Following the spaceport directions I’d memorized previously, I broke into a run toward the Red Azalea’s dock. I now had some tip money in my pouch, but I had no idea whether it would be enough to buy my way on board. Too bad I hadn’t been able to squeeze a little more out of “Aunt Nari.”
A ship rose up before me in silhouette against the night sky, a squat freighter with stubby wings. I bet it was barely capable of atmospheric flight. Under the harsh overhead lights, it looked even more battered than its identifying photo in the kiosk. Still, I sighed in relief when I spotted the painted red azalea on its wing. I was that much closer to getting off Jinju and finding my brother.
Now I just needed a pilot.
It wasn’t difficult to convince the dock agent that I was on the Red Azalea’s passenger list. By the time she double-checked the roster at my urging, my name had magically appeared on her data-slate. The illusion wouldn’t last long, but then, I didn’t plan to be around here long, either. With any luck.
I sprinted the rest of the way to the Red Azalea, looking around nervously, convinced that one of Nari’s goons would nab me any second. She must have noticed by now that I’d skipped out.
Once I reached the starship, I shouted up at it, “Captain Hye’s in trouble!” When no response came, I banged on the closed hatch with my fist. Ouch! But, if there was a crew inside, I couldn’t see any other way of getting their attention. “Is anyone in there?”
There was a loud, staticky noise; then a deep voice buzzed out of a speaker I couldn’t locate. “We’re busy. Go away.”
“Captain Hye has been detained by Nari for racking up too much debt,” I said. “Nari is threatening to claim her ship.”
I heard some words that Mom wouldn’t have approved of. “I knew it! If you have anything to do with that parasite Nari—”
I thought furiously. “No! Captain Hye sent me to tell you because she couldn’t get away herself! She was being too closely watched. If there’s a pilot on board, you need to get out of here before Nari shows up. She’s got some kind of deal with the spaceport authorities. If you don’t go now—”
More choice words came from the speaker. I filed them away for future use so I could sound like a spacer.
“Captain Hye had more instructions,” I said. “I’ll tell you if you let me up. It’s best that we speak privately.”
Once inside the ship, I’d be a step closer to my goal. Maybe I could use Charm on the crew to convince them to take me along.
There were a few moments of silence, then a grudging sigh. “All right. You’d think Hye would know enough to stay out of trouble, but no. . . .”
The hatch lowered, forming a ramp. I scrambled up, banging my head on the rim of the opening in the process. A short, heavyset man awaited me. He looked much less like a stereotypical spacer than Captain Hye did, although if he was watching the ship, he had to be one. Instead of a sleek uniform, silken robes drooped from his shoulders and trailed onto the deck. He must have been pretty confident of the Red Azalea’s artificial gravity to wear an outfit like that.
“Nari never changes,” the man muttered. “But taking a spacer’s ship? That’s low. Especially when all she ever does is sell them to scrappers.”
“You can’t let her do that!” I blurted. I needed this ship!
“I don’t intend to,” the man said, looking at me quizzically. “So, you were going to give me further instructions from the captain?”
I gulped and used Charm to appear confident. “She, um . . . she said to go to Gingko Station as originally planned.” That was the starbase near the Ghost Sector. If the Pale Lightning was in the area, there was a chance I could track down my brother from there. “Besides, she owes me. She promised me passage there in exchange for getting word to you.”
Hye did owe me—for the surprise drink, if nothing else. The man continued to watch me with raised eyebrows, so I kept talking. “Nari’s minions were watching Captain Hye too closely—I was the best she could do. Besides”—and this part was true, too—“I also need to get away from Nari.”
“Join the club,” the man said grimly. He spoke what sounded like code words into a wrist unit, then said to me, “I just told the crew to stay wherever they are on Jinju and keep out of sight until this blows over. I can’t wait for those three to get back here, not if the ship’s at stake. I doubt Nari will go after them if they lie low—her beef’s with Hye.” His mouth crimped and he grumbled, “It figures this would happen when I’m the one left babysitting the ship.”
“So we can take off now?” I asked hopefully.
“You a good copilot, by any chance?”
I was crestfallen. “No,” I admitted. It would be dangerous for me to try to fake that.
My answer didn’t faze him. He took the pilot’s chair and pointed at the seat next to him anyway. “Dirtsider, huh? Well, some of the ship is automated, but you might as well learn the basics. Strap yourself in. I’m Byung-Ho, by the way. You?”
I stuck with my cousin’s name. “Bora,” I said as I fiddled with the strap.
“Okay, Bora. First, check the life-support and engine panels. With a cranky old ship like this, there are signs of stress to look for, but we’ll keep it simple for now.” Byung-Ho pointed at the various illuminated digital graphs on the display panel as he spoke. “Basic principle is, you want to make sure these indicators stay in the blue zone. Blue for heaven, as they say. If any of them dip toward red, something’s wrong, and you’ll need to consult the diagnostics. The computer will guide you.”
It sounded doable, although I was sure he was glossing over the details. I studied the graphs carefully. After all, I realized with a sickening feeling, if anything happened to Byung-Ho, I’d be on my own. I liked working with machines, but I’d never flown before, and this system was new to me.
“Now,” Byung-Ho said, his hand hovering over a large gold button, “we power up the ship’s maneuver drive. This will get us past the atmosphere until we’re far enough from local gravity to Gate out.” He hit the button.
A red light came on above a completely different button. “Did something break?” I asked.
He laughed. “No, but be prepared for some bluster.” He pressed the button under the red light.
A loud, heavily accented voice squawked from the communications system. “Red Azalea, you are not cleared for takeoff. What is going on?”
“Aren’t you going to say something?” I whispered to Byung-Ho.
He ignored the annoyed voice on the comm system and answered me instead. “There’s nothing to say. I’m not going to hang around here and let Nari’s thugs take the ship. Captain Hye’s good at talking her way out of trouble. She can take care of herself until I come back for her.”
The loud voice spoke over Byung-Ho. “Red Azalea, power down your maneuver drive. You cannot depart until you have filed the proper documents. If you do not comply within one minute, you will be subject to fines under Regulation 138.8.2.”
“I wish them luck collecting that,” Byung-Ho said with morbid cheer. “I locked our account as soon as I noticed Hye starting to dip into it.” With that, he entered a set of coordinates, then settled his hand on a complicated-looking joystick.
“But won’t they—?”
Before I could finish my question, I was flung back into my seat as the ship tilted up and blasted toward the sky. The pressure increased, and I saw spots before my eyes. The loud voice threatened us with more fines.
We pierced a murky veil of clouds and angled ever upward. I could no longer hear what the voice was saying because of the roaring in my ears. My stomach dropped. My seat—no, the whole flight deck—vibrated, which I hoped was normal. It didn’t seem to bother Byung-Ho.
After a few dizzying minutes, the acceleration eased and we were soaring through space. The sky bloomed black before us, lit by the pinprick fire of stars. My breath caught at the unexpected beauty of it, as well as the knowledge that, for the first time in my life, I was free.
“We got away without even a warning shot?” I asked as soon as I’d recovered from the takeoff.
“You’ve been watching too many holo shows,” Byung-Ho said with a dry chuckle. “If they shot down everyone who had to leave a step ahead of the authorities, no one would bother touching down on a backwater planet like Jinju. I made sure we were paid up this morning. They save their defenses for real threats.”
The voice from the spaceport was still lecturing us. Byung-Ho reached over and flicked off the communications channel. “There,” he said. “The navigation system will alert us if we’re about to smash into anything, so there’s no need to endure that.”
I couldn’t believe how quickly we’d catapulted beyond the thin veil of Jinju’s atmosphere. We swerved past a moon, and in the distance I could see one of the system’s swirly green-blue gas giants as a distant disc. In reality, I knew it was many times larger than Jinju.
“Now tell me,” Byung-Ho said, “why are you going to the Ghost Sector? Do you have gambling problems of your own?”