being sucked out into space.
“Oh my Sols! We’re going to die!” someone screamed behind him. He was fairly certain it was Gabriel. But it sounded like it was coming from galaxies away, drowned out by the sound of the warship’s colossal engines humming just outside the window.
Whomp.
Whomp.
Whomp.
But Marcellus knew he had to be imagining it. There was no sound in space. No engines whirring. No weapons firing.
No screams.
“We’re not going to die!” Cerise shouted back at Gabriel. “Stop panicking.”
“Stop panicking?! Have you looked outside the window?”
“How did they even find us?” Alouette asked. Marcellus could feel her presence behind him. Serene and composed, even in the face of this catastrophe.
Meanwhile, Marcellus felt as though his entire body was shutting down. One essential organ at a time. He still hadn’t brought himself to move, speak, breathe. He stood motionless at the window, trying desperately to come up with a plan. A strategy. Something! But his mind was as empty as the endless void of space outside.
“I don’t know!” Cerise cried. “But now they’ve taken control of the navigation system.”
Just then, the voyageur lurched beneath their feet, knocking them all off balance. Marcellus reached out to steady himself before whipping his gaze back to the window. His chest squeezed.
The Trafalgar.
It was getting closer.
“They’re pulling us in.” Cerise voiced his fear.
Gabriel let out another yelp. “They’re what?”
“Will you stop whining!” Cerise shouted. “You are the most unsmooth criminal I’ve ever met. How have you ever managed to steal anything?!”
“What do we do?” Alouette asked.
Marcellus was still too numb to speak, but he knew the answer.
Nothing.
There was nothing to do now. They were flying in Albion airspace on a Laterrian ship. They were being reeled in by a Trafalgar 4000, like a tiny fish on a line, and soon they would be captured. They would stand trial. They would be convicted as spies, and they would spend the rest of their lives in “The Tower,” Albion’s infamous prison, rotting in one of its dank and pitch-black cells.
And his grandfather would win.
Just as he always did.
Cerise prodded frantically at the controls on the console. Alouette stood beside her, her steady gaze trying to follow Cerise’s rapidly moving hands. Marcellus turned toward the hologram map in the center of the bridge, which now showed their ship, caught between the Asteroid Channel and the planet of Albion.
“I can’t do anything,” Cerise said. “They’ve completely locked us out. Even the backup nav systems have been overridden.”
“This is it!” Gabriel cried, frantically pacing the length of the bridge like a mad man. “It’s all over. We’re all going to die. I knew this was a mistake. I knew I should never have stepped foot on this death trap. It wasn’t even that nice of a ship. Sure, it has seven bathrooms, but what good are seven bathrooms when you’re dead? And the kitchen didn’t even have paté. Or gateaux! And now I will never know what either of them taste like. I’m going to die without ever tasting gateaux and—”
POW!
Cerise’s fist slammed into Gabriel’s face with such force, he stumbled back, crashing into the holographic map, causing the planets to fritz and fuzz.
“Hey!” Gabriel shouted, holding his nose with both hands. “You punched me! You punched me in the face! You don’t punch people in the face.”
“I had to shut you up,” Cerise said, pivoting back to the flight console.
Gabriel turned to Marcellus. “Did you see that? She punched me. In the face.”
But Marcellus was barely listening. Because the voyageur had started to rumble again, this time with far more intensity. Everyone’s gazes jumped back to the window. They were heading toward a large latticed grid on the side of the Trafalgar, dotted with thousands of blinking lights. Beneath the grid, a vast fleet of tiny crafts clung to the surface of the ship like bats on the branches of a tree. Their sleek black shells shimmered ominously.
Albion Micro-fighters.
Marcellus had heard about their deadly capabilities. One small swarm could take out entire cities, entire fleets.
Alouette turned to him. “What’s happening?”
Marcellus squeezed his fists at his sides. “They’re docking us.”
The docking port grew larger in front of them, and soon its lights dazzled so brightly in the voyageur’s window that Marcellus was momentarily blinded.
But he could still feel the vibrations underfoot.
The whirring of vast machinery.
And the deafening clanking sound, which Marcellus knew meant only one thing.
“We’re docked,” said Cerise.
A squealing noise echoed from the voyageur’s speaker system, followed by an unfamiliar, chilling voice. “This is Admiral Wellington of the Albion