“Ho, shit!” Nine yells. Next to me, Marina squeezes herself a little tighter, closing her eyes.

“Be careful, Six,” she whispers.

I let go of the button and the ship effortlessly maintains its elevation. We’re hovering about twenty yards off the ground.

“You weren’t supposed to do that yet,” Adam admonishes.

“Uh, yeah, sorry. First time flying a spaceship,” I reply.

“No big deal,” Adam replies. “The trigger on your left increases your elevation. The one on your right decreases it.”

“Left up, right down. Got it.”

“Also,” Adam says. “you’re in what my people call a Skimmer. It isn’t built for interplanetary travel, so it isn’t quite a spaceship.”

Nine makes a loud snoring noise. “Is this dude about to give us a lesson in Mogadorian aviation or something? The hell?”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Adam replies over the mic. “And no, I am not.”

“Sorry about Nine,” I say, giving him a dirty look over my shoulder. “Does this thing come with ejector seats?”

“Yes, actually,” Adam replies.

“Whoa, now,” Nine says, edging forward so his butt isn’t entirely on the seat. “Don’t get any ideas, Six.”

I shush Nine when I hear a series of clanking noises emanating from the ship’s underbelly.

“What is that?” I ask.

“Don’t worry,” Adam replies. “I just remotely put up your landing gear.”

When the clanking finishes, two small panels on the steering wheel slide aside, revealing thumb-sized buttons positioned so they can be pressed at the same time as the elevation triggers.

“You should see a couple of buttons,” Adam continues. “Depress them to accelerate. Simply let them go to brake.”

I grip the steering wheel more tentatively than before and gently squeeze the buttons, careful not to hit the triggers on the wheel’s underside. The Skimmer zips forward, then lurches to a stop when I let the button go.

“It’s like a video game,” Nine says, leaning over the back of my chair. “Any idiot could work this thing. No offense, Mog guy.”

“None taken.”

I press down the accelerator a little more forcefully and the ship shoots forward. A diagnostic on the screen starts flashing—a warning in any language—right before I scrape the bottom of the Skimmer against the top of a tree. I hear branches breaking and, craning my neck, see them hit the ground below.

“Oops,” I say, and glance sidelong at Marina.

“Six, I swear,” she says, flashing me a half-panicked look.

“You’ll want to get some more elevation,” Adam says. “And, um, consider steering.”

Nine laughs and leans back. I pull the trigger for vertical and we rise up higher. As we clear the dense trees of the swampland, the horizon becomes visible. A laser-fine dotted line appears on the cockpit glass, superimposed over the view, like a trail.

“I’ve plotted your course,” Adam says. “Just follow the line.”

I nod and give the ship some juice, following the laser-path north.

“All right, boys,” I say. “Here we come.”

The flight from Florida to Washington takes about two hours. On Adam’s instructions, I keep our altitude low enough that we won’t be picked up on satellites or accidentally cross paths with any airplanes, but high enough that there won’t be a rash of UFO sightings along the Eastern Seaboard. Although, considering how serious the threat of all-out Mogadorian invasion seems, maybe we should let our stolen ship be seen, shoot off some fireworks, warn the locals.