light darkened the screen. Ari dropped the watch, spun on her long legs, and ran from the blinking warning:
REMAIN STATIONARY.
MERCER ASSOCIATES ARE COMING TO ASSIST YOU.
Ari ripped off the knight costume and slid into the command chair on Error. She put her feet flat to the metal grating of the floor and engaged the ankle lock on her magboots. Hauling the crisscrossing safety belt across her chest, she pulled it more taut than usual. Only loose enough to breathe, and barely that.
Kay appeared in a flash of sweaty fear, his watch still buzzing from the alarm Ari had sent. He locked in, lording over the control panel. His frenetically moving fingers ticked against Ari’s anxiety, a tally running ever higher against them.
If this were a normal takeoff, Kay would have wandered into the cockpit five minutes after their preset hour, still in his boxers and clutching a mildly poisonous energy drink. This was entirely too reminiscent of the last time they’d run from Mercer—after their parents’ arrest.
Kay pressed the anchor release once, twice, before hammering it with his fist. An echoing bang announced that their tiny lifeboat of a ship had disengaged from the mall parking dock. He wasted no time in gearing up the thrusters, pushing toward the bumper-to-bumper lane of compact spaceships waiting to pass through the parking booth.
“Don’t suppose you paid for parking at the kiosk on your way out,” Ari said with a badly timed chuckle.
Kay groaned and hit the accelerator. They shot over the lane of ships, over the security bar at the parking booth. The alarms blazed, and he hit max throttle. Ari and Kay could have been mirror images of each other, leaning forward, staring at the small mouth of an exit, willing it to stay open long enough to blast through. They were both holding their breath—until they burst out of the parking area and into the black of space.
“If they weren’t suspicious of us before, they are now.” Kay punched the speed while the floating mall shrank behind them, far enough to show off the threateningly large Mercer fleet orbiting the stationary starship.
“Are they following?” she asked.
Kay stared at the rearview screen. And stared. “No.”
Ari scrubbed her face and let out a little scream.
“What happened, Ari? Or do I not want to know?”
She weighed her options. It didn’t seem like the right moment to admit she’d found out that their parents were alive, but she’d never been good at right moments. “I’m not… sure?”
“My gods, you’re the worst liar in the history of lies. Oh, here they come!” Kay throttled up while the rearview filled with Mercer pursuit cruisers, sirens blazing. “And the first thing they’re going to do is hack the hard drive…” Kay’s voice took on a sarcastic lyricism when he was riled, and now he was nearly singing. “I’ve got to drop her offline or we’re going to be Mercer’s ugliest new puppet ship!”
He thrust the steering console to the side—in front of Ari—and began digging in the wires under the panel. Ari reached for the controls, watching the Mercer vessels grow ever closer in the rearview. Too close. They’d overtake Error. Imprison Kay. Lock Ari away for merely existing in their galaxy without their permission.
No way.
She stopped staring at the rearview and looked ahead—at the blue-and-white marbled planet. Ari throttled all the way, beyond the red zone, leaning into the burst of speed.
Grunting, Kay slammed into his seat. “What are you doing? We can’t outrun them!”
“We’re not going to outrun them. We’re going to hide.”
“Where?” he yelled. Ari pointed through the windshield, where the blue planet grew larger with swift brilliance. “Earth? Even if we survive landing, Mercer will kill us!”
“Mercer won’t follow. They can’t. It’s completely out of their jurisdiction. Earth is a protected nature preserve, predating Mercer’s existence.”
“How do you know that?”
“I read it on the freakin’ observation deck!” Ari had to grit her teeth against the speed as their ship passed into the upper atmosphere and began reciting its own name.
“ERROR! ERROR!”
Kay hammered at the controls, yelling over the stilted voice of the ship’s mainframe. Ari tried to slow them down with every trick, but they were hurtling through the cloudy atmosphere of the retired planet, rattling from the strain on the ship’s joints. The view from the cockpit was all crystal-blue ocean and green, white-capped mountains.
Until they passed through a gray cloud, a digital smokescreen, and were suddenly looking at the rusted, burnt-out shell of a wasteland. The whole planet was a garbage