And then what will they do with me? They’d jumped, probably somewhere far from anywhere humanity had jurisdiction, but just because they couldn’t throw zem in prison on Paxis didn’t mean Riston and the kids were safe yet.
“Cira! Stop moving and let me look at it!” Meida’s frustrated words made Riston glance back. Or try to. The sharp pain twisting brought on stopped zem short with a sharp hiss.
“It’s not like I’m bleeding out,” Cira shot back as she appeared next to Riston, already wrapping her left forearm in nano bandages. “It’ll hold until we figure out exactly how much trouble we’re in.”
“Sometimes, you are far too much like your mother,” Meida muttered as she shuffled into place on Riston’s other side.
“Thank you.” There was a system-worth of false cheer in Cira’s response, but it worked. Riston wheezed through half a laugh, and Meida’s expression softened a little. For a second.
“Communications are down again. Or…unreliable.” Meida cocked her head when a new message flashed in a corner, one that cut off midsentence. “Okay. Cira, I need you to download a full sys-check from engineering and take it to the bridge. If Erryla can’t see this, she needs to.”
“Yes, sir.” Cira’s right hand twitched. Something in her cybernetic elbow sparked, and a shudder ran through her body as lines of pain creased her face. Riston was there in a second, ignoring zir own aches to steady her. Cira widened her stance and swallowed with enough force that Riston could hear it. Meida hadn’t noticed, all her attention focused on the various displays. Ze wanted to make a noise and make her see that Cira was in worse shape than she wanted to admit, but who was ze kidding? All of them were in the same shape, and rest wasn’t an option.
Quicker than ze expected, she was steady again. Then, smiling weakly, she patted zir hand in silent thanks before reaching with her left hand to open a storage compartment. Inside was a stack of hand terminals, all of them smaller and simpler in design than she usually used. It was enough to get the necessary information to the bridge, though.
“I’ll send up another runner in ten minutes,” Meida said when Cira tapped the terminal to the console to begin the data transfer. “Unless we get comms back up. I need as many people as can work right now, so tell Erryla to fix the damn comms.”
“Yes, sir,” Cira said again, the words both threadier and far more sarcastic this time.
“And take Riston with you,” Meida said once the upload was complete. “I still don’t want anyone traveling alone until we’re sure Lasalia was the only one on board.”
“Okay.” Cira glanced at Riston, a faint curve to her lips. “If you insist.”
Meida snorted and picked up the tablet, tapping it gently against Cira’s shoulder. “I’m sure it’s such a hardship. Now get going.”
With a sharp nod, Cira turned to leave, her immobile right arm only making her wobble a little as she tried to re-center her balance. Riston was grateful she didn’t seem to be feeling the same pain ze did every time ze so much as twitched. Just as ze braced zirself to push through zir own misery and follow her out, movement caught zir attention. Mika was approaching, clearly ready to take zir place beside Meida once ze left.
Riston had never known it was possible to feel so much relief and guilt simultaneously. Mika only seemed to have minor injuries, and Greenie and Treble looked to be in the same condition. They were easy to spot once ze looked. But ze hadn’t been looking, and that ate at zem. Checking on the kids should’ve been zir first task—just like it had been for cycles—and yet ze’d practically forgotten they were in engineering.
Clearing zir throat, ze asked, “Are you guys gonna be okay?”
Treble rolled her eyes as she approached with the faintest of limps, and Greenie blinked at zem, seeming a little more shaken by it all. Despite the shock widening his blue eyes, he still managed a smile when he said, “Of course. How much worse can our day get, really?”
Treble smacked his shoulder, but she shrugged, not disagreeing.
“Go, Zazi.” Mika waved zem away with flicks of her fingers. “We’ll be here when you get back.”
“Promise,” Greenie added. “I don’t think I could go far even if I tried.”
After extracting a promise that they’d all get themselves checked by medical soon, Riston finally followed Cira toward the elevator. They rode up to deck six in silence.
The short walk from the elevator to the bridge was eerily normal. It didn’t seem like anything loose had been left in the corridors to rattle around and cause damage. Only the damn emergency lights and the complete lack of people proved something was wrong. Hearing voices in the distance, likely coming through the open door to medical, should be a relief, and it would be if Riston could pretend ze didn’t hear distress in every utterance. Ze failed. Badly. The instant the security office’s soundproofed door slid closed behind them, it released the knot of tension that’d been building in the pit of zir stomach. Ze could barely handle zir own pain right then; seeing someone else’s would crush zem.
When Cira scanned her ID at the door to the bridge, it didn’t open. She frowned and repeated the gesture. Six seconds passed before the door finally pinged approval and opened. The reason behind the delay was obvious as soon as they stepped into the flickeringly lit room.
Two positions sat empty and dark. Control of those stations seemed to have been rerouted to the other consoles where the least injured of the bridge crew were working. Had someone died or had they simply been injured badly? Not knowing made Riston’s chest ache, but the sight seemed to strengthen something in Cira. She straightened, holding her right arm tighter against her side, and strode quickly toward an empty position. Riston started to follow until Cira caught zir gaze and shook her head, nodding toward the second empty position instead.
She…she couldn’t be serious. Cira could not legitimately be suggesting ze sit down at an official bridge station as though ze were crew. The astronavigation station, of all places. That’d be the very definition of too good to be true.
“Riston.” Erryla couldn’t be ignored, but Riston still turned to face her with extreme hesitance. She held up what looked like two control cuffs, and then she tossed one in zir direction. It fell to the floor at zir feet because ze was too shocked to react. Ze barely caught the second one she gently lobbed zir way. “You’ll need those if you plan on being of any use.”
“Are…are you sure, sir?” ze asked.
“According to the details saved in that folder you gave us access to, you passed every piloting and astronavigation training course the computer offers, correct?”
“Yes, sir, but why would you—”
Erryla’s raised eyebrows cut zem off. “Are you questioning your superior officer?”
“N-no, sir. Of course not.” Superior officer? For Erryla Antares to be zir superior, that would have to mean Riston was part of her crew. Heart pounding, ze bent to pick up the second cuff and snapped them around zir wrists. Was this an official invitation, or was this an emergency measure just until the injured crewmembers were back? Riston desperately wanted to know, but making zirself ask would take more courage than ze had left, so ze simply said, “Thank you, Captain,” and walked to the last empty station as if ze truly believed ze belonged there. It was a laughable lie. Ze couldn’t even keep zir hands from shaking when ze approached the chair. Its mechanisms activated as soon as it detected the pressure of zir touch, and the chair spun outward to give zem space to settle in.
It was hard to believe this wasn’t a fever dream or a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation. How was it possible to go from illegal stowaway to member of the crew? Even a temporary promotion was so statistically unlikely it was virtually inconceivable, and yet… I’m touching a Pax Novis bridge seat, and they actually want me to sit here.
Taking a deep breath, Riston slid into the cushioned, contoured chair and tapped the wrist cuffs to the sensor on the edge of the console. The display lit up, astronav charts and sensor data streami
ng in as the cuffs’ holo-controls emerged. Suddenly, it was all real—ze was now in charge of figuring out where in the galaxy or the universe they’d ended up. Or at least coming up with a decently educated guess.
Not long after Treble had found her way to Novis, she and Riston spent hours talking about their lives and the various ways luck and human nature had failed them. Near the end of the conversation, when their eyes were getting heavy and their normal emotional defenses were unusually low, Treble had told a story about a nurse she’d met one of the last times her father had put her in the clinic.
“He told me, ‘You have the right to exist, to take up space, to demand to be seen. You have the right and, maybe more importantly, you have the responsibility to make sure you’re seen. Most people aren’t horrible, but in this quadrant, in this time, there are very few people who’ll take a stand for you.’” She’d shrugged and smiled almost fondly at the memory. “He was right, but I think it’ll be a long time yet until I figure out how to believe he was right about me.”
Riston had been battling the same doubts most of zir life. Ever since Ladadhi, ze’d been shuffled around and forgotten as soon as it was convenient. Experience had taught zem to hide in plain sight, to take only what was necessary for the barest sort of survival, and to avoid wanting anything beyond the minimum. Want was the fastest path to disappointment.
That hadn’t stopped zem from wanting this, a place among the crew. The acknowledged right to exist, to take up space, and to be seen. Against all odds, ze had it.
All it had taken was a disaster and a crew on the brink of collapse to make it happen.
Most of the Pax Novis crew had only experienced personal loss, not the catastrophic loss of everything. Everyone and everything Riston cared about, though, was here. This meant that, for once, ze was in position to help someone else. If ze fought to keep the small bit of space ze’d been granted and showed them exactly why they should let zem stay, ze could help them all see what ze already knew. Riston had already lived through the obliteration of his universe once, after all, and ze didn’t think the crew had remembered yet that no matter where in the quadrant they were, they were alive, they still had the ship, and they had one another.
I can do this. I can be seen.
Riston had found zir place and zir people, and this time ze wasn’t going to lose them.
Intersystem News Feed
Posted by an anonymous user and force-distributed in every system of the intersystem network
Terra-Sol date 3814.276
Eight ships, a full third of the Pax Class Cargo Ship (PCCS) fleet, are gone. What passes for a central government on Paxis blamed the losses on sabotage at first. Their reaction was understandable, but evidence now points in a different direction. Despite this, there have been no additional statements from the PCGC. They’ve been keeping secrets about what they know. This cannot be allowed, especially not now. It won’t be allowed ever again if we have our way.
This is what authorities do not want widely known: a data core with a serial number that can be reliably traced to Pax Novis’s most recent cargo manifest has been discovered in the region of the ship’s last known location. This core should have been empty as it was being transported for installation on a new ship in the Draconis system, but the teams that recovered it discovered a wealth of information. The Pax Novis crew had reason to dump their ship’s logs onto a core stolen from their modular cargo pods. This act, illegal in itself, is enough to show the desperation of the ship’s crew. What’s more telling is what they filled the core with—a full copy of their ship logs, sensor data, message history, and more, all of it missing the encryption required for data transfers by the Pax Class Governing Council.
Pax Novis, like all the PCCS vessels, is intact and all lives aboard are healthy and whole, but none of the ships are coming home. Using technology developed in secret, these seven Pax ships have been sent to the other side of the Milky Way. The distance between them and the occupied quadrant is now so vast it will take generations for them to return or for help to find them, even with the speed of superluminal drives.
This was not done with malice or any intent to claim the contents of the ships’ cargo holds. Our work, both in the preparation and execution of this mission, has been focused on minimizing harm, not just the loss of life, but the damage done to the quality of life. Even those on the missing Pax ships will suffer nothing worse than loneliness. Their ships contain everything they need for long, content lives. It’s not the crews of the Pax fleet who will be facing a trial—it’s everyone else.
Reconvene a peace summit with officials who want talks to succeed. Listen to the scientists and psychologists and historians who have been trying to explain why the path society is on will only end when too much has been lost for it to continue.
Forge a peace that lasts. If you don’t, Pax Novis won’t be the last vessel to go missing.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cira
Terra-Sol date unknown
Grim satisfaction suffused Cira as Riston embraced the role ze’d been given. Maybe it was only temporary, but the significance of Erryla’s decision couldn’t be understated. A stowaway was serving on the bridge.
She took a moment to scan the faces of the other officers, watching their reactions to seeing Riston in such an honored position. It shouldn’t have been surprising that, aside from some heavy skepticism, the crew didn’t seem to care; Riston’s presence was low on the list of problems to be dealt with. Like establishing an active connection to something. Anything.
Her station was responsible for monitoring long-range sensors and communications, a job made difficult by whatever Lasalia’s programs had done to the system and made nearly impossible by the fact that there was nothing out here. At least when they were in occupied territory, signals and signs of life populated the screens. Novis hadn’t been able to connect to any of them before the jump, but they were there.
Not anymore. Novis had landed in a void between stars. The only signals coming in were repeating blips so weak they were just as likely to be cosmic noise as signals from distant ships. This was why the quadrant had repeaters, relays, and signal stations everywhere; it was the only way to create the speed and reach of transdimensional communication. Without that technological assistance, without even the dubious use of out-of-date satellite transmitters, they were forced to rely on technology as old as or older than the galaxy itself: radio waves.
The farther out Cira scanned, the worse she felt. A ball of fear as cold as the space they were surrounded by was settling in her stomach. There really was nothing out here but emptiness. Not even one of the other missing ships.
Her gestures and commands slowed, and her gaze slipped away from the disturbing blankness of the signal maps covering her displays.
Then she got an idea. Cira began sifting through settings and controls, looking for any way to increase the range or sensitivity of the sensors. The current upper limit, without signal boosters to rely on, was only a couple of light-years. She thought there might be a way to get at least another light-year or so out of the system if she could only remember the right commands. And if there was enough power in Novis to allow it.
Finally, Cira finished reconfiguring the sensors and began the sweep again. It would take a few minutes for the first bits of data to come back. Waiting was the worst, especially with nothing to distract her from the reality of her situation.
Had she played a part in this? She’d brought the kids on board because she wanted to help, to save what lives could be saved, but her motivations hadn’t been wholly selfless. It’d been a way to weild authority in a universe that wouldn’t listen. Each stowaway she’d saved had helped her feel more in control, and there had been times she’d felt almost smug about the deception she was getting away with despite everyone’s watchfulness and intelligence. The rules she’d flouted and the laws she’d flat-out broken hadn’t mattered; she’d been so sure she knew better. No one had caught her o
r Adrienn—until Lasalia came on board, no one had come close to catching them—and that had thrilled Cira. Some days, it had made her feel like she really might be able to change the whole quadrant one day. And yet…
It’d made so much more sense to blame the early thefts on Riston. If the kids hadn’t been on the ship, would Lasalia have been caught sooner? Maybe. Then again…maybe it would’ve been worse if Lasalia had been the only ghost haunting their halls. Maybe the ship would’ve disappeared as fast as Feris had. Maybe it had only been the presence of Riston, Shadow, Treble, Greenie, and Mika that allowed Novis a chance to leave behind a crumb of information for the rest of the fleet to find and follow.
There was no way to know for sure which was true, but that didn’t make the guilt any less real or any easier to bear. Her decisions may very well have left them all more vulnerable to this attack, and now they were stranded and struggling to deal with the fallout.
For the first time in her life, Cira understood how an action could be just as selfish as it was selfless. Hers had been for years.
The situation could be worse, she reminded herself. Pax ships were built to be self-sustaining and long-range. There were supplies on board to last a long while and the means to grow or create more. In addition, the crew was brilliant, resourceful, and strong. If there was a way for them to return to where they’d started, the Novis crew would find it, and until then, they would work together to endure. And, as an additional measure of good to balance the cargo holds of bad that had been dumped on them, there was Riston. She glanced across the bridge toward zem, barely able to believe ze was here, finally part of the crew like ze’d dreamed of for so long. It was as gratifying as it was terrifying.
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