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  For Samantha Goodwin,

  The Bravest and Most Daring Adventurer

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  * * *

  JONAH BLINKED SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE he realized she was not going away. He took one last extra-long blink, just to be sure, and then opened his eyes. Still there.

  “Ready to wake up yet?” she asked politely.

  “No,” he replied.

  She smiled and nodded. “Okay. I can wait.”

  Jonah frowned and looked around the room. It was small and mostly empty, apart from a cot tucked against the wall. The walls themselves were made of rusty-looking gray metal, and a few dim light panels flickered on the ceiling, casting everything in an eerie white glow. Jonah wondered why he was sitting on the floor. It was hard and cold.

  When he finally turned back to the girl, she was still just smiling patiently and staring at him like he was a new pet. She seemed a little odd.

  For one, she was wearing what could only be described as a uniform. It was a faded brown color and far too big, but it had a belt and a black patch sewn onto the chest. The patch said ISR in red letters. That was strange enough for someone who must have been about eleven years old. But she also had on a pair of broken glasses, was wearing bright red lipstick, and had wild brown hair tied up in bunches, like a porcupine having a bad hair day.

  “Who are you?” Jonah asked.

  She stood at attention and saluted. “Willona the Awesome, at your service.”

  Jonah raised his eyebrows. “Your name is Willona the Awesome?”

  “Exactly.”

  Jonah looked around the room again. “And where am I?”

  “The Fantastic Flying Squirrel.”

  Jonah rubbed his forehead. “The what?”

  “The Fantastic Flying—”

  “I heard you,” Jonah said quickly. “Why am I here?”

  Willona smiled happily. “Because you have been specially selected to join the Incredible Space Raiders from Space. You should be honored. There were only two hundred members chosen from the entire solar system. And you were the last! The extra-special recruit. That’s why we gave you such a good room.”

  Jonah looked around. “This is a good room?”

  Willona shrugged and gestured behind him. “Well, you got a window.”

  Jonah slowly turned around. His eyes widened.

  He wasn’t leaning against a wall. It was a window. The reflection of a small, skinny boy with a mop of messy hair and bright green eyes was staring back at him. Behind that reflection, and behind a few inches of extra-thick glass, was outer space.

  And sitting in that, now small in the distance, was the familiar blue-and-green ball that was Earth, where his big white-bricked home with a long black driveway and neatly trimmed lawn stood at the end of Eleventh Drive.

  Jonah stared out the window for a moment and then turned back to Willona.

  “What is the Fantastic Flying Squirrel?” he whispered.

  Willona smiled. “Come with me.”

  • • •

  Willona led Jonah down a long hallway made of the same dark-gray metal as the room he’d woken up in. Dusty old light panels ran along the ceiling, and most of them were flickering ominously or out altogether. Large steel double doors with black-and-yellow stripes blocked the hallway farther ahead. There was no plush carpet or nice pictures or anything else Jonah was used to seeing in hallways on Earth—just identical gray doors lining both walls, all with little grooves for handles. There were lots of those.

  As they walked, kids in overlarge brown uniforms kept marching by or popping out of open doorways. Every one of them grinned at Jonah and saluted crisply.

  They looked normal enough, besides the uniforms and the fact that many were holding long metal pipes like weapons. They were all kids, the oldest only about fifteen years old. Most were wearing ratty old sneakers, but a few had no shoes at all.

  “This hallway is called Squirrel Street,” Willona said, gesturing around them. “It’s where every Space Raider lives. But you see those big double doors with the warning stripes? Squirrel Street continues on the other side of it, but we can’t go there unless ordered by a lieutenant or the commander, because that’s the next sector—there are four sectors total. This is Sector Three. It’s clearly the best sector, which is probably why they put me here.”

  Jonah felt he should sit down. She patted one of the identical gray doors.

  “Most of these doors lead to bedrooms like yours, but we also have bathrooms and, of course, a cafeteria—one for each sector.” She glanced back. “Are you all right?”

  Jonah shook his head. “No.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  It wasn’t the fact that they were in space that was so perplexing to Jonah. In the year 2156, space travel was fairly common. Humans had overpopulated Earth fifty years ago, and they now also lived in domed colonies all across the solar system. There was even a colony on icy Pluto. Jonah had never been on a spaceship before, but his parents had.

  What was confusing was that the only people he had seen on this ship were children, and they were marching around like they were the crew. That had to be illegal.

  “Where are the adults?” Jonah asked.

  Willona laughed and kept walking. “Adults? The ISR doesn’t need adults.”

  Jonah frowned as a boy with red hair saluted and walked by.

  “Who are you people?”

  “Ah,” Willona said, “I should probably explain.”

  She stopped in the middle of the hallway and pulled a notepad out of her uniform pocket. Adjusting her glasses—even though there were no lenses—she turned to the first page and started reading.

  “ ‘Welcome, recruit. You’re probably wondering where you are.’ ” She looked up and smiled. “I really should start with this.”

  Willona continued reading.

  “ ‘Four years ago scientists on Earth made a groundbreaking discovery. They found new life.’ ”

  “I never heard about that,” Jonah said.

  She glanced up at him. “May I continue?”

  “Sorry,” Jonah murmured.

  “ ‘There was just one problem: The life they found was not friendly. They called them the Entirely Evil Things—or the EETs. The EETs come from a starless part of our galaxy called the Dark Zone. The scientists observed black ships flying out of the Dark Zone, and whenever the EETs found a habitable planet, they landed and proceeded to consume all life. Earth sent a ship to the Dark Zone to make contact, but they never heard from it again. Since then, we’ve stopped trying to talk.’ ”

  Jonah didn’t like where this was going.

  “ ‘On that day, Earth came up with a new plan. The Incredible Space Raiders’—that’s us—‘were selected to travel to the Dark Zone and destroy the Entirely Evil Things.’ ”

  Jonah paled. “But we’re just kids.”

  “Exactly,” Willona said, looking up. “The EETs prey on our weaknesses—our fears and mistakes and worries. An adult has too many. And so the ISR is made up entirely of children: those pure of heart and full of noble intention.”

  She returned to her notes.

  “ ‘If we don
’t stop them, the Entirely Evil Things will spread across the universe, consuming everything in their path. And so you, noble recruit, are now officially a member of Earth’s last defense, and you are tasked with saving humanity from evil.’ ”

  Willona closed the notepad and met Jonah’s eyes.

  “And that is not the only danger we face,” she whispered, looking around the hallway. “The Squirrel is home to two other forces of evil. The first is Captain White Shark and his crew. They were hired by Earth to take us to the Dark Zone, because only a crew so evil could ever survive there. There are rumors that they kill Space Raiders for fun. Not sure if it’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  Jonah felt his knees wobbling.

  Willona leaned in. “But that’s not the worst thing on this ship.”

  “It’s not?” Jonah murmured.

  She shook her head. “We call it the Shrieker. It roams the hallways, coming and going like a shadow. You’ll hear it in your sleep. What is it? We don’t know. A ghost, maybe. An alien creature. A monster. But it’s not human, we know that. And it preys on Space Raiders who venture outside the safety of Squirrel Street.”

  Willona stood up straight.

  “This is a dangerous ship. But we are Space Raiders, and our only job is to survive long enough to get to the Dark Zone and save the universe from evil. Do you accept your noble task?”

  “Well—,” Jonah said.

  “Excellent,” Willona cut in. “Shall we?”

  She continued marching down the hallway, and Jonah hurried to catch up. They walked past a second, smaller hallway that joined up with Squirrel Street. Gathered at the entrance to the hallway were ten Space Raiders standing in front of a tall boy with dark hair and serious brown eyes. He was giving them a lesson.

  “The EETs are big,” he said, “but they have trouble hitting a moving target. You have to be fast, and when the time comes you have to attack even faster.”

  He started swinging his metal pipe back and forth in a complex pattern, and then he suddenly lunged forward, stabbing at an invisible enemy, shouting, “Take that, fiend!” As he did, the other Space Raiders followed him in perfect synchronization. They looked very impressive.

  For just a second, Jonah thought it might be nice to be on a team. He’d never been on one before, other than the Science Club, and they definitely didn’t get to use weapons, unless you counted the time Jonah’s experiment blew up and turned his partner’s face green. But these kids looked like a real team: They followed orders and worked together and were probably friends, which wasn’t really like the Science Club either. Jonah didn’t have a lot of friends. Actually, he didn’t have any. Taking one last look at the group of kids, he hurried after Willona, who was already well past the hallway.

  “For the next week, you will be in training,” Willona said as he fell into step behind her. “I call the program Space Raider Training 101.” She stopped and handed him a sheet of paper. “Here. I’ve prepared you a syllabus for Day One.”

  SILABUS CYLABUS SYLLABUS?

  1. Introduction to the ISR

  2. Tour of Sector Three: Refreshments Available

  3. Break (Naptime?)

  4. Uniform Fitting

  5. Bonker Training with Alex—NO ADVENTURING

  6. Orientation Session: Ship Schedule

  7. Rules Pop Quiz (Pretend you didn’t see that)

  8. Dinner!

  9. Bedtime: I DO NOT Tuck In

  Jonah frowned as he looked over the syllabus. He had so many questions, it was hard to pick just one. But there was one thing Willona had said that had kind of stood out.

  “How do you know the Shrieker preys on Space Raiders?”

  Willona just started marching again, and Jonah jogged after her.

  “How do you know?” he asked again.

  Willona hesitated and looked at him. “Because it’s already eaten seven of us.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  * * *

  SEVEN? JONAH WHISPERED, FEELING HIS knees wobbling again.

  She nodded and put her hand on her badge. “May they raid in peace. And that’s just on this trip. We are the seventh batch of Space Raiders to travel to the Dark Zone.”

  “What happened to the first six?”

  Willona paused. “We’ll find out when we get there.” She patted Jonah’s shoulder. “It’s better not to think of it. Not until you’re trained, anyway. Come on. We have a lot to cover.”

  They walked by an open doorway, and Jonah saw two girls standing beside it, talking quietly. One glanced at him and smiled. She was very pretty, with long, kind of tangled black hair, dark eyes, and tiny dimples on her cheeks.

  “Victoria the Avenger,” Willona whispered. “Her younger brother, Matt, was one of the seven who were eaten. He was a good kid. I’d just finished training him.”

  Jonah gave the girl an awkward smile and tried to think. How had he gotten here?

  He remembered sitting by himself in his living room. His parents didn’t come home from work until eight o’clock, and his older sister, Mara, was at her boyfriend’s house. That was nothing new: Jonah was used to being alone. His parents worked until eight o’clock every evening, even on weekends.

  And so he was sitting there by himself doing his math homework and eating a ham sandwich with mustard. That was when he’d heard a noise like a window sliding open. Jonah had looked back, frowning. He didn’t hear anything else, so he continued with his math homework. He was good at math, but the current problem was a bit tricky.

  Then he heard a whisper.

  Now Jonah was alarmed. He wasn’t an overly brave boy. He was scared of the dark and of forests, and he even hid under the covers during storms until the thunder and lightning stopped. His sister called him a baby. His father said he was “a little weak in the knees.” Even his mother said he was more of a thinker than a doer, which he assumed was her motherly way of calling him a coward.

  And so he’d stood up and slowly tiptoed into the kitchen, his hands already trembling. He remembered thinking that if his parents had just gotten him a dog like he’d asked for every birthday since he was four years old, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen. But his mother said a dog would just ruin their nice white carpets.

  Jonah made it to the kitchen and peeked through the window. He froze.

  There was a spaceship sitting in his driveway. Someone had come to his house from space. That had to be a bad thing.

  “You sure about this?” he heard a man with a deep voice say.

  “It says Jonah Hillcrest.”

  Jonah turned around sharply. The voices were coming from the hallway.

  “It just doesn’t seem right,” the man with the deep voice said.

  “We’re already way behind schedule. You really want to double-check?”

  Jonah crept toward the living room, his whole body shaking. How did they know his name? He needed to get out of here, but they were blocking the front door. The only other way was to get to the back door through the living room. He peeked in. The coast was clear. Summoning his courage, he made a break for the back door.

  He was halfway there when he felt a powerful jolt hit him square in the back. His legs suddenly went numb, and he toppled face-first onto the living room floor.

  “This better be the right one,” the man with the deep voice said.

  “I’m sure it is. Oh, he’s still awake.”

  “Not for long. Sleep tight, Jonah. Time to go save the world.”

  He felt another jolt, and then it suddenly went dark.

  When Jonah opened his eyes again, he was here.

  He stopped and looked at Willona. “Men kidnapped me,” he whispered. “I remember everything now. I tried to run away, but they shot me with something and—”

  Willona nodded. “That was the crew. They took all of us.”

  “I don’t understand. Why did no one tell me I was becoming a Space Raider?”

  Willona just patted his arm and continued
down the hall.

  “They don’t tell you you’re becoming a Space Raider. Once you’re selected, they just come for you. It’s not a choice to be a hero. It’s a job.”

  Jonah blinked again as Willona marched down the hallway. He tried it three more times and then sighed. She just wasn’t going away. Which meant he really was on the Fantastic Flying Squirrel. And he really was an Incredible Space Raider.

  And he really had left his family behind.

  Which of course meant they had sent him here. His mom and dad. They must have known. Maybe his sister, too. She did call him a constant annoyance. But this?

  “Coming?” Willona called. “We have a very tight schedule. You’re a Space Raider now, which means you have less than a month to get ready to save the universe. But no rush. Just stop and think for a while. Take it all in—”

  “All right, I’m coming,” Jonah said.

  He hurried after her, though he did try one more blink.

  • • •

  Willona led Jonah up and down Squirrel Street for a while longer, pointing out the cafeteria and the bathrooms and even listing the names of the other Space Raiders.

  “There’s Ben the Brilliant, Kyla the Courageous, Daniel the Ninja—”

  “Am I supposed to remember all these names?” Jonah asked.

  She glanced at him. “Yes.”

  Jonah tried to take a better look at Sector Three as they walked. There were a few things he didn’t understand. Everything looked old and worn and beaten down: The light panels weren’t just flickering, he noticed now—they were covered with dust and grime. The doors were clearly designed to be automatic, but everywhere he looked, Space Raiders were sliding them open by hand. Even the floors were weathered and stained with oil and other dark spots that might just have been blood. Overall, it was a very unpleasant place.

  “If we’re saving the universe, why don’t we have a better ship?” Jonah asked.

  Willona looked at him in shock, covering the nearest wall with her hands.