Chapter 1: Launch Day

I click my phone on and navigate to my email. My hands have memorized how to get to the message, which I’ve read more than a hundred times. It’s only twelve words, but it’s changed everything since landing in my inbox five months ago.

It’s from an anonymous account, but I know who sent it.

I hadn’t heard from my brother for weeks before I got the message. And when I did get it, I knew it was him. Who else could it be?

He’s my little brother, and he needs me.

Twelve words. That’s all it took for me to drop everything and try to find him. I read the message again, every word a punch to my gut.

“Meera, please help me. People are disappearing, and I think I’m next.”

My brother needs me, and I’ll be damned if I don’t find him.

* * *

The message plays on repeat in my head as I walk through the parking lot of Smith Capital’s Space Exploration building. It’s 6 AM, and the sun has only just begun to peak over the horizon.

Out here, the only noise is the wind and other employees—my soon-to-be crewmates— pulling up in cars just as old as mine. There aren’t even animal noises out here, all the land having been cleared for the launch site and the building that serves as both headquarters and guest reception.

I walk past the large glass doors of the guests’ entrance. Two custodians are inside, diligently cleaning the well-furnished and immaculate lobby. The New Unity, Smith Capital’s first and only tourist spacecraft, officially sets off on its 100th voyage today. It’s not only the first ship to have started the “to the moon and back” tourist industry, but this voyage has been branded as the party of the century—a commemoration of all the progress we’ve made in space tourism in the past five years.

Everyone who’s anyone is supposed to be on this trip. Even Alistair Smith, the founder of Smith Capital, is expected to show up. Although, officially, that hasn’t been confirmed.

I head around the building, scanning my badge and entering through the employees’ entrance in the fence. Unlike the front of the building, which is meant to impress the guests from the moment they arrive, the side of the building is drab and unadorned. One vinyl fence is all that separates the manicured lawn in the front from the cracked and weed-filled concrete of the side.

Normally, I would enter the building to go to work, but not today. Since we launch today, we’re meeting out back for the shuttle. A few dozen of us gather in the warm morning air. The crew of the New Unity has hundreds of people, but we’re just the new or replacement crew for those already up there.

We’re all dressed in the navy blue jumpsuits provided for the crew. My black hair is pulled into a tight braid that hangs down my back, partially covering the words cleaning crew written in white block letters across my shoulders.

It had taken me nearly four months to secure this job. I knew it would be the only way to make it onboard the New Unity—I’d never be able to afford a ticket. My brother had been so proud when he’d been hired as a crewmember nearly a year ago. When he first got up there, he’d written our family almost every other day, but then his emails became less and less frequent. We just assumed he was busy working. Every single voyage of the New Unity has been sold out so far, so it didn’t seem strange.

But by the time I got the anonymous email, I just knew it was from him. We hadn’t heard from him in over a month at that point, so when I got his plea for help, I began applying for whatever job I could find aboard the New Unity. When I finally secured one last month, I quit my old job and started here.

I’ve been in training for the past few weeks. Because the work is on a ship isolated in space, I had to go through dozens of health screenings, including psychological wellness assessments.

And now, I’m finally here. Ready to get to the New Unity and find my brother.

Once enough of us are at the transportation spot, we’re loaded into the shuttle that will take us to the launch site. I look around the cramped bus. Like me, most of the other workers seem to be a combination of nervous and excited. Chances are, they’ve never been to space before nor thought they ever would. An experience like this—even just being a worker aboard a tourist ship in space—seemed impossible. Yet here we are, less than an hour away from being strapped into a rocket and launched into space.

After a few minutes, the shuttle slows down, and I look out the window to see the enormous rocket towering upwards and out of my vision. Butterflies erupt in my stomach. Once I board that ship, there’s no turning back. It will be much harder to call this off when I’m in space. But I grit my teeth and stand up.

I promised myself I’d find my brother, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Taking a deep breath, I step out of the shuttle and onto the hard surface of the launch site. I take one more look at the enormous rocket then step toward it, ready for it all to begin.