Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel (16 page)

“Think about that for a minute. Think of all the things that could have gone wrong, but didn’t.” Kieran held his hands up in a gesture of wonder. “Some people might call it chance, but my heart tells me that chance doesn’t explain it. And think about the other stories you’ve heard, all the crew members who had to fight tooth and nail to be included on this vessel. Your parents. Mine.” He could see them thinking back, looking into the past as they sat in their chairs, expressions of concentration on each and every face. “For me, there’s only one conclusion. We belong here. This ship is our destiny. There’s a vast plan for each and every one of us. And everything we do is a fulfillment of that plan. Each of us is doing just what we’re meant to do, just precisely the way we’re meant to do it. That is how I know in my heart that we will not fail.”

He paused, long enough to hear the echo of his voice ringing through the auditorium. Nothing felt more wonderful to him than these moments of silence during his sermons, when he could feel the presence of God in the room. He felt so much love, so much rightness. He was glad Waverly had come to see it. He looked at her now, her beautiful oval face and her huge eyes, the way they fastened on him. She was thinking hard about something, he could see. Was he reaching her?

“Can you feel it?” he whispered into the microphone, then paused, waiting for the utter silence of his rapt crowd to filter through the air. “Can you feel the power of this message? I hope you keep feeling it, all day long. I hope you go on feeling it, until we can meet again tomorrow morning to renew our faith once more.”

Now came his favorite part. He stepped aside from the podium, lifted up his hands, and shouted to the crowd, “Now it’s time for you to speak! Please step forward with your cares and concerns!”

He was shocked when Waverly stood up without hesitation.

“I’m concerned that we haven’t held an election yet,” Waverly said, looking right at him. “This ship is supposed to be a democracy. We need a Central Council immediately.”

Every word was a chip of ice.

But her comment was only the beginning of an avalanche. Sarah Hodges stood up from the middle of the congregation, fixed her angry eyes on him, and said with a nasty grin, “I’m concerned that Kieran keeps all the information to himself. We’ve got a terrorist on board, and we need to know what’s going on.”

Kieran opened his mouth to speak, but then Melissa Dickinson rose and called out in her small voice, “I’m concerned that Kieran Alden is throwing people in the brig without a Justice of the Peace approving it.”

He was in a nightmare.

Kieran stared at the three of them, paralyzed, until Waverly cleared her throat.

“Kieran has been doing an admirable job,” she said loudly, turning to address the entire congregation. “But he was traumatized by the attack, just like the rest of us. How can we expect him to shoulder the burden of governing this vessel all by himself? He needs some time off.” Her eyes met his, and she said clear as a bell, “With that in mind, I nominate Sarah Hodges to run against Kieran Alden in a general election for the Captain’s chair.”

“I nominate Waverly Marshall for the Central Council,” Sarah Hodges called out.

Suddenly the air was filled with voices, all calling out names to fill posts on board the ship.

This had been orchestrated. They hadn’t come to hear his sermon. They’d come to attack his government.

“Wait now! Wait!” he screamed over their heads. He hadn’t meant to sound so angry, but at least it shut them up. All two hundred and fifty kids turned to look at him. “How can we run an election while we have a terrorist on board?”

“We can get it done in one day,” Waverly shouted over the crowd. “If you’re reelected, by tonight you could be briefing your Central Council and they could start sharing the burden.”

He hated her for putting it like that, as if she were doing him a favor.

Sarah Hodges started handing out slips of paper. She had hundreds of them in a packet, and the kids in the congregation took them eagerly. Kieran looked at Waverly, who looked right back at him, not a shred of remorse on her face. The last bit of admiration he’d felt for her flew away, and he realized that those lovely large eyes, that heart-shaped chin, those high cheekbones, that honey-colored skin—all made up the face of his enemy.

“This is a schedule for debates between the nominees,” Sarah Hodges yelled into the crowd. “At the end of each debate we can vote for our favorites. In a few hours we’ll have a Central Council. Then this afternoon we can elect a Justice of the Peace, and this evening the two Captain nominees can have their debate, so you have time to prepare, Kieran.”

“I don’t need time to prepare!” Kieran said angrily.

“Good,” Sarah said happily.

He stared at her insolent grin, shaking his head in disbelief.

But as he looked out over the crowd, he began to see how eager they all were. The kids were milling around, excited, reading the schedule, talking among themselves. Never had they looked so animated. They
wanted
this.

If he tried to prevent an election, he’d lose the Captain’s chair for sure.

“I defer to the will of the crew,” Kieran said loudly, to make sure everyone heard him. With a mean smile, Sarah handed him a schedule. He went to his office to think, leaving behind the sound of excited voices all talking at once.

He rested his head on his desk and closed his eyes. He was being tested.

Kieran breathed deeply, tried to calm down.

I need to have faith,
he told himself.
If this election is part of His plan, I just have to trust.

But what if I lose?
he thought.

I won’t,
he told himself.
I am meant to be the Captain. Otherwise, what has all this been for?

He was calm and ready to face down his opponents by the time he went back to the auditorium, where the debates were about to begin.

There were about twenty-five crew members sitting on the stage, all vying for a position on the seven-member council, all of them eager to have their say about how they would help improve the way the Empyrean was run. Kieran bravely endured criticism after criticism, most of which was based on a poor understanding of the capacity of the crew and the ship.

Adam Mizrahi made the most ridiculous suggestion in his bid for a Central Council seat. “We could catch up to the New Horizon tomorrow if we just punched the engines as hard as they’ll go.”

This was met with a robust round of applause from the younger kids, but Kieran could see the older kids, who understood the health effects of the added gravity, were less enthusiastic.

Arthur Dietrich, who was also a nominee, stood and faced Adam. “Aside from the effect that would have on our bodies, we can’t push the engines any harder than we’re doing right now without risking a collision with a deep-space particle that could rip through our hull. It’s right there in the
Piloting and Navigation Manual,
if you’d bother to look.” This quieted the crowd, and Arthur turned to face them. “There has got to be at least one person on the Central Council who is familiar with the workings of the ship, and is up to date on all the latest information about the terrorist and our plans for confronting the New Horizon. That person is me, if you’ll vote for me.”

Arthur looked meaningfully at Kieran, and he knew that Arthur would serve as a trusty go-between. Kieran hoped he’d be elected.

Then Waverly raised her hand to get the attention of the crowd. “I have more experience than anyone dealing with the command structure of the New Horizon, and I’m familiar with the political situation on that ship as well as the physical layout. I have expertise that would be invaluable to the Central Council as we plan our attack.”

“You left our parents behind!” yelled a small girl in the back, one of Marjorie’s cohorts. Several other girls raised shrill voices in agreement as Marjorie smiled from among them.

“If I did, then so did you,” Waverly shot back, her eyes flashing.

This seemed to cow them. But some of the boys weren’t satisfied. “You didn’t even try to find out who’s still alive!” shouted a boy of twelve. Kieran knew that his parents were unaccounted for.

“Do you have a bullet hole in you?” Waverly asked angrily, pulling her shirt collar over to expose the ugly red welt on her shoulder. “I got this trying to save our parents. I’d have done it, too, if there hadn’t been bullets flying everywhere.”

“You left them there!” called out Marjorie Wilkins. Though she was one of Kieran’s fiercest supporters, he’d never really liked her. There was something about her sneering face that hinted at an ugly little soul.

“It was
my
plan that got the girls off that ship, along with Sarah Hodges. Samantha Stapleton gave her life so we could free ourselves,” Waverly said, her eyes trained on Marjorie. “If there are girls sitting in this audience today, it’s because of
us.
”

No one seemed to have anything to say to that.

Once the debate was finished, the crew members all lined up at the back of the auditorium and entered their top seven choices for Central Council into a computer, which tallied up the numbers immediately. Kieran had a few friends on the council. Arthur had been elected, along with Tobin Ames, or “Doctor Tobin” as the kids had begun calling him, and Harvey Markem, a Command officer. Harvey’s bandage was gone from his head, and he looked perfectly healed. Waverly was voted in by a slender margin, along with some kids who would be more likely to side with her: Alia Khadivi was a loyal friend of Waverly’s; Melissa Dickinson, the girl who took care of the little kids, was always defending Waverly from her detractors; and Sealy Arndt had been Seth’s hotheaded crony. Kieran’s heart sank. His supporters would be in the minority on the council. Arthur would have to be very persuasive in debates.

After what seemed an endless debate between five candidates for Justice of the Peace, the crew narrowly elected twelve-year-old Bobby Martin. Kieran tried not to show his disapproval of the choice. Bobby had an unpredictable personality, and Kieran had never been sure of his loyalty. It seemed crazy to let legal decisions rest on the shoulders of a boy who didn’t even have to shave yet. The problem was, all the older kids were already saddled with responsibilities as guards, Central Council members, or in Central Command. They’d run out of teenagers to run the ship.

Kieran sent an angry glare in Waverly’s direction and was surprised to see her already looking at him. He nodded at her, since no matter how he felt, it looked like he’d be working with her. But he knew she could see his fury through his placid surface. He’d never been able to hide anything from her.

When all the debates for the lower positions were finished, Waverly walked onto the empty stage and took hold of the microphone. “It’s time for the debate for the Captain’s chair. I’d like to invite Sarah Hodges to the podium.”

Sarah walked to the front of the room, swinging her arms, looking as though she were preparing for a physical fight. She took hold of the microphone and smiled hatefully at Kieran before beginning. “As you know, several days ago I was imprisoned in the brig without due process. I was threatened and I was branded a traitor. If you don’t vote for me, something like that might happen to you. Kieran Alden isn’t Captain of this vessel. He’s a dictator, and it’s up to all of us to stop him.”

Kieran shook with anger as he listened to slander after slander from Sarah. He was alarmed to hear himself spoken of with such hatred, but when he looked out over the crowd, he saw many skeptical faces watching her. The more she talked—about how she’d speed up the pursuit of the New Horizon and how she’d execute Anne Mather and her Central Council for what they did—the less she sounded like a leader, and the more she sounded like an angry, scared little girl who didn’t have the slightest idea of what she was up against. Though the end of her speech was met with applause, Kieran knew he could do better.

When he took the podium, Arthur, who was standing at the back of the room, led such a round of cheers that instantly Kieran felt more confident.

“That certainly was an interesting story Sarah Hodges told you about me,” he said, trying to sound amused rather than furious. “I call it a story because none of it is true. I put Ms. Hodges in the brig because she withheld vital information that could help us find Seth Ardvale and the terrorist. I care about getting our parents back, and I care about keeping this ship running, but there’s one thing I care about even more: keeping you alive. If there are maniacs running around killing our crew the way they killed Max Brent, then don’t you think I’d better stop at nothing to find them and bring them to justice?”

Arthur whooped in the back, which triggered a chorus of cheering and whistles.

“Look,” Kieran said, then waited for the applause to die down. “I know I haven’t been a perfect Captain. I’ve made mistakes. Just like you, I’m a kid doing an adult’s job. Even though there have been problems along the way, I’m confident that I’ve done the best job anyone on this ship could have done.”

Another round of applause. Already the crowd sounded more excited than they had for Sarah’s speech. She sat in the front row, scowling up at Kieran as she gnawed at a fingernail.

“Even more important, we shouldn’t change leaders in the middle of this thing. I’ve been at the job already for several months. I know what’s involved. I understand this ship. To change leadership when we’re under a serious threat could be disastrous, not only for the ship, but for our rescue mission.

“All these are good reasons to elect me to the Captain’s chair,” he said humbly. “But I’ve got one more reason that I think supersedes them all.” He paused for effect, looking out over the crew, who all looked at him, some with skepticism, but most with interest and hope. “No one has my vision for the future of this vessel. I took a bedraggled, dysfunctional crew and got us running this ship. Look at how far we’ve come! But I can’t take credit for it. I believe we’ve been able to rally together because we’ve finally accepted that we have a common purpose. Together we’re building an ethos for our future, and I am honored beyond words to be the instrument for fulfilling our destiny as the creators of the next world.”