Chapter Eight

Riston

Terra-Sol date 3814.251

Riston stared at the chat program on the screen and told zirself ze wasn’t pining. Ze was simply staying alert in a time of potential crisis. It was a lie ze didn’t believe even as ze said it. Staring at this window was beyond pathetic because the program was set to self-delete conversations within five minutes of the messages being read. Ze didn’t even have past conversations to scroll through; ze was staring at a blank screen. Some kind of communication had to be coming, though, especially after Cira had dumped all that information on them yesterday.

When she had explained the folder in her personal archives she’d shared with Riston’s false account, Riston set an alert on it. Every time a current file updated or a new one appeared, zir tablet pinged with a bass bell. Most weeks, it rang once. Riston’s heart had jolted uncomfortably hard when it chimed for the thirteenth time in several hours.

The first batch had been files, data sets, sensor logs, and investigation reports. Ze’d immediately read through them. Without a note from Cira, though, ze wasn’t sure if she was simply keeping zem in the loop or if ze was supposed to be looking for something specific. The information was interesting, but there was too much of it and too much context ze didn’t know, which made it impossible to draw any useful conclusions.

Then another bass alert rang. Riston’s breath caught when ze read the notification in the command bar at the top of the screen. A video message from Cira had been saved to the folder.

She’d never left a message here before because the file type created an easier to follow digital trail. Breaking her own rule now could mean a lot of things. Few of them were good.

Automatically, the system had pulled a still frame from the video to help identify it visually. It was Cira, her hands folded on top of her desk and expression serious. Still in her uniform, she looked like a diplomat delivering a public address. She’d pulled her hair back tight against her scalp, and the lighting turned the mercury color of the strands to a more white-gray, making her look cycles older. It was like staring at a stranger, and Riston could already feel zir hands trembling.

Maybe this was a follow-up to the immense amount of data she’d given zem access to? Ze wanted to believe that, but the only thing that’d gone right since they left Mitu Station was the gift the others found for Cira. Everything else had been in an out-of-control acceleration since then, one doomed to end with them smashed to shards and embers. Ze wasn’t optimistic enough to think zir luck was about to change now.

Lips pressed thin, Riston gathered what courage ze had left and pressed play. On screen, Cira took a long breath and exhaled in one burst.

“Look at these.” Her words were clipped and her gestures sharp. Then abbreviated views of three security reports took over the display, each filed mere days apart.

Zir stomach rolled when ze read what Cira had highlighted in the first report. The nausea only got worse on the next. And the next. Missing food and water, missing clothes, missing tools, and an unrecognizably angry Cira.

This is what the end looks like. Riston’s eyes burned and zir fingers twitched toward the controls that would stop the playback, but ze sat frozen, watching doom unfold like the slow bloom of an explosion in the vacuum of space.

Cira reappeared, and it was as though rereading the reports had pissed her off all over again. The muscles in her jaw jumped and her hands were folded together so tightly it seemed like her cybernetic fingers had to be leaving bruises on her other hand. Her eyes, though. Riston felt like Cira’s eyes had become targeting lasers and ze was an enemy ship.

“Why? For cycles, you all have trusted me to provide what you needed. Why the hell would you choose to steal from us just as the entire quadrant starts to lose its damn mind?” Something new flashed in her brown eyes, something like hurt, but she looked down before ze could be sure. Ze couldn’t bring zirself to reverse the recording. Ze didn’t think ze truly wanted to know when ze was already stinging from the accusations raining down on zem like blows.

Her hands twitched when she raised her chin to glare at the camera once again, but whatever gesture she’d been about to make stopped before it started. “Everyone on board is under orders to report suspicious or unusual activity to the command crew—anything at all—so when this came, I had to pass it up the chain to Captain Antares.”

Always Captain Antares, some detached part of Riston’s mind noted. When she mentions her family to me, it’s always Captain, never Mom. Maybe because Cira knew “Mom” wouldn’t be able to protect her if Riston was ever caught. They’d both be dealing with “Captain.”

“So far, orders to search the ship haven’t come down yet, but I’m expecting it at any second. Erase yourselves from this ship. You must become ghosts before the entire crew goes crawling through the maintenance shafts, looking for you. This is the only warning you’ll get.”

Riston’s eyes filled with tears, zir chest felt like it was cracking, and zir fingers ached from how tightly ze held the tablet.

“As soon as we’re docked at Datax, it’s time for you to find your own way from here. Assuming none of you gets caught.” The warning in her tone implied the additional you had better not get caught. “You already have clean IDs, and I’ll make sure all of you have as many credits as I can spare right now, but you’ve crossed the line. There is no second chance.”

And there it was. Ze’d become an asteroid in the path of a comet, doomed to annihilation from an impact ze couldn’t do a thing to stop. Ze couldn’t even close zir eyes to block out the sight of zir incoming death.

Cira took a deep breath and looked down before her eyes refocused on the camera. On Riston. “I never wanted it to come to this. You shouldn’t have made me choose.”

But I didn’t do anything wrong! The protest rose in zir mind, slamming into the walls of zir skull like a prisoner wrongfully accused and left to rot. Even if ze could force zir mouth to make words, though, it wouldn’t matter. Cira wouldn’t hear them.

The recording ended. The screen went dark except for four off-white words in the center:

Replay or close file?

Zir stomach turned at the thought of watching again. Eventually, ze would have to suffer through it a second time when ze showed it to the others—unlike the chat program, files dropped into Cira’s shared folder didn’t vanish once ze’d seen them—but there was no way ze could handle it now. When ze ordered the tablet to close the file, zir voice cracked. Bile rose in zir throat and tears spilled down zir cheeks. Dropping the tablet, ze swiped harshly at zir face, barely feeling the rough weave of zir fingerless gloves. It didn’t stop the tears. It didn’t stop the tornado of thoughts swirling in zir head.

Time was precious and passing too quickly now, the countdown to their arrival on Datax already running, but it was too much. Riston’s entire world had collapsed and rebuilt itself into something unrecognizable in the space of a three-minute, forty-six-second video. Finding footing after the fallout was too hard. Small, tangential details snagged zir attention and held it, because it was less painful to wonder why Cira had been wearing her hair pulled back so tightly when it usually flowed down around her face to brush her shoulders, and how many of the people ze had almost been able to call friends still roamed the halls of Datax Station.

Datax, of all places in the quadrant. The thought of that particular cruelty almost made zem break into hysterical laughter; the ship that had been zir salvation was about to unceremoniously drop them exactly back where it had all started. Maybe it had been fate more than carelessness that had made zem run into Minya on Mitu Station after all—maybe the universe itself had been trying to warn zem the past was coming back to suck zem into its depths.

It took too long for something close to rational thought to return. Rewatching the message was still too much to consider, but it wasn’t like ze’d forgotten anything she’d said. Those four minutes would probably be burned into zir brain for decades. For the first time, though, ze actually began to think about her allegations with more than a gut denial.

No matter how much it had felt like stealing sometimes, stars knew ze hadn’t taken anything that Cira hadn’t freely given, but what if she was right and one of the others got scared and desperate enough to steal?

Worse, what if she was wrong and zir family was utterly innocent of the crime that was about to rip them away from their home?

And what the hell could ze do about any of it now?

Not for the first time, Riston wished for a faster way to call zir found family together. No one had been lingering in the junction when Riston arrived, and it had taken more than an hour for Shadow, Treble, and Tink to show up. Although the girls talked quietly while they waited for Greenie, Riston stayed silent, sitting in a corner with zir feet planted on the floor and knees close to zir chest. Ze didn’t even meet the others’ eyes after they arrived, focusing instead on the tablet resting against zir thighs and the still frame of Cira glaring up from the screen.

I’m sorry, ze thought, stroking the corner of the tablet. I wasn’t trying to back you into a corner. I never wanted this. I’ll do anything it takes to make this better.

It was going to hurt, though. No matter what happened next, ze was sure it would hurt.

Greenie dropped the last few meters from the ladder with a soft thud, and when Riston looked up at him, the kid was smiling. The expression faded into wariness after he got a look at Riston, and he sat down slowly, the motion as tense and cautious as someone trying not to spook a wild, cornered animal.

Around them, the girls’ conversation faded, and Shadow sat up straighter, his dark eyes flicking from face to face. Riston needed to explain, but ze didn’t want to. Ze also didn’t want to believe zir family would do this to Novis or to zem or to themselves.

Ze opened his mouth to begin…

…and closed it again without saying a word. Zir thoughts were a jumbled mass and emotion clogged zir throat, so ze stopped trying to force words out. Cira had already said everything they needed to hear.

Turning the tablet around to rest on zir knees with the screen facing them, ze verbally ordered the device to play the file. The others tapped twice behind their ears to activate their inner-aural comm, and they all moved closer when the files flashed across the small display.

“What?” Treble cried.

Greenie and Tink both shushed her, intently focused on the video. Riston closed zir eyes and wished ze could close zir ears as easily. Listening to this the first time had been bad enough.

When it ended, Riston gripped the sides of the tablet to keep from shoving the device away like it was contaminated. It’d be a useless gesture, and ze needed the damn thing. It was the only connection ze had to Cira and the ship, and even this lifeline could vanish if Cira took away zir access to Novis’s system. Then, the tablet would only be useful as parts for Tink to play with; it certainly wouldn’t do zem any good.

Steeling zirself—and hoping ze didn’t start crying again—Riston looked at the others. Shadow’s face was blank. Greenie and Tink looked terrified. Treble seemed pissed.

“You know it wasn’t us, Zazi.” Shadow broke the silence. Shock wiped the expressions from everyone’s faces as all attention target-locked on him. He glanced at the other three once, but then his gaze didn’t stray from Riston.

“Do I know that?” Riston asked as though it wasn’t a once-a-cycle occurrence to hear Shadow’s soft, tenor voice, and even though ze both hoped and believed Shadow was right.

“Don’t you dare,” Treble hissed before Shadow could answer. “We love this place as much as you do, so don’t you dare insinuate we’d risk it like this. Last lecture, sure. Fine. You were way too harsh, but I get it. We’re supposed to be ghosts, not passengers. No interacting with anything or anyone ever. Fine. But theft? Fuck you if you think we’d steal from our home.”

Even as Riston flinched at Treble’s words, ze relaxed. She was right. But… Tension crept into zir shoulders again as the real reality of being right sank in.

Crimes weren’t unheard of on Pax ships, but they weren’t common. Culprits tended to be either new citizens who hadn’t yet adapted to life within the PSSC or someone under severe emotional stress. Sometimes, the limited space of a ship became too confining even for people who’d been born on one. It had broken more than one soul in the centuries humanity has been exploring—and fighting over—the Milky Way. He doubted either of those situations explained Novis’s missing items. It didn’t fit, but it would make sense for a stowaway to take. But if zir family wasn’t responsible, someone else was.

Riston pressed the heels of zir hands into zir eyes, stress-induced exhaustion making it hard to think straight anymore. “You all realize the only other explanation, right? Please tell me I’m not the only one thinking this.”

There was a heavy silence. Then Tinker cleared her throat. “You’re not the only one. I’ve been thinking it for a while.”

“Why?” Riston dropped zir hands and looked at her. What had ze missed?

“The power problems in engineering,” she said quietly. “It’s flattering you and Cira blamed me for the tampering, honestly. I wish I could take credit for the solution because it’s beautiful, but I didn’t create it.”

“How do you know it’s beautiful, then?” Riston asked, already guessing her answer.

A flush rose on Tinker’s beige cheeks. “I logged in and dug through the system until I found the patch.” Then her shoulders squared, and her chin came up. “If I was going to be held responsible for something, I wanted to know what it was.”

“That was a dangerous risk, Tink,” Riston warned half-heartedly. They had so many other problems to deal with. “If someone had caught you poking around, it would’ve been bad.”

“No one has ever caught me in any system.” Her tone was defiant, but she didn’t meet zir eyes. She’d known the risk and done it anyway. Given the situation, Riston couldn’t even be mad. Ze probably would’ve done the same thing.

“Do you have theories?” Riston asked.

“About who did it?” Uncertainty threaded through Tink’s voice. “No. The few people I would’ve thought were responsible aren’t, so all I know is that whoever did it is an expert. The kind of expert who invents tech and programs everyone else ends up starting a new war over.”

“There’s a cheerful thought,” Greenie muttered. “Aren’t there enough wars already?”

From what Riston had read, seen, heard, and barely survived, no. There was never enough war, enough control, enough power, or enough credits. Sometimes humanity seemed less mammal and more like a black hole for vices—there was always room for more.

Treble took a long breath and exhaled just as slowly. Anger still smoldered in her eyes like the glow of a core reactor, but when she spoke her words were calm and even. “So, we didn’t do anything wrong, but Cira thinks we did because someone is responsible—someone clever enough to impress both Tink and Novis’s chief engineer—and we all agree it’s unlikely to be an officially recognized member of the crew. Is that the shape of this mess?”

“Seems like.” Pressure was building in Riston’s head, and ze could feel a headache of epic proportions closing in.

“What do we do?” Greenie hesitantly asked.

It was a reasonable question. Riston didn’t have an answer.

If they did nothing, they’d be blamed and thrown off the ship, maybe at Datax and maybe straight out an air lock without a vac suit if Captain Antares found them first.

If they hunted the real culprit down, they’d have to leave the tunnels they knew well and had made safe for themselves and work especially hard to keep their presence hidden while thrusting the criminal out of the shadows. It was still likely they’d be caught and exiled from the ship, although there’d at least be a chance the captain would lock them up for trial instead of simply venting them off her ship.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It was a phrase so old not even historians were entirely sure where it had originated. Time hadn’t changed the truth in the words, though.

The deciding factor was Pax Novis and Cira. Ze was likely damned either way, but one of the two options meant protecting Cira and Novis’s crew. Someone—or some group, more likely—had targeted Pax ships and was trying to take them out. And their plan was working. The consequences of that, though, couldn’t be allowed.

Added up into one lump sum, Riston had spent weeks thinking about what might happen to the PSSC if the balance of power within the systems changed or if the statistically improbable happened and the war truly ended. What ze had never thought about or even considered was what might happen to the systems if the PSSC ceased to exist. Of course ze hadn’t. Why waste time worrying about something when it seemed like the odds were so long that the reality of it might as well be impossible? Now, though, the consequences unfurled like the shock waves of an explosion in Riston’s mind.

Before the destruction of Ladadhi, there had been times when the planet had only survived because of the seeds, the supplies, and the sustenance Pax ships had managed to safely carry through the war zones. In fact, Riston doubted there was a single occupied station, moon, or planet in the quadrant that hadn’t been saved from starvation, sickness, or ruin at one point or another by the mercies carried by Pax ships. If those ships vanished, there’d be no one left to come to anyone’s rescue.

But although all that was true, the decision was also much simpler. If there was a choice between zem and Cira, well, ze knew which side would always win. Yes, ze owed Cira for everything she’d done for him and for the dozen or so other children she’d helped save, but if ze was being honest, it had stopped being about debt a long time ago. Ze loved Cira Antares too much to let her come to harm if ze could do something to prevent it.

“Who’s up for going hunting?” Riston asked.

All four stowaways raised their hands.