Chapter Twenty-Two

Cira

Terra-Sol date 3814.257

Cira looked up, staring in shock at the strips of illumination that had never failed in her lifetime. Emergency lights came up almost immediately, but their glow was tinted blue, giving everything a strange, almost ominous gleam.

“What happened?” Riston asked.

“Exactly what half the crew has been trying to prevent,” Cira muttered. “Ghost is messing with the systems. Trying to throw us off.”

“Or…” Tinker swallowed, her dark eyes jumping from one point of blue light to the next. “Or they’re drawing power from one system and diverting it somewhere else.”

Like a transdimensional drive. Fear shuddered through Cira, and she had to force herself to keep walking.

“Everyone move,” Meida barked. “We’re running out of time. We need to find this walking pile of shit before we end up on the other end of the galaxy.”

Riston grabbed Tinker’s—no, Mika’s hand and pulled her to the closest console. Before Cira followed her mother to the bridge, she saw a flash of the maps Mika had set up.

“Riston isn’t my anything, especially not my zefriend,” she insisted as soon as the door shut. The lights in the hall were out, too. The emergency lights barely illuminated the path ahead, and the blue lights cast strange and unfamiliar shadows on the hall and her mother’s face.

“But you want zem to be,” Meida murmured back.

Cira couldn’t deny the comment, but it wasn’t something she could dissect now, so she rolled her eyes. “Is now really the time for this conversation?”

Meida smiled, though the expression was strained. “You started it.”

“Mature.” Then Cira bit her lip. “I’m sorry I lied to you both. I just wanted to…”

“Save the children and change the quadrant,” Meida finished for her, stopping at the door to the security office. “You always have. It’s something I’ve always loved and feared in you. That kind of deep empathy can make you an incredible leader, or it can bleed you dry and leave you too drained to care about anything. I didn’t want the latter for you.”

With a quick swipe of Meida’s ID and vocal verification, the door slid open and allowed them both to enter. Farran was inside with two junior officers. All three nodded a greeting to Meida, who strode quickly toward the bridge door. Cira only got one step in before Farran’s gaze pinned her in place. The contempt in the woman’s eyes was there and gone in a second, but in that instant, it burned like a flash fire, especially in the sharp blue glow of the emergency lights.

Was it this easy to become despised? Farran had been Cira’s first hand-to-hand combat teacher, sneaking in lessons even before her mothers had given permission. They were colleagues and friends, everything but family, and yet there was no compassion or forgiveness in Farran’s eyes. There was barely recognition. Behind the mask of bland respect she’d pulled on, anger burned, and Cira had no idea what she could do or say to change that now.

“Keep up, Ensign,” Meida called. It jarred Cira free, and she jogged after her mother, eyes firmly downcast. If Farran could hate her so completely, she likely wasn’t the only one.

Halver sat in the command seat on the bridge, his attention mostly on the multiple holo-displays in front of him. Meida stopped to ask him a question. He shook his head, murmuring something too low for Cira to hear. Then, so quick she almost missed it, his gaze flicked toward her, his expression uncertain. She didn’t miss her mother’s glare or the ice as cold as space as she spat, “That is not going to happen, and do not dare suggest such a thing to me again.”

Immediately, Halver straightened, face going blank and posture stiffening. “Yes, sir.”

Farran hated her. Halver, it seemed, didn’t trust her on the bridge. The stowaways may have been gaining ground with the crew and slowly earning their respect, but Cira was different and there might not be enough time left to repair much of the damage she’d done.

I only wanted to help people! She wanted to scream it in his face, at all of them. None of my friends ever did anything to you!

She kept her mouth shut and her head down. She didn’t want to see the fear, distrust, or hatred in any more eyes, and she didn’t want them to see the anger in hers. It’d only make things worse. Thankfully, no one tried to stop them as they crossed the bridge. No one spoke as she passed, either. In fact, the bridge crew was oddly and conspicuously silent.

“Give them time,” Meida said once the conference room door had closed them off from the crew. “Right now, it’s— Everyone is scared, and we don’t have a solid enemy yet, so they’re focusing on you. It’ll get better once we’re on the other side of this.”

“Okay.” Cira didn’t know what else to say. She wasn’t sure she believed Mama was right, but she hoped.

When in lockdown, even the command crew had to be granted access to the captain’s office, but Erryla must have programmed an override for her wife’s ID. The office door slid open as soon as Meida scanned and verified her chip.

“Tell me you know something about the drain,” Meida said as soon as they entered.

“Nothing good.” Erryla looked away from the information on her wall, lips pursed. “I’ve had reports from six decks. Power is being rerouted from the entirety of one and two, including life support. The shuttle bays won’t be survivable in a few hours.”

“Because they need the power or because they don’t want us coming up with an escape plan?” Meida wondered. Then she shook her head. “Fill me in on the rest later. Cira needs to explain the idea Riston came up with.”

“Does she?” The captain closed several files before turning, hands linked behind her.

Haltingly, Cira began. It was hard to know where to look as she spoke. Her mothers had always stressed eye contact, but today, Cira couldn’t bring herself to look at her mother for long. She couldn’t keep her gaze on the floor, either. When Meida took over to explain the speculation about the transdimensional drive, Cira was finally able to fix her eyes on the rank insignia and Novis logo embroidered on the right shoulder of Erryla’s uniform.

“Oh. Are we…” Erryla’s voice trembled. “Meida, a TD drive? Are you sure?”

Cira gathered her courage and looked up. The lost look in her mother’s eyes dropped Cira’s heart into her stomach. Erryla’s eyes were wide, her bottom lip quaked, and sweat beaded on her forehead. It didn’t make sense. What made a TD drive scarier than a bomb? Cira’d always guessed that, if confronted with an explosive, Erryla would’ve winced, nodded, and skipped straight to “How do we defuse this?” Why was the drive enough to break Captain Antares’s facade? Or maybe not. It wasn’t the drive itself that terrified Cira, after all, it was the loss of control. There was something hidden in Novis that could thrust ship and crew into something so far beyond the unknown that humanity hadn’t invented a word for it yet.

“I’m as sure as I can be until we find the device.” Meida stepped closer, drew Erryla into a tight hug and kissed her wife’s head. “Or until we find ourselves across the universe.”

“But…” Cira’s mind spun, all her thoughts coalescing around one important question. “If they’ve installed something on Novis that can jump us somewhere, couldn’t we use it to get ourselves back?”

“Eventually, maybe,” Meida said, but her tone made it clear what she really meant was probably not. “But why would they make it that easy for us? It’s more likely that the device is built to self destruct after a single use. Or we won’t be able to hack the controls and figure out how to make it work. Or it’s rigged to disable the ship completely if we ever try to activate it again. Or—”

“Not helping,” Erryla muttered against Meida’s shoulder. “I just don’t understand why they—” She took a shuddering breath and eased away. “What do you need from me for it?”

“Official authorization to repurpose tech and personnel on a long-shot idea concocted by an illegal stowaway,” Meida said.

Erryla’s gaze snapped to Cira, who struggled not to shrink away. “You trust zem so much?”

“Yes.” Cira swallowed and resettled her stance. “Riston and the others would die for Novis and our crew. Shadow already did. I trust them as much as any member of the crew.”

Although Erryla’s mouth opened, she quickly closed it with a small shake of her head, clearly rethinking what she’d been about to say. Bit by bit, her usual control was snapping back into place in her expression, her posture, and her every word. “Alright. Take whatever you need from any function that isn’t equally critical to our survival.”

“And also?” The tilt of Meida’s head and the angle of her eyebrows was a clear “you’d-better-do-what-I-said message.

“I…” Some of Erryla’s confidence faltered, then she sighed quietly. “I’m not sure I believe you pulled it off alone, no matter how smart you are—”

Meida made a protesting noise, and only a slight flick of Erryla’s hand showed she heard.

“However, as I’ve told you, having met the children and seen both what they’re capable of and how devoted they are to you and this ship, I can see why you thought they were worth saving.” Erryla closed the distance between them and put her hands on Cira’s shoulders. The touch—the first since the moment Cira confessed—shuddered through her. She instinctively shifted onto her toes just to press into the weight of her mother’s hands. Erryla nearly smiled as she said, “If we’re… Well, if we’re still in this quadrant when the debris of all this settles into a predictable orbit, I’ll make sure the PCGC knows how much they helped when it mattered. I don’t know what good it’ll do, but I’ll try because I love you. I just hate seeing your heart getting you into trouble like this.”

“What if we end up somewhere else?” Cira asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know.” Erryla’s grip tightened before she dropped her hands and shifted away. “We’ll see what happens. But now, go. You have the permission you need, so get out and find this ingrate before they do any more damage to my ship.”

“Yes. Okay.” Cira stepped backward without looking away from her mother. This was the first comfortable moment between them in ages, and Cira didn’t want it to end. Encroaching deadlines were closing in on all sides, though; she had to leave. “Thank you, sir.”

“Yes, well, you earned it, Cira,” Erryla said with a soft, hesitant smile. It was enough to give Cira the strength to walk away. That smile was a promise. Things weren’t okay now, and her transgression hadn’t been forgiven, but Ma was willing to try. It was more than enough.

The return trip across the bridge and through the security office was as silent and awkward as before, but this time Cira bore it better. At least if something went wrong and the ship broke to pieces around them tomorrow, she wouldn’t die feeling like her mother hated her. She’d at least have this moment to remember. It was even better than their previous conversation because her mother had said she still loved her.

“Feeling better?” Meida asked once they left the security office.

“A little.” Cira glanced at her mother. “Is that why you brought me?”

“In part.” They reached the door to medical and Meida entered the override code. “It was selfish, too. I don’t like it when my loves are fighting. We have other enemies to deal with.”

When the door opened, a rush of sound spilled out. Several conversations overlapped, metal clattered against metal behind the room’s central dividing wall, and there was the buzz of handheld welders. It took Cira several seconds to adjust and realize it wasn’t as loud as it had first seemed. The hall and the bridge had just been so oppressively silent it made the noise of medical feel unbearable.

Riston, Mika, Greenie, and several others were using the welders on handheld sensors, making the tiny adjustments necessary to boost their sensitivity. In zir office, Adrienn was deep in conversation with the head nurse and several security officers. Only the clanking of metal came from somewhere Cira couldn’t see. Everyone had their mission, and it seemed as though they were all working with the same desperate urgency. The only one to look up when Cira entered was Riston, and she tried to give zem a reassuring smile; it felt false, even to her.

Oddly, Treble didn’t seem to have a project. She strolled around the edges of medical like she was meandering through a park, one hand absently playing with her hair as she casually sidestepped piles of parts intended for other projects. But then, just before Cira was about to bring her in to help Riston, Treble stopped. Looking around, she caught Cira’s eye and tapped her booted foot against a storage compartment labeled Emergency Field Kits. “Aren’t medical sensors standard in these?”

“Yes?” Cira wasn’t sure where she was going with this idea.

Adrienn, though, heard and understood immediately. Crying out, ze broke away from zir conversation and rushed out of zir office. “LSSs! I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

Treble had to jump onto one of the medbeds to get out of Adrienn’s way. Once there, though, she didn’t leave. She perched on the platform, looking down with eyes alight as a touch of Adrienn’s hand unlocked and opened the cabinet. Once the door had retracted into the wall, Adrienn started yanking kits from the shelves. The burst of motion startled Cira, and she stared, gaping, until she finally figured it out.

LSSs. Life sign sensors. They were standard in an emergency field kit and meant to be used when searching derelict ships or wreckage to direct rescue personnel to where they were needed. No one had remembered that, though, because even though all officers had to be briefed on emergency policies and procedures, Pax ships almost never touched the kits for real. In Cira’s lifetime, the kits had been used in an emergency only once, and she’d been a child.

There were ten kits in total. Adrienn opened the tenth, removed a device about as long as zir hand, and began changing the settings.

“How can I help?” Cira rested her fingers on the casing of a kit, ready to grab it as soon as someone told her what needed to be done.

“Get one of these out.” Adrienn finished work on the first LSS and moved on to another. As ze worked, ze spit instructions out. The rapid-fire pace was hard for Cira to keep up with. She needed the help, though. She hadn’t touched an LSS since the practical final marking the end of the officers’ emergency protocols and procedures course.

Soon, Riston appeared at her side. Ze kept a hand’s-width distance between them that had to be on purpose—it was precise, and when she shifted closer, ze subtly shifted away—yet when Cira put her hand on zir forearm, the single point of contact was enough to pin zem in place.

“The captain promised to speak on your behalf—all of you—when we make it to Paxis.” Cira watched zem carefully, waiting for comprehension to hit.

“She…really?” Riston’s breath caught and from the way ze blinked and how zir eyes flicked back and forth, it seemed like zir brain was spinning fast. “What about you? Did she forgive you?”

“Not yet, but I think she might one day.” Cira forced herself to shrug. The if we live long enough was left implied. Riston’s lips rolling between zir teeth made it clear ze understood.

“Best get to work, then.” Ze nudged the next med kit closer to Cira and then opened one of zir own. “We don’t have a lot of time to get these out to the search teams.”

As if to punctuate zir words, the blue emergency lights flickered. The room went silent. Everyone froze; no one even seemed to breathe. The lights stabilized in seconds, but it took several additional beats before anyone moved. Activity resumed in a ripple that spread across the room, and everyone started working just a little bit faster.

Cira doubted she was the only one who noticed.

Resetting all ten LSSs took half an hour. When they finished, Cira hesitantly approached Meida.

“We’re ready to deliver the LSSs to the search teams. Would it be possible to take Riston with me?” She made the request, but she also fully expected Meida to say no.

Instead, Mama smiled—the expression more laden with implications than the situation warranted—and said, “Obviously. Watch out for each other, okay?”

Cira blinked. The only thing she could think to say was, “Of course.”

It was even more surprising when Adrienn decided to leave the safety of medical and come with them. Ze left medical with a full med kit in a bag, its forebodingly red strap slung across zir chest. When Cira opened her mouth to ask what ze was doing, Adrienn shook zir head and remained silent. The question was ridiculous anyway. Cira was pretty sure she knew the answer.

“Attention crew,” Erryla said through the ship’s speakers. “Engineering teams are working on the power difficulties and system malfunctions. Additionally, all crew—including minors—are required to report to their immediate supervisors every ten minutes until lockdown has ended. This is for everyone’s safety. Security and medical personnel will be dispatched to the last known location of anyone who fails to check in on time. To ensure the continued safety of everyone on board this ship and the best use of our limited resources, I ask that you make timely check-ins a priority.”

“She has security tracking everyone’s position each time they report in,” Adrienn said when the broadcast ended. “The data will be fed to the search teams and help narrow down the areas to target first. Hopefully engineering’s new encryption will hide everything from Ghost, but either way the map will help teams eliminate life signs of legitimate crew.”

Riston’s flinch on the word “legitimate” was small but noticeable. Ze couldn’t suppress it fast enough. The sight was a needle stabbing Cira’s heart. Permanence was the deep secret desire ze couldn’t keep from wanting even as it kept getting denied. It was something Cira hadn’t ever been able to promise, not before and especially not now with her own position in turmoil. She looked away, unable to bear the carefully neutral cast ze’d forced zir expression into.

At the control panel for the nearest elevator, Adrienn entered zir medical override and brought the car directly to their deck. Seconds later, the doors slid closed behind the three of them, and Cira found herself looking at their collective reflection in the mirrorlike panel.

We’ve never been together before, she realized. This was the first time the three of them had ever been alone in the same space.

Adrienn took advantage of it immediately, gently touching Riston’s elbow to get zir attention. For the space of a breath, neither spoke. The two zeren stared at each other, Riston blank and outwardly patient but Adrienn restlessly rocking forward and back as ze worked up the courage to speak. Cira was almost sure she knew what was coming. Hopefully, she was right. Riston may not need to hear it, but she thought Adrienn couldn’t handle not saying it.

“I’m so sorry.”

Riston smiled, a surprisingly soft, genuine smile considering the circumstances. “You of all people don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“Yes, I do. I should’ve—”

“Worked magic? Gone back in time? Sacrificed your skills and position just because I made the call to bring your secret to the attention of the whole crew?” Riston shook zir head. “It’s bad enough Cira is in trouble. It’d be so much worse if both of you were facing the captain’s ire because of me. I’m glad you didn’t confess.” Ze cut a quick, guilty look at Cira. “Most of me wishes she hadn’t stepped forward, either.”

“We’d all be worse off if I hadn’t.” Cira even believed that. Although it was impossible to truly know where they’d be now if she hadn’t walked into her mother’s office and laid everything out, she doubted they’d be here. They certainly wouldn’t be here together. “We have a plan that could actually work, especially after Treble’s contribution, so let’s save the apologies for a time when we’re sure we’ll be around long enough for them to matter.”

“She clearly doesn’t buy into the idea of dying without regrets,” Adrienn muttered dryly.

“No, I’m the one who believes in not dying at all if I can help it.” To the amusement of her sense of the dramatic, the elevator chose that moment to signal their arrival on deck four.

Working on the theory that anyone whose goal was to slingshot them across the galaxy would prioritize direct access to power and engineering over pretty much everything else, they were going to deliver the first modified LSSs to the teams on decks three, four, and five. Cira, Riston, and Adrienn quickly tracked down the scattered teams using one of the few encrypted channels they’d been able to establish. While they walked, Cira had their own LSS out and sweeping for signals. The data streamed directly to security. They were integrating these readouts into Mika’s sensor web, and the basic details fed back to the search teams. Every sign of life displayed on her handheld screen as either green for confirmed crew or red for unknown.

So far, Ghost was still invisible. None of the spots were red.