Toma fly them to the Bridge, it couldn’t do any harm, unless he actually ran across Taslaen and had to fight. Taslaen and his three brothers were Rositites, all known for fighting dirty. She studied Toma’s wings and wondered how well he’d handle himself in a fight. He was big for his age, with shoulders much broader than an average nine-year old. The predator bone next to his wing blades was above average in thickness for a Solanitte. The predator bone only existed in five of the Darian races and served to provide additional strength when fighting during flight. The Rositites had one, but not as large as the Holentites–the Holentites were flying mountains of muscle, their unusually thick predator bone making them very strong, but not as agile in flight as a Solanitte. She’d read an article once that said if the Holentites got any bigger, they’d lose their ability to fly. There were already jokes that the Holentites defied the laws of physics just to get off the ground. There were also predictions that the entire Darian species was getting too large and someday their wings would be lost to evolution–the Darians were doomed to become a flightless avian species one day. Something caught her eye, a shadow, just below Toma’s predator bone… was it just a shadow? No, it was there, a second predator bone, but… only the Alarians had a second predator bone. It made them unbelievably strong, and fast. Her eyes widened. Ren had insisted he wasn’t the Alarian, but she hadn’t checked his wing blades to verify… “Toma, you have two predator bones, are you the Alarian?” Toma didn’t answer. “Just tell her,” said Kirae, “before she causes more trouble.” Toma swiveled around in his chair. “I’m an Alarian, but not the Alarian. You don’t know anything.” “I kind of do,” countered Laena. “I’ve read every history book in the library, and there can’t be two Alarians so close in age.” Toma rolled his eyes. “Obviously there can.” “Okay, tell me how,” said Laena. “My ancestors were from Northern Alaria.” “The White-Winged Horse People, I’ve read about them, they disappeared five-thousand years ago.” “They hid in the mountains during the Great Revolution, then later moved to Sonai.” “I’ve never heard that before, but I can see how they’d blend in with the Solanittes. Still though, I’m surprised nobody has ever noticed Alarians living with the Solanittes.” “We stay to ourselves, and we don’t like strangers.” ““Kiera, are you an Alarian also?” asked Laena. “Yes.” “That explains why you two were put together in the same pod, but I’m not an Alarian. Why am I here?” “To do laundry,” quipped Toma with a grin and obviously pleased with his joke. Kirae slapped Toma on the arm. “Be nice,” she scolded, then turned towards Laena with a shrug. “You probably have an Alarian ancestor that made you the perfect DNA match for Ren.” “You mean I’m another victim of the gene-breeders,” replied Laena dryly. The pod nudging against the docking tube of the Morning Star with a metallic click ended the conversation, but she knew there were more secrets. An entire race of Darian enduring hiding for five-thousand years will leave some questions. Though, five-thousand years wasn’t that long in comparison to the entire history of the Darai. They were a very old species spanning just a little over a million years of recorded history, but still, there was an edge around both Kiera and Toma’s eyes that held secrets. “Armor up,” ordered Toma deploying his own armor. Laena released her harness and deployed her armor. She stopped at the front view window and looked out at the sleek surface of the Morning Star. The sight of the Morning Star in such critical condition hurt her heart, as if seeing one’s childhood home burned in a fire and forever gone. “The hatch won’t open,” said Toma. Laena turned away from the view window. “There’s no air on the other side, we have to…” Toma didn’t wait to hear the rest, he pulled the handle to de-pressurize the cabin; a procedure that only took a few seconds. The hatch opened to the airlock on the Morning Star. Toma slipped through first, followed by Kirae, but before Laena could exit through the hatch, Toma pulled the handle and closed the hatch in Laena’s face. A few seconds later Kirae opened the hatch with an expression of, not embarrassment, but tolerant annoyance for someone that had done something socially unacceptable. Kirae was being marginally more mature and knew deep down that Ren needed help from someone better able to deal with the situation. “Sorry, he’s being a brat,” said Kirae. “Do you know what happens to brats?” asked Laena. “What?” “For every bad thing they do, a feather falls out. I’m going to follow him around and pick up all his feathers and sell them for quills. I’ll make a fortune.” Kirae grinned, that threat had been used by Darian mothers since the dawn of time. Laena secured the hatch, then Toma opened the inner hatch to the Morning Star. Laena called out for Toma to wait, but he didn’t listen and pushed off from the wall, and shot out into the open fuselage of the Morning Star. The girls followed more carefully, keeping next to the hand-railing provided. Laena had been in the fuselage before and knew what to expect, but it was still daunting to see the giant vehicles tied down to the deck and waiting through the long centuries for arrival at their new world. There were bulldozers, dump trucks, exploration vehicles, cranes, mining equipment, airplanes, and even whole trains waiting amidst mountains of crates filled with every imaginable supply the colonists would need to build a new world. Laena called out to Toma again over the radio. “He’s out there,” said Kirae, pointing at the vehicles. Toma’s voice came over the radio in their helmets. “Kiera, come on, let’s play!” “There’s stuff to do, did you forget?” replied Kirae. “I didn’t forget, but when’s the next time we’re going to get out of the pod. Come on, we can play on the way to the bridge.” Laena saw him, rebounding back and forth between the columns of vehicles by pushing off with his legs. He shot out from between a row of the bulldozers and sailed across the open space towards them. Kirae braced herself against the railing and held her arms out. Toma also reached out, and the two clasped hands together. Kiera used his momentum to swing him around in an arc and ‘threw’ him back the way he’d come. The throw was good and Toma’s speed was now twice what it had been as he shot back between the bulldozers. Kiera climbed over the railing, and taking a horizontal crouching position, launched herself after Toma. Laena suddenly realized what she was witnessing and quickly kicked off from the railing to follow. The Solanittes were considered the most graceful of all Darians, but now knowing that the entire Alarian race had been hiding among the Solanittes, how much of that grace had been falsely attributed to the white-winged swans of Darai. Ahead of her were flying two young eagles, a race of Darian thought to be extinct for over 5000 years. She couldn’t catch up to them, and they weren’t even using their wings really. What she was watching was a pure flight of zero gravity grace. Had there been an environment in here, what amazing acrobatics could she have seen? Toma would stop momentarily against the side of one of the vehicles, then grab Kiera and swing her around to increase her momentum before releasing her and springing after her in chase. As they neared the far end of the cargo bay, the two Alarian eagles were no longer stopping, but had melted into such perfect synchronicity that they were swinging each other while still in movement, increasing each other’s momentum until at last they reached the end of the column of vehicles. Laena wondered how they were going to break that much speed, but they didn’t, they rebounded off the last vehicle and shot up into the air at a dizzying speed. She looked up and saw where they were going; they were taking a short-cut to the Bridge–the loading dock where supplies were brought up to the Bridge. But… how were they going to break that much momentum? She got her answer when she realized they weren’t going straight up, but at a slightly skewed angle towards the wall. As the two Alarians neared the wall, they both reached a wing out for the very tip to graze against the metal surface, creating a thin trail of sparks. Contact with the wall caused them to flip perpendicular to the wall as if they were synchronized ice skaters coming back down from a jump; the wall was now their down. They impacted feet first in a sliding pose just as the same said ice skaters would on a frozen surface. Sparks poured from their armored boots in a spectacular waterfall of oranges, and reds, and yellows. When they reached the Bridge loading bay, they were both slowed enough to grab the railing and flip to change their orientation of down to land gracefully on the platform. Laena arrived much less spectacularly, her hand wrapped around the provided guide pole to jump up to the Bridge. The two young Alarians already had the docking platform door open to the Bridge, but neither had gone inside yet… something was wrong! Kiera stood off to the side, her hands over her face shield and sobbing. Toma was crouched with his wings flared out in the typical stance of a male Darian preparing to do battle. She slipped around Toma’s wings to see inside the Bridge. Her helmet light sweeping over the interior of the Bridge. She gasped and immediately tapped out the code for a secure channel. “Markus! This is Laena, you need to come to the Bridge, right now!” “Laena? You’re on the Bridge? I’m in the nursery, what’s wrong?” “NOW!” she screamed, then flared her own wings and pulled Toma away, and for a change he didn’t fight her. She scooped Kiera up next and gathered them both within the protective embrace of her wings and took a crouching position at the end of the loading platform. She heard a sound, and was surprised it was coming from her. Markus knew that sound, it was one of the deepest instinctual sounds a female Darian could make; it was the fear warble of a Darian mother in extreme duress. “Laena, hold on, we’re coming!” shouted Markus.