Published May 14, 2017. Happy Mother's Day!
I dedicate this chapter to my mother, who, like Colleen, supports her children's goals, even when they entail periods of separation.
"Bring Him Home"
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. ~ 3 John 1:4
There was only one twenty-four-hour period in which Katie sent multiple messages to Colleen. It was also the last day Colleen received any communication from her for a long time.
I was right about something big happening. Will fill you in later.
The update came barely two hours later: My crew and I found the pilot. There was no need to specify whose pilot, of what crew or mission. Colleen understood well enough. It was just hard to believe. She was afraid to believe it, afraid to hope or even speculate what it might mean. It was greater than any lead they had hoped for. Shiro must know what happened to Sam and Matt, and how to find them. If he had survived and returned, surely they could too!
Colleen's hopes deflated somewhat with a subsequent message as a new day began: He doesn't remember much, but since he survived, I think his crew probably did too.
Katie's final communication was series of clipped phrases, as though she were in a hurry: Investigating clues. Might not be able to send messages for a while. Don't worry. I'm with friends.
Between and after these messages, Colleen spent hours watching the television and checking other media outlets, watching reports of what she knew must have been the "big event" Katie had expected. Even the Galaxy Garrison could not hide the arrival and departure of unauthorized spacecraft. Various satellites and observatories, as well as some laypeople, had observed a ship, unlike those produced by any space exploration program on Earth, entering Earth's atmosphere and landing in a location estimated to be quite close to the Galaxy Garrison. Less than a day later, a machine unlike any ever known or imagined was seen flying around the desert and then launching into space: a giant blue and gray vehicle shaped like a lion. They released photos and short videos through social media before the authorities could confiscate the evidence and force them into silence on the subject.
It was crazy. Completely crazy. Both Colleen and Pidge, and perhaps a few conspiracy theorists, had speculated that aliens might have had something to do with the Kerberos crew's disappearance, but Colleen had never seriously suspected it. Yet it seemed the only possible explanation.
In addition to interviewing people who claimed to have seen the unidentified flying objects, the news media reported the disappearance of the three Garrison cadets, apparently in the hope that viewers would be able to find and identify them. There was one piece of good news: Pidge's simulation crewmates had gone missing the same night, so they were probably together. Perhaps they were the friends to whom Pidge had referred. Colleen found some consolation in knowing that her daughter was not alone.
She tired not to worry when she received official notification of Pidge Gunderson's disappearance, through the separate address she had set up—a fake parent for a fake student. But then, for once, they gave her more information than the media: they charged Pidge Gunderson, along with his teammates, with conspiracy and treason, and said that anyone who helped them would be arrested. They refused to give details, but it was clear that the truants had broken several laws.
Hearing the official stories on the one hand and the alternate-news leaks and theories on the other, Colleen did not know what to believe, or whether to be afraid or hopeful. Pidge had sounded hopeful, but there was so much she did not explain, and the one fact she cryptically passed on was so unexpected, so improbable, it opened up a new world of uncertainty. The lack of knowledge was almost more frightening than being informed of actual danger or tragedy.
The following period was like a less intense repetition of the Kerberos crew's disappearance. Colleen contacted everyone she could think of that might have access to information. The Shiroganes were as clueless as she. The families of the other missing Garrison students were distraught—they were going through the same frustration and grief Colleen and Katie had experienced. Colleen appealed to old acquaintances, even offered bribes—she figured her family would forgive her if she bartered some of their savings or scientific equipment for information about them. But everyone was either unable or unwilling to tell her anything. No one in the Galaxy Garrison would speak to her, either as Mrs. Holt or as Mrs. Gunderson.
Colleen waited until she had exhausted all other methods of investigation before she took a leaf out of her daughter's book: she snuck into the Garrison and hacked into their classified files.
There were photographs that had been hidden from the media and the general public, documenting the site of the first unauthorized space vehicle's landing. Those were tempting, but Colleen knew she had limited time, so she focused on finding out what had happened to the students who went missing. There was ample security footage from that night. Of course Pidge had been careful to avoid being caught on the cameras—she was quite clever to replace the live feeds with recorded footage at times when she snuck around the campus—but there were still recordings of other areas.
The most surprising and delightful discovery was of security footage from a place outside the Garrison proper: apparently the officers had set up a temporary medical station in the location where the first unauthorized space vehicle had landed. The footage showed medical technicians in hazardous materials suits, and one person, apparently the vehicle's passenger. Colleen gasped when she recognized Shiro. He looked somewhat different from the confident pilot she had met, yet there was no mistaking him, and sure enough, the med-techs addressed him by his famous nickname. Pidge's message had been truthful and accurate. Here was legitimate reason for hope!
Colleen's euphoria vanished when she heard Shiro's desperate protests as they tried to run tests on him. Maybe the med-techs thought he was insane, crying out about aliens who destroyed worlds and were now coming to Earth. Colleen did not want to believe that he was crazy, but she wanted even less to believe that what he was saying was true. She understood the necessity of the tests—that cyborg prosthetic was frightening, and if he had been out in space, in environments unknown to humans, he could have contaminants that might harm people. Nevertheless, she grew angry as she saw how the medics had treated Shiro, ignoring his urgent cries, even administering a sedative against his will. They were treating him like all the other evidence of alien activity, from Kerberos to Earth: they meant to keep it quiet and hidden.
Colleen wanted to cheer when the footage showed a new person, who drove a hoverbike up to the makeshift facility, entered, and swiftly knocked out each medic. She did not know who he was, but two things were clear: he was no ally of the Garrison, and he was far superior to them in combat.
Just as the newcomer cut Shiro free, another young man—no, they were both teenagers—came in protesting that he would be the one to save Shiro. Colleen recognized him as Lance McClain, one of the other students who disappeared that night. From their confusing conversation, Colleen gathered that the stranger's name was Keith and that the two youths knew each other but were not close.
The tapes from the cameras set up outside the station showed two more people approaching: Hunk Garrett—and Pidge! The four teenagers clambered onto Keith's vehicle and took Shiro with them. It did not look at all safe for so many passengers, but they sped off as the Garrison vehicles came back. Colleen could not see the resulting chase, but from the timing and content of Pidge's messages, she knew Pidge, Shiro, and at least one other person had survived this escape.
Many people had surmised that whoever arrived in the first ostensibly alien spacecraft had left in the second. If that was true, and Pidge was still with Shiro … had she—would she have—left Earth to search for Sam and Matt? Collen knew the answer, though she did not want to admit its possibility. Katie had been so determined to find them that she had been willing to hide her true self and take all the risks that fraud entailed. If self-expression, freedom, and an honorable reputation were now enough to hold her back, safety and a sense of home certainly would not.
Before leaving the offices, Colleen searched the name "Keith" and the word "pilot" in the database. There were a few people of that name, but only one was of the right age, appearance, and class to be the one on this tape. Colleen skimmed his records, found that he was a prodigious pilot, but had been expelled due to disciplinary issues.
As she returned home, Colleen pondered what she had learned and what she could do now, armed with her new data, hypotheses, and theories.
She did not want to wait. More than anything, she wanted to look for her family. But she had no way of getting into space. She could not steal a ship—people had attempted to do so in the past, and none had succeeded. (At least, it was only the failed attempts that were publicized; perhaps there had been some successful ones that were simply hushed up.) Besides, what if she left, and her family returned home before she did? It would be like Pinocchio returning to his father's house and finding out Gepetto had gotten lost while looking for him. That sealed Colleen's decision. She had to make sure they had a home and a family to return to.
In the meantime, she reached out to the Shiroganes, McClains, and Garretts again. She told them that she had some new intelligence, enough to both reassure and terrify them, and asked whether they wanted to know it. Of course they did: so she told them about Shiro and his incredible claims, and the subsequent chase, which might have been considered either a kidnapping or a rescue. Colleen could not tell whether or not they took Shiro's words seriously. They thanked her for thinking of them, though, and said they were relieved beyond what words could express, to know that their sons were alive and accompanied by friends.
Colleen read Pidge's messages over and over again, trying to reassure herself. She tried hard to follow Pidge's one instruction, Don't worry.
She tried not to worry as weeks went by without any communication from Pidge or news from the scientific community. She told herself that this was a different kind of disappearance than that of Sam and Matt. Pidge had left with a mission, a goal accompanied by a substantial lead. No news was truly good news.
Colleen remembered something Matt had said once, a joke about Katie being a communications officer, acting like a homing pigeon, to pun her nickname. The analogy was not quite right, because pigeons could not travel back and forth between correspondents. They did, however, have a unique ability to find their way back to their home, and to find their mates despite separation over a great distance.
Eventually, Colleen gave up trying not to worry. It was inevitable. But she found that she could live with the anxiety, because in spite of it, she had hope.
No matter how great the odds, Colleen had to trust that Pidge could find her family and a way home.
Music: "Bring Him Home" from Les Misérables, music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, English lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer
