handle and a flashing keypad mounted alongside.
And the place still stinks. Did they forget to circulate the air in here?
We follow Ridders, all dressed in our dailies, in a single-file line down the center stripe. If you ignored our out-of-sync steps and our short stature, you might actually think we were Earth Force officers.
Wait a secondâwe are Earth Force officers. Geez, that is awesome. Mind-blowingly awesome.
âWhat do you think the sensor is for?â Ryan asks as he places his foot on the platinum stripe.
âDefinitely some kind of automated transport device,â Cole says.
âOh!â I say. âItâs for these mini Spider Crawlers. They look like plain black boxes when theyâre zipping along the sensor, but then they have these long spiky limbs for walking just like the big Crawlers.â
âHow do you know that?â Cole asks.
Uh-oh. The only reason I know about the robots is because of my escapade with Marco. The last thing I want to think about right now is that mystery alien, and Iâm definitely not ready to tell Cole. I shrug. âI must have read it somewhere.â
Cole frowns. I worry heâs going to interrogate me, but Iâm saved by our arrival at the mess hall.
The hall is filled with a couple dozen circular tables, all a funky orange color. The walls are the same dull green, but the orange brightens the place up. There are even portholes along the wall where you can look out into space.
When we walk in, our formation falls apart. The girls are already here, and thereâs a lot of chatter. If I close my eyes, I can almost believe Iâm in the school cafeteria back home.
Most of the boys beeline for the food. Iâm hungry, but I canât shake the horrid smell of stale hot dogs. It kills my appetite.
Lucy rushes over and steers me to a table in the back. Cole follows. She frowns at him, but she doesnât shoo him away.
âGuess what I found out,â she says.
I raise my eyebrows. Sheâs going to tell me no matter what I say.
Sure enough, she keeps right on talking. âAfter breakfast theyâre announcing the pods.â
âReally?â Cole says. âHave you learned any more about how they assess compatibility?â
She shakes her heard. âNo. Total silence on that front. But Florine says theyâre not going to finalize assignments until this morning.â
Hmmm. What are they waiting for? What grand insight into our character did they expect to get in less than twenty-four hours?
At the next table, Ryan and some other cadets inhale plates of something yellow and spongy that might be scrambled eggs. As I watch them, I try to make sense of what Lucy said.
âWell?â Lucy asks. She must have kept talking. I zoned out.
âSorry. Ask me again.â I fix my eyes on Lucy. Sheâs changed her hair. Her ribbons match the daily uniformâindigo and orange. Like the tables.
âHow was your night?â she asks.
âFine,â I say. Cole embellishes my answer with a technical description of the racks and storage areas and the morning wake-up committee.
âThat sounds just like the girlsâ dorm,â Lucy says. âBut you guys didnât have the late-night excitement we did.â
âWhat happened?â I ask.
âI bet you could guess. Oh, donât bother. Iâll tell you. Dancing Queen decided to take a stroll in the middle of the night and set off all kinds of alarms. Letâs just say, no one could have slept through it.â
âMira?â I ask.
Lucy nods. I follow her gaze across the mess hall. Mira sits alone by a porthole, her hand pressed against the glass. Her shirt is untucked, and some of her hair has pulled loose from her braid.
âWait a minute,â Cole says. âThe dorm doors are linked to an alarm?â
âTo put it mildly,â Lucy says. âIt was like a five-alarm fire when Mira wandered off. Before we knew