The Love Bug is back on Earth.
In spite of finding the people he sought, confronting them with his feelings, and wielding Excalibur in a successful defense against their counter-attack, Adam feels like a failure. And he explains why to his friends.
“I failed to unlock Jordan’s Shard, Anty. I mean, I have mixed feelings about that. It’s safer if she’s not part of this life. But she get lonely. Dad does a dangerous job, and I’m doing a different job, and I’m not even on the same planet a lot of the time.”
He shrugs, and looks at his friends.
William looks earnest. Jaycee’s face shows concern. Space Bug is inscrutable as usual. Adam isn’t probing for their emotions, and only has the occasional waving of mandibles to go by.
Keri’s mood is the easiest to read. She’s leaning forward, with a mixture of empathy and frustration in her eyes. Something is bothering Adam, and she’s waiting to hear who or what to punch to make that go away.
He draws a long breath, and goes on. “I told those space pirates that I had a plan to fix the Concordance. And I failed to convince any of them to cooperate. But I realized that I can’t ignore Somber either. They’re up to something and I still don’t trust it. But I don’t know what to do about any of that. So while I’m figuring all this out, I didn’t want to keep you all away from Earth.”
The Love Bug’s hatch opens, and Adam gestures at it.
“We’re back in Halcyon. I’m really glad you all came along with me. For all of it. I couldn’t have done it without you. But I don’t know where I’m going next, so I guess this is where we stop.”
The others look at each other, then back to Adam.
Keri is the first to stand up, and brushes herself off. “Well, thank god.”
Adam feels his remaining self-confidence bottom out.
Keri passes him, and pats him on the shoulder on her way to the hatch and out of the ship. “This will give me a chance to stock up on spices and ingredients. I am going to do more cooking around here. If you park the ship somewhere else before I’m back, I expect you to tell me where you went.”
William rises and stretches. With a glance at Jaycee, and having received a nod of approval from her, he smiles at Adam. “A break would be good, but we’ll be back too.”
He doesn’t leave quite yet. He stops on the way out the hatch, and looks over one shoulder.
“Listen. I think I was meant to come along on this thing with you. I think Excalibur led me to you that day. I think you were meant to use it, just in that moment, and for that purpose, and I think I must have helped you do that. So just because you can’t see the road ahead doesn’t mean you can’t keep putting one foot ahead of the other. Alright mate?”
“Stay strong, Adam,” Jaycee says with a gentle smile, and follows William out.
Adam turns back to the only other occupant of the ship, Space Bug.
“I am going nowhere, Adam Amari,” the alien informs him. “I am parked, quiescent, sessile.”
Adam frowns. “You aren’t going to launch the ship if I leave?”
The bug shrugs with every arm. “You can teleport to me any time. Besides, I need your permission to go play with Jordan. Amusement, recreation, creative lying. Yes?”
Adam smiles wanly. “I was going to go home, yeah. I’ll ask if it’s okay if you come over.”
Adam opens the door to find his parents in the middle of household chores. They drop everything and rush to him. Mom reaches him first by a slim margin, and wraps him up in a big hug. Dad follows only a moment later.
After an outpouring of silent emotion, they regretfully disengage.
To his surprise, Adam has started crying. He wipes a knuckle under one eye, and stares down at the tear it leaves behind for just a moment.
“I did it,” he says finally. “Well. I didn’t really do anything. But I went out there, and I tried. I tried, I promise…”
His mother hears heartbreak in his voice, and takes hold of him again. “You’re home, and you’re safe, Adam,” she tells him softly. “We’re just glad you’re safe, sweetie.”
There’s a loud thumping from down the hall, and Jordan bursts out, leaping at Adam. His parents make room for the oncoming cannonball of sisterly affection.
“ADAM! I dreamed I was in space but it was all real and we had adventures an’ I told you stuff an’ there was weird planets an’ they had swords–”
“It was all real, Jordan,” Adam assures her.
Jordan’s eyes grow wide, and his parents’ eyes grow equally concerned. It’s time to explain.
Over dinner, Adam explains his encounters with Somber, his journeys into space, and the full context of the “undercover work” he’d discussed with his father. He doesn’t consciously leave out details, but does hint at some of the more unsavory things the Starbusters did or said.
He wraps up by echoing what he said to his friends on the Love Bug. “So I’m back on Earth, and there’s work to be done, and I just don’t know what I should do or how I should do it or where I should go.”
His mother watches, and listens, and tilts her head just slightly. “Adam, you’re fifteen. You can’t have all the answers at your age–”
“I don’t feel like I have any answers,” Adam protests ruefully.
She smiles at that, just for a moment. “When you don’t have answers, when you aren’t able to make progress in the direction you’re going, you stop moving. You step back, and you orient yourself.”
His dad nods in agreement. “Adam, every investigation has dead ends. You can run down witnesses and clues that don’t help your case. It happens all the time. Life is like that too. You make mistakes, you overlook details, sure. But sometimes, you just won’t have enough to go on. And that’s just how it is.”
Adam frowns in protest. “But the Earth could be in danger if I don’t do something.”
“Then don’t do it alone,” his father cautions. “You saw the news about Jason Quill?”
Adam has just seen Jason Quill alive, but knows the cover story. He nods quickly.
His dad nods too. “I - I remember talking to that young man. I hope – well, anyway. You have other friends. Make sure you talk to them. Okay?”
Adam had, but he nods anyway. “I will, dad.”
There’s something else he wants to say. He turns to his little sister to say it.
“Jordan, I tried to unlock Anty for you. And instead they took away Antares Alpha-One from me. So you can’t join me in any more adventures. I’m sorry. I tried. But I couldn’t do it.”
Jordan hops down from her chair at the dinner table, approaches Adam, and pats him gently on the knee. “Ya did your best, an’ I’m proud of ya, Adam,” she says, in imitation of something his parents would say, complete with a sterner and deeper tone of voice than usual.
Adam isn’t sure what else to say, so he pulls Jordan into a wordless hug.
Adam is alone in his room.
He’s realizing more and more that he isn’t really ever “alone”. He’s physically isolated, sure. But as he thinks of his friends, one by one, his emotions mingle with his power, and he becomes connected to them in some subtle fashion. Not true telepathy - just an empathy that works across space and time.
Who could he talk to about this?
Leo and Aria are somewhere far away, all by themselves. He knows Leo got hurt, and he knows the scars are still with him. Leo’s given him good advice before, but right now he needs to heal.
Jason, Alycia, and their friends and teammates are busy too. Alycia in particular seemed kind of closed-off last time Adam saw her, and she’s got a lot on her mind too.
Harry just got over some kind of nano-virus. And Adam feels some kind of lingering emotional connection there, something very personal to him, that makes him inexplicably afraid to go talk.
Charlotte is busy saving the world - or a world, or many worlds. Adam got the impression that in some sense, her problems are bigger even than his.
There’s Summer - but although she’s cheerful and nice and caring, she’s also stressed. Adam isn’t sure he could bear talking about everything with her, because he can feel her emotional state from afar, and feel the fragility of it.
The people who understand the problem best are the people who flew with him through space, who experienced the same events he did.
But, he tells himself, I’ve already asked so much of them.
He reaches out anyway.
He can feel Keri’s excitement at being home. He can feel her enthusiasm for the familiar. But she’s also looking forward to something - to being back with him, and the others. Being back with friends? It’s more than that.
She achieved success through peaceful means in space. She helped avert a fight between the team and the Metal Eaters in the Loser’s Graveyard. But more importantly, she showed Adam how to make peace with the Redshift Racers.
She wants more of that. She’s looking forward to it.
Adam can feel Jaycee and William. They aren’t together, but they’re thinking about each other. William felt and still feels like he did something good. Adam isn’t so easily convinced, but that could be his own self-doubt talking. The young knight certainly believes it. And Jaycee is still riding high from the excitement of a space adventure with someone she cares deeply about, someone she wants to stay with, someone she wants to prove herself to.
Adam can’t bring himself to think about Jordan. Without access to Princess Peri, she’s a grade school girl with big dreams and a bright future. She has no place in the danger that’s to come. Even with her super-powerful alternate form, Adam doesn’t want to expose her to the dangers that must lie ahead.
And what of Space Bug? Space Bug is–
Space Bug is inside the house.
Adam jumps off his bed and rushes out into the hall.
His parents are staring at the insect-like alien. The alien is in turn holding out something in its hands. “A present, a gift, an offering!” it exclaims.
Adam approaches, and his parents make room. He looks closer at what Space Bug has to offer, and takes hold of what he sees.
It’s a picture book, done in the deliberately simple and cartoonish style of some of Jordan’s coloring books or school texts on learning to read. It depicts a sanitized version of the events in space, just as Adam told his family.
Adam finds his parents looking at him. They are… seeking approval? They want to vet the gift? He looks back at it, and smiles, and nods up at them. But it’s not for him to give.
He passes the book back to Space Bug, just in time for Jordan to trot out of her room to see what’s going on.
“Space Bug!” she cries, and runs forward.
“Jordan, Peri, Princess,” the bug says in greeting. “Gift. Yes.”
Jordan oohs and ahhs as she leafs through the gift. While she’s distracted, Adam glances at the alien creature.
“The greed, the hunger, the avarice. It goes away when she is happy,” the creature says quietly, almost like a confession.
Adam thinks about that, and feels a sense of relief.
If these people want to stay connected, who am I to tell them no?
