Chapter Thirteen

Riston

Terra-Sol date 3814.256

In the ship’s main corridors, two sets of lights flicked on or off in rotation: four hours of simple full-spectrum light, and four hours of sim-light to give the crew a dose of UV rays to help them stay healthy. It wasn’t anywhere close to a true cycle of day and night, but it was something.

Living in the belly of the ship didn’t even give Riston that much. Time became a strange construct without the rotation of a planet to judge by, and hours blurred into days blurred into weeks when ze wasn’t paying attention. Now, ze’d been awake for so long zir only sense of time came from the chronometer in the lowest corner of zir tablet.

It was nearly 2300 hours, close to the end of the third eight-hour shift Pax ships called their day, and ze’d been working for all of them. Riston felt every hour. Zir knees ached—ze could feel bruises forming under the skin, maybe as deep as the bone. The same on zir hands. Both shoulders and hips twinged when ze shifted in certain directions from too many hours spent contorted in unnatural positions. Ze was exhausted and wished for some of the mild painkillers Adrienn sometimes gave them. The stash had run out a couple of weeks ago after Treble’s days-long migraine. Then again, the unpredictable sparks of minor pain did help keep Riston awake now, so maybe it was for the best that ze didn’t have any reliable way to soothe zir hurts.

That didn’t mean ze could afford to let the aches get too bad. Standing to stretch, Riston got a better look at zir tablet. Ze had clamped it to the wall a while ago and left it open to the security program Tink had adapted. It displayed a simplified map of the ship that rotated through each of the thirteen decks one by one. Tiny dots identified Tinker’s sensors and cameras, and all of them were green. The moment any turned red, though, Riston would wake the others up and start making new plans. Installation had been finished about six hours earlier, and the others had promptly collapsed into a pile to sleep. Riston had taken first watch. It meant more than keeping an eye out for incoming danger. Now, it also meant keeping an eye on the vaguely hypnotic cycle of blueprints and the scattering of green dots spread across the decks. Ze’d been staring at it for so long now that ze was pretty sure ze’d dream about the color green when ze finally got a chance to sleep.

The green should’ve been a good sign, but it wasn’t. Riston was getting worried. At least one sensor was placed somewhere on every deck, yet none had been tripped. Was Ghost already in position for their endgame or had Riston been wrong about another presence sliding through the ship? Neither option was great, but they were better than the third: Ghost had seen them installing the sensor web and was smart enough to move without setting off a single one. The solution to the power glitch had impressed even Meida Dalil-Antares, a woman famous in certain circles for inventing a way to boost energy shielding on ships by 46 percent.

Whoever Ghost was, they were extremely intelligent. Obviously. Avoiding Tink’s web, though, went beyond that. It meant Ghost had either come on board with technology to make themselves nearly invisible to heat triggers, motion sensors, and full-spectrum cameras or they were a genius of notable proportions. People that smart weren’t usually able to disappear in a quadrant at war. They were recruited by companies or governments, and if they didn’t pick one, the choice was made for them. In some systems, kidnapping was essentially government-sanctioned conscription and more effort was put into hunting geniuses than criminals.

So, are these attacks government sanctioned? Did someone decide the best way to win the war was to take over the Pax fleet?

The thought ripped through Riston like a plasma blast. Ze barely kept from choking on air. Is that what was happening? A takeover might explain the missing ships. If saboteurs on board took out communications and then stole control of the ships, they might be able to make them “disappear.” Untraceable cloaking technology hadn’t yet been successfully developed, but that didn’t mean it was impossible.

Riston double-tapped the edge of the tablet to make the holographic menu icons pop up. A few swipes of the controls and ze was in the messaging program, a window open and waiting for text. Cira’s name filled the bar at the top, and in the corner was the official PSSC ID image every citizen retook on their birthdays. She was smiling in the snapshot, not a wide grin but a smirk that hinted at stifled laughter. Riston had seen this look on her face many times, and it was even more beautiful in person than the image could capture, but this wasn’t what she’d looked like the last time ze’d seen her. Then, her eyes had been lined with frustration and rage.

Ze stared at the blank, off-white screen and argued with zirself. Was it worth the risk to reach out to her? Although food had been left at the usual drop point on the usual day, she hadn’t communicated with zem since that last awful message or added any more files to their folder. She was essentially ignoring zem, and it seemed likely the next time ze saw her would be the day she booted zem off her ship. If ze even saw her in person then. Given everything, breaking their silence now with wild conspiracy theories about a military coup of the Pax fleet didn’t seem like a good idea. Zir lack of proof was enough to convince zem something more was going on. To Cira, it might be more evidence added to the pile she’d already gathered against zem.

Swallowing a frustrated groan, ze gripped the sides of zir black watch cap and pulled it down over zir eyes. It was that or tear zir hair out. Ze needed proof, not only to wipe her assumption of zir guilt away but to point her and the rest of Novis’s crew toward the real threat, and yet the biggest piece of evidence ze had was how well Ghost was living up to the name they’d assigned, floating through the ship like something incorporeal. What in the name of every Pax ship in the quadrant was ze supposed to do?

Unfortunately, the walls of their hiding place had no answers.

It took a few seconds to uncurl zir fingers from the fabric of zir hat and another few to force a slow, silent breath. Then ze tapped the tablet and switched back to Tinker’s program.

All the lights were still green. Because Pax Novis really had been invaded by a ghost.

Riston watched until it became a struggle to keep zir eyelids from drooping. It was past time to wake Shadow up for his turn to take over watch, and yet ze didn’t. Ze wouldn’t be able to sleep much anyway. Instead, ze named each deck as it appeared in the rotation on the screen. Deck four—power and shield. Deck five—engineering. Deck six—main bridge. Deck seven—hydroponics. On and on it went in an endless cycle of maps and dots until it began to blur before zir eyes and all ze could see were shifting green specks on an off-white background.

Then a black notification bar with white and red text rose up from the bottom left corner of the screen. Riston blinked, startled by the sudden change. By the time zir eyes refocused on details, the alert had vanished. Had it really been there? Ze hadn’t seen that icon in days. Ze hadn’t been sure ze’d ever see it again. Pulse quickening, Riston ran zir thumb along the bottom of the screen to bring the alert back up.

One new file has been saved to shared folder.

Zir hands trembled as ze brought up the folder. There, labeled with today’s date, was a new video file, but it wasn’t Cira looking up at him from the screen. It was Adrienn.

Riston’s heart lurched so hard it hurt. Despite the ache, ze made himself open the file.

“I’m sure you know this, but someone has found their way onto our ship.” Adrienn spoke clearly and calmly, but there were bruise-like shadows under zir eyes and ze radiated exhaustion. “Cira and I have been searching PSSC records. We started with Feris and Amitis, and then we checked the other three ships, too. Every ship had an uptick in stolen or misplaced items before the communications were cut off.”

Proof, Riston wanted to cheer. Finally, there’s proof we didn’t do anything wrong.

But it wasn’t so simple. They’d done wrong just by stepping foot on this ship. Every breath they took was stolen, every morsel they ate belonged to someone else, and every moment they weren’t caught for it all was a favor from the universe. Sure, Cira and Adrienn had given their permission, but permission hadn’t truly been theirs to give. All that added up, and it seemed like the bill was coming due. But at least Cira might listen to zem about the real threat now.

Wouldn’t she? Doubt hit as fast as relief had. If Cira knew ze wasn’t responsible for the thefts on Novis, why hadn’t she sent this message herself?

“Cira and I will be bringing this to the captain soon, but we wanted to warn you first. The ship is going to be crawling with armed personnel, every security measure will be active, and it’ll be difficult for us to leave the usual rations for you.” Adrienn glanced to the side and smirked, though the expression was strained. “Not that that’ll stop us, but delays might be unavoidable.”

As though that mattered. Riston had already assumed the food drops would become unpredictable or stop altogether. They’d been rationing their collective stores for days.

“The situation has gotten more unstable,” Adrienn said, zir expression becoming somber. “I don’t know what you’ve heard since Cira’s last ill-advised message—she’s sorry about that, by the way.”

There was a faint wordless noise in the background that sounded like Cira. Riston’s breath caught. She was there with Adrienn, even if she hadn’t stepped in view of the camera or spoken directly to Riston, she’d listened to every word and approved, if only by her silence.

“Three more ships have stopped communicating—Dignis, Portis, and Sanctis. Control swears alerts were sent as soon as each broken comm link was confirmed, but we never received them.” Adrienn cut another look to the side, then, with a soft sigh, ze focused back on the camera. “Cira and I are worried it’s a sign foreign fingers have already dug into our systems. We can’t be sure, though.”

Adrienn’s gaze dropped to the desk. Ze tapped the surface twice before tracing a shape with the tip of zir finger. The hesitation scared Riston. What was coming that could be worse than what had already been said?

“Amitis is gone. There’s no trace of them, and there’s still no trace of Feris.” Adrienn’s shoulders drooped before ze forced them back and zir head up. “The disappearance isn’t common knowledge, but it will be soon. Combine that with the growing silence consuming the fleet and it’s beyond enough to set even the most rational person on edge. Everyone on board was already growing paranoid. Now, I don’t know what’ll happen if one of the crew finds you. They’re terrified and angry. People lash out in easier situations than this, so… Just try to stay safe and stay out of sight, okay? All of you.”

Ze rubbed a hand over zir face, lingering for a moment to fiddle with the ring pierced through zir lip. “We’re not going to order you to leave, but I have to remind you it’s an option—and probably the best one. If we somehow keep you hidden until we hit a station, I think you need to seriously consider disembarking. Times are changing fast. PCCSs might not be as safe as they used to be. Taking your chances on a station might be better.”

Riston knew that, but it didn’t matter yet. There were more important problems to solve before that decision needed to be made.

Abruptly, Adrienn shifted sideways and another face filled the screen, strangely out of proportion. Riston stopped breathing.

Cira’s cybernetic hand was braced on the desk and her body leaned close to the camera, making her brown eyes look huge. “Riston, please be careful. You—” She pressed her lips into a thin line. “Just be careful. I don’t want any of you getting hurt because of whatever is coming for the fleet.”

And then she was gone, disappearing out of the camera’s range. Riston leaned in, a wordless protest escaping zir lips before ze could stop it. It took zem a second to remember one important detail—this wasn’t live. Nothing ze said could call her back, and that probably would’ve been true even if this had been a discussion rather than a recording.

A second later, Adrienn shook zir head and the video ended.

Riston had been sitting pillar-straight since the message began playing, but now ze collapsed against the wall, zir head spinning. Too many thoughts and ideas swirled through zir mind like a constellation of pulsars. In front of zem, the tablet was asking if ze wanted to replay. Ze did need to repeat the video, but not yet. With a twinge of regret—the kids really needed more sleep than they’d gotten—ze woke the others up and let them watch.

Ze looked at Tink once it was over. “Can you give Cira and Adrienn access to the sensor web so they can see what we’re seeing?”

She bit her lip. “Yes? But if I do that, a lot of the masking and encryption on my network will break. It’ll be easy for someone to crack the rest, and if they’re smart—”

“And how many of the Novis crew isn’t?” Greenie muttered.

“—they’ll probably figure out how to track us, too,” Tink finished.

Riston swallowed a bitter laugh. “If any of you think we’re coming out the other side of this without getting caught, you need to seriously reevaluate the situation we’re in.” It was why Adrienn’s hope of helping them escape in some distant future was so hard to consider—Riston couldn’t make zirself believe that day would come. “What you need to do now is decide if getting arrested by Pax security is worth trying to catch the ghost. If you don’t want to take the risk—and I won’t resent anyone who chooses safety—you’ll have to stay well hidden until we reach a station. Otherwise, go into this knowing we might get the same treatment as the saboteur if we get caught.”

“‘Justice is only as insightful as the judge controlling her, and only as forgiving as the laws restricting her.’” Shadow looked up, noticed them all staring, and shrugged. “It’s from a paper on the philosophy of law someone in Oweba published recently. It stuck with me.”

“Well, no matter how true that might be in Oweba, we’re too far from any system for justice to reach us,” Riston said. “All we have is what we’re willing to do to protect our home.”

“Anything.” Tink’s sweet, high-pitched voice rang with determination, and the expressions on the others’ faces matched what ze heard in her.

“Then link Cira and Adrienn into the program,” Riston said. “Everyone else, get some more rest if you can. We’re going to have to change tactics to catch Ghost, and we don’t need exhaustion tripping us up.”

They agreed, except Shadow, who argued Riston into calling it a night zirself and letting him take the next watch. Even though they all laid down, it was over an hour before anyone really settled. Greenie, Treble, and Tinker finally fell into a twitchy, agitated sleep, but it was even longer before Riston could keep zir own eyes closed for more than a few seconds.

When ze finally fell asleep, ze dreamed of chasing a red dot across a plane of glaringly bright green and never, ever catching up.

Riston sat up sharply, blinking sleep from zir eyes and trying to bring zir brain online. What had woken zem up? Nothing seemed out of place, there were no noises echoing through the corridors, and everyone was where ze’d last seen them. Treble, Greenie, and Tinker were asleep on the floor of the junction, and Shadow was—

Gone. The perch where Shadow had been waiting out his shift on watch was empty.

Heart lurching, Riston pushed to zir feet and clambered up the ladder. Maybe he’d simply moved deeper. Please, ze thought, let him still be here.

The narrow passage was cold, unlit, and empty.

Riston called Shadow’s name, quietly at first but louder with each unanswered repetition. Ze only stopped when a small hand pressed against zir calf.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Tink asked.

“He’s not here. He’s not—” Riston almost bit zir tongue when a sharp, insistent ping from zir tablet echoed through zir head. It was what had woken zem up, ze now remembered.

Shifting zir leg, ze nudged Tinker out of the way, let go of the step, and dropped a meter and a half back to the ground. Ze grabbed zir tablet off the wall and brought the alert up with a few swipes of zir trembling hands. The waiting message was from Shadow.

5IR-M3. SOS.

This is my fault. Don’t blame yourself. I’m sorry. I wanted to keep you all safe.

Riston’s heart dropped and fear gripped zir chest. The first message had been sent three minutes ago. The second didn’t make any sense. What was his fault? What had happened? Thrusting the tablet at Tinker, ze jammed zir hand into the highest inset ladder rung ze could reach and hauled zirself toward the shaft three meters above.

“What’s happening?” Fear rang in Tink’s voice.

“Nothing good.” Dread built in Riston’s gut, a depthless cold ze could barely breathe around. “I’m going to find Shadow. You all better damn well stay hidden until I come get you.”

“Riston!” Treble hissed, her demands for an explanation implicit.

Ze ignored her, not even looking back until ze was sitting on the ledge of the shaft. Three fearful faces looked up from below. “Shadow’s in trouble. I don’t know how bad it is or what I’ll have to do to get him out of it, so prepare for the worst. All I need you to do is keep yourselves safe until either I get back or you get off this ship.”

Then, without waiting for a reply, Riston left. Ze hoped it wasn’t for the last time, but that hope was microscopically small. The apology Shadow had sent sounded too much like a goodbye.

Riston felt as loud and heedless as a wrench clattering down a shaft, but ze couldn’t help it. Fear pushed zem faster even as caution slowed zem down. Still, Shadow was in trouble, and he’d only suffer more if Riston got caught before ze reached him. That was a mistake Riston would never forgive zirself for.

5IR-M3, Shadow had sent. Deck five, inboard, rear, maintenance shaft three. It was a full five decks below where they’d been sleeping tonight, and Riston was suddenly furious with zirself. Why had they hidden so far from everything? Picking the tunnels between decks ten and eleven in the middle of the port side extension was great for hiding—one of the least accessible sections of the ship—but getting anywhere else from there was tortuous. Even taking every shortcut ze could think of that kept to the ship’s hidden veins, Riston’s anxiety had reached an almost unbearable pitch by the time ze reached the central section of passages above deck five.

Riston repeated the directions in zir head continuously. Deck five, inboard, rear, maintenance shaft three. The directions were as specific as could be within the ship’s hidden labyrinth, but shaft three was empty. So was every offshoot Riston checked. No sign of life, no sign of confrontation, and no hints where anyone might’ve gone.

Pax Novis was massive. Thirteen levels and endless kilometers of passageways both on and between decks. Cargo holds, living quarters, storage closets, and several halls of offices all added extra hidey-holes for determined stowaways. Riston didn’t have time to search a tenth of the possible spots Shadow could’ve tucked himself away, so ze made zirself stop and think. He said shaft three. Shadow wouldn’t have gone far from shaft three if that’s what he sent.

Taking a deep breath, Riston turned around and went back. This time, ze crawled with deliberate care, placing each hand only after examining the floor beneath it. Between each half-pace forward, ze stopped and inspected the dull gray walls, the indentations surrounding each panel and piece of embedded electronics. Ze looked up, scrutinizing each centimeter of piping and paneling above. It took full minutes to traverse each meter this way, and the waste burned in zir lungs like acid. Only the need to find Shadow kept zem to it.

And then Riston saw it—a smudge barely visible in the tunnel’s dim light. It was nearly hidden in the ridged brace dividing shaft three from the opening of the offshoot running starboard. To Riston’s untrained eye, the mark almost looked like a fingerprint. In blood.

No. No, no, no, no.

Riston dove into the offshoot and crawled faster, zir eyes scanning for any more signs. Now that ze knew what to look for, they were easier to find. A dark droplet splashed between plates on the floor. A tiny smear between panels on one wall. There were more and more signs as ze moved farther starboard, and then they abruptly stopped. Ze moved another ten meters without seeing a single smudge, smear, or splatter, so ze backtracked to the last and stared at the double drop of blood at the point where floor met wall. He must’ve stopped here, but why? And where had he vanished to? There was nothing here.

“Shadow?” Although Riston wanted to yell, ze kept zir voice only just above a whisper. Ze knocked on several panels, desperately hoping for the echoey thud of a storage compartment. “I can’t help you if I can’t find you, kid, come on. Let me know where you are.”

The thud was so weak Riston would’ve dismissed it if ze hadn’t been listening for exactly that kind of noise. A meter away, what had looked like solid wall shuddered and began to open, and the faint light from the passage filled the black space.

Shadow was there, a bruise spreading across the side of his long face. The color was only now beginning to shift from red to purple, and blood dripped from the broad base of his nose. Worse, a blood-dark stain spreading across his stomach and down the left leg of his pants. Riston stared, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, sickened and terrified, and somehow only capable of thinking, How did he get himself in there without leaving more blood all over the corridor?

Even that stunned thought careened out of Riston’s head when Shadow tried to unfold from the cramped storage compartment and collapsed. Riston surged forward, barely getting there in time to keep Shadow from smashing his busted nose against the floor. Fear and deep, pain-tinged regret surged through Riston’s chest when the normally distant and forcefully independent boy wrapped his arms around Riston’s shoulders and clung.

“I’m s-sorry,” he murmured against Riston’s shoulder. “I caught a glimpse of G-ghost and I thought I could do it by myself. I th-thought I could. I’m sorry. I didn’t…” He looked down at his chest and laughed weakly. A spray of blood landed on his lips and chin, spots of deep red on his brown skin. “You t-told me to be careful. Should’ve listened. You’re always right, Zazi.”

“No. No. Don’t you dare start saying goodbye.” Riston gripped Shadow tighter, barely keeping zirself from shaking him.

“Everyone leaves s-sometime, and there’s no help for us here.” His hand clumsily landed on Riston’s shoulder. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. You can still save Cira and Pax Novis.”

Maybe. But Riston would be damned if ze didn’t save Shadow first.

Ze hoisted Shadow over zir shoulder, wincing at the cry of pain zir friend couldn’t stifle. The others were well hidden, and ze’d known the risks when ze came up here after Shadow. At least they were only one deck down from Adrienn and the med bay.

After all, what was freedom when measured against a friend’s life?