“I was hoping it was something else,” Lieutenant Commander Ji-Eun said wearily. “Don’t tell me we’re being haunted by some of those accursed mercenaries. . . .”

The mercenaries’ ghosts?

I’d assumed the captain was talking about Jang, but I supposed I couldn’t rule out the possibility of additional spirits on board. Just because I’d only seen Jang’s ghost didn’t mean there weren’t more around. Could apparitions detect each other? I’d have to ask Jang the next time we spoke.

I leaned closer to the door to hear better, flinching when one of the suits creaked. My thoughts were racing. If ghosts were causing ill fortune, how much of it could a battle cruiser endure? Sure, the Pale Lightning had a lot of firepower, but all the weapons in the world can’t save you if your luck is bad.

Drat. I’d missed some of their conversation. I needed to focus.

“None of the pirates died on this ship,” the XO said. “Besides, even if they came to the Pale Lightning, the shamans’ chants should have laid them to rest. What I’m more worried about is the fact that we can’t seem to fix this meridian.”

“You’re sure no one tampered with it as a prank?” There was just a hint of tension in Hwan’s voice. I wondered if the XO could detect it.

“Of course not!” she said, indignant. “I’ve had guards on watch twenty-four-seven. If they’d seen anything, I would have notified you immediately. Besides, even the unruliest of the cadets wouldn’t dare.”

I almost squawked in surprise at the captain’s laugh. “I don’t know about that. Cadets are notorious for playing pranks.”

“Not when it comes to something this serious,” the XO said. “They’re terrified of you, anyway. Convinced you’d court-martial them if they sneezed in your presence.”

Captain Hwan huffed. “I’m not that unreasonable. Cadet silliness is one thing. The deserters, on the other hand . . .” I held my breath, silently begging him to drop a clue as to where my brother had gone. “Too bad we haven’t been able to retrieve them. It would be the galaxy’s fastest court-martial if we did.”

I gulped. An entire section of the code of conduct was devoted to courts-martial. The most severe penalty for a military infraction was execution. Jun would have known this even better than I did. Whatever had caused him and his comrades to leave the ship had been serious enough for them to risk death.

The two lapsed into silence for a while. I had an itch between my shoulder blades, but I couldn’t try to scratch it, because I might make too much noise.

“All right,” Hwan said at last, “you’d best go check on the bridge. I want to examine this meridian a little longer. Who knows, maybe one of the pirates’ ghosts will come by and say boo.”

“As you wish, sir,” the XO said in a subdued voice.

I held my breath, partly because the emergency suits’ reek was still making me gag, partly so I could hear the retreating footsteps more clearly. Only one pair. I wished the captain would leave, too, so I could. . . .

“All right, Cadet,” Hwan said. “You can come out now.”

Oh no. He’d known I was here all along! I couldn’t shape-shift to escape his notice, because, as a predator, he would sniff out any surge in my magic. And my cowering in the closet wouldn’t impress him, so I shoved the door open. I tumbled out and offered a clumsy salute.

The captain looked even taller and more imposing than before as he loomed over me. “At ease,” he said. “What are you doing here? You must know this area is off-limits. The meridian has been compromised. Hasn’t Lieutenant Hyosu told you its ‘bad luck’ can hurt you?”

Bad luck was right. It couldn’t be mere coincidence that I’d stopped there just when the captain and his executive officer had decided to inspect the damage.

I bowed my head and blurted, “I was just curious about it, sir.”

Maybe it was a mistake to say anything at all. The captain’s amber eyes darkened, and I flinched at the smell of his sudden anger.

“Tell me, Cadet Jang, how did you manage to get by the guards?”

Yikes. I couldn’t tell him about using Charm, and I couldn’t try it on him, either. I had to tell the truth.

“I . . . I distracted one of them, sir, and then snuck past. I hid in the closet when I heard someone coming.” It wasn’t a lie, just not the complete truth.

He regarded me coolly, testing, waiting. I started to sweat.

“I don’t sense that you’re lying,” he said finally.

“I’m not, sir. I’m sorry, sir,” I mumbled, “I won’t do it again.”

“You’re how old, Cadet?”

I knew the correct answer, thanks to my research. “Sixteen years old, sir, from Clover System.” Also not entirely a lie. Jang’s body was that old.

He growled in the back of his throat, and I tensed. “Did you come up with this idea on your own?”

He was asking me to rat out pranksters. Fortunately, I didn’t know of any. “It’s just me, sir.” I kept my eyes downcast.

“Look at me, Cadet.”

I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t ignore a direct order from the captain. Looking him square in the eyes would have been too bold, so I settled for staring awkwardly at his chin.

“Do you think sneaking around is the best use of your training cruise?”

“No, sir.”

The captain was still peering down at me. What did he want?

Inspired, I burst out, “I—I also did it because . . . because I needed to be alone. I don’t want anyone to know how afraid I am.” I could feel my cheeks heating with the admission, which, again, was true. “I almost died on that freighter. . . .”

I hadn’t allowed myself to really think about it until now. I had gotten hurt on the Red Azalea. The grenade had knocked me out, left me helpless. Like Jang, I, too, could have died.

Hwan’s face changed. The expression in his eyes wasn’t sympathy, exactly—I doubted that a tiger felt sympathy often, if ever. It was more like a grim understanding. “The first time is always like that,” he said. “We can send you to all the classes in the world, but none of them will prepare you sufficiently for real battle.”

I took advantage of his change in mood, for Jang’s sake. “I still see the pirates in my dreams,” I said. I didn’t have to fake the quaver in my voice, although it was caused less by the memory of the attack than by the thought of getting munched by the captain if he caught me lying. “I know the Dragon Pearl is valuable, but they shot me down like I didn’t even matter.”

“The stakes are higher than ever,” Hwan acknowledged. “Everyone thinks the Pearl is within their reach, and they will do anything to get it. Those pirates might have been working for the Dragon Society, which will pay a high price to maintain their monopoly on terraforming.”

“I could have died over that,” I said quietly.

“Yes. But you have to gain experience in the Space Forces sooner or later. The initial brush with death is always hard,” he said. “I wasn’t much older than you when someone first died in front of me.”

I kept silent, sensing that he wanted to tell me more.

“I’ll never forget it,” Hwan said. “It was my comrade, back in the early 1480s. If she’d lived, she would’ve made captain before I did. But the blaster burned her life short, and that was all there was to it.” He grimaced. “It was a completely unnecessary sacrifice on her part, too. By the time we fought that battle, the peace had already been negotiated. It was a secret mission, so we didn’t hear about the treaty until afterward.”

I shivered inside at the shadow of anguish in his eyes. But I remained wary. Was he trying to manipulate me the way I’d just tried to play him? If so, that meant he might know about me and Jang. I couldn’t let my guard down, no matter how authentic his story sounded.

“You’ll understand as you grow in your years of service,” Hwan said, sensing my discomfort. He nodded at me. “Go back to your bunk, Cadet.”

“Yes, sir.” I saluted and turned, suppressing my desire to run. The spot between my shoulder blades itched again as I walked away. I didn’t dare glance back to see if he was watching me or if he had returned his attention to the broken meridian.

My instincts told me that his story had been true. I’d never thought of the captain, or any officer for that matter, as someone who’d suffered their own losses. What did it feel like to hold command of a military ship? Did the captain grieve over every crew member who died?

Once the captain was safely out of sight and I’d ducked past the guards, I felt that familiar winter swirl of cold air around me.

“Not bad,” Jang’s voice said in my ear. I couldn’t see him. “He practically admitted that he knowingly sent me to my death.”

I looked around before replying. No one was there to hear me. “He knew the mission wasn’t safe at least,” I said. “And he mentioned the possible connection to the Dragon Society—did you hear that part?”

Jang’s ghostly form started to materialize, his long locks swaying as he nodded thoughtfully.

Seeing him reminded me to ask, “Are there other ghosts on this ship?” I had to get that out of the way.

His wispy face registered surprise. “Not that I know of. And especially not pirates. The ship’s shamans would have laid their spirits to rest to prevent them from cursing the Pale Lightning.”

So the XO had been right. Then something else occurred to me. “You wouldn’t do anything like that, would you? Curse the ship?”

“Of course not.” But the answer came after a pause.

By the time I thought to ask about his hesitation, Jang had vanished again.