It wasn’t difficult to convince the dock agent that I was on the Red Azalea’s passenger list. By the time she double-checked the roster at my urging, my name had magically appeared on her data-slate. The illusion wouldn’t last long, but then, I didn’t plan to be around here long, either. With any luck.

I sprinted the rest of the way to the Red Azalea, looking around nervously, convinced that one of Nari’s goons would nab me any second. She must have noticed by now that I’d skipped out.

Once I reached the starship, I shouted up at it, “Captain Hye’s in trouble!” When no response came, I banged on the closed hatch with my fist. Ouch! But, if there was a crew inside, I couldn’t see any other way of getting their attention. “Is anyone in there?”

There was a loud, staticky noise; then a deep voice buzzed out of a speaker I couldn’t locate. “We’re busy. Go away.”

“Captain Hye has been detained by Nari for racking up too much debt,” I said. “Nari is threatening to claim her ship.”

I heard some words that Mom wouldn’t have approved of. “I knew it! If you have anything to do with that parasite Nari—”

I thought furiously. “No! Captain Hye sent me to tell you because she couldn’t get away herself! She was being too closely watched. If there’s a pilot on board, you need to get out of here before Nari shows up. She’s got some kind of deal with the spaceport authorities. If you don’t go now—”

More choice words came from the speaker. I filed them away for future use so I could sound like a spacer.

“Captain Hye had more instructions,” I said. “I’ll tell you if you let me up. It’s best that we speak privately.”

Once inside the ship, I’d be a step closer to my goal. Maybe I could use Charm on the crew to convince them to take me along.

There were a few moments of silence, then a grudging sigh. “All right. You’d think Hye would know enough to stay out of trouble, but no. . . .”

The hatch lowered, forming a ramp. I scrambled up, banging my head on the rim of the opening in the process. A short, heavyset man awaited me. He looked much less like a stereotypical spacer than Captain Hye did, although if he was watching the ship, he had to be one. Instead of a sleek uniform, silken robes drooped from his shoulders and trailed onto the deck. He must have been pretty confident of the Red Azalea’s artificial gravity to wear an outfit like that.

“Nari never changes,” the man muttered. “But taking a spacer’s ship? That’s low. Especially when all she ever does is sell them to scrappers.”

“You can’t let her do that!” I blurted. I needed this ship!

“I don’t intend to,” the man said, looking at me quizzically. “So, you were going to give me further instructions from the captain?”

I gulped and used Charm to appear confident. “She, um . . . she said to go to Gingko Station as originally planned.” That was the starbase near the Ghost Sector. If the Pale Lightning was in the area, there was a chance I could track down my brother from there. “Besides, she owes me. She promised me passage there in exchange for getting word to you.”

Hye did owe me—for the surprise drink, if nothing else. The man continued to watch me with raised eyebrows, so I kept talking. “Nari’s minions were watching Captain Hye too closely—I was the best she could do. Besides”—and this part was true, too—“I also need to get away from Nari.”

“Join the club,” the man said grimly. He spoke what sounded like code words into a wrist unit, then said to me, “I just told the crew to stay wherever they are on Jinju and keep out of sight until this blows over. I can’t wait for those three to get back here, not if the ship’s at stake. I doubt Nari will go after them if they lie low—her beef’s with Hye.” His mouth crimped and he grumbled, “It figures this would happen when I’m the one left babysitting the ship.”

“So we can take off now?” I asked hopefully.

“You a good copilot, by any chance?”

I was crestfallen. “No,” I admitted. It would be dangerous for me to try to fake that.

My answer didn’t faze him. He took the pilot’s chair and pointed at the seat next to him anyway. “Dirtsider, huh? Well, some of the ship is automated, but you might as well learn the basics. Strap yourself in. I’m Byung-Ho, by the way. You?”

I stuck with my cousin’s name. “Bora,” I said as I fiddled with the strap.

“Okay, Bora. First, check the life-support and engine panels. With a cranky old ship like this, there are signs of stress to look for, but we’ll keep it simple for now.” Byung-Ho pointed at the various illuminated digital graphs on the display panel as he spoke. “Basic principle is, you want to make sure these indicators stay in the blue zone. Blue for heaven, as they say. If any of them dip toward red, something’s wrong, and you’ll need to consult the diagnostics. The computer will guide you.”

It sounded doable, although I was sure he was glossing over the details. I studied the graphs carefully. After all, I realized with a sickening feeling, if anything happened to Byung-Ho, I’d be on my own. I liked working with machines, but I’d never flown before, and this system was new to me.

“Now,” Byung-Ho said, his hand hovering over a large gold button, “we power up the ship’s maneuver drive. This will get us past the atmosphere until we’re far enough from local gravity to Gate out.” He hit the button.

A red light came on above a completely different button. “Did something break?” I asked.

He laughed. “No, but be prepared for some bluster.” He pressed the button under the red light.

A loud, heavily accented voice squawked from the communications system. “Red Azalea, you are not cleared for takeoff. What is going on?”

“Aren’t you going to say something?” I whispered to Byung-Ho.

He ignored the annoyed voice on the comm system and answered me instead. “There’s nothing to say. I’m not going to hang around here and let Nari’s thugs take the ship. Captain Hye’s good at talking her way out of trouble. She can take care of herself until I come back for her.”

The loud voice spoke over Byung-Ho. “Red Azalea, power down your maneuver drive. You cannot depart until you have filed the proper documents. If you do not comply within one minute, you will be subject to fines under Regulation 138.8.2.”

“I wish them luck collecting that,” Byung-Ho said with morbid cheer. “I locked our account as soon as I noticed Hye starting to dip into it.” With that, he entered a set of coordinates, then settled his hand on a complicated-looking joystick.

“But won’t they—?”

Before I could finish my question, I was flung back into my seat as the ship tilted up and blasted toward the sky. The pressure increased, and I saw spots before my eyes. The loud voice threatened us with more fines.

We pierced a murky veil of clouds and angled ever upward. I could no longer hear what the voice was saying because of the roaring in my ears. My stomach dropped. My seat—no, the whole flight deck—vibrated, which I hoped was normal. It didn’t seem to bother Byung-Ho.

After a few dizzying minutes, the acceleration eased and we were soaring through space. The sky bloomed black before us, lit by the pinprick fire of stars. My breath caught at the unexpected beauty of it, as well as the knowledge that, for the first time in my life, I was free.

“We got away without even a warning shot?” I asked as soon as I’d recovered from the takeoff.

“You’ve been watching too many holo shows,” Byung-Ho said with a dry chuckle. “If they shot down everyone who had to leave a step ahead of the authorities, no one would bother touching down on a backwater planet like Jinju. I made sure we were paid up this morning. They save their defenses for real threats.”

The voice from the spaceport was still lecturing us. Byung-Ho reached over and flicked off the communications channel. “There,” he said. “The navigation system will alert us if we’re about to smash into anything, so there’s no need to endure that.”

I couldn’t believe how quickly we’d catapulted beyond the thin veil of Jinju’s atmosphere. We swerved past a moon, and in the distance I could see one of the system’s swirly green-blue gas giants as a distant disc. In reality, I knew it was many times larger than Jinju.

“Now tell me,” Byung-Ho said, “why are you going to the Ghost Sector? Do you have gambling problems of your own?”

I glared at him.

“If it’s not that, it’s gotta be something just as seedy,” Byung-Ho said, making a placating gesture with one hand. “Like looking for treasure, or smuggling for mercenaries, or dealing with traders from the Jeweled Worlds. I’ve heard it all.”

“I would never!” I said indignantly. Raiders from the Jeweled Worlds attacked the Thousand Worlds from time to time, but that didn’t stop less scrupulous people on our side of the border from illegally buying goods from their traders.

“Whatever it is, you must be one tough cookie. Either that, or desperate.”

He was right about the desperate part. I didn’t dare tell him about my brother, though. I had no idea what kind of trouble Jun had gotten himself into, or whether he really did know where the Dragon Pearl was. I definitely didn’t want to lead a stranger to such an important artifact, even if that stranger happened to be helping me.

“It’s for my family,” I told him, because I had to say something. “We’re poor, and I want to do my part to help.” I said it like I was ashamed of it, which grated on me—maybe because it was true and I was ashamed of it. I’d finally gotten away from home—Jinju was dwindling to a speck behind us—but the memories of omnipresent dust and threadbare clothes and worn-out furniture would always haunt me.

Byung-Ho nodded. “Well, you’re not the first adventurer to go into space seeking her fortune,” he said. “And the Red Azalea has friends at Gingko Station. There’s no direct Gate there, but the fastest route will take us there in two hops.”

Even steaders like me knew the basics of space travel. In order to cross vast distances, you had to use a special stardrive to punch your way through a local Gate. Each Gate only connected to a handful of nearby ones, so voyages could involve a lot of hopping. Plus, starships had to be recharged between jumps. For this reason, spaceports had sprung up near Gates to cater to travelers. Jinju’s Gate didn’t see much activity; right then I was grateful it existed at all.

“I’m warming up the jump drive,” Byung-Ho added.

“How bad will it be?” I’d heard stories of what it was like to pass through a Gate. Some people got sick. Others were tormented by dreams that were reputed to be half prophecy, half nightmare. Seasoned spacers got used to the visions over time, though they tended to become superstitious about them. Certain Gates had reputations for causing more unpleasant experiences than others. Jinju’s Gate was supposedly one of the worst.

Byung-Ho shook his head. “You’ll see soon enough. Try not to be too loud, if you’re a screamer.”

“I never scream.”

He wasn’t paying attention. “Drive’s ready.” He pointed to the blue flashing indicator on his panel.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that the battered freighter was eager to make the jump. In the old stories, older even than the Thousand Worlds, a humble carp could become a dragon by leaping up a waterfall. If a fish could dream of upgrading, I didn’t see why a starship couldn’t, in its secret crystal heart, have ambitions, too.

“Here goes nothing,” Byung-Ho said. He pulled a lever and the ship surged forward.

At first I thought nothing had happened. The ship seemed to freeze in place. Then a great swirl of shimmering rainbow colors, like on an abalone shell, spun around us. I closed my eyes, but the colors followed me, as though they had seeped behind my eyelids and pressed their patterns into my brain. If I concentrated on the patterns, I could almost read them.

I saw faces, indistinct at first. Then one of them drifted close, smiling sadly. I gasped as I recognized it from the silk portrait I’d lost earlier that day. Dad! He opened his mouth as if to say something, and I leaned forward, eager to hear it.

Instead, his mouth gaped wider and wider, and his teeth grew longer and sharper, like knives. His face sprouted fur with orange and black stripes, and his brown eyes turned amber. He’d morphed into a tiger. He lunged for me with a snarl.

I shrieked and jerked back.

“Bora?” Byung-Ho said.

So much for my not being a screamer. I opened my eyes and stared out the viewport. “I’m okay,” I said weakly. No trace remained of the gorgeous swirling colors, or my father’s face, or the ferocious tiger. Instead, there was only a dead staticky gray. Just nerves, I told myself. Still, I couldn’t help wondering if the vision had been a warning.

While we were Gating, we wouldn’t be able to exit the ship, not even to make repairs. Gate space was harmful to living creatures. I hoped the Red Azalea wouldn’t choose now to break down. There had to be repair robots on board in case of an emergency, but I didn’t want to have to find out.

“Bora!”

Byung-Ho had to say it twice to break me out of the trance, because I still wasn’t used to going by my cousin’s name. “Good,” he said roughly. “I was starting to worry.”

“About what?”

“Some people get lost in the patterns,” Byung-Ho said, “and they don’t come back. It’s not as common as the rumors claim, but it’s worst the first time you enter a Gate. You looked like you were drifting away.”

I shivered, remembering the tiger about to bite my head off.

“Well,” Byung-Ho said, “we’ll be recharging for a while now. While we wait, let me show you around the rest of the ship. Maybe you can make yourself useful.”

I should have known that even in space I couldn’t escape chores.

I’d already seen the cockpit. The Red Azalea also had a tiny office in the ship’s midsection, which Byung-Ho said I wasn’t supposed to enter; cramped living quarters with bunks for four; a kitchen and a dining area; an engine room, which I also wasn’t supposed to mess with; and a cargo hold in the rear.

The stacks of crates in the hold made me curious. Byung-Ho hustled me past them and set me to scrubbing the deck in the dining area. I stifled a groan, especially since some of the marks on the floor and walls weren’t dirt. They looked like blaster burns, and I was pretty sure no amount of elbow grease would get rid of those. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to volunteer to paint the whole deck, either.

I scrubbed at the scuffs and stains for an hour, until my back hurt so much I couldn’t take it anymore. Byung-Ho didn’t check on me the entire time. At home, someone would have nagged me about doing a better job. It was nice not to have to live up to my relatives’ standards anymore. But I would have preferred to spend the hour learning how to operate the ship. I guessed Byung-Ho didn’t want me to know too much.

I returned to the cockpit. Byung-Ho reclined in his chair, snoring peacefully. I slid into the copilot’s seat and took the opportunity to explore the help system. I knew I couldn’t master everything overnight, but I had to start somewhere.

In the middle of puzzling out the engine-status symbols, I, too, slid asleep. I couldn’t help it. I was used to working long hours, but today had been longer than most, and it had included way too much excitement.

I dreamed of dragons snaking from red to blue and back again, of worlds spinning topsy-turvy in the deep black of space, and of the Gate swallowing us in a swirl of pearly colors. The dragons led me down to a planet wreathed in white mist, making me shiver even in the depths of sleep. White was the color of death and mourning. I glimpsed Jun at a cliff’s edge in the distance, staring up at the sky, and I ran after him, shouting his name. He turned and waved, but I never managed to get any closer. . . .

Despite my disconcerting dreams, it would have been a refreshing sleep if I hadn’t woken to an alarm so loud it gave me an instant headache. “Go away, Bora,” I mumbled, forgetting that I was supposed to be Bora.

My annoying cousin would have been an improvement over reality. “Wake up!” Byung-Ho said, sounding worried. “The first hop went without any problems, and we’ve just completed the second one.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” I said. My strange dreams must have resulted from our entry into the second Gate.

He gestured at the sensor panel, which showed four rapidly approaching red dots. “Not likely. We’re stuck in-system until we’re charged up, and unless I’m mistaken, those are mercenaries. I hope you spent some time familiarizing yourself with the weapons system.”

“I couldn’t, because—” My retort died in my throat when Byung-Ho suddenly jerked a lever and the Red Azalea shuddered to one side to begin evasive maneuvers.

“Too late now,” Byung-Ho said. “You’re going to have to learn on the fly.”