"Is that a dead rat?" Hunk's heavyset silhouette balanced awkwardly on one leg as he peered through the alley's gloom at his boot. "Oh, god, I think I just stepped in dead, squishy rat."
"That was fun!" Lance's lanky silhouette practically vibrated with gleeful energy. "I've now been kicked out of a bar. I'm officially a man." His teeth glinted as he smiled cheerfully at the club's backdoor.
Because she was possibly a little drunk, Katie Holt, aka Pidge Gunderson blurted. "I think your balls have to drop first." The jest sounded like something men would say to each other. At least she hoped it was. One vodka tonic, though consumed slowly because it tasted like paint thinner, was muddying her judgement.
It must've been an okay thing to say because Hunk laughed and said, "Good one, Pidge."
"Yeah, well, you, you, you," Lance flailed his arms, "you've got rat brains on your shoe." His attention switched to Pidge. "And you, you…" He pointed finger guns at her. "You actually have a sense of humor. Who knew?" He reached out, sliding an arm around her shoulders and dragging her to him. His knuckles kneaded the top of her head and mussed her hair.
She swatted at his hand, but didn't attempt to free herself. Because she never did. With a tolerance that amazed her, she bore and even secretly welcomed his habit of barging into her personal space.
"Guys," said Hunk. "We've done enough 'team bonding.' Let's get out of Rat Alley and back to the Garrison before we get in any more trouble."
"That wasn't trouble. That was a rite of passage. And, you're welcome." Lance sauntered down the alley, a bounce in his steps, arm still over Pidge's shoulders. She scurried along at his side, short legs double-timing it to match his long-legged stride, glad to be leaving the alley's funk of rotting garbage, pee and dead rodent. Hunk followed, accompanied by the sounds of boots scuffing on concrete as he tried to scrape off liquified rat corpse.
Like Pidge, both boys were Galaxy Garrison cadets on an unauthorized bit of R&R in the nearby town of Torre Siena. Unlike Pidge, both were actual boys and at seventeen, two years her senior.
"Speaking of men," began Lance, giving Pidge's shoulders a shake. "Our little man Pidge was getting some choice girl attention."
"Did you get the green-haired girl's number? What was her name?" Hunk shuffled faster and caught up with them.
"Marea." She had been cute, shoulder-length hair dyed emerald green with coppery highlights, a little bump in her nose suggesting an old break, a crooked smile and eyes the same shade of blue as Lance's. Ugh! Why did everything always come back to Lance?
Pretty Marea's attention didn't matter, anyway, because Pidge had more important things to do than romance. And besides, there was the awkward question of whether Marea would still be interested if she knew Pidge was actually a girl.
They emerged from the alley onto Third Steet and headed south down the sidewalk. Behind them dance music throbbed from The Cockpit, the name apropos as it had just ejected them. Parked cars lined the street on both sides, and others drove slowly by, stereos throbbing, looking for a spot or just cruising on a hot August night. Pidge elbowed Lance lightly as he waved at a carload of girls. His incessant flirting was exasperating and doubly annoying since he currently had his arm around a girl, even if he didn't know it.
"I can't believe we got booted out for something so lame," she said. When Lance talked her into this "team-building exercise," she figured it would end as soon as a bouncer or bartender saw through their fake IDs and sent them packing. But this was the Sonoran SubRepublic where underage drinking apparently only meant toddlers with booze. Pidge, Lance and Hunk, with their poorly crafted IDs and well-funded credit chip, were practically welcomed with open arms into The Cockpit, a popular spot for both townies and Galaxy Garrison cadets. Numbed by the alcohol, and charmed by Marea's attention, Pidge had actually been starting to enjoy the experience and feel like a normal teen.
"True," said Hunk. "Not that getting thrown out of a bar was on my to-do list, but if it happened, I figured it would be for something cool like starting a brawl."
"I wasn't even flirting with that girl," whined Lance.
"Yes, you were!" chorused Pidge and Hunk.
"Okay, but that guy overreacted."
That guy was the girl's boyfriend and the club owner's son. Turns out it was an unspoken rule that flirting with any object of rich boy's affection was cause for immediate eviction from the premises.
"How much money is left on Ortega's chip?" Lance grinned down at her hopefully. "We could try Ender's Cantina. I hear the girls aren't as pretty, but the food is good."
"No," she said. "I'm with Hunk. Back to the Garrison before anything worse happens." Not only had they broken Garrison ethics codes against drinking and forgery, but their liquor bill was on Lieutenant Commander Victra Ortega's dime.
Last week, Lieutenant Commander Ortega, principal officer of cadet deportment, had summoned the three to her office for another infraction. (Someone had rewired the floor polishing bots to attack, en masse, a certain bully in the cafeteria.) Without any concrete proof the trio was responsible, Ortega gave them a stern talking-to, all while Pidge palmed a credit chip from the Commander's desk.
Pidge's motivation for the theft hadn't been booze and pretty girls, but building a stash of spending money if the search for her missing father and brother took her from the Garrison. A runaway with an assumed name and gender, she was without any kind of allowance from her family. Lance's little adventure had carved a deep hole into her emergency funds.
She changed the subject. "How is it you're still standing? You bought at least a dozen drinks." She and Hunk had nursed a single drink all evening.
"'Bought,'" Lance said, making finger quotes. "I bought drinks for all the lovely ladies. I didn't drink anything."
"Dude, you had a martini," said Hunk.
"No, I had a glass of water with an olive in it." He grinned. "Somebody had to stay sober and keep track of you kids."
"Because you are the epitome of maturity," drawled Pidge.
"I can be responsible," said Lance.
Hunk chuckled. "Responsible for anything that goes wrong."
"For flirting with girls," added Pidge.
"Hey!" Lance dropped his arm off Pidge's shoulders and shoved his hands into his jeans' pockets, suddenly sullen. "I'm good at…things. Like piloting."
"You crashed the simulator." Deep down, Pidge didn't like needling him because she suspected his brash, cocky exterior hid something deeper, possibly fragile. "And made Hunk barf in the cockpit gear box."
"Not my fault he has a delicate stomach," muttered Lance, shoulders hunched, much of his cheer gone. A definite surge of guilt rushed through Pidge.
"Hunk," she said, trying to fix the damage she'd done, "do you think the simulator accurately models real world flying conditions?" Face turned from Lance, she gave Hunk a little head-tilt and tried to wink.
"Is there something in your eye?" Hunk's square brown face scrunched in confusion. "Oooh! Yeah, that simulator is totally flawed. That's why I have such a hard time fixing the mechanical issues. Nothing like real life."
Lance's lean face brightened. Cheer restored, he pointed at a yellow cab that was headed in their direction. "There's our ride back to the Garrison." He started to lift his arm, but Pidge yanked it down. The stolen chip wasn't coded specifically to Ortega, but could be traced, especially if they did something as boneheaded as using it to pay for a cab trip back to the Garrison.
"You wanna walk all the way back to the barracks?" Lance gave her backpack a hard tug. "Why were you carrying this again?"
"I have my reasons." She'd planned to do some electronic snooping on incoming outer space signals, searching for clues to her family's whereabouts, which may have been related to something called "Voltron" that kept popping up in transmissions. Tonight's electronic eavesdropping was intercepted by Lance and Hunk just as she snuck out of her room. Their trip into town had been abetted by a farmer in a truck who'd actually stopped when Lance flashed him the thumbs-up hitchhiking hand signal.
Hooking her thumbs under the backpack's shoulder straps, she blew out a sigh and stomped forward. Galaxy Garrison's cadet barracks were on the southern end of the compound's 5000-acre complex and about three miles from their current location. No, she really didn't want to hike that far with a backpack full of equipment.
They continued down the street, Lance chattering about some girl at the club who was really into pilots, blah-blah-blah…and Pidge zoned him out. There had to be a way home that didn't involve her short legs, and the stifling dregs of desert heat, because even at this hour of the evening, in late August, heat waves still radiated off every surface. Sweat beaded on her face, and her glasses, ill-fitting because they were her brother's, slid down her nose.
An expensive European car full of spoiled townie kids rolled by and somebody yelled, "Garrison rats!" at them. Lance responded with a winning smile and a crisp middle finger salute. "Have a nice evening, Putzvillians."
The Garrison town of Torre Siena had an identity crisis. The town grew up around Galaxy Garrison, feeding off the necessary economy of a large military complex. Its first name had been Castle Rock, named for a nearby rock outcrop, which, with enough alcohol might be mistaken for a poorly constructed medieval fortification. Realizing that this was the town name equivalent of Jones, Smith or Martinez, the founders renamed it after the garrison's first captain, Theodore Putz, leading to the inevitable nickname, Putzville. Fifteen years ago, the residents voted to change the name to Torre Siena.
But…everyone still called it Putzville.
Lance snaked his arm around her shoulders again and a familiar flutter of butterflies cut through her boozy haze. Really? She cursed her ridiculous biochemistry for cooking up crush-hormones over a scatterbrained, science-illiterate who communicated primarily through suggestive eyebrow waggles and terrible pick-up lines.
Except he was more than that. Lance McClain was kind, always willing to lend a friend a hand, not nearly as dim as he tried to be, and brave, putting his noodle-boy body between her and any bully, no matter how big. Her eyes tracked involuntarily to her shoulder and stopped on his hand. And his hands…he had the most beautiful hands.
"What the heck is that?" said Lance cutting into her thoughts. His arm slid away from her shoulders as he rushed forward toward the curb, attention on a car.
Where all the other vehicles, including trucks and heavy transports, were made of round aerodynamic curves with seamless construction, most in shades of white to reflect the hot sun, surfaces satiny with solar skin, this one was gleaming stainless steel, flat plates of metal connecting in hard angles. Rather than low-fric wheels, it had black tires, the kind that were once constructed from rubber, but these were likely made of bioengineered kelp.
She followed, walking the vehicle's length and halting at its front end to study the emblem on front. "I think it's a DeLorean."
"De-loh-what?" Lance leaned into her space, his face inches from hers, squinting at the stylized "DMC" on the grill.
Her stupid stomach let loose more butterflies. To distract herself, she spewed a string of information. "A car from the 20th century, propelled by an internal combustion engine and powered by petrochemicals. The design, at the time, was considered futuristic, especially the gull-wing doors, but all other aspects of its construction were substandard."
"Oh, come on, man," said Hunk. "You mean you've never seen Back to the Future? The ancient vid about a time-traveling car?"
Lance straightened but plopped a companionable arm on Pidge's shoulders again. It wouldn't help, but she gave the arm an irritated side-eye.
Rubbing his chin, he considered the car. "Is that the one where the guy goes back in time and makes out with his mom?"
Pidge and Hunk gave Lance an identical irritated-stunned face. "That?" said Hunk. "That's what you got from the movie?"
Arm still around Pidge's shoulders, Lance waggled his eyebrows at Hunk. "Well, I was busy with more important things. Like making out with Jenny."
He released Pidge's shoulders and moved to stand by the car's door, his long fingers tucking into a recess on the door panel.
"Laaaance," said Hunk, "what are you doing?"
Lance gave the door's latch an experimental tug. "Being a good Samaritan. Making sure it's locked. Can't have an antique vehicle sitting out on the street unlocked."
Hunk shifted his feet nervously, his head turning side-to-side as he eyed the street in both directions. "Okay. Well, that's done. Let's move on."
"Right. Safe and sound." Despite his words, Lance tugged harder on the latch. Something in the mechanism gave out a "Kerchunk" and the door panel swung up and out. Lance stepped back, pointy chin nearly getting clobbered by the door's upward swoop. Pidge, butterflies be damned, would have paid a lot see that.
"Awesome," he said.
"Oh man, this is not good," muttered Hunk.
Pidge gave the big guy a sad smile in commiseration, although now that the thing was open, she couldn't resist moving in for a closer look. One hand on the edge of the glass windshield, Lance leaned low, studying the car's interior. Forgetting that she was trying to stay out of his orbit, she tucked herself by Lance's side for a better view of the ancient vehicle.
"Leather seats, nice," observed Lance. "I wonder if they're original."
"I don't know," said Hunk, "but the filthy toilet in Putzville's jail cell is probably original."
"What's with all the exposed wiring?" Lance pointed at the multicolored wires running from the dashboard and back to a small module, no bigger than a shoebox, that sat between the two front seats. A faint purple glow emanated from five cloudy, glasslike windows on the module's surface.
Pidge waved Hunk over. "Look. It's like somebody started to mod it out to look like the car in the vid." Not that she was an expert on 20th century vehicles, but the car otherwise seemed to be in mint, factory condition.
Lance pulled a face. "It smells like lavender air freshener and old man farts." At that, he pushed Pidge gently aside and dropped down to settle into the driver's seat.
"No, no, no." Hunk's head swung back and forth like someone watching a tennis match as he checked the street again. "Lance, out of the smelly, old man pants car. Now."
"Relax, Hunk, I'm just checking out the fine, Corinthian leather."
Unable to resist, Pidge scurried around to the passenger side of the car, "Shotgun!" A quick tug on the handle and the door swung open. Yanking her backpack from her shoulders, she sat next to Lance.
He grinned maniacally at her. "This is soooo cool."
"You know what's cool?" suggested Hunk. "Not getting arrested for car theft. Not getting expelled from Galaxy Garrison. Not living at home in Samoa till the end of my days. I mean, I love my fam and country, but I want so much more—"
"Hunk!" Lance leaned his head back against the headrest and smirked up at him. "Get in or I'm telling everyone at the Garrison about—"
"No!" With stunning alacrity, Hunk hurried to the passenger side. He shrugged his shoulders at Pidge expectantly.
"This is because I'm small, isn't it?" she said, reading his mind.
"Pretty much, yeah."
Lance's hand slipped around her upper arm, pulling her toward him. "Time's a wastin', Gunderson. We've got timescapes to traverse."
She stowed her backpack on the floor before the passenger seat and let Lance pull her over onto the middle console. Even she wasn't short enough to comfortably sit up straight, so she let herself lean into Lance's space, payback for all the times he'd invaded hers.
"This really isn't a good idea…hey, these seats are surprisingly comfortable. Even for a guy with my magnificent mass." Hunk, looking like a bear stuffed in a box, nevertheless, wiggled happily in the seat. Pidge's nose wrinkled as lavender air freshener, stale flatulence and now dead rat made an unholy alliance in her nose.
Lance reached up and grabbed the door's strap and pulling it closed. "Shut your side, Hunk."
"What, no!"
Pidge, needing to escape the Lance's proximity, because he smelled really good, leaned her elbows on the dashboard and look back at Hunk. "Are you really going to try to convince Lance to be sensible?"
"Yeah. Like trying to talk a cat into a bath." He sighed expansively, grabbed his strap and hauled the door shut. "Not like he knows how to drive this thing."
Something in the car made a click-click-click noise, then the engine turned over and revved to life. Pidge sat up, swinging back into Lance's space. He was inclined forward, one hand grasping something on the dash. She spoke her thoughts aloud. "A metal key. Cars in the 20th required a metal key for entry and ignition." And someone had left said key in the ignition.
"Okie-dokie," said Hunk. "And this now concludes Lance McClain's magical tour of 20th century pop culture icons." His big hands fumbled about on the door. "How do you open this thing?"
Lance's hand brushed Pidge's thigh. In her stomach, butterflies took off in legions and she wished there was a pesticide that killed stupid-crush insects. He pulled the upright gear handle back and the car began to move forward.
"Why's the car moving? It's ghosts, right? Or aliens? Please tell me it's aliens moving the car." Hunk's dark eyes were wide with worry. "Because Lance would never be crazy enough to drive this car away."
"The better question is, where did you learn to drive old tech?" said Pidge.
Lance turned his head, face so close their noses almost touched. "On my family's farm. We've got a couple of ancient bio-diesel tractors."
Face reddening, she blurted, "Eyes on the road. This is why you always crash the flight simulator."
With surprising ease, he worked the pedals and steering wheel in concert and slid the car out onto the street. "This baby is way smoother than the tractor though. Too bad it smells like old man pants."
"Hey," said Hunk, with some of his usual joviality. "Some of my favorite people are old men." His eyes narrowed. "Do you hear something? Like yelling?"
Lance's chin tipped up and he canted his head sideways into Pidge's space. Pointing at the mirror affixed to the windshield, he said, "It's hard to tell with Pidge's big head in the way, but I think somebody's following us."
Hunk twisted around, stunningly nimble for a guy his size and looked out the back window. "I think it's the car's owners. Two guys, one young, the other old with crazy, white Einstein hair."
"Whoops," said Pidge.
"Slow down, Lance," urged Hunk. "Stop. We can't take this car."
The car lurched as Lance accelerated. Pidge noted that the car, for all its space-age looks, had a shitty, geared transmission.
"Are you crazy?" replied Lance to Hunk. "If we stop, they'll see our faces. They'll report us to the cops."
"I can't believe I'm saying this." Pidge smiled wryly at Hunk. "But Lance is right."
"Hear that, universe? Gunderson said I'm right," muttered Lance.
She gave him an affectionate punch. "A broken clock is right twice a day." To Hunk, she said, "We're already skating on thin ice with the Garrison. We can't get caught stealing a car."
"We can't get caught stealing a car, so we're going to steal a car," said Hunk, dryly.
"Exactly," said Lance.
"This also solves our transportation problem," chimed in Pidge.
"Okay." Hunk sighed. "But let's just get back to the Garrison before anything else stealable shows up."
Pidge craned her neck backwards, noting that the two men were dropping farther away, but still clearly agitated, fists shaking in the air.
As the car slid through the downtown area, Pidge realized that they were probably getting recorded on a million security cameras. And there was the matter of how pedestrians stopped and stared, as amazed as they had been by the old car.
"This is bad." Hunk put his hand over his face, unsuccessfully trying to scrunch his broad form lower in the seat. "Witnesses. Lots of witnesses."
The car was stopped at a pedestrian crossing along with several modern cars, all self-driving. Lance winked at a pretty girl with tanned skin, dreadlocks and hazel eyes in the blue car next to them. Pidge hit him.
"What?" he whined. "Hunk's right. We're busted." The signal changed and he moved the car through the intersection, headed for the road out of town. "Might as well enjoy the ride."
It only took a few minutes to move through Putzville's suburbs, rows of modular housing, ugly, low-slung and half buried in the ground to minimize heating, and then the trio were on the open highway. Only a handful of other cars were on the road and housing had thinned to a few ranch houses, faint light winking from windows. The stark landscape's flat-topped mesas and buttes cut hard lines on the horizon. The DeLorean's headlights spit a sad pool of light before it, but the full moon, cresting over a vaguely castle-like rock rendered the roadway in sharp detail.
Lance punched the accelerator and they passed a couple of cars. With no vehicles nearby, he took the opportunity to swing the car back and forth, weaving from one side of the road to the other.
"Stop it," said Hunk.
Lance let out an appreciative whistle. "This baby definitely steers better than the tractor."
"Lance," cautioned Pidge, "keep that up and the car's gonna smell like old man pants and Hunk vomit."
"I'm gonna be sick," moaned Hunk.
Lance laughed. "There's a cure for that. More speed." On the dashboard the speedometer inched up to 75mph.
Seventy-five was nothing compared to the speed of a rocket or even the crappy flight simulator, but in the ancient car, air rushing through little gaps in the seams, engine rumbling, tires jittering on the road, it felt intoxicatingly fast. Lance shot Pidge a quick look and his trademark cocky smile.
She joined his laughter and happy whoop. "Whooooo!"
"Maybe if we go fast enough, we can time travel," said Lance. The car picked up speed, approaching 80 mph.
"Can we go back to the point where I agreed to come along with you lunatics?" said Hunk.
Against her back, the weird module began to vibrate. She twisted sideways to see it just as Lance zoomed the car right again and she slid into his lap, her feet over the center console. His laugh shook her body and he shifted his right arm to accommodate her. He gave her a sly wink which was disconcerting because he was supposed think she was a boy. Or did he also like guys? And if he liked boy-Pidge, would he also like girl-Pidge? Grrr. Focus, Pidge.
What had been a pallid glow coming from the panels, now was a throbbing of dull to brilliant, the purple light deepening in intensity, taking on a darker blue with a sort of yellowishness around the edges. Timidly, she touched the module's unlit surface. A gentle shock shivered nerves in her fingertips and she drew back. It hummed and one panel turned green.
"Huh," said Lance, his eyes again not on the road.
"Lance!" Hunk reached over and pushed Lance's face forward. "Pay attention." Just in time, as the car's tires rattled on the road's gravely side.
Lance straightened the car's trajectory. "Maybe it's a puzzle. You touch it, Hunk."
"No."
"Touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it."
"You shouldn't say that when someone is sitting in your lap," noted Pidge. She was pleased to see that her comment turned Lance's brown face a vivid shade of red.
"Don't be such a worrywart, Hunk. Pidge touched it and he's fine."
Pidge held up her hand as proof.
"Fine." Hunk dropped his hand heavily on the module. "Yeooowch. Did you feel that?"
"Just a little sting," said Pidge. "Look, now it has a yellow stripe."
"Cool." Lance started to reach for the box.
"Lance!" yelled both Pidge and Hunk. "Eyes on the road."
"No fair, everybody else got to touch the box." Taking his right arm off the steering wheel, he groped between the seats, hand finding the module. "Whoa. That does kind of sting. But in a good way."
"Blue stripe. Wonder what that means." Hunk, temporarily distracted from his whining, studied the module. "Think it's a code?"
"Green, yellow, blue." She poked the box again, but the remaining two glassy blue-purple stripes gave no response.
Hunk's attempt netted a similar lack of results. "Maybe it's broken."
"Or, you two just don't have the right touch," Lance purred in flirty voice. His hand found the box and he stroked it gently. Despite herself, Pidge watched his hand and envied the box. The box, however, was unimpressed and unchanging.
The car weaved to the left and Pidge smacked him again. "Watch the road, Tailor," she said, sneering his self-anointed nickname.
"Hey." Hunk pointed at the dashboard and then up to where window glass met the car's ceiling. "I think that did something." Red and blue lights flashed on the both surfaces.
"Pretty," said Pidge.
"Oh-oh," said Lance. His blue eyes panned from the rear-view mirror and back to the road ahead. Pidge felt his thigh muscle flex hard under hers and he stomped on the gas pedal. The speedometer's needle rose, climbing above 80 mph.
Hunk's eyebrows came together in confusion. "Lance, what are you doing? I don't think this thing was designed to go this fast." He gestured at the speedometer. "It doesn't go higher than 85."
Lance answered with one word. "Cops."
Pidge and Hunk moved as one to stare between the seats and out the back window. The unmistakable ominous flash of red and blue joined bright headlights and whoop of a siren.
"Just stop, Lance," pleaded Hunk. "A police interceptor can easily outrun this thing. And I think the engine hamsters are dying."
Hunk had a point. Pidge's expertise ran toward modern 23rd century machinery, but something in this thing's engine—Pistons? Camshaft?—was making a terrible squealing noise. The tachometer was stuck in the red zone at 80 rpms. She laid a hand on his arm. "It's over Lance, stop the car."
He ignored her and the unmistakable pull of acceleration pressed her to his chest. "Lance! Stop." Palms on his chest, she pushed away from him and stared up at his face. His blue eyes swam in a sea of white, long planes of his face even longer with surprise.
"It's not me," he protested, voice letting out an adolescent squeak. "I'm not touching the gas pedal. This thing has a mind of its own." The speedometer was pegged at 85, but the car was still accelerating.
"What, what is that?" Hunk pointed out the window. No more than a dozen car lengths away, a glowing half circle, pale luminous blue with sort of Art Deco designs, arched over the roadway.
"Nooo!" said Hunk.
Pidge, suddenly petrified, braced her hands hard on the steering wheel, shoving herself tight against Lance's body. The car's horn honked in a long protest. They hurled toward the strange archway and through it.
They all screamed.
And screamed.
She was ice cold and her cells boiled with heat. Katie Holt was a boy and then a girl and several versions of herself. Blindness took her and she could see spectrums of energy far beyond the visible.
And she was screaming. And alive. Still in Lance's lap and he, along with Hunk, were also yelling, high-pitched like they were auditioning for the Vienna Boys Choir.
The car's suspension rattled over rocky terrain, tires scrambling on the desert clay beneath. They were headed dead-on for the sharp slope of a tall butte. Lance, still screaming like a girl, jammed his foot onto the brake. The car fishtailed in the dry clay and careened to a halt, a few yards from the slope's rise.
Hunk made a glurking noise, pawed at the dashboard, opened the glove box, and emptied his stomach into the unfortunate vessel.
"Ugh," chimed Pidge and Lance.
"I need air." Hunk's attempts with the door latch succeeded and the passenger door did its lift and swoop thing. He stumbled out into the desert night.
Pidge wriggled awkwardly out of Lance's lap and into the passenger seat. She slammed the glove box shut because…yuck. Grabbing her backpack, she followed Hunk.
"Did we just get teleported by a car?" said Hunk. He was leaning over, hands just above his knees, sides expanding and contracting with huge breaths.
"Why'd it take us here?" said Lance. Here was the Halima Testing Grounds, bounded by high plateaus and sectioned into smaller valleys by mesas and buttes. They were in one of those smaller vales about two miles southeast of Galaxy Garrison's main complex. Landow Station, dubbed by most as Area 51, a faint yellowy dome set in a distant arroyo, lay several miles northwest of them. The full moon was just cresting the horizon.
Pidge crouched on the ground and rummaged through her pack. Finding her phone, she stared at the display in shock. Not believing what her eyes saw, she pushed her glasses up her nose. "Uh, guys…." She lifted the device, turning it to her companions.
Both boys' mouths made hard lines as they worked out what she was showing them. "June," said Lance. "Why's does your phone think it's June? Two months ago."
"That portal thing must've broken it because otherwise…," said Hunk.
"Time travel is real," finished Pidge.
"Whoa. Does that mean younger me is still in the Garrison?" Lance rubbed the back of his head. "Huh. June. What was I doing in June?"
She couldn't resist. "Striking out for the hundredth time with Kelly Tran."
Lance's response was cut off by the Garrison's emergency klaxon destroying the desert night's quiet. A male voice, muffled at this distance, barked out commands. Though part of the message was unintelligible, she heard, "…not a drill…lockdown…students to remain in barracks until…."
"What going on?" said Hunk. "Is that a meteor? A very, very big meteor?" He pointed at a brilliant light to the south, orangey-yellow like a small sun against the night sky.
Pidge swapped the phone for a pair of binoculars. Standing she pointed them at the fiery thing falling from the blue-black night sky. At the speed it moved, it took a few seconds to snag it in the binoculars. "It's a ship." She only got a brief glimpse before the binoculars were pulled up and away from her face. Though she clung to them doggedly, Lance, standing behind her, merrily pulled them to his face and studied the incoming projectile.
"Holy crow. I can't believe what I'm seeing. That's not one of ours."
"No, it's one of theirs," she said.
"Theirs?" said Hunk.
"Aliens," said Pidge, all her theories confirmed and hope pinging like a strong radar signal in her chest. This could be the key to finding Matt and Dad! Maybe they were on that ship.
Lance's elongated eyes narrowed to slits. "Okay, so you're insane."
She was still clinging to her binoculars, but Lance obviously wasn't giving them back. The thing was approach fast and at this rate binoculars wouldn't be necessary.
She let go and explained. "The last few nights, I've been scanning the solar system and picking up alien radio chatter." She gestured at the backpack and the signal dish that protruded from the opening. "That's what I was heading out to do tonight, before I was so rudely interrupted."
"So, wait, we really aren't alone in the universe?" exclaimed Hunk.
Pidge's reply was cut off by a sonic boom as the alien craft ripped through the atmosphere, slicing a hot orange line across the dark sky and plowing with a ground-shaking crunch into the earth several miles northeast of them. The Garrison's alarm continued to shrill, now accompanied by the rumble of Bobcats, heavy ATVs, barreling across the valley to the crash site.
"We gotta see that ship." She yanked her binoculars from Lance's hand, jammed them in the backpack and made for the car.
Lance, always the eager collaborator to mischief, loped past her and dropped into the driver's seat. "Hunk, come on."
"This is the worst team building exercise ever." Despite his grumbling, Hunk hurried after them.
She parked herself on the center console, although she knew, kind of hoped actually, that she'd likely end up on Lance's lap as vehicle bounced over the rough terrain. And sure enough, the car's tires hit an outcrop of stone, bucked sideways, and she was snug in his lap.
The ridiculous butterflies in her stomach didn't matter though, because she was certain this was it. She was about to find Dad and Matt and soon they'd all be back home and she'd probably never see Lance again anyway.
"I don't remember any of this happening." Hunk gestured in the direction of the Garrison. "The alarms. The lockdown."
"Me neither," agreed Lance.
"Maybe this isn't the past, but an alternate timeline." An absurd idea, but they'd just been wormholed and possibly thrown back in time by an antique car. "Maybe in this timeline, Lance doesn't crash flight simulators."
"Ha, ha," said Lance.
"What do you think the aliens will be like?" Anxiety edged Hunk's voice. "What if they're people-eating aliens? That would be bad because I'm sure I'm delicious."
"Or…." Lance waggled his eyebrows. "They're a race of space-faring Amazons and we'll be the first guys they've seen in light years."
She would miss this: Hunk's Nervous Nelly routine and yes, even Lance's girl-crazy antics. A hard spike of sadness cut through her anticipation, because Lance and Hunk were probably her first real friends, even if neither knew her real identity. Would they hate her once they learned that she'd been lying all this time?
Heart pounding, dizzy with hope and nervous anticipation, she set her eyes on the horizon where the alien ship, still blazing with the heat of reentry, glowed into the darkness, and she imagined how the reunion with her family would go.