Our Jupiter was hurtling through the atmosphere at twenty-five times the speed of sound. We were going to crash, but for me, this wasn't the scary part. The scary part happened long before anything went wrong, when we were sailing merrily on a trip to Alpha Centauri, because the idea of space has scared me for as long as I can remember. I always thought space was darker than dark and colder than cold, and worst of all, empty. I can't think of a lonelier place. My mom thinks that space isn't empty after all. That it's filled with dark matter we just can't see. I'm not a scientist like her. I don't believe in things just because they make the equations add up. I need to learn things for myself and that's where the trouble always starts.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is the story of discovery, but not of strange new worlds. It's about discovering what's in the places you thought were empty. Sometimes it's the invisible force of my family pulling at me even when I can't see them, reminding me that I'm never really alone. And sometimes it's about discovering horrible monsters that want to bite your face off.
I'm Penny Robinson, member of the twenty-fourth colonist group heading for Alpha Centauri, at least we were headed there before the emergency evacuation. You could say everything went downhill from there. From Will befriending a homicidal alien robot to turning our Jupiter into a sailboat to an army of even more homicidal robots attacking the Resolute, things have been far from easy. But as my mom always says, the Robinsons stick together and every problem has a solution. I don't know if her infamous quotes are what motivate me or if it was the fact that I know my family is indestructible, but something gets me through it all. Now that we had to leave Mom and Dad behind, will we still have that something when we need it most?
"What happened here?" Will asks as we stare through the cockpit window at the wrecked planet, half of it broken into billions of pieces of debris and floating in orbit around it.
Judy spins around to face the robot who doesn't seem at all concerned like the rest of us are, "Where did you take us?"
He shifts his glance from the window and points at the console.
"It's definitely a human-made radar signature," she announces confidently.
"Yeah, but this is not Alpha Centauri," I add.
"Then what radar signature were we following?" Wills says nervously.
A large space rock from the planet drifts out of view, revealing a metallic structure moving with the debris, illuminated by the bright sun of whatever solar system we're in.
"What is The Fortuna?" Vijay squints to read the printing on the side panel of the structure.
Judy chuckles under her breath, "The Fortuna was a ship that everyone thought was lost almost twenty years ago," she stammers, "it was commanded by Grant Kelly, my father."
YOU ARE READING
Hidden By Shadows - The Untold Stories of Penny Robinson
Science FictionPenny Robinson has spent her entire life trying to live up to the world renowned legacies her family members have made for themselves. Her mother, an aerospace engineer that built spaceships to travel across an entire galaxy. Her father, a military...
