After being resurrected, almost everything about Star Force One remained the same. It retained its shiny bathtub appearance, for example, only now the walls alternated between a sheen of pink and sky blue from the pulsing honeycomb lights above. A soothing lullaby blanketed the space. The air had a humid, soapy smell, like a bathroom right after a shower; Andie could almost taste talcum powder on her tongue.

Laying it on a little thick, Andie did not say aloud. Though she was charmed by Star's nursery tableau, that didn't mean she wanted anyone to suspect. She avoided Oliver's gaze, although he kept trying to catch her eye. The air between them vibrated with energy. She willed him not to look at her. Not to ask her what was wrong. Because what she had to say would wound him.

But it would practically kill her.

Oliver shook his head in frustration. "Star, what is this new lighting scheme? Please return to normal so I do not acquire a head stone. I mean headache." The ship responded with a hearty jerk, nearly toppling her passengers.

After Oliver caught her, preventing her from falling on her face, Andie tried and failed to hold back a laugh. His malapropisms were just too adorable. "Do you mean headache?"

Oliver pressed his temple. His skin took on a tantalizing rosy hue, most likely caused by his sudden understanding of the colossal difference between a headache and a headstone. Then he frowned. Cleared his throat. "If everyone will buckle in, I will lay a course back to earth." Besides the new lighting scheme, which, Andie noted, Star had not bothered to alter despite Oliver's request. The bridge now sported four plastic chairs, one with a soft pillow on the end seat, which Pilot promptly claimed. He sat erect, like a dog solemnly waiting outside a Starbucks for its owner to finish his venti soy mocha with extra whipped cream. The humanoids took the other three, Rachel next to Pilot. Andie between her mother and Oliver. The seat belt tugged against Andie's chest.

"Oliver, your ship is beautiful," Rachel said, running her fingers along the slippery armrest of the chair. A warm hum emanated from the engines below. Clearly, Star was pleased and seemed to take a liking to Rachel. Beautiful Rachel. Andie prayed her mom would be all right. That leaving the moon wouldn't do her any harm. She may lose her sight, but not her life. Pilot had promised.

"Thank you, Mrs. Bank," Oliver said. "Star, if you would please unmoor, I will set the journey back to earth using Google Galaxy." Oliver raised his muscly arms in the air in that "I'm a hot conductor, and I know how to make your whole body sing," position that made Andie's insides turn to goo. The ship rocked as Star untethered her tail.

As it untwisted, bringing them closer to departure, tension built and coiled around Andie's heart. She still had no solid plan beyond taking the pregnancy test. The Star Enquirer had to go, but how could she, a practically bankrupt, 26-year-old accountant, stop an alien invasion alone?

Bankruptcy ...

An idea formed in her brain. A terrible, horrible idea that burned like acid in her empty stomach. Andie pushed it down, hoping and praying that something less ... personally apocalyptic occurred to her.

Once Star was free, Oliver moved his arms, and the Google Galaxy of colored lights danced across the bridge before disappearing and being replaced by the three-dimensional replica of the universe.

Rachel's eyes widened. "Goddess! I have seen nothing this trippy since Woodstock."

"Mama, you were ten when Woodstock happened," Andie teased. Though a lump formed in her throat. This could be one of the last things her mom ever saw.

"So," her mouth tugged at the edges. "I still remember. It's in the collective consciousness."

"I know you were there." Andie came from a long line of hippies on her mother's side. "But please tell me you weren't taking drugs. At age ten."

"Not directly. But there was so much marijuana in the air, you could practically chew it."

"Oh, Mama." Andie squeezed Rachel's hand.

Oliver conjured the route, like a magician unspooling an orange thread of light, stretching it across the cosmos, starting at the celebrity moon, then cutting through galaxies, curving past stars, skirting black holes, all the way back to planet earth. He connected the moon and the earth with a sprinkle of alien magic.

The ship rocketed into the sky. Andie kept her eyes trained on her mother. Not the beauty of the sparkly velvet of the universe above or the diminishing moon below. The further from the surface they traveled, the lower the moon's influence. Once it drained completely, Andie realized just how much effort she had been expending the entire time on The Colony in order to maintain her free will. In the reflection from the window, Andie checked for the silver scar. There it was, beside her left eye. But the shape had changed. Instead of a jagged line, it was now a crescent moon.

Andie held her breath. What did this mean for Rachel's vision? Even Star seemed to pause for a moment at the edge of the moon's atmosphere, before blasting into the fuzzy white glow of hyperspace.

"Mama?" Andie said.

Rachel turned toward Andie and gazed at her daughter's face in an unfocused "fuzzy as hyperspace" manner. "Oh, my," she said.

"Mama, are you okay?"

"Oh yes, better than okay. I'm wonderful."

Andie finally expelled a long breath. "Thank god."

"The goddess has blessed me, dear. With true sight."

"Huh?"

"I cannot see this plane as I did moments ago. Now I see auras, people's innermost thoughts, intersections of congruent universes, the future, the past, and a vague outline of the present. I haven't quite worked it out yet. Pilot is explaining it to me. All I can say is, it's bitchen!"

Andie could not wrap her head around her mother's sudden new abilities. All she knew was, having Rachel see her innermost thoughts was more frightening than being attacked by Blackhawk helicopters. And Andie knew exactly how that felt.

Luckily, Rachel seemed to have an engrossing telepathic conversation with Pilot, so Andie could use the time to examine her own predicament.

***

While Andie had often imagined this moment—heading home—she'd always thought it would be with Sterling at her side. Without a possible alien pregnancy. Without a mother who had twisted into a comic book character like Daredevil. And she would have a super good plan about how to stop the Amu invasion.

But no.

She was Sterlingless, probably pregnant, had a mother who could read minds and tell the future and had the worst burblings of a plan taking form in her brain. It was a plan so repugnant it amounted to nothing less than selling her soul. Because it would mean turning into her dad. Becoming a criminal.

The whole thing was so overwhelming, her eyelids grew heavy. It startled her when Pilot jumped off his seat and walked beneath the Google Galaxy route. He cocked his head, then raised a paw and bent it in the middle, making it sag.

Andie rubbed her eyes—perhaps from lack of sleep, perhaps from the daunting choice that lay ahead. "What did he do?" Her brain wanted to shut down. Let someone else be in charge.

"He's getting off at Gandulfia," Rachel said, twisting her beads. "To make his report about the Amu operation on earth."

This meant ... Oh my god! Andie didn't have to become a criminal. Relief coursed through her.

The Gandulfians would be the ones to shut down the Star Enquirer. They had to after the Amu's antics—tricking human celebrities into signing away their lives. And worse, Talia's threats to Rachel. It didn't have to be Andie at all. She could let the weight of the world drop like a medicine ball from weary arms.

Andie was so light, she might've floated to the ceiling if not for the harness.

Except for the Zuts. They could stay if they wanted. She'd figure out how to take care of them. Perhaps she'd ask Pilot if this would be all right.

"Don't get too comfy," Bad Andie said. "You'll still need to raise an alien baby."

"Potential alien baby," Andie admonished.

"Uh, huh. Think about it. That blue zappy thing you're doing is coming from your child. Imagine changing a diaper and, instead of getting bombarded by a stream of pee in your eye, you lose an eye. Or you try to feed the baby a jar of pureed peas, and rather than it spitting up on you, your darling offspring reduces you to ash. Though if you think about it, this one would be justified. We should force no one to eat that slop. If human babies could zap their parents instead of cry when they're unhappy, I imagine there would be far fewer pureed vegetables. All I'm saying is we will face challenges no other parent in the history of the universe has ever had."

Andie ignored the "we." "You couldn't have allowed me five minutes of peace?"

"Where's the fun in that? You going to tell Oliver then? He might be an excellent resource. Just in case Amu children Wormhole to the playground when they're bored, or when they're teenagers, steal the family starship and fly to Vegas for the weekend."

Andie laughed. Even though Bad Andie might have a point about unseen difficulties, her inner bad self was pretty hilarious. Maybe she could tell Oliver. Now that his brethren would leave earth, there would be no one to execute any death sentences. And she wouldn't have to execute her illegal plan to put the Star Enquirer out of business, thus putting Oliver in danger. Her life was getting simpler.

But Oliver ...

How would he take the news about the Amu having to leave earth? Perhaps he wouldn't share her elation. Although he loathed the Star Enquirer, he might worry about what would happen to his people. They had no planet to return to. They would have to start all over. Menacing a different world. And while Andie felt bad for the new victims—beings that might exist on a planet orbiting the billions of stars sparkling around them on Google Galaxy. Perhaps even one she could reach with her fingertips. But she couldn't save the whole universe. Just one measly little planet.

From outer space, the earth was so insignificant. A "pale blue dot," as Carl Sagan once said. "A mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." But to Andie, and to the billions of living things on the planet, it was everything.

And Oliver's people had nothing.

"Andie," Oliver said. "Are you all right?"

She took Oliver's hands. "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"That the Gandulfians will shut down the Star Enquirer and your people will have to leave earth."

Oliver's eyebrows knit together. "What makes you say that?"

"Pilot said he's going back to Gandulfia to report what's been going on. The Amu haven't been operating in good faith."

"The Gandulfians won't shut down the operation on earth. As the Earth Turns is the highest-rated show in the galaxy."

"But aren't there plenty of celebrities there already?"

"It's the new arrivals that keep the ratings high."

Andie glared at Pilot. "Are you telling me that the most advanced civilization in the universe cares more about ratings than morality?"

"Andromeda," said an unfamiliar, gravelly voice in her head. It was getting way too crowded in there. "I am sorry, but we cannot directly interfere with the Amu in this way."

"But you're a watchdog. You watched them trick all those celebrities into signing away their lives. You watched Talia force my mother to sign by threatening her. We are talking about Rachel here. Your companion for so many years."

A grumbly sigh filled Andie's consciousness. So this is what her mom heard when Pilot spoke in her head. Andie had never even thought to ask. Because she hadn't believed it was true. "What I said was that we cannot directly interfere. We already know what will happen. The future is merely a computation. A statistical calculation based on everything we know about the universe. And the outcome is not achieved by our actions. Some wars are waged on the battlefield. Others in the economic sphere. Money is power."

"Are you talking to me in riddles?"

"Being an enigma is the way of all wise mentor archetypes. It makes us sound smarter, like having a British accent or tortoise-shell spectacles. By the way, tell no one I said that. It's an insider secret."

"All right, but I still don't get what you're trying to tell me."

"She always this dense?"

"Generally," Bad Andie replied.

"Wait, you know about Bad Andie?"

"Of course. She was my idea."

This was getting way too weird. Pilot created bad Andie? Andie should've known her alter-ego was an alien construct. Turned out, aliens had been dogging her for years.

Pilot chortled in a grumbly tone. "Dogging. Good one."

Andie exhaled, trying to calm down by reminding herself that the universe was a logical place based on science. But sometimes the scientific explanation was weirder than science fiction. "Why did you invent Bad Andie?"

"Because you were way too uptight. And for what I needed you to do, you had to embrace your bad side. If you want, I can get rid of her now. I think you alone can fix our little problem."

Andie's stomach twisted. Lose Bad Andie. Her brain would feel so empty. Wait, that didn't come out right. It would be lonely. No matter how annoying Bad Andie was, Andie was fond of her. Loved her, even. "If it's all the same to you, could I keep her?"

"You care!" Bad Andie said. "You love me. I knew it."

"I've created a monster," Andie said, but with no heat.

The Gandulfian winked.

"Pilot, you're so sexy," Bad Andie said. Pilot puffed out his golden chest. "I wonder if there are any Gandulfian romance novels? Dirty Dog? Hot Dog? Boned? Abducted by the Alpha?"

Andie seriously questioned her decision.

"Of course, you may keep her," Pilot said. "Ah, here's my stop."

A miniature version of the Jabba the Hutt/Planet Eater progeny, known as the Priority One—like the one she'd last seen in the War Room—appeared on the bridge. A segmented wormlike mass with a cherry red center, smelling of burnt metal and ozone.

"Good luck, Andromeda," Pilot said. "You know what to do. I have faith in you, as does your mother."

"But I don't want to be a criminal. Like my dad."

"Your father's actual crime was loving your mother."

A coldness ripped through Andie's consciousness, as her worldview threatened to shift. "What do you mean his crime was ...?"

"Why don't you ask your mother? I am about to miss my stop." And with that, he leaped into the red maw and disappeared inside. The mass spun in on itself and winked out.