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everyone else?” Kieran cried. “We have to go get them!”
    “We can’t, Kieran,” Harvard said. The man seemed remote, robotic.
    “We can’t just leave them!”
    “Kieran, they’re already gone.” Harvard gripped Kieran’s shoulders. “We can’t think about that now.”
    Kieran stared at Harvard. Everything inside of him had been pulled out the air lock and was spinning in the thin gas of the nebula with all those dear people, men and women he’d known all his life. Was his father with them, too, already suffocated, already frozen?
    “Kieran…” Someone shook him. The blackness in Kieran’s mind cleared. Harvard put an arm around him. “Come on. I’ll take you to the auditorium. Okay?”
    Kieran hated himself for the tears that flowed down his face. Harvard was brave and calm, but Kieran wanted to scream, collapse, kill someone. Kill the people who did this.
    “Why did they attack us?” Kieran said fiercely.
    “I don’t know,” Harvard said, bewildered. He took hold of Kieran’s shoulders and drew him into the stairwell that led to the auditorium.
    Kieran’s shocked mind wanted to run backward, back to this morning when everything was safe and normal, starting with his conversation with Waverly and ending with his newscast.
    His newscast, which he’d finished only minutes before.
    The newscast.
    The announcement at the end.
    “They have no children,” Kieran said vacantly. When he heard himself, terror jolted him out of his shock. “Harvard, they have no children!”
    The man’s face went slack.
    “Samantha,” Harvard whispered. The name of his daughter.
    They broke into a dead run, pounding down the metal stairs two at a time. Kieran reached the door first and flung it open. They sprinted down the metal grating to the auditorium door, where they could already hear the sound of mournful crying.
    “Oh God,” Harvard muttered.
    They turned the corner to find the auditorium door closed and the lock engaged from the outside. Harvard jabbed at the keypad and the doors slid open to reveal dozens of children huddled together at the base of the stage, trembling and sobbing. Kieran’s pounding heart slowed. “Thank God.”
    “Samantha! Where are you?” Harvard yelled into the din.
    Kieran looked around for Waverly, but she wasn’t there, either. He ran down the aisle, looking between the rows of seats. In his panic, he nearly tripped over Seth Ardvale, who was splayed on the floor, barely conscious. He had a bad cut on his forehead and a busted lip. “What happened to him?”
    “We tried to stop them,” said Sealy Arndt. He sat on the floor next to Seth, holding his hand over a nasty cut on his ear as blood trickled from between his fingers. “They took all the girls.”
    “Where?” Harvard yelled at Sealy. “Where did they go?”
    “I don’t know,” the boy said in a daze.
    “The shuttle bay,” Harvard said. “The port shuttle bay.”
    Of course. After blowing out the starboard bay, they’d have to use the port shuttle bay to get the girls off the Empyrean.
    Harvard ran to the com console and yelled into it, “They’re kidnapping our kids! All hands to the port shuttle bay!” He pushed a button, and the message cycled through in a loop, Harvard’s voice endlessly screaming, “They’re kidnapping our kids … port shuttle bay … kidnapping our kids … port shuttle bay…”
    Harvard started to run toward the stairwell, but Kieran cried, “No! We have to get the guns first!”
    “There’s no time!” Harvard screamed and ran off, with Kieran close behind.
    As he ran, Kieran heard dozens of feet pounding on the levels overhead. He skidded into the stairwell and flew down the stairs to the shuttle bay level.
    Strange, piercing sounds echoed through the ship, sounding like pebbles hitting metal.
    “What’s that?” Kieran yelled at Harvard’s back.
    Harvard didn’t answer, but Kieran knew. He could guess.
    More than anything, Kieran wished he had a gun.

RESCUE