in until I am being jostled every which way.
“I shot you,” Serpint says. “You’re dead!”
“No! You’re dead,” Draden yells back. “I shot you first. Go to regeneration for five minutes!”
“No one’s fucking dead!”
It takes me a moment to realize I’m the one who just yelled that. But then I open my eyes, poke at the alarm screen to make it shut up, and say—in a much calmer voice—“No one’s fucking dead. OK? We’re all still alive. And that’s how we’re gonna stay.”
“Sorry, Crux” Draden says with his wide violet eyes.
“It’s arrival day,” Serpint says.
“Yeah. New blood, buddy.” Jimmy enters my room, grabbing Serpint in one arm and Draden in the other. He swings them down to the floor. “Go clean your teeth. I heard there are girls on these ships.”
“Gross,” Serpint says. Struggling out of Jimmy’s grip.
“Yeah,” Draden agrees. “Girls have cooties. We hate girls.”
They run off. Probably not to clean their teeth, but fuck it. I don’t care. I’m not in charge of their dental health.
“Your father says he needs you on the arrival platform immediately. These ships really are filled with girls.”
My eyes are closed and I’m already drifting back to sleep. But I crack one open to look at Jimmy. “No fucking shit?”
“Serious as a sun-fucked star. So get up. Because he wants you there and I heard…” He leans in all secretively. “I heard they came from Cygnus.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I say. Swinging my legs out of bed. “How?”
“War, I guess. Word is the whole fucking system blew up and these ships are the only thing left of them.”
“How many ships?’ I ask. Standing up to go to my closet. I slide a t-shirt on, then pull some tactical pants up my legs.
“Like..” Jimmy laughs. “Five hundred.”
“Get the fuck out of here.”
“They even have two silvers.”
“You do not know that.”
“I do! Tray told me.”
“How would Tray know?”
“He hacked into the leaning pods. There’s a secret back door to ALCOR’s main coms.”
“He did not!”
“He did!” Jimmy insists. “And he heard it. Two silver girls. One is our age.” Jimmy waggles his eyebrows. “And a little one.” He points at me. “So I call the oldest silver girl. She’s mine.”
“You’re not gonna get within three meters of that girl. Mark my words. ALCOR knows you too well. He’ll never allow you near her.”
“Ha,” Jimmy laughs. “Tray said he’ll hack into their pod. Find me a secret way in.”
“You’re delusional.”
“He did,” Jimmy insists. “And I got a good thing going with that little weirdo. So don’t blab to your father and mess it all up for me.”
I laugh. And I’m about to say something.
Something on the tip of my tongue.
Like we’ve had this conversation before.
It’s something… familiar. But different.
But I stop. And don’t say it. Because it doesn’t fit.
So instead, I say, “I’m not gonna tell ALCOR nothing. He knows everything anyway. If Tray has a secret back door it’s only because he let him have that secret back door.”
“Whatever,” Jimmy says, kicking my boots over to me as I sit on the edge of the bed. “The oldest silver girl is mine.”
I put on my boots, freshen up in the bathroom, and then wander into the dining room where Xyla has breakfast waiting.
Serpint and Draden are already done eating. Busy playing war games again.
Luck and Valor are throwing cereal at each other. And Tray is busy tapping on a tablet.
“You’re late,” Xyla says. “You can eat later. You’re needed on the platform now, Crux.”
“Why can’t Jimmy go?” I ask. Grabbing a pastry and shoving it in my mouth.
“Because Jimmy isn’t the headmaster’s son. You are. Now go.”
I sigh. But I do as I’m told. Because I’m the luckiest kid on this whole station. Every time I get irritated I remind myself of that fact. I’m the only one who has a real father. Everyone else is an orphan who found their way here to the ALCOR Academy for Unwanted Kids after terrible things happened to them.
I try not to forget that.
Jimmy slides into step beside me. “I’m coming too. I wanna get a good look at my future Cygnian princess.”
“Wait for us!” Serpint and Draden go running past Jimmy and me. Still trying to shoot each other. Then Luck, Valor, and Tray bring up the rear.
I guess we’re all going to greet the princesses.
My father, the all-power AI ALCOR, headmaster of the station school we run for unwanted kids, is standing in the middle of the top-level platform. He’s smiling at me as we approach. His hands