Between Stars and Order (Part 2)

Special Guest Story by Orchid Constance

“Rise and shine!” Glitch’s pixelated and borderline nasally voice sang. “It’s seven-fifteen, and I’m certainly not saving you a pancake.”

Jane heard a loud thump from underneath her, and then Jack’s groan of pain. He mumbled something about hating the bottom bunk as Jane slowly sat up in her bed above. She’d dreamt she was aboard the Adventurer with her mom, and they were flying through a deep scarlet nebula. She opened her eyes to see the small, brightly lit room of the Void Lurker, and the events of the previous day came back to her.

“How long was I asleep?” Jane asked, yawning. She climbed down from the top bunk.

“I don’t know. You were still awake when I crashed.” Jack was rubbing his head and wincing.

“Char is reaching for the last orange!” Glitch alerted them. “I suggest you get moving.” And the door opened. Jack looked at Jane uncertainly.

Jane nervously looked out the door into the hall. Save for a cleaning bot, no one was to be seen. She looked back at Jack, who stood behind her. She took a deep breath. “You heard Aditya. It’ll be an adventure. Besides, if they wanted to kill us, they would’ve done it already.” And with a curt nod, she stepped out into the hall, Jack close behind.

“So glad to see we’ve passed your dramatic mental safety test,” Glitch rang again in a sarcastic voice, this time in the hallway intercoms. “Now get going! Char is drinking your juice like his life depends on it!” From down the hallway, Char could be heard yelling his protest.

Jack took Jane’s hand and smiled reassuringly, which would have been of more comfort had he not looked so anxious himself. “Well, I guess it’s up to us to single-handedly save a pirate from a life of obesity.” And with that, they started down the hall.

“That’s the spirit!” Aditya barked as they entered the room. Glitch’s holographic form didn’t look up from her computer monitor. Jane noticed that her outfit was different from the last time they saw her. She was now wearing sweatpants with an oversized knit sweater. Her hair and glasses were both the same as the day prior.

“Good morning. I hope you’ll notice that both your juice and oranges are untouched by yours truly,” Char said in a voice soaked with annoyance.

Both children sat at the low table, sitting on cushions carelessly thrown on the ground. Compared to the clean and tidy environment of the rest of the ship, this room looked like a wreck. It was obvious that this room was primarily used for leisure and comfortable planning, as well as anything else it was needed for. At the moment, it was a dining room.

“You two slept well, I hope? Glitch couldn’t wake you for dinner, so I assume you must be downright starved. We have a big day ahead of us. This entire breakfast was grown on Ayven. Eat up!” Aditya proudly gestured to the plates of pancakes and various fruits. Jane stared. Rarely had she eaten food grown on a planet, only agriculture ships. The atmosphere of most planets wasn’t fit for farming and agriculture. Jane looked over to Jack, who was currently sniffing his juice. Jane grasped her fork and took a tentative bite of her pancake. Her eyes widened. “Oh! It’s good!” In contrast to the dry, stale food Jane had been used to while staying in the supply train, this meal was fresh and bursting with flavor. Jane made quick work of the pancake and eagerly peeled her orange. She popped a slice into her mouth and moaned. Intense flavor danced on her tongue, sweet and tart. She was spoiled for any ship-grown food.

“How did this get so flavorful?” Jack asked, mimicking her thoughts.

“Real sunlight, real soil, real work,” Aditya listed with a triumphant smile. “Chemically ‘enhanced’ soil, bots, and big lamps can’t stand a chance against real people.”

The food was devoured within a few minutes. Not a crumb was spared. Jane hadn’t been this full since her ninth birthday when she ate her and her best friend’s share of the cake. But even the cake hadn’t tasted this good.

Afterward, Char left the room to work on something for Glitch, and it was just the children, Aditya, and Glitch’s never-resting avatar.

“At our current speed, we should be arriving in eight hours or so. Because of the extra fuel we found in the train cart, I could easily boost our speed to get us there in half the time. What do you say, Cap?” Glitch said, lifting her head, to “look” at Aditya. The movement was jerky and robotic, just like her mouth as it synced to her words. The only thing about her avatar that moved smoothly was her fingers at the keyboard in front of her, furiously typing away.

Aditya nodded. “Of course!” She turned back to the kids, excitement lighting up her face. “Isn’t this exciting? I haven’t been home in weeks! I can’t wait to see Ma!” Her face suddenly fell, as if she had just remembered something she had pushed into the back of her mind, but she quickly regained her wild grin.

Jane’s head swam. She couldn’t have just said-

“Ma?” Jack sounded flabbergasted. “As in, like, mom?”

Aditya nodded, a look not unlike concern sneaking into her expression. “I suppose neither of you have met your mothers, have you?”

They both shook their heads. “I have her letter, though,” Jane said, and she proudly pulled her letter from its place in her pocket, holding it up. Aditya smiled sadly. She said nothing for a long few moments.

Jack huffed. “Well, I don’t have a letter. My mom was probably dying to get rid of me.”

Jane sighed and rolled her eyes. She disagreed, but Jack already knew that.

Aditya raised an eyebrow. “And what makes you think that?”

Jack shrugged. “She didn’t seem to care enough to write.”

“Actually, some mothers don’t have the time to write. Maybe she was about to put pen to paper, but you were premature. Most children are taken almost immediately after the birth to prevent mothers from attaching to the baby. Evan was taken from me before I was even able to hold him in my arms.” Her smile was sadder than anything Jane had seen. “I did write him a letter, but I was incredibly weak after his birth, and fainted almost immediately after he was taken. I woke up a day later. By the time I handed the nurse my letter, she just shrugged and said he was already being taken to an Infant Nursery. I wasn’t even able to legally name him. But my letter was addressed to Evan, and that’s what I call him.”

Both Jack and Jane were stunned. They had never heard a story like this, not to mention so proudly told! No one had the guts to speak against the Council. The consequences were detrimental.

Aditya had something the children had never seen before. She had a defiance so bold and a will to act on it. She stole from the corrupt (was Jane now thinking the Council corrupt? It hurt her head to think about it) and gave to her own, to those like her. Except she didn’t seem evil to Jane. Jane knew by now that the pirate captain had no ill will towards the children, and didn’t even seem to find them a nuisance. In fact, Jane had never felt so cared for by an adult. The teachers and caretakers in the Nursery rarely got close to any of the children, both out of professionalism and because the children grew out of their jurisdiction rather quickly anyway. Jane knew more about her mother from her letter than any of the caretakers she saw every day.

“Cap?” Char stuck his head through the doorway. He was wearing large, round-rimmed glasses. “You may want to see this.”

Aditya stood to her feet and started towards Char. Without hesitation, she motioned for the kids to follow. 

Char sighed exasperatedly and rolled his eyes, but didn’t object. “They had just better not mess with any of my projects.
“‘Course they won’t!” She gave Jack and Jane a wink.

With one more skeptical glance, Char led them down the hall. He opened a door with the press of a thumbprint and walked through.

Inside the room was even brighter than the rest of the ship. Wires and gutted computer parts littered the room. A desk sat in the back of the room with a few large holographic monitors, and beside it, a table scattered with vials and microscopes.

“Welcome to my lab,” Char said in a monotone voice, clearly not excited to have children near his projects. He gestured to his desk and the table with the microscopes. “My stuff,” he then gestured to the rest of the messy room. “Glitch’s stuff. Y’know, because it’s not like it’s my lab or anything,” he said in an exasperated tone.

“There wasn’t enough room in my corner for it all.” Glitch’s voice echoed against the walls.

Char led them through the mess to a relatively large crate near the center of the room. It was apparent that many computer parts had been shoved aside to make room for it. “The Council’s stuff,” he finished.

“My stuff,” Aditya corrected.

“Not quite,” Char motioned for Aditya to get a better look.

Aditya reached into the open crate and pulled out a small vial filled with a clear liquid. “All I see is my ma’s recovery in a bottle.”

Char turned the bottle over. “Look closely at the label.”

Aditya did as he said, and her eyes widened. “They’re being tracked? But it’s just some common medicine! Why would it be tracked?”

Char sighed. “It seems the Council is a step ahead of us.”

Aditya stared at the vial. “Can we take the label off?” She started picking at the sticker.

Char stopped her. “I already checked. It’s designed to break the bottle’s seal if removed. The medicine becomes less potent the longer it’s exposed to air.” He sighed. “Besides, it’s too late anyway. The guardians are probably right behind us, and it’ll take far too long to take every tracker off.”

Aditya thought for a moment, her face sullen. “Well, we can’t afford to lose the medicine. Too many people need it. We don’t have time to figure anything else out.”

Char nodded. “But if we do bring it to Ayven, we’ll be leading the Council straight to us.”

“Maybe they won’t follow us into the Milky Way.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Char grumbled. He stared at the two kids for a moment. “Are they still wearing their ID patches? Can’t those be tracked, too?”

“They can, but guardians are rarely dispatched to find missing Nursery kids. Usually, it just leads them to a couple of Nursery jumpsuits floating in space,” Glitch piped in.

That was certainly upsetting to hear. Jane found Jack’s hand. He gave it a gentle squeeze in return.

“Another perk to takin’ away all forms of familial love,” Adytia grumbled angrily. She sighed loudly. “Well, the Council ain’t giving us much of a choice, then, huh?” She studied the vial a moment longer before placing it gently back into the crate.

“Glitch, slow us down. I don’t want to be anywhere near Ayven when the guardians come.”

Char raised an eyebrow. “You mean you want to fight them?”

Adytia shrugged. “It’s just a few crates of medicine. It’s not like they’re gonna send a whole army to retrieve them. We should be able to take them.”

Char sighed and nodded. “We should have an hour or two before they catch up to us. That should give us enough time to prepare.”

Adytia looked down at Jack and Jane. “You two should stay in your room until this whole thing blows over. Don’t worry, you should be safe.”

Jane nervously nodded. She liked adventure, not suicide.

Jack tugged on Jane’s hand. “Come on.”

Jane took a deep, shuddering breath. “What if you guys get caught? What would we do?”

Aditya’s brows pinched together. “In that case, Glitch would ready the escape pods and shut herself down, hiding herself deep in her own servers, or maybe even leave them, and most of her learned information, entirely.”

Char hesitated. But then he shook his head and reached into his pocket. “Here,” he said, handing Jane a blue-green chip. “This is Glitch’s fundamental programming. It’s not nearly as smart as she is now, but she’ll figure it out again. If this all goes bad (which it probably will, grumble grumble, what a stupid plan, grumble grumble), I want you to save her.”

The chip was larger than Jane would have expected. It was thin and nearly the size of her palm. Small green lines zig-zagged along the edges like veins. Her heart thundered with the weight of responsibility. “But… This is illegal.”

Char sighed loudly and ran a hand through his hair in a stressed manner. “Well, then, hand it over to the council. Sell it to the highest bidder on the black market, I don’t know! It’s not like it would have gone against every single one of her core beliefs!” He took a few deep breaths, looking away. Glitch chose to stay silent.

Jane didn’t know what to do, what to say. But she didn’t have to say anything, because Jack was pulling her by the hand urgently towards the door. She pocketed the chip and followed Jack out of the room and into the hall.

By the time they reached their room, crew workers were running down the hall, some with weapons. It seemed they’d gotten the news. Jane found herself feeling bad for them.

As soon as they were inside, Jack locked the door. He flopped onto his bed and groaned. “I can’t believe this. Of all things, we’ve run into pirates, tracked pirates. We’re never getting our apprenticeship after this. If we even ever get off this ship.”

Jane sat down next to him. “We’ll get out of here eventually. Adytia promised.”

Jack gave her an exasperated look. “Jane, she’s a pirate! We can’t trust a thing she says! For all we know, she’s selling us to some creepy planet-dweller.” Fear and anxiety shone in his eyes.

Jane sighed and slumped a little bit. “Yeah, you’re right.” She shouldn’t be so quick to trust the pirates. She pushed a hand into her pocket, feeling the smooth edges of Glitch’s chip. “They really care for each other, though. I think they’re good people, Jack.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, I think so, too. But we have to be careful.”

There was silence for a few minutes. Jane spoke quietly. “Jack, if the guardians come, and they find us, what do we say?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Well, the truth, obviously. We say we were kidnapped.”

Jane nodded. “But what about the chip?”

Jack was quiet, everything went silent. Then he spoke. “We should probably hand it over.”

“Yeah.” Jane nodded, her eyes not leaving the floor. “But will we?”

Jack’s eyes met hers. His face dimpled with a grin. “Probably not.”

And then it was as though they were back on the supply train. Jack pulled out a dark purple marker from his pocket and started doodling on the top of the bunk bed. “Just a little something for them to remember me by,” he had said with a boyish wink.

Jane watched the stars languidly pass by the window. Stars somehow looked more colorful from here than anywhere else she’d been before. Every once in a while, she would exclaim, “Jack! Look at this one!” or “Doesn’t that look like a flower?”

“Huh,” Jack said, looking up from his work. “You’re right. It does.”

Jane grinned. “I’ll bet we’re the first ones ever to discover this constellation. What’re we gonna name it?”

Jack thought. The universe went silent. “Aster,” he finally decided with a thoughtful smile.

Jane’s eyes widened, and she grinned. “Hah! Smart. And perfect. I love it.”

“You think we’ll ever see it again?” Jack asked, rolling onto his stomach and resting his chin on his hands, mindful of the marker he also held.

“Well, you’re gonna be a pilot, so I’d say the chances are pretty high.”

Jack laughed at that. Jane grinned and went back to watching the stars.

And then Glitch’s voice rang on the intercom. “Guardians incoming. I’m turning on the defensive protocol.”

Jane sucked in a nervous breath and looked toward Jack. His face was pinched with worry. “What do you think they’re gonna do?”

Jane didn’t have an answer. Would they storm the ship, shooting everyone in sight? Or would they bomb it from afar? The latter was very improbable, but the first…

Jack and Jane both pressed their ears to the door. They listened for any footsteps coming up to the door. It was silent. They stiffly waited for what felt like hours before they heard a raygun blast, then two gunshots. And then the intercom began to buzz.

“Everyone, please make your way to the escape pods,” Glitch’s voice rang after a moment. But something was off. It was a little less nasally, and even more pixelated than Jane remembered. 

The door unlocked. Jack stood up. “Let’s go.”

Jane argued, “but why should we? If we get found by the guardians, they’ll take us back to the shipment train.”

Jack gave her a strange look. “We should really go.” He said firmly. His eyebrows were pinched as if he were trying to think.

Jane didn’t understand, but she trusted Jack’s instincts. A bad choice, perhaps, seeing as Jack’s instincts had led them to be captured by pirates in the first place.

Jack pressed a finger to his lips, urging Jane to stay silent, and they walked down the hall. “Are you sure the escape pods are this way?” She whispered nervously.

Jack didn’t look at her. “We’re not going to the escape pods.”

Jane’s eyes widened. She remembered the gunshots. “Jack, where are we going?” She said it just a tad too loud. Three fully-armed guardians stepped out of a doorway just ahead of them. Jack quickly pulled Jane into the closest open door and shut it before the guardians saw them.

Jane was having a hard time finding air. She spun to Jack. “Jack, why are we hiding from the people who are going to save us?”

He looked at her somewhat sheepishly. “Where’s the adventure in that?” He studied the metal pad by the door before pressing a few buttons. The door opened just an inch, and Jack peered out into the hall. The guardians were turning into another room.

Jack opened the door the rest of the way and ran back down the hall with Jane close behind. They only passed a few doors before Jack ducked into the room where they had eaten breakfast just hours before.

Most of the room looked as it always did: a mess. But a key feature was missing. The subtle glow from Glitch’s holographic body was gone. This made sense, as Glitch had said she was going to try to remain unnoticeable. But hadn’t she just spoken on the intercom?

Jack walked over to Glitch’s monitor. He searched around her setup, moving wires and lifting gadgets. He finally let out an ah-ha! And pulled at a chord. Jane heard a small zap, and a few blinking lights on the monitor dimmed.

Jack followed the end of the chord to a chip nearly identical to the one given to Jane, but a lot smaller and a little less green and a little more blue. He turned it over. “The guardians hijacked Glitch. She wasn’t the one telling the crew to go to the escape pods. I knew her voice was off. A little too robotic. Glitch is smarter than that.”

Jane had been wondering similarly. “They were trying to get the crew to escape? Or,” realization struck Jane.

“They were trying to weed them out,” Jack finished for her.

They both waited for the other to say let’s go, then, or welp, we should really get going back to our room, or even, let’s go find the guardians. But neither had the answer. For what felt like minutes, they just stood there, unmoving.

And then another raygun blasted, snapping the two out of their silent waiting. A decision had to be made. In mere moments, Jane was running out the door.

Jane didn’t know if Jack had come to the same conclusion as her, but he followed as they ran down the hall, a sort of determination radiating off of him like a virus.

Jane didn’t know where she was going, and she hardly knew what she was thinking. All she knew was that her decision probably changed the course of her entire life. And, of all things, overpowering the anxiety and fear, she was excited. Positively thrilled. When she looked back, she saw Jack’s eyes shine with the same excited fervor as hers, and she knew he had made the same decision. When they came to a turn in the hall, they stopped and tentatively peeked around the corner.

Just ahead lay the escape pods, and in front of them, four guardians and nearly the entire crew of the Void Lurker. The crew workers all had their hands raised into the air and were huddled into a small circle. Most were standing up, but some were sitting, their hands cuffed tight and their faces severely bruised. One’s leg was bleeding with a raygun wound. A pile of guns sat just out of reach of the prisoners, seemingly taken away from them.

A voice made them jump. “Found ‘em.” Two guardians emerged from a doorway, dragging along Aditya and a very angry-looking Char. Char was handcuffed and had a slice down his cheek, and blood bloomed from what looked like a bullet wound on his shoulder. Aditya wasn’t even conscious, and was being carried on a metal platform hovering about two inches off the ground.

“Ah.” A guardian stepped forward toward the captured captain. Her voice was crisp, definitely from the second district. “So, you finally lost our little game of hide-and-seek.” She circled them, her sleek uniform shining in the light. Unlike the other guardians, she wore no helmet. “Spit it out, then, and your pitiful crew lives. Where’s the AI?”

“Why? So you can abuse her and use her for your world domination?” Char barked defiantly.

The woman sighed heavily. “Oh, Chance, there’s hardly any need for world domination when you already rule it. Or work for the one who rules it, I suppose. Now, I suggest you give me an answer, or your friend here will suffer more than a few hours’ beauty sleep.”

Char, or Chance, as his full name evidently was, eyed Aditya with his brows furrowed in concern. He sighed. “In her servers.”

The guardian backhanded him so hard, Jane thought she heard his jaw crack. Jane’s hand flew to her mouth as Char moaned with pain.

The guardian leaned in. “You think we haven’t checked, Chance? All that was in its servers were outlandish outfits and traces of a few lines of code containing snarky replies. Where did it go, Chance? Did you move it? Is it in another server? A computer? A chip, perhaps?”

Jane froze, her hand instinctively reaching into her pocket, feeling the edge of the chip. Her blood pounded.

Char was quiet for a long time. He looked at war with himself, between Glitch and Aditya.

“Hurry up, Chance,” the woman said impatiently. Jane realized that if this guardian knew Char’s full name, he must have had run-ins with her before.

Char looked helpless. The woman raised a hand in motion to the other guardians, and they raised their guns and aimed at the crew. The woman pointed her own to Aditya. “Last chance, Chance.”

“We have to do something,” Jane whispered, trembling.

Jack nodded. “But what?”

“I don’t know!” Jane, in her stress, forgot to keep her voice down. She paled, and turned. All eyes were on her.

Jack stepped out in front of her. “Uhm, excuse me?” he started nervously, “we were kidnapped. Are you here to save us?”

Many of the guardians lowered their guns. The woman held out a hand. “Of course, children. We had heard of you two. In the storage train cart, were you?” Her voice had changed to sickly sweet and was drenched with false sympathy. Jack, pretending not to notice, nodded. “Come here, then. Both of you.”

Jane stepped to Jack’s side as they slowly walked down the hall, taking their time, hoping Char would be able to take this chance to escape somehow. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Jane whispered.

“I was hoping you had the plan,” he whispered back.

“You two must be positively terrified. Come, come, you’re safe now,” the woman said in her fake sweetness. Jane looked around her desperately as they reached the woman. Then, she saw hope.

As soon as they reached the woman (they could now see that her armored uniform said Lieutenant Mars), she looked over to another guardian and nodded. The guardian nodded back and gripped Jane by her arm, another guardian taking Jack. “I’m afraid to say we’re in the middle of something, so you’re going to have to wait a bit longer for your rescue,” Mars said.

Jane ignored the pain of the distrustful grip of the guardian’s hand around her arm and put on a smile. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We feel safe already with you all here.”

Mars smiled and turned away. Jane chose this moment to trip. She was expecting the guardian to loosen his grip, but he held tightly, and she ended up hanging painfully and nowhere near her targeted fall. She stood and smiled apologetically up at the man, who scoffed.

“Alright, Chance. Are you ready to tell me what I need to know, or do I need to break the information away from you?” Mars coolly continued, her voice back to its cold crispness.

“Give me a moment to recall?” Char grunted in pain, working his bruised jaw.

“Nope,” Mars said flatly, raising her gun once again at Aditya. “Time’s up.”

Jane panicked. She turned to the guardian who held her and kneed him as hard as he could between his legs, which was, unfortunately for him, very unprotected by his armour. He let out a surprised, pained cry and let go of Jane as he doubled over. Before anyone could even turn to see what had happened, Jane dove for her target, the pile of guns. A guardian grabbed her by the neck of her jumpsuit, but not before she had pushed the weapons toward the crew.

The crew let out a triumphant cry as they each picked up their pistols and rayguns. When Mars turned to see what was going on, Char leapt up, knocked her raygun out of her hands, and pinned her to the ground. While buying time and arguing with Mars, he had used a small device beaded into his bracelet to temporarily short out the electrical handcuffs, which he was now fastening to Mars’s wrists. The guardians looked around themselves uneasily; they were surrounded.

“Drop your weapons!” Char yelled from on top of Mars.

The guardians glanced at each other, unsurely.

“Do it,” Mars sighed defeatedly.

The guardians tentatively dropped their rayguns and raised their hands in surrender.

“Now, get out of here before I decide to strangle your lieutenant,” Char commanded boisterously, obviously enjoying himself immensely.

The guardians murmured confusedly. “You mean you’re letting us go? You’re not gonna kill us?” one piped.

“Ya want me to?”

They all vigorously shook their heads.

“Then get lost! No, no, no, leave your guns! What do you take me for, an idiot? That’s it, down the hall. Landing’s the third door to the right, if you’ve forgotten.”

Jack and Jane watched with wide eyes as the guardians hastily obeyed, running down the hall, the man Jane had kicked wobbling with every step. A crew member with a snake patch, a nurse, obviously, had run to Aditya and was attending to her wounds with a small first-aid kit strapped to her leg. Char stood and held his pistol to Mars’s back, walking her down the hall after the rest of the guardians. “If any of you try anything, and I mean anything, I’m blowin’ the guts outa this-” (of course, the words Char then called Mars will certainly not be shared here, but do know that every one of them was immensely and uniquely offensive and yet fully deserved). A few crew members followed to make sure he didn’t get himself hurt.

The crew had pillaged the small ship before allowing the guardians to re-enter, which was to be expected, considering their profession. The ship was now totally void of anything that could lead them to fight back, and so they left with haste.

Char stood tall with pride and led the children back to Aditya, who was waking up. She was strapped to some strange machine, but the nurse promised she would be fine within a day or two. Her head was bandaged up, and it was obvious her wild, wavy hair was fighting its imprisonment.

“We’re safe, Aditya. These kids kicked some butt. Literally!”

Aditya laughed as they told and retold the story, each time more extravagant and stretched. Soon, Mars had apparently begged for mercy, which was only given once she proclaimed Char as the Most Merciful and Powerful and Handsome Man to Ever Grace this World ten times fast. Aditya laughed as they mimicked the noise of gunshots and dramatically fell stiff to the floor. Jane had never felt such belonging than how Char made her feel when he proudly told Aditya how she’d ‘totally saved all our butts’.

Char had plugged in Glitch’s chip, and Glitch kept complaining about how she didn’t get to see the look on Mars’s face because Char had been in the way of the camera. However, she sounded a bit slower and more robotic, and Char explained that it would be a while before she was back to her normal, snarky self. “Thank the twins,” he said with surprising concern, “most of her personality hadn’t been fully wiped from her servers yet.”

Aditya, through the entire celebration, had a vague look of unease on her face. Jack noticed and asked her what was wrong.

A tear fell down Aditya’s face. “Sorry, I am really happy for y’all; it’s just that I’m real worried ‘bout my ma. I don’t know what we’re gonna do. I don’t want to lead more guardians straight t’ Ayven, but we don’t have time to figure anythin’ else out.”

Char’s eyebrows raised as he overheard them, and he smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Crap! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a device that looked to Jane like a hole puncher. Aditya’s face lit up when she saw it.

“Is that-?” she breathed.

“Yep, it’s a label tracker remover! Tristin found it on the guardian’s ship,” Char said proudly. Tristin must have been one of the crew members.

Aditya let out a little squeal and threw her arms around Char, who laughed and held her back.

Aditya pulled away from the friends’ embrace, turning to the children. “Y’all ready t’ see the Milky Way?” She grinned, “Glitch, get us back on course!”

“Aye aye, Captain.” Glitch said, and the ship lurched ever so slightly.

Adytia shared a look with Char before turning back to Jack and Jane. “We were thinkin’ that maybe you two wanted a bit more adventure than a crew held back by th’ Council. What do you think ‘bout staying a while longer after we get these delivered to Ayven?”

“You are criminals now,” Char added.

Jane looked over at Jack, whose face was equally surprised. Then, as if they had already talked it over, the two grinned at each other. Jack’s cheeks dimpled, and Jane’s eyes shone.

Jane turned to Aditya, her face stuck in her delighted grin. “Did you say adventure?”