Mothership (21 page)

When the face in front of me finally becomes clear, it is Cole. He must have shot past me while I was focused on Carrie. We are intertwined, his blue-green eyes staring into mine, and we are floating.

“Nice aim,” he says.

I allow myself my first real breath, then immediately choke on the over-oxygenated air.

“Nice catch,” I reply, coughing.

Captain Bob opens the hatch to the promenade, and the more-natural atmosphere breezes in. We all glide through into the large reception area and are greeted immediately by the pull of the artificial gravity. Hello, old friend. With a
thump
we all land on the ground at once, some of us more gracefully than others.

Heather, who was one of the girls who fainted from oxygen
loss, wakes up when she thumps to the ground. She rubs her eyes clear and gags a little on the air. She seems thrilled at first to be awake again and breathing. And then her face falls. She turns toward the now-sealed hatch. “Where’s Danielle?” she asks.

When no one has the courage to answer, Heather figures it out. And at the sight of her choking back silent tears, even Britta has a glazed look in her eyes. I guess too much death in one day will hollow anyone out.

Cole meanwhile attempts to turn lemon powder into lemonade. “Good thing you saw that the mag locks were still online,” he tells me, rubbing my shoulder.

“Yeah, good thing,” I mutter. I pull back, trying to blink away the image of Danielle’s lifeless floating body. But it’s only replaced with Carrie’s. “Otherwise someone might have gotten hurt.”

Captain Bob turns then, and looks me straight in the eye. His look is so stern, at first I think he’s going to shout at me. But he doesn’t.

“If you hadn’t warned us,” he says, “then these girls here”—he sweeps his arms out to Chewie, Heather, Britta, Other Cheerleader, Natty, Ramona, and the others—“would all be dead. As would I. Now is no time for self-pity. Let’s move it!” He claps his hands together loudly, which seems to snap most of the girls out of their slump. Following Bob’s lead, we all head into one of the party rooms off the main promenade. We’re walking a little more slowly than before, but hey, at least we’re walking.

Back in the ship’s cruise days, the party rooms probably made up a casino, with slot machines and a roulette wheel.
Now the rooms are home to more student-friendly video games and several of those god-awful motion-tracking dance machines. There’s not much damage to this part of the ship, so we should be able to pass through quickly. From there we can make our way to the fitness gym, and then hopefully it will be smooth sailing to the captain’s quarters.

“Which isn’t to say,” Bob says as we walk, apparently continuing on a thought that’s been running silently through his head for the past few minutes, “that we should gloss over the fact that the mag locks were turned on.”

“It could have been a malfunction after the blast,” Cole puts in.

Bob nods slightly. “True, but it could just as likely have been—” He halts suddenly, and holds up his hand to stop us. We all obey, looking around to see what disaster is awaiting us now. But there’s nothing.

“Why . . .,” I start, but Captain Bob cuts me off by slicing his hand sideways through the air. Walking slowly across the carpet, he advances on a closed closet door situated behind a row of karaoke machines. The rest of us all tiptoe in around him, as quiet as mice.

We’re a meter from the closet door, and Bob has his neck craned, using his supersonic alien ears to listen for something, I guess, when Natty suddenly feels the need to pipe up. “What’s in the closet?” she asks at the top of her shrill little voice.

It’s too bad looks can’t kill, because Bob could have single-handedly taken out every single teacher on the ship with the gaze he lays on Natty.

“Gnat, you are
such
a space case!” Britta starts up, and
soon a few of the other girls are chastising Natty too. Ramona is cracking her knuckles, probably getting ready to punch all their lights out in Nat’s defense. Bob pulls out his gun, and I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that he’s entertaining the notion of just gunning us all down and informing Mr. James Dean that the mission was an unavoidable failure. But then there’s a clang from inside the closet, followed by a series of shuffling and rustling noises. The girls stop squabbling. Bob trains his gun on the door and motions to Cole, who whips out his ray gun too.

“Elvs,” Cole whispers, “get behind me.” I do as I’m told, and the rest of the girls follow suit. We’re lined up like little ducks behind Bob and Cole at the closet door. Scared, confused little ducks. Bob puts his hand on the doorknob, and quickly yanks the door open. There is a flash of movement as something large tumbles out the door toward Bob, who reacts in a heartbeat, grabbing his would-be attacker and redirecting his momentum into the large Jetman console behind him. The closeted baddie crumples to the floor in a daze, Bob’s and Cole’s fancy ray guns right in his face.

For the third time that afternoon, I recognize a face in a surprising place.

“Hey, it’s Des!” I cry.

Desi is—
was
, I guess I should say—the head of the AV club, which was most definitely the least popular activity the school had to offer, because there was only one member. As hot and smoky as he was, with his smooth-shaved head, short-trimmed beard, and bulging biceps, it was always clear to everyone that at heart Desi was a complete and utter dorkus.
The only thing he was ever good for really was fixing a broken computer or phone.

Bob leans in to Desi’s face with a smug but deadly grin. “Ladies,” Bob addresses us. There is venom in his voice I haven’t heard before, and his eyes never leave Desi. “Our saboteur.”

“Saboteur?” Desi repeats, staring cross-eyed up at Captain Bob as he tries to focus on the ray gun trained on his forehead. I have to admit, for an evil mastermind the guy seems fairly innocuous. Bob looks ready to squeeze the trigger at any moment, and I’m gearing myself up to witness yet another murder—what would that bring the daily tally to, a hundred and seven?—when a high-pitched squeal bursts from the closet.

“Don’t hurt him!
Puh-LEEEEEEEEEZ!
” The squeal is followed, not a second later, by the squealer. It’s Kate Mueller, president and sole member of Hanover’s audiovisual club. She throws herself down on Desi, shielding him from Captain Bob. She cradles Desi’s head and looks scornfully at all of us.

“Who is this?” Bob asks to no one in particular, pointing his gun away from Kate.

“My name is Kate. I’m a student here,” Kate replies indignantly,
pushing her glasses up on her nose. “And this is Des. My lover.”

Okay, so this is weird for a number of reasons. First of all, Kate Mueller is officially the geekiest girl at Hanover. Seriously. They took a vote once at lunch, at Kate’s insistence, and she won, hands down. She gave her award speech in binary. Kate is the last person I’d ever expect to have a “lover,” unless that lover happened to be, say, an elf or a vampire. And second . . .
Desi? Lover?
Ew. Even if you ignore the fact that she’s been canoodling with the man (or alien, or whatever) responsible for the deaths of more than half our classmates, that’s just . . . well . . .
ew
.

Apparently over his initial shock, Bob is tightening his grip on his gun again, and it’s nosing its way back up to Desi.

“Miss,” he tells Kate coolly, “step away from your . . . friend.”

“Lover,”
Kate corrects. If she’d known Bob for more than eight seconds, she wouldn’t be so petulant, but somehow Geeky McGeekerson can’t seem to see how uncomfortably focused he is on Desi. “I don’t know who you are,” she spits, “but I’m not going to let you hurt him.”

Cole’s trying to help or something, because he decides to pipe up. “Kate, was it?” he says cheerfully. But the gun he has trained lazily on her is killing the casual vibe a touch. I poke the barrel of his ray gun to the side just a few centimeters, so it’s back on Desi. “Oh, um, sorry. Thanks, Elvs.” I nod, and he turns back to Kate. “This guy isn’t who you think he is. He’s bad news. We’re just trying to keep you safe. Now move aside so we can—”

“He is not
bad news
,” Kate spits. “He’s protecting me. He helped me hide during that attack, and kept me safe from all the explos—”

From behind us comes a sudden wail, breaking off Kate midsentence. “Kate, he’s a murderer! He killed Danielle. He killed them
all
!”

And darn if that doesn’t set everyone off. Soon the whole gang is wailing and screeching, and with two gun-toting aliens, a saboteur, and fourteen hormonal baby mamas in such tight quarters, I’m a little worried about our safety. Bob is clenching his jaw, eyes focused on Desi, and I know that the second Kate moves even a fraction of a millimeter, her “lover” is going to be Swiss cheese.

“Wait,” I say, as something Kate said finally clicks in my brain. It makes sense, actually, about Kate and Desi. Kate
was
always blabbing on and on about the teachers quarters. I guess that’s because she was up there with Desi, being all . . .
lover-ly
. Gross. “Wait!” I’m trying to be heard over the din, but it’s basically impossible. I step between Bob’s ray gun and its target, in what is probably one of my stupidest moves ever. But someone’s got to do something.

“Miss Nara,” Bob barks, “what do you think you’re—”

“Bo—I mean, Captain, just wait.” I turn to Kate, and the noise around me subsides slightly. “Are you saying that Desi has been with you ever since the first explosion?” She nods, and sniffles just a tiny bit. I guess all the ray gun pointing and talk of her lover being a murderer is starting to get to her. “You’ve both been here?” I ask. “In this closet?” She nods
again, and I sigh. “I think she’s telling the truth,” I tell Bob. “I don’t think this is our guy.”

The other girls don’t appear quite as ready to consider this point, however.

“Elvie, have you gone bat shit?” Ramona says. “If anyone would know how to mess with the ship’s systems, it’d be the head of the AV club. Now get out of the way so the captain can fry his ass.”

Bob has managed to wrench his gun around both me and Kate, and suddenly he’s right up in Desi’s face. “You’re going to tell me exactly what encryption you used to lock us out of the main systems, and you’re going to tell me now.”

“He didn’t encrypt anything!” Kate spits at Bob.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Desi blurts out, more panicked than indignant. He’s sweating so much that his
SUDO MAKE ME A SANDWICH
T-shirt’s clinging to his chest.

“Guys, c’mon,” I say. “This is
Desi
.” Desi was never my favorite—he had an unfortunate habit of staring just a little too long while he was talking to you. But a murderer? I don’t see it. “He got food poisoning from the kugel during International Foods Week and puked right in the middle of comp science.”

“Oh, yeah,” Nat remembers dreamily. “The noodles all over the floor looked like a minor Pollock.”

“Exactly,” I reply. “He’s not a criminal mastermind.”

“Elvs,” Cole tells me, rolling his eyes like I’m being so immature. “That was probably part of the act.”

“And we all know how familiar you are with putting on an
act,” I respond, a little nastier than I mean to. I see Cole flinch, and I immediately feel the tiniest bit rotten. The dude
did
just save my life. If we were in China I’d, like, owe him eternal servitude or something.

Note to self: Instead of eternal servitude, vow to be less snarky.

“I didn’t sabotage anything,” Desi says, and I swear he’s shaking a little. “Kate’s telling the truth. I’ve been here since the attack.”

Britta snorts. “Some brave alien baby snatcher you are.”

“Alien?” Kate unconsciously edges away from Desi, shooting him a quizzical look. “What is she talking about, Des?” Her mouth twizzles into a knot. “You’re not Canadian, are you?”

Desi looks at Bob and Cole, his expression suddenly a degree cooler. “They know?” he asks.

Bob nods. “They sussed it out,” he replies flatly. Next to him Cole twists his ankle in a tight little circle, looking guilty.