“Are we moving first or playing spy?” Greenie’s question broke into Riston’s thoughts.
Ze took a breath to give zirself a moment. “Anything that can’t be carried with you at all times needs to either be trashed or stored, and then it’s all Tink. Think about how we can help you deploy your toys while we’re getting settled.”
“Tools,” she corrected with a shy smile. “Not toys.”
An hour later, they’d finished relocating to a junction between decks ten and eleven and were poring over a detailed blueprint of Pax Novis. Tink was using it to lay out her plan like a tiny general directing troops, pointing to different shafts and junctions and holding up the devices she wanted at each point.
First, she explained the broad construction of what she called a sensor web, including the brilliant bit of programming she’d created to make the devices scan for ID chips and automatically allow both Novis crewmembers and all five “approved” stowaways to pass without raising an alarm. Next, she moved on to the sensors and heat triggers, explaining both their use as well as how to install them to keep them hidden. After all, the ship had no shortage of watchful eyes at the moment.
“Tink, Shadow, and I will go with you while Greenie and Treble take the other half of the work.” Ze wished there was a way to break the group evenly, but if there had to be an imbalance, it seemed better to overprotect the youngest of them, especially since Tink was also the technical genius of the group.
“No. We don’t have time. I should go on my own.” Shadow’s words were quietly confident, and he held himself like he was gearing up to argue his point if necessary.
“It’s not safe for anyone to be alone right now,” Riston protested.
“But we can get more done faster with three teams.” With a gentle smile, Shadow picked up several sensors and placed them in his bag. “I know the risks, Zazi. I accept them.”
No matter how much Riston wanted to force Shadow to travel with a group, ze couldn’t. Riston nodded, accepting the decision. He wasn’t wrong, and even at the height of his gossip-mongering, he was never seen by the crew. Shadow knew how to hide. He’d be fine.
Hopefully the words would feel true if Riston repeated them to zirself enough times.
“Okay, there’s one more thing before we go gallivanting off on this adventure. We didn’t talk about it when we started this, but I just need to make sure.” Treble stopped, her dual-hued eyes jumping from face to face before focusing on her twining hands. “We all realize we’re chasing someone smart enough to sneak onto a Pax ship, right? They’re also someone who knows we exist and who clearly doesn’t feel anything warm or fuzzy about the PCCS.”
“I think everyone is aware of that by now,” Riston said wearily.
“Okay, so then am I the only one thinking the person we’re chasing may end up chasing us? I mean, we’ve already had to give up our space. Personally, if I were them, I’d be using us as a decoy to keep the crew from looking deeper.” Her heterochromatic eyes locked on Riston’s, one brown, one green, and both somber. “Does everyone realize how likely a possibility one of us getting hurt—or worse—really is? I’m fine with it for Cira and the last to call any of us helpless, but damn. We’re kids, and we’re working at a dangerous disadvantage here. We’re fighting a war on two fronts, not one.”
“But if we are, so is our thief,” Greenie said. “Maybe they’re trying to avoid us.”
“Or they could be trying to get rid of us,” Treble insisted.
“They’ve had three weeks to do that, though.” Tinker’s nose wrinkled as she thought it all over. “If they were a direct threat, wouldn’t they have done something by now?”
“Maybe they were hoping their work would be done before we figured out they were here.” Greenie rubbed his eyes. “Us going after them could change things.”
“Assume the worst, for now,” Riston said. “If you spot any irrefutable evidence, don’t touch it or collect it. Message Cira and get out. Someone who’s cornered is always dangerous, and we don’t know what this person’s goal is or what they’re capable of.”
“And we’ve been chasing after them like we’re hunting a stray cat.” Treble pulled her long blonde hair over her shoulder and ran her fingers over the strands. “The cat might not like being caught. The cat might have claws. Or bombs.”
Riston shuddered. Memories of Ladadhi were always close, and it was too easy to remember the charred bodies of zir family. Zir friends. Everyone ze’d known. It was also too easy to imagine Tink, Treble, Shadow, and Greenie in their places. Limbs missing. Eyes unseeing. Skin bloody or blackened. Bodies still.
No. Wrenching zir mind away from those hellish images, remembered and imagined, ze tried to focus on minimizing the danger. Keep everyone as safe as possible and maybe they’d come through this…well, not okay, but alive.
“Stay in contact,” he ordered after a minute. “Check in every five minutes, and make sure your terminals are coded to your ID chips so no one can send a false message.”
Ze didn’t want to think about why that contingency plan was necessary, but ze had to. They couldn’t go into this search without considering all potential consequences. Ze laid down a few more rules—like triple-checking every door and corner—and then, with Tinker’s help, established a timeline for the work they needed to do. Then it was only a matter of beginning.
Riston wished the others luck, and then ze watched as Shadow climbed up to the shaft running under deck eleven while Greenie and Treble kept climbing. Two decks up, they would head forward until they reached a junction that would bring them down to deck eight. Riston hadn’t let anyone actually say goodbye, but that didn’t keep this from feeling like a final parting.
Then Tink wrapped her small hand around zir wrist and tugged. “Ready to go?”
Forcing a smile, ze nodded. “Lead the way.”
As Shadow had reminded zem, they each knew the risks. All Riston could do was be careful and hope zir family’s knack for survival continued to keep them safe. Ze didn’t want to—ze couldn’t—lose anyone else ze loved.
Official Internal Correspondence
From: PSSC Control, Paxis Station
To: Pax Novis
ALERT – Code White
Terra-Sol date 3814.252 at 0807
Feed lost from Pax Dignis
Passive contact link intact
Alert purged from Novis logs at 0807
----
ALERT – Code White
Terra-Sol date 3814.252 at 1329
Feed lost from Pax Portis
Passive contact link intact
Alert purged from Novis logs 1329
----
ALERT – Code White
Terra-Sol date 3814.252 at 2741
Feed lost from Pax Sanctis
Passive contact link intact
Alert purged from Novis logs 2741
Chapter Eleven
Cira
Terra-Sol date 3814.253
Erryla had left the bridge half an hour ago, and waiting for her to come back was about to make Cira lose her mind.
Halver had strode in here, beige skin a few shades paler than usual, and calmly but insistently asked to speak to the captain in her office. Neither came back. One outgoing communication had been logged since then, but it was encoded and encrypted with the captain’s privacy locks. Cira couldn’t even tell to whom it had been sent, which meant she couldn’t even guess what had brought Halver down here looking like ghosts were on his tail.
The spike of anxiety set off by Halver’s expression had splintered into a mess of emotions that swirled through her chest and clouded her mind. What had started as nerves deep in the pit of Cira’s stomach was quickly becoming nausea. Normally, she could hold on to a strong emotion about as long as she could hold a breath—eventually, exhaustion took over and she had to let go. However, with each new worry that infiltrated her ship, her emotional lung capacity rose and the moment between each inhale and exhale lasted longer. She was so
jittery it was hard to sit still long enough to finish a shift. Sleep was something that now only happened for other people. She didn’t understand how she hadn’t mentally overloaded a week ago. Although, if she was contemplating what she was about to do, she had to be close to that edge now.
She tried, honestly tried, to avoid even the appearance of preferential treatment. Neither of her mothers gave her anything she didn’t earn, and Cira didn’t expect them to. Few people on the crew would mind, but she still held back, almost like she was saving up their good will until the situation was desperate. Like now.
Setting her station on auto—which sent priority alerts to someone else—she got up and walked across the bridge. Directly opposite the door to the security office was one leading into the command conference room. It was a space with three large wall screens, four different holo-displays, a long table, eight chairs, and not much else. Given Halver’s solemnity and urgency, Cira had half expected a command meeting to be in progress here. Was it a good sign or a bad one that Halver’s news hadn’t necessitated that?
The door to the conference room hadn’t been locked or ID coded. Not so with the captain’s office. A small red light on the panel beside the door told her that she’d need permission to go any farther. At the sight of it, Cira hesitated. Did she dare interrupt whatever meeting was happening behind those doors?
It only took a few seconds for worry to win over caution. She gritted her teeth and requested entrance. The system required an ID check when a door was security locked to announce her to those inside, either vocally or on whatever display Erryla was standing closest to. Cira held her breath and waited, unblinkingly watching the red light until the strain made them burn. If they rejected her, there’d be a triple flash of that tiny light. If they let her in…
The door shooshed open, the sound mirroring the audible rush of Cira’s exhale.
But then the sound of hitching, sobbing breath reached her ears.
“Captain?” Cira hesitantly stepped in. Her already pounding heart beat harder when she saw Erryla in the middle of the long room with Meida in her arms. “I— Ma? What happened?”
“If you’re coming in, get in so the door can close.” Erryla’s voice was rough, but her face was in Captain mode and unreadable. She always looked like this on duty, or when she was working hard to forget her own emotions so she could be a foundation for someone else to land on. And Meida looked like she needed exactly that.
Breath hitching and shoulders shaking, Meida clung to her wife and wept the way she’d never do in a more public space. Image was power, and power was everything to two of the youngest senior officers in the PCCS fleet. Even in front of their own crew—especially then—both women fought showing anything interpretable as weakness. Behind the intertwined couple, Halver was sitting at the desk, his elbows propped on the surface and his forehead resting on the knuckles of his linked hands. He wasn’t even looking at them, but Cira still had the urge to shield her mothers from exposure during what seemed like a deeply private moment.
Cira took a slow step forward, and the door closed, beeping once as the security lock reengaged. Taking a breath, she quietly asked again, “What happened?”
Meida’s hitching breaths turned into true sobs. Erryla pressed her lips together and turned her face toward her wife. Seconds passed with only the faint beeps and pings of active programs, the subtle hum of the air systems, and the harsh, arrhythmic breathing of four people.
“Tanshu’s ship stopped communicating.” Halver lifted his head to look at Cira, the expression on his face bleak. “It’s one of three more ships to go silent. Dignis, Portis, and Sanctis haven’t sent or received a single message in hours.”
“Uncle Tanshu?” Cira’s voice cracked as memory overwhelmed her.
Family was hard to define within the PSSC. There were those bound by blood and marriage, the people you flew with, and in a certain sense, the whole of Pax society—compared to most systems, their population was miniscule. Less than two hundred thousand compared to the usual billions. Living almost exclusively on ships, however, often meant choosing between family and rank. When a position became available, it was generally on another ship or back on Paxis Station, and taking more than your immediate family along wasn’t usually possible. Meida and her older brother Tanshu had been living apart for more than twenty cycles, since Tanshu became a First Lieutenant and transferred off the ship they’d both been born on. The separation, however, hadn’t mattered. From birth, Cira had been bombarded by messages and gifts from her far-flung family. When they were docked on Paxis at the same time, there were parties and dinners and games. Everyone checked in with everyone else constantly, and that had been especially true of Tanshu and Meida. He’d been so much a part of Cira’s life, she couldn’t imagine not getting a nearly instant reply to a message she sent. Her fingers twitched toward the pocket on the thigh of her pants where her personal tablet was stowed, as though she could prove them wrong by simply demanding Tanshu answer his comm. It wouldn’t change anything. There was no doubt Halver, Erryla, and Meida had all tried exactly that.
Tanshu hadn’t answered. Her uncle, her zaunle, and their son were missing.
What is happening to us? It didn’t make sense. The laws governing her universe, every truth she believed in, were failing or changing. When Pax Feris vanished, it took two of her more distant relatives—both of them second cousins once removed. Losing Dignis was so much closer to her heart. How much closer might the next one get?
Swallowing a pained cry, Cira stumbled toward her mothers, reaching for them. Meida was incognizant of her approach, face still pressed against her wife’s shoulder, but Erryla looked up and extended one arm to her daughter. The impact hurt. Cira’s cybernetic fingers caught strands of Meida’s dark hair, Erryla’s sharp elbow accidentally skimmed the top of Cira’s head when she ducked under it, and the crash of her body against her mothers’ drove the breath from Cira’s lungs. None of those pains mattered—they barely registered as they clung to one another, tears in more than one pair of brown eyes. Only Erryla wasn’t crying, but from the way her breath dragged and stuttered, willpower would only hold the tears at bay a little longer unless duty intervened.
But duty couldn’t reach them here yet. The office was locked against the crew, and Halver was there to stand silent guard over her family. There was something in his expression, though, a softening of his strong-featured face almost like longing. Or pain.
The Dalil and Antares families weren’t the only ones spread throughout Pax society. Halver had family on Paxis and several ships, including Pax Corrogis, Pax Prudis, and Pax… Oh. Pax Portis. She couldn’t remember who—his zisther maybe, or one of his cousins—but he would be hurting just as much as Meida, yet he was still sitting at the desk alone.
As soon as Meida’s cries quieted to clogged sniffles, Cira gently drew away from her mothers and rounded the desk toward Halver. He eyed her hesitantly as she approached but still rose when she twitched her fingers at him. Smiling ruefully, he stood and opened his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Halver sank into the embrace with a faint shudder, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “My zisther has always been strong. Misao will be fine.”
The words were spoken with more hope than faith. No matter how strong one person was, how could anyone fight what they didn’t understand? Right now, everyone was fighting something they couldn’t even see. Misao’s ship was flying between systems—far from the safety of a solid planet and a natural atmosphere—and zir ship was malfunctioning in ways no one had yet been able to understand or fix. Misao was in the same spot everyone on Novis was. Cira wasn’t about to bring any of that up, though. The Pax fleet had been thrust into the middle of an unexpected battle, and they needed to keep their minds clear if they were going to find the safe path through the enemies closing in on them.
“What does Control want us to do?” Cira asked as she drew away from Halver, leaving only her hand o
n his shoulder; both of them could use the connection.
“They’re as clueless as we are.” Meida stepped out of her wife’s hold and wiped angrily at her eyes.
“The recall to Paxis still stands, and they’ve put a rush on it. We’re not heading to Datax anymore. Engineering is supposed to do whatever they can to boost top speeds.” Erryla spoke to Cira, but her gaze lingered on Meida. “I guess they figure it’s harder for a ship to disappear when a hundred thousand pairs of eyes are on it at all times. We’re solidly in the middle of nowhere, though, and our drive is only capable of so much before the ship starts breaking apart around us.”
“There’s a fun thought,” Cira muttered, her grip on Halver’s shoulder tightening convulsively. It was straight out of her nightmares—Novis cracking at the seams, holes exploding in its sides, fissures forming so suddenly no one had time to reach escape pods or vac suits. She’d placated her completely rational fear of vacuum over the cycles by spending more than the minimum hour per month running emergency depressurization, power failure, and evacuation drills. There was no way for her to get any faster or to know the exigency procedures better. Somehow, it didn’t do much to soothe her fears now.
“I wish I could say your mother was being pessimistic,” Meida began with a scolding look at her wife, “but she’s right. Whoever balanced the power glitch might be able to come up with a solution to shave a week off our travel time. I don’t think I can.”
“What can we do, then?” Cira desperately wanted something to do besides research.
Erryla glanced between Halver and Meida before she sighed and rubbed her hand over her closely shorn hair, frustration and exhaustion bleeding through her expression. “Increase security again, write a few new monitoring programs to make sure no one messes with the computer, and pray to every omnipotent entity humanity has ever believed in that we’ll make it to Paxis in one piece.”
“There’s not much more we can do,” Halver agreed. Cira wasn’t sure if the yet she heard hanging unsaid at the end of the sentence was actually there or if she only hoped it was.
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