Lina recounted everything the queen had told her over the next hour or so. Mabnoa had quickly faded to nothing more than a speck of light in the sky, and then even that was gone until there was nothing but inky blackness all around. She’d typed in Earth’s coordinates and hoped that the navigational system could cope when it hadn’t been re-programmed in hundreds of years. But there’d be no knowing if it worked or not until they arrived, so for the time being, she just had to hope.
Meanwhile, Bain struggled to come to terms with his mother’s secrets.
“I can’t believe she could keep something like that from us. Knowing how much I wanted to travel to space…”
“Well…” Lina said, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “You did say that it was forbidden for you to know about it.”
“But she’s the queen. If anyone can break that rule, it’s her. Besides, she told you.”
Lina swallowed, her heart clenching at his tone. He spat the words so carelessly, clearly convinced she wasn’t worthy of this great secret of theirs. “I didn’t ask for that,” she shot back, her tone meaner than she meant.
Bain seemed to realize his error and his expression softened. “Lina… I didn’t mean… I know she told you because she thought it would convince you to stay. I just don’t know why she didn’t do the same with me.”
Lina shrugged. “She probably thought her other methods were effective enough.”
“And they were, I suppose… For a while.”
“Until I showed up and ruined everything.”
Bain grinned. “I don’t think ruin is quite the word for it. But this does present a problem. I thought my mother was just stuck in old archaic ways and I could dismiss them once I took the throne. But this… These Fibbuns… They sound like a formidable foe. Our numbers aren’t strong enough to take on such an enemy.”
“Who says you have to? What’s wrong with staying in hiding?”
Bain looked horrified, but Lina didn’t know why.
“Stay in hiding? Like cowards? But how could I live with that?”
Lina frowned. “There’s a line where cowardice becomes prudence. You have to take into consideration what’s best for all of Mabnoa. Not just your ego.” It was the first time she’d challenged him so directly and the moment the words left her mouth, she wished they hadn’t. He looked flummoxed for a moment, without words or response. She was certain that she’d just angered him beyond consolation when he started chuckling.
The sound was so startling that Lina couldn’t help but look at him like he’d lost his mind. Already she’d been conjuring visions of them spending the rest of this flight in stony silence and here he was laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, lips pursed.
Bain shook his head, still laughing, and pulled her in for a kiss. “You would have made a marvelous queen.”
Her face heated at that, her cheeks warming until she was sure she was shining as red as a traffic light.
“It’s a shame we’ll never know,” he added sadly.
And just like that, the bubble of happiness burst and she was left feeling sad again. Bain shrugged and kissed the top of her head.
“Don’t worry. It wasn’t meant to work out that way,” he said. “But you’re right. This policy of isolation has worked for us this long. Perhaps one day we can gather our allies to launch an attack on the Fibbuns, but until then, secrecy is our best option. My mother knew what she was doing, entrusting that knowledge with you. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders and you can see the problem for what it really is without your emotions — or ego,” he added as a tongue-in-cheek aside, “— getting in the way.”
She smiled in response, but was that really true? This whole thing with where she belonged, where she should stay… Wasn’t she just making that decision based on her emotions? The people of Mabnoa needed her more than her mother did. They needed someone with her expertise and skills. And maybe she needed her people, too. Living isolated and shut away from the world was what she’d always had. Mabnoa was isolated, too, but in an entirely different way. A way that still left her feeling free and unburdened.
She swallowed thickly, a lump in her throat. If she told Bain now that she’d thought she made a mistake, would he want them to turn around? The journey wouldn’t be very long with this ship’s speed. If they went to sleep now, they’d wake up in time to see the Earth coming into view.
Yet again, her emotions won out. Seeing Mom again was at the forefront of her mind, and going back to Mabnoa seemed impossible. The queen would be furious with her for disobeying a direct request and she didn’t even want to think about how busy Bain would be, unable to visit her at all. She’d likely be just as much a prisoner there as back on Earth.
“Well, if you ever manage to defeat them and decide to travel the stars… you could come visit me,” she said, clinging to him, pushing away all her uncertainties again. There were so many doubts, so many unknowns, how could she ever know what the right choice was? And once she made a choice, could she ever be satisfied?
Clearly not. The decision had been made. They’d repaired the ship, they’d decided to go to Earth, and now on her way there, she was still second-guessing her choice. She’d never be satisfied and she would always wonder ‘what if’ about the road not traveled.
Bain gave her a little smile, but said nothing. His reaction was strange, but Lina couldn’t put her finger on why. He seemed hesitant to say anything at all, like there was something he didn’t want her to know.
“Well,” he said, “it’s going to be a while before we arrive. We should sleep some, shouldn’t we?”
Lina yawned in response. It had been an exceptionally long day. From getting called in to see the queen, to running home to pack her things, to fixing the ship and leaving with Bain. They hadn’t had much time to stop and think, and there hadn’t been any time for snacks or rest and now she was exhausted. Starving, too, but mostly exhausted. She nodded and looked around the rickety ship for a place to lay.
“I think we can pull apart these seats and make a mattress from the cushions,” Bain said, practically reading her mind.
“Good idea.” She couldn’t stop yawning as they went to work dismantling the seats that had been so hard to find in-tact in the cavern. Oh well. They needed them for a different purpose now.
The makeshift mattress was lumpy and uneven, but when Bain laid back on it and offered his hand to her, it looked like the most welcoming spot in the Universe to Lina. She took his hand and Bain pulled her down, her surprised squeal filling the cabin as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
She used his chest as a pillow and was already drifting off when she noticed how tense he still was. She was relaxed and practically melting into the mattress with the bone-deep exhaustion, but he still felt stiff as a board, his breaths shallow and stressed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice barely a mumble.
Bain kissed the top of her head and smoothed her hair down, taking in a deep breath. “Nothing… Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Earth,” he said simply.
“About what it’s like?” She’d told him some stories, but it would be impossible to really convey what the planet was like when she’d never been able to explore it for herself.
“More like whether or not your mom will like me,” he said. Lina chuckled, assuming it was a joke, but he didn’t laugh with her. She propped herself up on an elbow and gave him a stern look, her brows pushed together seriously.
“My mother is going to love you as much as I do. She’s just going to be sad you’re not sticking around.”
“Yeah…” was his only reply. Lina frowned, not convinced that was really what was bothering him.
“Are you sure that’s all?”
He offered her an unbelievable smile and nodded. “Yeah, of course. Get some sleep, sweetheart. You’re going to need to pilot this thing home.”
It was unconvincing to say the least, but he did have a point. She needed to be well-rested for what would come next.
“Good night,” she muttered, snuggling in closer to him.
“Good night,” he answered, still stroking her hair.
Sirens blaring woke Lina out of her blissful slumber. She bolted upright, the warning alarm nearly deafening her as lights flashed throughout the cabin of the ship.
“What’s going on?” Bain asked blearily, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“I don’t know,” Lina answered, springing to her feet. The whole ship was shaking like an earthquake was happening underfoot, but they weren’t on solid ground that could do that, which meant…
“Gravity’s got us,” she said, cursing under her breath. She’d meant to wake up before that was a problem, to make sure their trajectory was on course for Mom’s college, and to try to ease into the atmosphere as gently as possible. But now that was all out the window.
“You might wanna strap in, or hold on, or something. It’s going to be a bumpy landing,” she shouted over the warning bells. It had been way too easy to sleep wrapped up in Bain’s arms and now they were both going to pay the price for it.
“Uh… alright,” he said, looking around for something to strap himself into. The chairs were all cannibalized for their mattress and none of them had safety harnesses anyway. But Lina had to trust that he could figure that out himself. She needed to take the controls before the entire ship was ripped apart.
The ship creaked and groaned, her shoddy welds splitting apart at the tremendous force of gravity, but something wasn’t right. Looking out the windshield, she didn’t see the blue marble of Earth spinning against the backdrop of space. Were they falling backwards? The ship jolted to the side and the new alarms joined the old, rising to a fever pitch.
“Warning: Hull Integrity Compromised,” the ship announced. Lina scowled. Had the hull ever had any integrity to begin with? It was a pointless thought, criticizing her own work, but as everything fell apart around her, she couldn’t seem to shake the thought. If I’d just built this thing to be stronger… Taken the time to make sure we could properly test it. But they’d come this far. She couldn’t give up yet. She couldn’t admit defeat. Not until it was all over, and every last shred of hope was lost.
She pulled on the steering column, fighting against the pull. The navigation panel still showed they were far from Earth, only on the very edge of the solar system. So what had a hold of them? Asteroids? Some phantom planet lurking beyond the reach of the Sun?
Sparks danced on the hull, blue and electric, and the ship jolted again, throwing her forward. Her stomach impacted the steering column and it knocked the wind out of her.
“Lina…” Bain called, his voice shaking in time with the ship’s jerking. He sounded more worried than ever, but she couldn’t turn to talk to him. Not now. She had to focus on the ship being slowly dismantled. “Liiiiina, we’re not going to make it!” Bain said, clinging to the sides of the ship even as panels sloughed off like fish scales. How could she fight against a force she couldn’t even see?
“Yes we are,” she said without hesitation. She had to believe that. She had to.
The ship listed to the side again with another strong jolt and when Lina tried to pull against the gravitational pull this time, the engines didn’t respond. They were dead in the water… in space.
She turned to look over her shoulder, not sure how to break the news to Bain, but looking at him was a mistake. His face was a mask of pure terror. If he didn’t regret coming with her before, he certainly did now. As stricken as he was, Bain was in no position to reassure her or help her scheme. She needed to repair the engines and get them operable again, but it would have to be from the inside of the ship since she didn’t have the proper suit for a spacewalk and…
The ship started moving again, but it wasn’t because of the engines. The gravity they’d been fighting against was now just a gentle pull without the resistance.
“Lina? What’s going on?” Bain asked, his voice tight with worry.
She frowned, shaking her head. “We might be crashing into an asteroid,” she said, bracing herself for his reaction.
“Oh. Is that all?” he answered, his voice devoid of any emotion. The Bain she knew had fled and left an empty shell of a person here with her. But she couldn’t deal with this catastrophe and a broken Bain. She needed him to focus.
So she took his hands in hers and squeezed them tight enough that it must’ve hurt because his eyes finally focused instead of looking so glazed and far-off. “Hey, I don’t know what’s happening, but we’ll figure it out and handle it together, okay?”
He looked skeptical. Rightfully so. “Lina, if we’re crashing on an asteroid, there’s no ‘handling’ anything. We don’t have food, water, or shelter. We really didn’t think this through…”
She swallowed, not wanting to admit he was right. Not wanting to admit that her reckless flight from Mabnoa was going to end in their untimely deaths. She wished she’d never brought him along. At least if she’d gone alone, no one would have missed her.
Her panic and fear must have been written in her expression because Bain’s face softened and his arms enveloped her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have taken the time to talk to my mother… so we could have done this properly.”
Lina’s eyes filled with tears and she buried her head in his chest, refusing to let him see her break down as she shook her head. “I wouldn’t have listened. I’m stubborn and reckless. I didn’t listen when my mom told me not to touch her experiments and now you’re going to pay for it too,” she cried, clinging to him.
The ship kept drifting, being pulled further and further. The lights in the cabin dimmed without the engine to keep them going and Lina wondered if they’d even make it to the crash or if they’d run out of oxygen first.
The darkness closed in around them until she couldn’t make out anything at all. There was no light left, only the disconcerting sounds of the ship creaking and the warm embrace of Bain’s arms. At least if she had to die, it would be with him. She just wished he didn’t have to die, too. Surie would be so upset.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, waiting for the end of everything to come any second now.
“Shh,” he said, smoothing her hair down as he had so many times. That simple gesture always calmed her so much. Always made her feel like things were going to be okay. Even when she knew they weren’t.
With Bain holding her so tight against him, something sharp poked her in the stomach and Lina reached into her pocket for the diode she’d put there for safekeeping. She could at least see him one last time…
She pressed the wires to the battery and the diode lit up. In fact, the whole ship lit up as it jolted, and their knees buckled. Even the gravity on their ship had been failing, but now everything seemed solid. And so, so bright.
“What—” Bain said, but he didn’t finish the sentence. The same thought was running through Lina’s head as she blinked and squinted at the bright lights.
Where were they? What had happened?
The hair-raising sound of metal scraping on metal, being bent and twisted apart filled the ship and they both instinctively covered their ears and tried to move away from the sound. But it was coming from everywhere, like some giant clawed creature was literally tearing the ship to shreds.
Bain shielded her with his body, both of them still covering their ears, crouched down as the panels of the ceiling started to peel away.
Her heart thundered in her throat, every second stretching out for an unbearably long time with the heavy uncertainty. She’d thought they were crashing, but this didn’t seem like any kind of crash she could imagine. It seemed more like they were on some other ship… But who would capture their ship?
Her hand went to Bain’s forearm and squeezed, every drop of her blood turning to ice with the realization of who — or what, she didn’t know the proper term — was trying to force its way into the ship.
He turned, his eyes wide with a question.
“It’s—” she started to say, but she never got the chance to finish as the ceiling tore back like the lid on a can of sardines and two bulky bodies dropped in through the hole.
Bain instantly went rigid, every muscle tensing in his body. Lina almost didn’t want to look around him to see, but she had to.
Crowding in their ship, there were two creatures. Both were nearly twice Lina’s height and width, with mottled gray skin and bulging muscles. They had a shiny appearance, like a sheen of sweat clung to them and their fat, square heads were bald. Their eyes were set on the sides of their head, but they still seemed to be looking straight ahead somehow and each of them sported a long gash of a mouth from one side of their head to the other.
The Fibbuns.
Fear, raw and primal, slithered down her spine and coiled in her stomach, leaving a cold and slimy trail inside her.
Their appearance was terrifying enough, with their broad shoulders filling the entire cabin and their heads barely able to fit inside without sticking out of the hole they’d made in the ceiling. But it wasn’t just the looks of them that terrified Lina. It was the massive guns they held that sent true fear all the way to her toes.
Bain kept her shielded even when she tried to step to his side to face the monsters. He held out an arm to stop her.
“Who are you and what gives you the right to destroy my ship and capture me and my companion?” Bain barked, regality dripping from his demanding tone.
The Fibbuns spoke to each other in a garbled language before one of them pushed Bain aside and snatched Lina around the waist, hauling her up out of the ship.
“Lina!” Bain cried, scrambling back up.
“Bain!” she screamed, kicking and hitting her captor with all her might. But none of it seemed to affect him. Her blows bothered him about as much as a gentle breeze did her. “Let me go, you monster!”
But the Fibbun ignored her and bent its knees before making a giant leap through the hole in the ceiling.
“You can’t take her. LINA!” Bain cried again. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear the struggles of him and the other Fibbun fighting. Then a flash of light and the sound of a weapon discharging. Then nothing.
“BAIN!”