All the Space Between Us (A Deathless Series Story)

Episode Twenty-Three: New Worlds

"If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that nothing ever goes as planned."
-Eleanor Crowley

TEMPEST

Out of all the people who should be outraged by the fact that Yuri and I could explode and any moment, and that Yuri could go nuclear on top of it, you'd think that Emperor Oshiro would be the most upset. But no. Instead, he is calm and collected at the table, while everyone else is flipping out. I always imagined that professionals would be... you know, professional? But not here. Not on the Mayflower. I'm continually impressed in the most sarcastic way possible by the immaturity and stupidity of the adults who have planned this mission. I'm passed the point of anger, where most of the adults in the room are stuck for this meeting. Yuri and I sit, our fingers intertwined under the table, in utter disappointment and annoyed acceptance.

The scientist who spoke at the dinner and promised to have an FTL drive in working order as soon as possible stands up, waving his hands and repeating, "Alright," until everyone shuts up.

"Now, look," he starts. His voice is deep and raspy, but his tone is soft. I can already picture whatever he's about to say getting steam rolled. "I can speed up the process if we forgo the trials. It can be dangerous, but not as dangerous perhaps as having live, literally live, explosives on board."

"Ha," I say under my breath.

Mom looks at me. She would have definitely glared at me before all of this came out, but now she mostly just looks concerned. Now everyone walks on eggshells around us, because they don't want to see us explode. Makes sense.

"I say it's worth a shot," Mom says. "We need to get to land. What are our options? Can we get back to Earth? I heard that the World Alliance has the technology to suppress the explosives."

"Well, so, here's the thing," the scientist replies. "There is a clear landing pad on Earth, because that's where we took off, right? So, if we go back to Earth, sure, yes, we can get there safely. But the goal is to get to Janus. The only thing is that Janus doesn't have a clear landing spot. If we use the FTL drive to get there, we're not sure where on the planet we will end up or if we will be able to track ourselves. And considering the lack of information we have on the planet from Robert's crew, there's literally no way to predict it."

"Do we have people who we can use for the trial runs?" the emperor asks.

My dad scoffs, and Yuri comes out of his silence long enough to say, "Jesus, Dad. We're talking about people, not dummies."

The scientist answers all the same. "We have people who could go. We could go as soon as tomorrow if that's the case. And they'd be fine as long as they could survive on Janus in case we can't find them to get them back right away. They'd need to be able to survive until we get there if we can't find them, and worst case scenario, that could be another thirteen more years."

"That's insane," Dad says.

"Start the preparations," Oshiro commands.

"Hold on, we should vote or something, shouldn't we?" another guy asks.

"I am the emperor," Oshiro reponds, and his cheeks fill with red anger as the words come out of his mouth. "You do what I say." He turns to look at the scientist, and stands at his seat. "Start the preparations."

Without any discussion, the emperor leaves the room, and closes the door to a silent room. Everyone is too dumbfounded to talk, and the most dumbfounded of all seems to be the boy at my side, who, like his father, stands and walks out, untangling our fingers without a word to me.

I stand to follow him, looking back at my parents long enough to see them nod at me. The rest of what I can only imagine will be an argument amongst the supposed grown-ups won't be any use to me. All I can do is help Yuri and keep him calm.