30

Santa Elena holds court the next evening.

She puts out an all-call after dinner, and the entire crew packs into her throne room. My newfound invisibility has me pressed up against the back wall, trapped behind a sea of bodies that block my view of the dais where the captain sits. From the glimpses I catch between shoulders, she isn’t dressed up like the last time we were in here; instead she’s armed to the teeth and decked out in a sleek set of body armor. The pursuit is coming, and our captain is ready for war.

“Cassandra,” she barks over the grumble of the crowd, and silence washes over the room. I push off the wall and make my way forward, nudging my way past the crew members that block my path.

Santa Elena steps off the dais to meet me as I approach. She wears a predatory grin, but underneath it I can see the stress that’s eating away at her. The whole room aches with tension. My gaze flickers to Swift, who sits on the dais’s edge with Chuck and Varma. Lemon’s off in the navigation tower, keeping watch over the instruments and the horizon. While Chuck and Varma keep their eyes fixed on the captain, Swift’s are locked on me.

I draw my lips tight, trying not to give anything away as Santa Elena circles around me, her hands folded behind her back.

“We have a bit of a situation here,” the captain starts. “Which is to say, we have a complete clusterfuck on our hands, and it’s centered around you. Your IGEOC friend’s got hell raining down on us, and from what I’ve gathered, we’ve got ships with Reckoners of their own inbound to bring our merry little adventures to an end.”

A discontented mumble rises from the ranks, but Santa Elena quiets it with a wave of her hand as she stalks back around to face me. She lays her hands on my shoulders and I wince as her nails bite against the cotton of my shirt. “Fortunately for us,” she says, her gaze unflinching as she stares me down, “you’re also our way out of this mess.”

I can’t blink. Not now. I shift my weight, but Santa Elena’s grip stays rooted in me.

“You did a fine job with the quadcopters. I’m genuinely impressed with how far the beast’s training has come. But it’s become clear to me that our endeavor with him is not sustainable. We’re abandoning it.”

A roar fills my ears, overwhelming the shouts of the crew. Bao is my life aboard this ship. I’ve put so much work into making him the monster he is today—what right does she have to throw that away?

She must see the defiance, the rejection in my eyes. “Cassandra, there are children on this ship. Children I’m trying to do right by, children that I can’t have falling to ‘Reckoner justice.’ My son among them. I never anticipated that the response from shore would be this severe, and my miscalculation has put every soul on this boat at risk. We need the SRC off our case permanently, and that means ridding this ship of both its Reckoner and its trainer. No, I’m not going to kill you,” she drawls as she feels me tense under her grip. “Until we’re in the clear, you are this ship’s best defense. And I know you’re going to defend it,” she mutters, casting a glance back at Swift. “You’d do anything to protect ‘this ship,’ right?”

I nod. There’s no point in lying.

“That’s the spirit!” She claps her hands together and turns back toward her throne. “Here’s the plan. You lot!”

The crew roars.

“You wear your loyalty on your skin. Show it to me.”

Arms thrust into the air with little black fish sketched across them. Trousers roll up to reveal calves stained with the ship’s mark. On the dais, Varma’s grin widens, stretching the Minnow on his cheek, and Chuck sweeps her mane of wild hair to the side, revealing the ink that slashes between her shoulder blades. Swift nods her head to expose her neck, but her brow is still set in that resentful furrow.

“I’m not gonna hide it. We’re in deep shit. But when has that ever stopped us?”

“Never!” the crew screams back at her. Some of them have slid their weapons out; others brandish their fists.

“When the inbound hits, I want you to hit back with everything you’ve got. We’re gonna show them that trifling with us is the worst mistake they’re ever gonna make. But Cassandra, here—” She points to me, and my spine stiffens. “Cassandra will be doing the brunt of the attack. She and our beast are going to make our stand, and those shore-rat bastards are going to fall on her like flies on meat. And when they do, that’s when we start running.”

Varma frowns, and I feel like I need to pinch myself to make sure I’m seeing it. The whole crew seems flummoxed.

“You heard me right,” Santa Elena says, mounting the dais. “This is the plan: Cassandra is going to crush the pursuit until they can’t catch us, no matter what. And then she’s going to turn herself over to whatever’s left.”

“How do we know she isn’t going to turn on us the second she’s got an SRCese fleet at her back?” Hina shouts over the grumbling noise building in the crowd.

Santa Elena flashes a wicked grin as she prowls around behind Swift. “Because we have something she’s interested in protecting,” the captain says, sinking her nails into Swift’s shoulder.

Swift sits up straighter. A bubble of laughter rises from the crew, and a blush starts to work its way into her cheeks.

“You’ve done well, kid. Exceeded expectations, that’s for sure. You kept both Cassandra and the beast alive. And there were … certain bonuses to putting you two together, it seems.” Santa Elena pauses to let everyone savor the implication of her words. “But all things end, Swift, and you’ve reaped the benefits of this opportunity enough.”

If she doesn’t step away from Swift soon, I’m going to do something drastic. My fingers twitch, itching for Otachi controls, and for a second I forget my place on this ship. I forget that the captain has forty people at her back who would kill me if I went near her. I forget that the only thing protecting me is an inbound fleet that’s probably still leagues off. All I care about right here and now is putting myself between Swift and the captain.

I’ve taken three steps before I realize what’s happening, and Santa Elena slips her gun out of her holster, her fingers still crimped in Swift’s shoulder. She doesn’t seem to notice that she’s drawn her weapon until the silence of the room around us sinks in.

The captain snorts. “Cassandra, let me make one thing very, very clear.” She lifts the gun and points it at me. “There’s going to come a time when I ask you to jump and instead of saying ‘how high,’ you’re going to refuse, even with a gun to your head. I know it has its limits. But this,” she says, shifting her aim to Swift. “This doesn’t.”

Swift glares up at me, her eyes shimmering slightly in the low light. Her fists are clenched so tightly that her knuckles flash bone-white. Here, before the entire crew, the crew she’s supposed to be in contention to lead someday, Swift is being strung out like bait. And it’s all my fault.

I shudder, knowing the worst of it. When I get off this boat, when the pursuit catches up and Santa Elena relinquishes me, there’s going to be no one left on the Minnow who’s really on Swift’s side.

“Fail to defend this ship, and I think you know me well enough to guess what happens next,” she says, nosing the barrel into the side of Swift’s skull.

The crew, surprisingly enough, looks worried. They don’t know how to confront this development. Santa Elena’s trainees are supposed to be some of the most respected people on this boat. Now one of them is being cast down when she ought to be exalted. With the confirmation that Swift’s succeeded in protecting me, her status should inflate. But the reward for her loyalty and service is a gun to her head.

Santa Elena must sense that someone’s about to speak up, because she chooses that moment to draw her gun back and stow it at her hip. “I’ll admit that was a little dramatic,” she says, laughing.

The tension breaks, the crew picking up her cues and chuckling along with her. Santa Elena glances down at Swift and offers a hand.

Swift takes it. Applause joins the laughter as the captain pulls her to her feet. “Well done!” a large man in the back thunders, and Swift cracks a strained smile. But her eyes are fixed on me, and I can see the hollowness. The betrayal. She’s had plenty of guns pointed at her in her career, but I’m willing to bet that this was the first time the captain was on the other end of it.