Homebound

Dedication

To J. B.

A genius, relative to his kind

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue: Unanswered Questions

1. Fire Away

2. Invasive Species

3. The Price You Pay

4. The Rock and the Hard Place

5. One Stone at a Time

6. Any Port in a Storm

7. Playing the Odds

8. Lost and Found

9. The Magic Word

10. The Flight of the Icarus

11. A Promise Kept

12. A Place to Start

13. Something Worth Saving

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books by John David Anderson

Copyright

About the Publisher

The ache for home lives in all of us.

—Maya Angelou, All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes

Unanswered Questions

“TAKE ME THROUGH IT ONE MORE TIME.”

The poor kid looked at him, eyes burning with frustration and impatience. Or maybe just exhaustion. “The whole thing?”

“Not the whole thing. Just the part where the Djarik boarded your ship.”

“The first time? Or the second?”

Salty, this one. But understandably so. Sergeant Hilliard rubbed his chin, covered in scruff. It was going on three days since he’d shaved. Four days since he’d had a hot shower. Seven since he’d had a full night’s sleep. Of course as bad as he probably looked right now, the displaced teen sitting across from him looked worse. Like something a Snid sucked up and spit out. Splotched skin, bloodshot eyes, untamed hair—he looked wild. Wounded. Maybe even a little dangerous.

Hilliard couldn’t blame him. He’d seen his fair share of orphans, rejects, and refugees since being stationed here, but this kid had truly been through the ringer. First he watches his father get taken away at gunpoint by the enemy. Next he’s left stranded on a crippled ship in the middle of the void. Gets attacked by pirates. Then he loses his brother—though really that one was at least partly on him. Then the Djarik come back for him for some reason, but before they can do whatever terrible thing they’ve got planned, he and what’s left of the ship’s crew rise up and take control of the alien transport, pointing it at the closest Coalition outpost they can find, depositing this poor, skinny, beat-up teen right into Hilliard’s lap.

The sergeant felt for him. Really. He was somebody’s son, after all. Hilliard was a father himself; he couldn’t fathom what it must feel like to have your family suddenly ripped apart like that. What he wanted was to give this poor boy a hug and a hot meal. But for now, all Hilliard could do was take his statement, get every bit of information he could. Because the kid’s father was an important somebody.

“The first time,” the sergeant clarified. “When they took your dad.”

The young man nodded, then started up again. You could tell he was just reciting at this point, like reading off a holoprompter. He’d relived this event so many times in his head that he’d almost grown numb to it.