I always get mixed up with Terran birds. Canary maybe? Pelican?
No, that’s not right… .
But I can see our visitor has the name K IM stenciled across her pocket, and a lieutenant’s insignia on her shoulders. Lieutenant Kim, then.
Nice to meet you.
“So,” Scarlett smiles. “As I was saying, my name is Scarlett. This is my science officer, Zila, and my engineer, Finian. It’s good to f—”
“Get on your knees,” Kim commands. “Fingers laced behind your head. All of you. Slowly.”
Scarlett is as good at knowing when to shut up as she is at knowing when to speak and what to say. She silently eases down to the deck, and Zila follows with that slightly spacey expression that says there are furious internal calculations taking place. My exo whirs and hisses as I ease down beside them, wincing at the jolts of pain running through my knees.
“What’re you wearing?” Lieutenant Kim asks me. “Is it for combat?”
“Combating gravity,” I tell her. “I need it to walk. There’s no weapons in it, if that’s your worry. Though it does have a built-in bottle opener?”
Zila speaks as if there wasn’t already a conversation under way. “That station is trailing a quantum sail at the edge of a dark matter storm.”
“That’s classified,” Lieutenant Kim snaps.
Zila’s eyes shift, as though she can see through the shuttle’s hull. “My colleague Finian suggested it is trying to harvest dark energy?”
“Except nobody does that anymore,” I say. “Not anywhere.”
“Not anywhere,” Zila whispers, a little creepily, if I’m being honest.
“I’m asking the goddamn questions,” Kim growls. “Who sent you? Are you bleach-head spec ops? How did you find us all the way out here?”
Scarlett tries to smooth things over. “Lieutenant, I give you my word—”
“Your word?” Lieutenant Kim scoffs, points her pistol right at me. “You two are working with this bastard against your own people? Betraying Terra? You know what happens to traitors in wartime?”
“Wartime?” I blink. “Are you drunk? We haven’t been—”
“Shut your mouth, Bleachboy!”
I blink. “Bleachboy?”
“Not anywhere … ,” Zila whispers again.
“Look, what the hell is wrong with her?” Kim demands, glowering at Zila.
Scar waves dismissively. “Oh, she does this sometimes.”
Zila looks at the lieutenant again, nodding toward the airlock doors. “Your fighter ship. It is an old Pegasus model. Mark III, yes?”
“Old?” the pilot scoffs. “Sweetie, she’s so new her paint is still wet.”
Zila nods. “Not anywhere.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Nobody does this anywhere,” Zila says softly. “But Terrans did briefly try dark quantum farming. Back when we were at war with the Betraskans, in fact. During the first days of our exploration into the Fold.”
I realize at last what Zila’s implying, and my brain stutters to a halt.
She can’t be serious.
There’s no way.
Except …
“I don’t recognize her uniform,” I whisper. “And the station is so old-fashioned… .”
This. Cannot. Be. Happening.
“Not anywhere.” Zila nods. “Anywhen.”
“Maker’s breath,” Scarlett whispers.
Lieutenant Kim has obviously had enough and raises her gun. “You will explain what you mean right now. Or I start shooting.”
“You will not believe me,” Zila assures her.
“Try me.”
“What year is it? Right now?”
Lieutenant Kim scoffs. “Are you serious?”
“Please,” Zila says. “Indulge me.”
“… It’s 2177.”
“We are from the year 2380.”
A pause. “You’re right. I don’t believe you.”
“I did warn you,” Zila shrugs.
My brain starts fizzing, this-is-impossible fighting with this-is-so-cool. And underneath it all, a little voice is whispering, Surviving that explosion was impossible. So was getting blown up eight more times. So was being transported wherever the hells we are in the blink of an eye.
I see the precise moment Lieutenant Kim checks out. “All right, this is above my pay grade. I’m taking you in.”
“You are obviously experiencing temporal distortion, too, Lieutenant,” Zila insists.