26“AS I SAID THE FIRST TIME, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this stabilizer.”

From the other side of the desk in H8’s small office area, I frown at the equipment officer in consternation. “Sir, maybe not on the outside, but did you check the inside? I swear I heard something rattle in there when I dropped it.”

“I assure you I did a thorough check. The stabilizer is in perfect condition,” she repeats, an edge of impatience in her voice.

“So there was nothing . . . odd about the stabilizer when you examined it?”

“Odd? In what way?”

Unable to think of any response to that question that won’t eventually end with me in a court-martial, I settle for a you-got-me shrug.

She arches an eyebrow as if to imply the only odd thing she sees around here is me and replies, “Trust me, it’s a simple device. If there were anything broken or ‘odd’ about it, I would have detected it.” When I continue to stand there dumbly, her face softens slightly. “We’re all under a lot of stress, ATL. I’m sure whatever sound you heard was just an echo from elsewhere in the bay. Please return to your duties. I’ll just put this away for you, shall I?”

“No!” The objection jolts out of me before I can hold it back. “That is, what I mean to say is, no need, sir. I’ve already wasted enough of your time. No sense wasting any more when I already know exactly where it goes.”

Straight out an airlock!

I extend a hand, and after a sharp look, she passes the stabilizer back. With a nod, I pivot on my heel and walk briskly away—before she can change her mind and decide I’m not merely stressed, but batslag crazy. Which I’m not entirely convinced I’m not. After weeks of worrying over chip numbers and wading through junk, I’ve finally discovered the saboteur’s next target . . . only to discover they never actually sabotaged it. Of all the twists and turns in this whole affair, this one is easily the most bizarre.

At my first opportunity, I slip the stabilizer into a carton of supplies bound for H7 and take it straight out the door. Back in my small ATL quarters, I pull it out again and try to figure out what to do. Clearly my plan to take it to Asriel, along with the chips, is out. After all, what does a perfectly sound stabilizer prove? Nothing. I’m just glad I decided to get another opinion before taking it to the DC. I would’ve looked like a total glitch bringing him a “sabotaged” stabilizer that was anything but. It would have been the laser cutter all over again. Which leads me to the real question: Why hasn’t it been tampered with?

The saboteur must have handled the stabilizer, or I wouldn’t have found the chip inside. However, what kind of saboteur doesn’t actually sabotage the equipment? The only explanation I can think of is that whoever it is must have been interrupted before they could finish the job. In that case, maybe I could use the device to set some sort of trap for them? Only, no. With so much traffic going in and out of H8, it would be impossible to monitor a single stabilizer. Besides, who’s to say they’ll try again with the same part? I consider the issue further and finally shake my head. Maybe I can’t determine what the saboteur’s up to or even who they are, but perhaps I can determine who they aren’t.

A quick search through the inventory database shows the stabilizer was part of a shipment delivered directly to H8 seven days ago, which means anyone who didn’t have access to the habitat during that time couldn’t be the saboteur. Using my newly acquired ATL clearance, I immediately start pulling training and work schedules for everyone in the Testing Division. Despite the upcoming mission, Angelou’s natural paranoia is still in full effect, so access to H8 is being granted on a day-to-day basis only. Simply put, if a specialist didn’t have a work assignment in H8 for the day, they didn’t have access to the habitat.

With so many new specialists, it takes me nearly an hour to go through the schedules, but my hard work pays off. From my list of twenty-five, almost a third have been crossed off by the time I’ve finished. I review the remaining names, heart sinking as I see who’s left. Ty, Archer, and RC. Songbird, Annah, and Evangeline. Chen, Xian, and even Asriel, among others. Almost everyone I’ve worked closely with since coming to R&D. In fact, the only former Delta I’m able to cross off is Zephyr. No big surprise there. As the best zero-g expert in R&D, he’s been running teams through ZG drills on OP EQ-5 almost nonstop since preparations began. It would be ludicrous to put him on supply duty when he’s so much more valuable in the vacuum.

So now I’m down to seventeen names. Seventeen suspects is hardly a blinking X on a treasure map, but it’s sure a hell of a lot better than thirty-one. With nothing more to be done for now, I’m about to close the list when my eyes go back to those four starred names: Ty. Archer. RC. Chen. The four people with me on Nomia where we were almost stranded. It doesn’t escape my notice that even after all the suspects I’ve managed to eliminate, all four are still on my list. Is that mere coincidence, or is there a reason for that? I have no idea.

With a sigh, I de-ac my chit. My investigations into the stabilizer are getting me nowhere. Even the metallic chip I found inside it, with its lone serial number, yields nothing when I run it through the database. If that number corresponds to yet another piece in this wild goose chase, it’s not on the station. At least, not yet.

A buzz from my chit followed by a link from Archer puts an end to any further postulation on the subject, at least for now. With training in ten, I hide the stabilizer in the hygiene unit vent until I can decide what to do with it. Then, with a quick text to Archer, I’m on my way. It’s only as I’m stepping into the main training room in H7 that the strangest part of the whole thing suddenly hits me. The stabilizer arrived less than a week ago, and yet I found the chip with the stabilizer’s serial number on it over a month earlier.

So how in the universe did the saboteur have a serial number for a part that wasn’t even on the station yet?

The extender panel flies through the vacuum toward me, flipping end over end like a giant throwing star aimed directly at my head. No time to run, I de-mag my boots and push off from the platform. The panel whistles past a hairsbreadth from my ear to smash into the generator dish with a noiseless crunch. Broken bits spew from the dish as the panel bounces off the platform and back out into space, flipping and rolling through the void with reckless abandon. Everyone scatters, jetting up or down as they attempt to dodge missiles large and small. By the time anyone thinks to try and catch it, the panel is gone.

“All right, enough! Simulation’s over.” Archer waves his chit hand, and immediately the lights come back on, followed moments later by air and gravity.

I automatically reorient myself toward the floor as the returning gravity takes me down, landing catlike on my feet among my teammates. Most of the others land as easily, though Jos doesn’t quite manage to orient himself in time, flopping onto his stomach with a loud whumph that elicits a chorus of chuckles.

Archer, on the other hand, does not look amused. “Would anyone like to tell me what went wrong with that mission?”

“We lost the extender panel,” Kagawa volunteers after a minute.

“We broke the generator dish,” Jethro adds.

“We almost killed our ATL?” Raisman suggests.

There we go! I roll my eyes, mildly exasperated that my near-death only made third on the list.

We’ve spent the morning running simulations in preparation for the upcoming mission, but though we know the basic hardware modifications cold, doing them in ZG is turning out to be a different story. Though the lack of gravity is a godsend when dealing with the heavier pieces, the benefit is more than made up for by bulky suits, runaway equipment, and maneuvering errors. Along with my close shave with the panel, we’ve had two other near-accidents, and everyone is hot, sweaty, and thoroughly exhausted.

Archer doesn’t seem to notice, though, intent on getting the modifications 100% perfect. He reads us the riot act for a good twenty minutes, going over every single thing we did wrong. At last, I seize a moment to pull him aside.

“TL?” I say quietly with a nod to the time. “It’s been six hours. They need a break.”

Archer blinks, clearly surprised at how late it is. He looks stressed, as though the weight of the Expanse is on his shoulders, and I wonder if it’s just the pressure of the mission or something more personal weighing him down. Before I can inquire further, he nods.

“You’re right, Sorenson.” He rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Give them a lunch.”

“Yes, sir.”

I dismiss the team, catching more than a few grateful looks in the process, and then deactivate the training room. Briefly, I debate the merits of a shower versus a meal and go for the meal, jumping a slidewalk to the Central Habitat, where I head for the nearest mess. I’m taking a seat at a table in the corner when I hear:

“Sarai? Sarai Chen!”

In the next aisle over, Chen stops, arrested by the sound of her name. She searches the crowd, eyes widening as she catches sight of Hawkins, one of our new pilots, bounding toward her. I barely have time to murmur, What the . . . ? before Hawkins throws his arms around her in a giant bear hug.

I goggle at the pair, uncertain which surprises me more: Hawkins’ temerity in daring to hug the staid Chen or the fact that she actually seems to be hugging him back. When they finally separate, my astonishment only grows.

Chen is smiling.

In my entire time at R&D, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile. Not like this, with her eyes shining and teeth showing, words flying back and forth between her and Hawkins with an enthusiasm almost the polar opposite of her normally stoic demeanor. The transformation is nothing short of mind-boggling.

“My God, Hawkins! How did you . . . ? I mean, when did you get here?”

Hawkins shrugs. “They came to the Aces looking for pilots for a dangerous mission, so I thought, what the hell? Shipped out the next day and arrived on base a two-square ago.”

“I can’t believe you’re here!”

“You can’t believe I’m here? I almost died when I looked over and saw you standing there. God, how long has it been now? Thirteen, fourteen months?”

“Just about.” Chen nods, amazement and joy radiating from her face.

I’m so blown away by the remarkable change in her that it takes a second for their words to sink in. Thirteen or fourteen months? But Chen only arrived a couple of months before me, maybe seven or eight months ago. In our conversation, she’d made it sound like she’d transferred directly from the Aces to R&D. So where the hell was she for the six months in-between?

“The old team is going to spit stars when I tell them who I found here,” Hawkins continues. “Damn! Star Pilot First Class Sarai Chen, back from the dead.”

“Dead?” Chen’s smile drops from her eyes, the lights inside fading though her mouth never changes, and in that instant the real Chen is back. Or at least, the Chen I know. If Hawkins notices the change, he doesn’t indicate it.

“You know what I mean. No hmails, no links. It was like you dropped into a black hole.”

“Oh, that. Sorry, I just—”

“No, I get it,” Hawkins interrupts with a sidelong look around the habitat. “You’d moved on, you were part of something bigger. I didn’t get it then, but now that I’m here, now that I’m part of this place, I understand. You chose to do something greater, Sarai. No one can fault you for that.”

His words are nothing but complimentary, and yet if anything, Chen’s eyes only go graver. It’s a strange contrast, the serious eyes juxtaposed against the effervescent smile, as though two completely different versions of Chen, past and present, have been suddenly, abruptly thrown together, with neither version able to quite fit together with the other. Once again, I find myself wondering where she was in those six months between the Aces and R&D. What happened to wipe the radiant smile from her face?

Her conversation with Hawkins wraps up a minute later, the two sharing another quick embrace before splitting off in opposite directions. I watch Chen disappear across the Atrium and shake my head. Perhaps I’m reading something into nothing. As Gran always used to say: War changes us all. I, more than anyone, know how true that is.

Forking down my last few bites of Snap’n’Pesto, I bus my tray and head back to H7. The rest of the day brings more training, as well as an evening meeting with the other TLs and ATLs to brainstorm possible infiltration strategies for the upcoming mission. With many of the OPs infested with ghouls, squatters, or both, getting in to upload the software and then safely out again is the primary concern on everyone’s mind.

“It’s not the squatters that worry me so much as the ghouls,” Xian, Beta’s TL, says. “Trapped in an enclosed space on foot, with no vehicles and nowhere to run. We might as well just paint the words ‘ghoul bait’ on our foreheads and be done with it.”

“It’s too bad they never got those sound amplifiers figured out,” Ty comments. “Repelling ghouls with a few amplifiers would be a lot easier and more effective than using launchers.”

I frown, recalling the field of amplifiers we laid on Javeyn and never heard about again. “What ever happened with those anyway?”

Ty shrugs. “I asked Dr. Rahman about them a week ago, thinking they might be useful on the mission. He said they’d run multiple tests using the field we set up but that the results were—in his words—‘puzzling.’”

I raise one eyebrow. Puzzling? Whatever that means. Sometimes I think the good researchers of R&D are purposely obscure just to make themselves sound smarter. For now, I suppose we’ll have to make do with launchers and gas grenades.

A memory from my last day on New Sol Space Station pops into my head, and I stop, a smile slowly curling around my lips as I recall just how we forced the ghouls into the Central Hub, away from the people. Leaning in close, I clear my throat to grab everyone’s attention. “I have an idea.”

With all eyes on me, I explain my plan. Nervously at first—what if they think it’s completely deficient?—but encouraged by the nodding heads and thoughtful looks, I grow more confident with every word I say. When at last I finish and Asriel says, “We could do something with that,” I feel as exhilarated as if I had just finished a fifty-meter dash with a shiver of ghouls on my tail.

We continue conferencing for the next hour before finally breaking for the night. Exhausted after an endless day, I return to my quarters, ready for nothing so much as a good night’s sleep. It’s only when I grab my towel and walk into the hygiene unit that I realize my day isn’t done yet. Directly before me is the air vent, and still hidden away inside—

The stabilizer.

The soft vibration of my chit stirs through my palm, waking me from sleep. I flick my index finger to quiet it, blinking several times as my eyes adjust to the dim emergency lighting. I glance across the floor to my roommate. ’Vange lies atop the opposite bunk like a felled tree, arms flung out and chest heaving slowly in and out. Definitely asleep.

Rising from bed, I pull on a pair of trousers and slip into the adjoining hygiene unit. The stabilizer is exactly where I left it, hidden within the vent. I tuck it into my pants pocket, yanking my shirt down to cover the protruding cylinder. It blouses out in an obvious bulge, and I casually position my arm to block the shape as I make my way out of the room and into the corridor. My caution is unnecessary, though. The corridor is completely empty.

The nearest airlock lies in an alcove just off the main lounge. In theory, it’s a secured door that can only be opened with the authorization of the DC or other higher-up. In practice, it’s been the site of many a rookie hazing or drunk dare, and most anyone who’s been in the Testing Division for a few months knows how to open it without setting off any alarms. Including me.

The inner doors hiss open with a crisp puff, the cool air raising goosebumps along my bare arms and exposed neck. Through the clear crystal of the outer doors, the moonlit sky beckons, the curling mists awash in a silvery glaze, flickering and twisting up through the dark. I rest my forehead against the cool crystal and look out. In the dark of the night, with the whole station sleeping and the lilting silence echoing through the halls, I feel like my heart might split apart with loneliness.

Her presence, her poise; I never knew I was incomplete until she made me whole.

I close my eyes, Lia’s face hovering just out of reach in the facets of my mind. Then lifting my head, I push away from the crystal, breaking free from the siren song of night beyond the door and all she might offer. Grabbing the stabilizer, I toss it to the floor and step back into the station. Warm air surrounds me as the inner doors shut behind me, locking away the chill of the night. The stabilizer lolls on the floor just inside, cold and alone. For a moment, I just stare at that mysterious device and all it might represent.

Then with a twist of my wrist, I open the outer doors, depressurize the airlock, and send the stabilizer hurtling into space.

No doubt the energy shield around R&D will vaporize the stabilizer on contact, and if not, the ever-shifting bands of the planetary net lurking just below will do the job. And yet for some reason, when I finally go back to bed and close my eyes, I have the strangest dream:

That of the stabilizer soaring down through the darkened mists to land deep within the ghoul-ridden city waiting far below.