Chapter 26

            Jessie had lost track of how many days they had spent on the Black Ship.  She didn't have a watch and even if she did it would have been set to Earth time.  And she didn't have any idea how hyperspace would affect a watch.  She didn't even have anything sharp enough to notch hash marks on the wall of her cell if she had any sort of idea about how much time had passed.

            What she did know was that she and Whiskers had been aboard long enough for even the Black Ship food to start looking appetizing.  She nibbled on the corner of a dry gray brick and then made a face.  Maybe she wasn't that hungry just yet.

            Whiskers had already tasted her brick, made a hissing noise, and tossed it away.  "Maybe we can use these to overpower the guards," Jessie said.

            "Where would we go?"  This was the question that hampered any thoughts of escape.  They didn't have any idea where they were, except that they were in space, light years away from the Bloc.  Even if they could overpower the guards and get out of the cell, they were effectively trapped.

            "We could try taking over the bridge."  This was an idle thought.  She didn't have any idea how to fly a starship, let alone a Black Ship one.  While a queen and first lady, Whiskers didn't have any more training on starship mechanics than Jessie.

            Remembering what she'd seen on the bridge of the Beagle, Jessie doubted she would be able to overpower any of the guards.  At least trying to knock one over the head with her food would be doing something.  She hated waiting in this cell, wondering what was happening to her and wondering what was happening to everyone else.  Had the Black Ships taken Tom and Will too?  Were they dead?  She shivered at the thought of never seeing Tom again, never being able to touch him—

            She didn't know exactly when she had fallen in love with Tom.  She supposed in a way she had always loved him, ever since he first appeared in her backyard to crash her tea party with Whiskers.  At the time she had been too young to understand her feelings, thinking boys were something icky.  It was only as she reached puberty that she really began to understand that beneath the hostility and competition was something else—love. 

            When Tom decided he didn't want to play the Bloc game anymore, Jessie was more than willing to follow suit.  By then just being near Tom made her feel so terribly awkward and ugly.  She was grateful for the chance to fall in with other girls so that she wouldn't have to be around Tom.  She had packed up Whiskers and her other stuffed animals so that no reminder of the Bloc—and Tom—would remain.

            Then he had gotten himself arrested and sent to Stratford.  She had been in the courtyard, had to put a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.  She wanted to rush forward to tell him how she really felt, but the bailiffs and her own fears kept her away.

            For four long years she had kept her feelings for him locked away.  She dated other guys; as a cheerleader and athlete it wasn't hard for her to find a date.  None of them ever made her feel the way Tom did.  No matter how she tried to tell herself to forget about him, she never really could.  Late at night she would still see his face and imagine reaching out to touch his cheek, pressing her lips to his.

            Now that they had a chance to finally be together, the Black Ships had ruined everything.  She would likely never see Tom again, at least not in this life.  Maybe they would meet again in the afterlife so that they could make up for lost time.

            Whiskers patted her on the shoulder.  "You're thinking of your mate?" she asked.

            "Mate?  Well, not really.  We never—"  Her face turned red with embarrassment.  Despite what her mother and Will might think, she had never gone all the way with anyone.  Some part of her had always wanted to reserve that honor for Tom.

            "The one you love," Whiskers said.  She nodded.  "I've been thinking a lot about Buster.  There never seemed like enough time for us with our duties."

            "But he does love you."

            "Yes and I love him.  I only wish we'd had more time for us to be together."

            "I know what you mean," Jessie said.  Time was something they didn't have much of anymore.

#

            Hours—or perhaps days—later the ship began to slow.  This had happened before, the Black Ship vessel popping out of hyperspace for a few minutes and then jumping along a different vector.  Whiskers had explained the Black Ships did this to make sure no Bloc sensors could track them to their final destination, wherever that might be.

            Because of this, Jessie didn't get her hopes up until she felt the ship begin to vibrate.  The air in the cell became warmer, to the point where sweat broke out on her forehead.  She gripped the edge of the vat filled with medicinal fluid to keep from tumbling around the cell.  Whiskers sat next to her, panting like a dog from the heat.

            "This is it," Jessie said.  She felt both relief and dread at this notion.  Relief that they would finally stop this endless jumping from one point in space to another.  Dread that they would end up in an even worse place.  She remembered the holographic image of the Black Ship leader saying he had special plans for her.  She didn't want to find out what those plans were.

            The ship came to a stop with a violent crash.  "Any landing you can walk away from," Jessie mumbled. 

            A pair of Black Ship warriors appeared moments later, the cell door opening to reveal them in their armor with weapons drawn.  "You will come with us," one said.

            "Where are you taking us?" Jessie asked.

            "To the Commander."

            So it had finally come to this.  They were going to be taken to the mysterious leader of the Black Ships.  Jessie didn't want to try imagining what fate awaited for them.

            To her surprise, one of the guards threw a parka on the floor.  The guard pointed to her with its rifle.  "You will wear this."

            The parka was lined with fur—Jessie didn't want to think about where that fur might have come from—and made of a leather-like substance.  It dangled to her knees, but she supposed the Black Ships hadn't bothered to take her measurements.  Still, she looked like Megan when she tried on Jessie's clothes.  As she began to sweat inside the oversized parka, she wondered why they had given it to her.

            The necessity of the coat became clear when the guards shoved her through a hatch.  She emerged into a blinding landscape of white, sunlight reflecting off towering glaciers.  The wind penetrated the parka so that Jessie went from sweating to shivering in an instant.

            When her eyes finally adjusted to the bright light, she realized the crashing she had felt had come from the Black Ship landing on a field of ice.  Around them was nothing but the glaciers.  From the look of it, Jessie, Whiskers, and the two guards were the only ones around for miles.  This is it, she told herself.

            She reached into a pocket of her coat for one of the food bricks she had dropped in there.  Whiskers caught her eye and nodded slightly.  There were no words necessary.  As one they spun around, Jessie hurling the food brick while Whiskers extended her claws.  The queen of Cattatonia leapt onto one of the guards, slashing at him with her claws.  Jessie's brick hit the other guard in the face, sending him staggered back.

            "Run!" Whiskers shouted to her.

            "I can't—"

            "Go!"

            Jessie left Whiskers to grapple with the guards.  She took off running as fast as she could on the ice, feeling her feet struggling to find purchase on the slippery surface.  She looked back over her shoulder, but couldn't see Whiskers' white body against the ice.  From what she could tell, the Black Ships hadn't sent any more guards out yet.  Nor had their ship opened fire on her.

            She kept running, not knowing where she was or where she was going.  She only knew that if she kept going she was bound to run into someone.  Though that possibility seemed increasingly unlikely as she got farther from the enemy ship without seeing so much as a bird overhead. 

            When her legs finally gave out, she collapsed to the ice, wheezing and laughing at the same time.  The Black Ships had taken her to a lifeless world.  Maybe that was their plan all along, to maroon her and Whiskers on a barren planet.  Their leader was probably watching from overhead, waiting for Jessie to freeze to death out here.

            She forced herself to carry on until she reached the edge of an ice shelf.  Looking down, she finally saw signs of life in the form of a column of black shapes waddling along the ice.  Jessie watched them for a moment and while they were too far away for her to get a good look at them, she knew what they were.  The only question was how they had gotten here, so far away from Earth.

            She didn't get much time to contemplate this as she heard a mechanical whine.  Looking up, she saw one of the Black Ship landing craft approaching.  Jessie took off running along the ice shelf, but it was no use.  The landing craft easily caught up to her and then dropped in front of her.  She skidded to a stop as a half-dozen Black Ship warriors emerged, weapons drawn.

            "You will come with us," one said.

            Jessie raised her hands.  "Yes, I suppose I will," she said.  As she marched towards the landing craft, tears crystallized in her eyes as she knew it was all over now.

#

            The landing craft returned to the site of the Black Ship vessel.  There was no sign of Whiskers, leaving Jessie to wonder what had become of her.  Without Whiskers and surrounded by the half-dozen guards there was no hope for Jessie to escape this time.  She had little choice but to follow the guards to a spot in the ice.  To her surprise the ice broke open, revealing an elevator.

            The guards pushed her onto the elevator, forming a protective ring around her as it began to descend into the ice.  The elevator ground its way down through the ice pack.  From what Jessie could tell, the elevator was surrounded by a clear tube—some kind of advanced plastic—that allowed it to go not only through the ice, but through the water beneath the ice as well.

            Standing on her toes, she managed to see over the shoulders of the guards to catch a glimpse of her destination.  It looked almost like a series of black igloos built on the ocean floor, only these igloos were studded with lights and what were probably weapons emplacements.  Craft similar to the landing craft circled around the igloos, delivering supplies or looking for escapees she had no idea.  Is this where they had taken Whiskers?

            The elevator came to a stop inside the largest igloo in the center of the cluster.  This she imagined must be the main headquarters for the Black Ships.  If only she could get a message back to the Bloc, though she didn't have any idea where they had taken her.

            A door opened in the clear tube, allowing the guards to shove Jessie into a corridor that looked identical to those inside the Black Ship vessel she had spent the last few days in.  They continued to push her along through the winding corridors.  "Cut it out!" she shouted at the guards as they pushed her forward again.

            "You will continue walking," the guard said.  With his rifle aimed at her head, she didn't have much choice in the matter.

            They at last reached a pair of doors that hissed open to reveal a circular room bigger than Jessie's entire house on Earth.  A single light lit the center of the room to reveal a friend.  "Whiskers!  You're still alive."

            From the look of it, Whiskers was only just barely alive.  The Black Ship guards had bloodied her face so that her eyes could hardly open.  The queen of Cattatonia could only manage a yowl to greet Jessie and then pitched forward in which she sat.  "What did you do to her?" Jessie shouted.

            "Nothing—yet," another voice hissed.  Into the light stepped the crowned Black Ship warrior Jessie recognized as the leader of the Black Ships.  "But you've arrived just in time to witness my greatest triumph.

            "Let her go," Jessie said.  "I'll tell you everything you want to know."

            "I don't need your secrets.  I already have them."  He signaled with one hand to someone unseen.  A clear tube like the one around the elevator surrounded Whiskers and the chair.  Jessie could only watch as the tube began filling with a purple light.  The light became brighter and brighter until Jessie finally had to turn away.

            The Commander laughed the same maniacal laugh as during the last time they had met.  "The power of the Creators!  It's mine now!" 

            With a hiss the clear tube rose back into the air.  Jessie turned to see what had become of Whiskers.  She gasped in shock.  In the chair was not the queen of Cattatonia and first lady of Bulldogovia, but a simple stuffed white cat, identical to the one in Jessie's closet.  The Black Ship leader picked up the stuffed cat, giving it a poke.  There was no reaction to this.

            "And now you see," the Commander said to Jessie.  "You thought we were your playthings to do with as you pleased.  Now you will be my playthings." 

He signaled to the guards, who pushed Jessie forward onto the chair Whiskers had occupied.  Jessie screamed as the clear tube began to descend and purple light filled the tube.  Her last thoughts were of Tom and the regret that she would never see him again.