I remember the training we had to go through to be paired with our Lantis ships. Mental conditioning, physical fitness, and dozens of tests to see if we were fit for the task. They started by just picking the best, but I hear as they run out of pilots, they’ve started testing convicts for the job.

  -Log B, Fragment 27

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  Unfortunately, the next few days involved a lot of rest. Her father visited a few times, which was weird, but oddly nice. Now that Robin had confirmed that he really was her dad, she was more open to believing it.

  After all, it wasn’t the craziest thing she’d heard.

  “You’re getting pretty used to the crazy.” Te’chik said.

  Maggie could almost see the woman lounging in the little dining area, tossing crystal after crystal at the wall. “Yeah, well, what else can I do? I’m surrounded by aliens and studying how to pilot a starship with my brain.”

  Robin and Sen’di looked at her, Robin with worry, and Sen’di with curiosity. “Is there a problem with your studies? Do you need a break?”

  “Maybe yeah. I don’t think I can wrap my head around this, it sounds too hokey.” Maggie set down her tablet, letting out a sigh. She was supposed to just think about what she wanted the thing to do, and it was supposed to happen? Seriously? She supposed she was lucky there weren’t corny incantations!

  “Ho-key?” Sen’di tilted her head, unblinking eyes staring at her quizzically.

  “Yeah, unbelievable, corny. Uhm.” Maggie tried to think of a way to describe it that the alien might understand. “Silly?”

  “Ah! Silly!” Sen’di perked up, her antenna waving. “Yes, I can see how it might seem silly. But much research has been put into how the Keys work, and how they interact with their ships. Your grandfather sent a toy for you to try it out with.”

  Maggie straightened in her chair, and even Robin looked curious. “A toy?”

  “Yes!” Sen’di said and reached down into her bag to pull out a plain silver ball. She set it on the table in front of Maggie with a bright smile. “Touch it first, it will configure itself to your Key, after that you should be able to control it with your mind like you would a ship. There are a series of games that we can play with it!”

  Robin looked at the ball with equal measures of caution and curiosity, hovering by Maggie’s shoulder. “Will it hurt her?”

  “There will be some discomfort as it configures, but after that there should be no discomfort.”

  “Discomfort, right.” Maggie eyed the ball, hesitating. But the idea of learning to control things with her mind was too tempting to pass up. She reached out, grabbing hold of the softball-sized toy.

  Almost immediately, it felt like dozens of bees were stinging her hand. She yelped and dropped the ball, shaking her hand as tears welled up in her eyes. But she refused to cry over some little stings. “What the hell? That was more than discomfort!”

  “It will pass quickly.” Sen’di said confidently. She knelt to pick up the ball, gently placing it back on the table. Maggie looked down at her hand, blood welling up from tiny pinpricks. But as she watched, the red dots disappeared, and the pain faded away. Sen’di gently wiped at her hand with a damp cloth she had gotten from somewhere, wiping away any remnant of blood. “See? It is healing already.”

  “It doesn’t matter that it’ll pass quickly, she said it hurt.” Robin said. He looked at her hand, reaching out a hand as if to touch it, but stopping before he did. As far as they knew, no one but Doctor Tomas knew that they could touch each other. It was one of their secrets, and they wanted to keep it that way. “Are you alright Maggie?”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “I’m fine. It just hurt and startled me. How do we tell if it’s configured?” Maggie didn’t dare to touch the thing again, watching it sit innocently on the table. A blue light started to glow from between cracks in the surface of the ball, pulsing gently like a heartbeat.

  Like her heartbeat.

  A chill ran down her spine and she shivered, staring at the thing. Great, the thing looked like one of those crazy puzzle balls, and was monitoring her heartbeat? How was this a toy? Did they give this to children?

  Did they give Keys to children?

  Maggie remembered the pain of joining with the Key, how it had nearly taken her hand off at first, how the pain had spread through her body more and more each day. If they did that to kids....

  “When the blue stops pulsing it will be ready.” Sen’di said confidently, watching as the pulses grew longer and longer. “Don’t be afraid, it is just a toy, it won’t hurt you and you can play many games with it. Look, the light is steady, try lifting it with your mind.”

  “Alright.” She looked up at Robin, then back at the ball. The thing she had been reading said she just had to want it to lift up. That still seemed hokey, but what the hell, she didn’t have anything better to do right now.

  So she focused, picturing the ball lifting off the table, just a few inches, that was all she wanted.

  The ball trembled a little, rolling in tight circles on the table before it slowly lifted up. Maggie strained, feeling like she was exercising a muscle that she had never used before. She wasn’t sure how something could feel heavy when she wasn’t even touching it, but the ball felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and the ball trembled in the air, hovering just a little bit further off the table. Then with a solid thunk it dropped back onto the table, and rolled to the floor.

  “Very good! Very good Maggie!” Sen’di clapped her forepaws together, before bounding over to pick up the ball. “How did it feel? Any pain?”

  “No pain, it just felt heavy.” She put a hand to her head, rubbing it lightly. Her brain didn’t exactly hurt, but it was like she had done an all-nighter studying for a test.

  “Good! You are remarkable!” Sen’di set the ball on the table again, beaming at Maggie with those multifaceted eyes, her wings fluttering in excitement.

  It was contagious, and Maggie smiled a bit. She had moved something with her mind! It had been hard, and she hadn’t moved it far, but she had done it! She looked up at Robin, who smiled uncertainly at her.

  “Good job Maggie, just don’t overdo it.” Why wasn’t he excited as well?

  Wait, his mother had had a Key as well, the same one that Maggie had now. She was never quite clear on what the accident had been that had killed her. Had it been related to the Key somehow? She watched him, tilting her head to the side. If only they had some real privacy she could talk to him about it. But it seemed like they hardly ever got an opportunity to be alone.

  “I won’t. In fact, I think I want to rest a little bit right now. Do you mind giving us some privacy? I’m just going to watch some Earth shows.” Maggie picked up her tablet and stood up. “I’ll try doing it again later.”

  “Of course, I’ll be here if you need me. I am learning how to knit!” Sen’di said proudly, pulling two needles and a ball of bright pink yarn from her bag. It almost immediately tangled in her long fingers, but she set to work untangling it immediately.

  Maggie smiled. “Good luck, we’ll just be in the bedroom.” She carried the tablet into the bedroom, letting out a soft sigh as the door slid closed behind her. “Alright Robin, spill, what’s wrong?”

  “What makes you think something is wrong?” Robin floated across the room, not willing to meet Maggie’s eyes.

  “Because I know you, you’re not happy about something, so what is it?” Maggie sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at him with a small smile. “They’re treating us alright here, right? We’re safe.”

  Robin turned and strode the few steps from the window to her, kneeling down to look up into her face. “That’s what I’m worried about, Maggie, we’re not safe here. I know they seem nice, and I’ll admit they aren’t as bad as most Alliance members I’ve met, but they’re after the same thing Flame was: the ship your Key goes to. That’s why they’re so interested in your dreams, why they gave you that- that toy. They want to use you to get that ship. And we can’t let them get that ship.”

  Maggie stared at him, stunned. He was genuinely worried! He reached up, taking her hand in both of his, gently rubbing the back of her hand with a thumb. “Please Maggie, my mother fought to keep the Key and its ship out of Alliance hands, and I don’t want you to get hurt or be used.”

  “I don’t think my dad will let them do that. He wants to keep me safe too, right? And I haven’t told them anything about my dreams, or written anything in my journal about it, just in case they can read it.” She squeezed one of his hands gently and smiled. “It’s going to be fine.”

  “I hope so Maggie.” He bowed his head, looking at their joined hands. “I hope so.”