Dragon Pearl

by Yoon Ha Lee

  The fighters, fast-moving red blips on the display, swooped and soared. The blips formed green afterimages behind my eyelids. I was almost hypnotized by the complex patterns my chosen target was tracing. As it accelerated away and its partner darted in to attack us, I realized just in time what was happening: The first ship had been a decoy, distracting me with its fancy maneuvers! I called a warning to Gyeong-Ja, who rolled us out of the path of some missiles. I overrode the priority system and let loose a salvo of antimissile fire, then engaged the lasers. They connected, and the second fighter tumbled away. The original target fled, and I couldn’t help feeling disappointed that my prey had escaped.

  A chime sounded and the lights came back up to tell us that the scenario was over. I found myself soaked in sweat. Gyeong-Ja didn’t look much better.

  We emerged from the seats, blinking at the bright lights. Hyosu beamed at us. “You two work well together,” she said. “Jang, your reaction time is the best it’s ever been. Good job!”

  I hadn’t stopped to consider that Jang would have slower reflexes than me, but it made sense—he was a human, and I was a fox. Fortunately, Hyosu hadn’t leaped to the conclusion that I was an impostor. So far, so good.

  Gyeong-Ja and I stood to the side of the chamber while the next group of cadets underwent the exercise.

  “Not bad, eh?” I whispered, still glowing from Hyosu’s praise.

  “Nice to see you actually try for a change,” she said with a sniff.

  I felt insulted on Jang’s behalf. I nudged her with Charm and took a gamble. “I bet Cadet Jun would have been great at sim.” After all, he had good reflexes, just like me.

  “That dirty deserter?” Gyeong-Ja said. “I can’t believe he ran off with the others like that.”

  The others? I thought Jun was the only one missing. I knew that investigator wasn’t telling the truth!

  Who were the rest? If only Jun had named the “friends” in his message . . . Perhaps that was a clue in itself. Had “the others” threatened him so he’d had no choice but to go along?

  I started to ask Gyeong-Ja for specifics, but then I caught Hyosu frowning at me. I’d mistakenly assumed she was busy giving feedback to another pair of cadets.

  “If you pay attention, instead of distracting classmates with your gossip, you might learn a thing or two, Cadet,” Hyosu said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said contritely. So much for that opportunity.

  Disgusted, Gyeong-Ja edged away from me. I wouldn’t be getting any more information from her.

  While I was confident my brother had no reason to go AWOL, I couldn’t say the same for whomever he had fallen in with. If I learned more about them and their motives, that might lead me to Jun. Unfortunately, I wasn’t having any luck wheedling information out of the other cadets, not yet. It was time to talk to Jang.

  After lessons, I was assigned to scrub a bulkhead next to a maintenance shaft. As soon as no one was in sight, Iwhispered, “Jang! Where are you?”

  No answer. Where did ghosts go when they weren’t haunting, anyway? That was one thing my aunties’ lore hadn’t covered.

  But after a few moments, a cold breeze swirled nearby, unnatural in the controlled environment of the starship, and I shivered. Jang materialized next to me, his long, unkempt hair at odds with his neatly pressed uniform. He looked at the sponge in my hand and smiled ironically. “Having more trouble than you expected?”

  “There’s so much to learn,” I whined. “Where do I even start?”

  “You can always access the cadet handbook from any of the workstations in the barracks,” Jang said.

  “That’s good to know, thank you,” I said sincerely.

  “But don’t waste too much time studying,” said Jang. “You’re supposed to be looking into what happened to me, remember?”

  His eyes glowed. Was I imagining it, or had the temperature dropped further?

  “Yes, yes, of course,” I assured him. “I’m on it.” Then I thought of a way to get what I needed. “Maybe your mission had something to do with the disappearance of that cadet, Jun . . . ?”

  “I don’t think—” Without finishing his sentence, he vanished.

  I looked around frantically. “Wait! What were you going to say?”

  An officer was looming above me. She cleared her throat. She did not look impressed.

  I snapped to and saluted, but it was too late.

  “Lost in a daydream, Cadet?” the officer asked, scowling. “Weren’t you the one who was cleaning the bathroom earlier? Perhaps you need to stick to that until you figure things out.”

  I suppressed a sigh just in time and instead said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Each time I cleaned the toilets, I got a little faster. I had to, as a defensive measure. As soon as I finished, I headed back to the barracks and straight for an unoccupied workstation. One of the other cadets was lying in his bunk reading an old-fashioned book made out of real paper. I was dying to know what it was about, but I didn’t want to draw his attention. In any case, he didn’t look up as I passed him.

  A holographic data screen appeared in front of me as soon as I sat down. Just when I was starting to worry about how to gain access to the system, the handbook popped up. I guessed they wanted it to be easily accessible to the cadets so they wouldn’t forget the rules. I skimmed it as quickly I could, hoping some of the information would stick. One part of the code of conduct leaped out at me: Anyone caught impersonating a Space Forces cadet or officer will face court-martial and, if found guilty, imprisonment or capital punishment.

  Welp. I can’t let them catch me at this! I thought. I’d better study hard.

  I was going over rank insignia, muttering under my breath as I tried to memorize them, when someone behind me said disapprovingly, “Shouldn’t you know all that by now?”

  I squeaked involuntarily. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

  Haneul chuckled. Maybe she had a sense of humor after all. “I didn’t know your voice could go that high!”

  If only you knew, I thought. “I just wanted to review a few things,” I said, hastily closing the handbook file.

  Sujin came up next to Haneul. “You haven’t been studying, have you?” they asked. “Isn’t it enough that we have classes all day? This is leisure time. You’re supposed to be doing something fun.”

  I wavered. I had so much to learn, but I was getting awfully tired. Surely a break wouldn’t hurt. “Any suggestions?” I asked.

  Sujin grinned slyly at me. “You could help me with another taste-testing.”

  Uh-oh. If this was a regular occurrence, it would look fishy to turn them down. “Why?” I asked, stalling for time. “What do you have in mind this time?”

  “It can’t be any worse than the last concoction,” Haneul said to Sujin. “I don’t know what possessed you to combine spinach with plum tea!”

  I made a sour face just thinking of it. “Maybe something that doesn’t have spinach in it?” I suggested.

  “Aww, you’re no fun,” Sujin said. “You’re not willing to taste my cinnamon-spinach-egg masterpiece?”

  “Um . . .” I looked pleadingly at Haneul.

  She crossed her arms. “You’re going to have to get out of this one yourself, Jang.”

  “C’mon,” Sujin said. They produced their spork and waved it right under my nose.

  The spicy fragrance of cinnamon mingled with the smell of sodden spinach and fried eggs wafted from the spork. I gagged and leaned away. “Uh, I’m not so sure. . . .”

  Sujin withdrew the spork, smiling even more broadly. Haneul’s eyes twinkled. I realized they were both teasing me. On an impulse, I stuck out my tongue at them, and we all dissolved into giggles.

  After dinner, when I got another moment to myself, I went through Jang’s personal effects for clues about his family and friends. Jang materialized and looked on, his eyes dark and sad. He came from a large family on one of the more important space stations. I found a digital photo frame that cycled t
hrough pictures of smiling people in formal clothes, each person helpfully tagged. I memorized their faces. It had to be a wealthy family, if they could afford professional portraits.

  “You must miss them,” I said, tilting the frame so Jang could get a good view of the pics.

  As a ghost, he was trapped between the world of the living and the world of the dead, unable to visit loved ones in either realm. Most ghosts were bound near the site of whatever had felled them, although I wasn’t sure how that worked when he’d died in space. Before he could move on to his eternal rest, he needed to know what had happened to him.

  Jang reached out with insubstantial fingers. They passed through the frame, and he grimaced. “I knew I was signing on for a long tour, but I don’t want it to be eternal.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said inadequately. I felt bad for ever thinking of him as a distraction.

  He drew himself up, and the chilly breeze that always accompanied him swirled by me in a rush. “Just find out more about who killed me.” He gave the photo frame one last look, then vanished.

  The next day, I was back to scrubbing toilets again. I’d failed morning inspection for not making my bed properly. I was getting the distinct impression that Lieutenant Ju-Won didn’t like me.

  At least I had a helper this time: Sujin. The goblin had gotten caught fiddling with the seasonings in the galley. As Sujin had put it, “The officers don’t appreciate experimental chemistry.”

  The chore seemed a lot less tedious when there was someone to talk to. “Tell me, Sujin,” I said as I stretched my aching back, “why is it that on one of the Space Forces’ most modern battle cruisers, as Hyosu is so proud of pointing out, we have to scrub things by hand, instead of relying on robots to do the job?”

  “Don’t you know?” Sujin asked sarcastically. “It’s supposed to ‘build our character.’ ”

  “How does becoming intimately familiar with the restroom make me a better person?”

  “It’s a process,” Sujin said. “Work hard, and maybe someday you’ll graduate to scrubbing a different part of the ship. Then you can become intimately familiar with that instead.”

  “Do I dare to dream that big?” I asked with a sigh, and we both laughed.

  After a brief silence, Sujin said, “You haven’t talked about it at all.”

  I had to keep from wrinkling my nose at the smell of their worry.

  “Talked about what?”

  “The attack.”

  My stomach twisted. All this time I’d been so preoccupied with trying to impersonate the Jang everyone knew, I’d never stopped to consider how the experience on the Red Azalea would have affected him if he’d survived. I’d been trying to act normal, to fit in. I hadn’t wanted to seem like a coward, or to draw attention to myself. But now it looked like that plan might have backfired.

  While I didn’t know anything about what Jang had experienced in his final moments, I did remember how afraid I’d been when the mercenaries came for Byung-Ho and me. “I was sure it was going to be the end,” I said with perfect honesty. “I try not to think about it.”

  “If you ever do want to talk—”

  I made myself smile at Sujin. I was tempted to reach out and squeeze their hand in thanks, but I’d learned from observation that people in the Space Forces didn’t casually touch each other. “I’m fine, really.”

  “That’s good,” Sujin said, although they didn’t sound entirely convinced.

  Now for the tricky part. It was finally time for me to test our friendship. I nudged Sujin with a bit of Charm and asked, “Did anyone ever find out anything about that cadet who took off with his friends? You know—Jun?”

  Once again, my timing was bad. The restroom door opened behind me, and Sujin scrambled to their feet. The goblin jabbed me in the ribs, then snapped a salute. “Captain Hwan!”

  Hwan? Where had I heard that name before?

  I turned to see a tall, bearded man with amber eyes regarding us with a frown. I saluted, too, gulped, and tried to keep the panic off my face. The ship was so big, and I was so lowly, I never thought I’d run into the captain. Yet I had—in the restroom no less—and I was impersonating one of his cadets.

  And something else was putting my nerves on edge. He smelled supernatural. Specifically, I detected the prickly scent of . . . tiger.

  Then I remembered. One of the guards back in the Market District had mentioned a tiger captain. This was him!

  “Cadets,” Captain Hwan said. His voice was low and rumbling with a hint of a growl in it.

  I straightened in spite of myself, wishing I hadn’t caught a glimpse of his teeth as he spoke. They didn’t look sharp, which surprised me, but they were unnaturally perfect and white. Like most other supernaturals, tiger spirits could assume human form whenever they wanted to. They sometimes adopted the guise when they were hunting, to fool their prey. But they couldn’t shift into other things the way foxes could.

  Captain Hwan fixed me with his stare. “How have you been feeling, Cadet Jang? Lieutenant Ju-Won informs me you’ve been distracted lately.”

  Oh no. I’d performed so poorly that I’d come to the captain’s attention. If he figured out I was a fox in disguise, I’d be in real trouble. And I knew better than to use any additional Charm around a tiger. Given his predator senses, it would be a dangerous proposition.

  “I’ll work harder, sir,” I said, hating the way my voice trembled.

  His brows drew down. Next to me, Sujin held very still. “Cadet Jang,” Hwan said, “what do you think serving in the Space Forces is about?”

  “Protecting the Thousand Worlds,” I said. Not an original answer, but a safe one.

  Hwan smiled wryly, as if he could read my thoughts. “That’s one of our functions. We spend most of our time defending our territory against the Jeweled Worlds. But we are also tasked with keeping the peace within our own worlds.”

  I nodded, not sure what he wanted me to say next.

  “Sometimes local rulers seek to grab power,” he went on. “They rarely do so openly, of course. Even the rashest members of the Dragon Council or the Pearled Halls know better than to risk getting caught if they want to play such games.” He leaned closer and pointed a finger near my chest. “There are plenty of mercenaries, though, who will carry out raids for anyone who can pay them. Haven’t you wondered why we were patrolling this area when we came across the rascals who wounded you?”

  An odd chilly dizziness gripped me. “Listen closely,” Jang’s voice whispered in my ear.

  Neither Hwan or Sujin showed signs that they’d heard the ghost. If only I had Jang’s memories, I could respond to the captain with more confidence. Charm didn’t work that way, though.

  Cautiously, I said, “I figured mercenaries were looking for easy prey with that unlucky freighter, sir.”

  “There has been a lot of mercenary activity lately,” Hwan acknowledged. “And the raids are becoming bolder. Those pirates knew we were in the area and yet they still went after the Red Azalea.” His mouth compressed as his eyes bored into me. “They’re looking for something specific, and they’re getting desperate. They seek the Dragon Pearl. It’s important that we keep it out of their hands.”

  The Dragon Pearl. A snippet of the investigator’s conversation with Mom came back to me: According to his captain’s report, your son left to go in search of the Dragon Pearl.

  Hwan was that captain. He knew when my brother had gone missing, and he thought he knew why. I was getting so close to finding out the truth!

  I couldn’t speak without the captain’s permission, so I just nodded again to indicate Jang’s understanding. If I wanted Hwan to trust me, I had to convince him that I remained a reliable member of the crew, despite my screwups.

  “At least it doesn’t seem that the Pearl has been found yet—the Space Forces’ shamans would have detected its reappearance,” the captain said, continuing to look at me to gauge my reaction.

  I wondered why the captain was telling me all thi
s. Had he known Jang well? As for Sujin, they were still frozen in place.

  Then I realized what was going on. Hwan was concerned that Jang had been shaken up by his encounter with the mercs.

  “The pirates who attacked that freighter might have been able to tell us more, but unfortunately, none of them survived our skirmish,” Hwan said. “Sooner or later we’ll capture someone and force them to tell us what they know. In the meantime, I’m hoping to get intel from the sole survivor of the freighter’s crew.”

  My breath caught. By sole survivor, he meant Byung-Ho. The girl, “Bora,” was dead. Even though I’d wanted everyone to think that, hearing him confirm it made me feel odd. Thankfully, it didn’t sound like the captain thought Byung-Ho was going to die. I hoped my pilot friend would wake from his healing sleep soon.

  I was allowing myself to get distracted. I hated taking the risk, but I had to ask, and Hwan seemed to be in a talking mood. “Permission to speak, sir?” I ventured.

  “Yes, Cadet?”

  “Sir, does any of this relate to the cadet who vanished with his comrades? Cadet Jun?”

  His eyes turned to slits, and I knew I’d made a mistake. “Have you been listening to gossip, Cadet?”

  “I’m worried about him,” I said.

  Beside me, Sujin groaned slightly.

  “The whole group of them went AWOL,” Hwan said curtly. “It’s none of your affair.”

  I gulped. “Yes, sir,” I said hastily.

  Something was wrong. When I’d mentioned Jun’s name, I’d caught the distinct stink of alarm. Hwan was definitely hiding something.

  “Carry on with your duties, Cadets,” Hwan said, and he moved on, leaving me wondering how a mere cadet could get information out of their captain.

  “Whew,” Sujin said once the captain was out of earshot. “I’m glad he didn’t detain us for long. You should have known better than to bring up the deserters, though. Captain Hwan’s been furious about them ever since they vanished.”

  “You’re right,” I conceded. “That was stupid of me.”

  “Why do you care about Jun, anyway?” Sujin asked.