Finally, the lieutenant taking the next shift at her station scanned their ID at the door. Cira let them in, went through the usual procedures as quickly as possible, and walked out of the room. Heart thudding with the force of continuous explosions, she sent a message to her mothers.
I need to tell you something. The whole command crew, actually.
Erryla responded almost instantly.
Now?
Yes. It’s important. I wouldn’t bother you with it otherwise.
We’re in my office, then.
Hands trembling and tension knotting her right shoulder, Cira slid her tablet into the large pocket on her thigh and turned left. On a normal day, the security door in the middle of this hallway was usually open, but when Novis was on lockdown, the door was sealed and wouldn’t open to anyone without direct permission from the bridge. Not even every officer could get through during level one lockdown. Once her meeting was finished, she wouldn’t be allowed to pass, either, but now it opened with a quiet pneumatic hiss a moment after she swiped her ID.
A short, white, and empty hallway appeared. There were three doors on either wall. Cira walked to the third on the left and scanned her ID again. This time, the wait for approval was longer by several seconds before the door slid open to reveal another hall. The narrow path sharply curved and dead-ended at yet another security door, one that would hold fast even against weapon blasts, bombs, and drills. For a while, at least. It was already open, letting her walk into Halver’s office and straight toward the door on the opposite wall.
“Come in, love,” Meida called from Erryla’s brightly lit office.
For the first time in Cira’s life, the endearment made her flinch.
Will Mama ever call me that again? Slowing down, she took a moment to control her expression before she pulled her shoulders back and strode into the room.
For a second, the color in the room overwhelmed her. Every screen and holo-display was active. Star maps, reports, and an entire wall of crew photos. It was too much to take in, so she looked for her mothers instead. Meida was walking toward her, but Erryla was standing with Farran near the desk, watching Cira’s progress. Adrienn and Halver were sitting at the conference table on the far side of the room, Adrienn tapping nervously and Halver with his head resting on the surface.
“Are you okay?” Meida put her hand on Cira’s cheek. Cira smiled weakly, and the lines of concern on her mother’s face got deeper. Instead of probing, Meida moved her hand to Cira’s shoulder and steered her toward the others. “Okay. You have news. Talk.”
It wasn’t easy imagining this scenario. Standing before them was worse. She began to buckle under the weight of what she was about to say, but there was no going back. Widening her stance, Cira linked her hands behind her back and forced herself to begin.
“There is a saboteur on Novis,” Cira said slowly, emphasizing each word and fighting the urge to fidget and roll her shoulder. “But it isn’t Riston or anyone connected to zem.”
Halver’s head popped up. Everyone else went still, their eyes bulging. Erryla was first to recover, speaking almost as slowly as Cira had. “How do you know?”
“Because I’m the one who snuck Riston and Dyaus on.”
Erryla closed her eyes, and her hands clenched at her side. Halver pressed his folded hands to his mouth. Meida’s hand tightened on Cira’s shoulder, and Cira could feel the tremor in her mother’s hand. Only Farran’s stillness held.
“Cira, why?” Adrienn’s tone gave those two words so much more meaning than anyone but Cira would hear. Ze was vibrating like ze was on the verge of bursting out of zir chair.
“Because it’s the right thing to do.” She hoped ze understood and wouldn’t interrupt.
Pretending she was presenting a report—and careful not to look anyone in the eye—she explained everything, starting with the moment she decided to bring Jaelena on board. Weeks ago, when Adrienn asked if she’d ever had doubts about what they were doing, she’d been honest when she said no. It was different now. Worse, the longer she talked, describing the steps she’d taken to ensure secrecy, the more her view changed. Her actions had seemed so selfless at first, because what could she possibly gain from helping children who had nothing, but was that true? Was it selfless to risk everyone she loved so she could feel good about helping strangers?
Bile rose in her throat. She stopped, swallowed it down, and kept talking. The disgust with her own naïveté and ignorance of her own motivations was harder to ignore. She managed by pouring all her focus into the much larger concerns her family faced. Putting her own needs first had landed them all here. She couldn’t make the same mistake again.
“There are five in total, and they answer to nicknames more easily than their original legal names.” She was almost caught up to the present. Meeting anyone’s gaze was still impossible, but even though she was staring at the wall, the weight of their stares was like hands bruising her skin.
She wrapped the rest up quickly, laying out the what, where, when, and how. There was only one piece she left out—she didn’t mention Adrienn once.
“And you did all this…” There was a pause, and when Erryla spoke again, her voice had hardened, the edges of the words clipped. “You somehow accomplished all this on your own? You’ve always been ambitious, but this seems like more than even you could handle.”
“There were times I had help,” she admitted because she had to, “but those I involved never knew why I was asking them for favors. I made them think the request was related to something official.”
“Cira.” Meida’s voice cracked on her name as she took a step forward and stopped. The sudden motion inexorably drew Cira’s attention, but when she looked up, she flinched. Meida’s expression was cracked open and raw, her eyes full of tears and fear in every line of her face. It was like Meida had aged several decades in an instant.
“You’re going to be in even more trouble than they are, Ensign.” Erryla’s voice was calm. It’d sound unaffected if not for how quiet she’d become. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I understand. I just…” Throat closing, Cira swallowed and looked down, trying to gather the courage to finish. “I’ve always felt safe, always had what I needed to thrive, but hundreds of thousands of children have nothing and no one. The Pax fleet was created to help the overlooked. That’s all I wanted to do, help kids who didn’t have anyone else to turn to.”
And make herself feel better about her own humanity.
“You foolish, foolish girl.” Meida rushed forward, grabbing Cira and nearly crushing her in a tight hug. “What have you done? What are we going to have to do with you?”
Tentative at first, Cira returned the embrace, holding on tighter as the tears that’d been threatening finally spilled and rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t want to think it, yet there was a chance, a very real one, this might be one of the last times she ever got to hug her mother.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, her hands clenching tight into the fabric of her mother’s shirt. But even now, despite the doubts tainting the past few cycles, she couldn’t regret all of it. She’d never regret knowing the kids she’d helped—especially not the five who’d made Novis home—or the lives she’d changed. The pain in her mothers’ faces, though? That had already become a wound on her soul, one which might eventually scar, but would never go away.
“How do you know they’re still loyal?” Erryla’s question drew Cira’s focus, but Meida didn’t release her as she turned. “One reason outsiders aren’t allowed is because their loyalties can be turned against us. Children might not be responsible for what’s happening on the other ships, but how can you be sure one of them isn’t sabotaging us?”
“Because they started hunting for the saboteur before we did.” Cira cleared her throat and ordered the computer to bring up the personal folder she’d partitioned, protected, encrypted, and buried. Inside was the program Tinker and Riston had sent. As soon as it opened, she spread the dis
play across the wall. Every security point was still green.
It took a while to explain what the maps meant and how she’d gotten the information. Halver was still looking at it skeptically when she was finished. “A child built this?”
“Remember the mysterious solution to the power glitch?” she asked before nodding toward the map. “At first I thought Tinker was the one who’d done it. That’s how good she is.”
“But she didn’t?” Meida asked, uncertain.
“Tinker’s only eleven. No matter how good she is, she’s still only a kid.” Tink wasn’t even a teenager, and if the PSSC was feeling vindictive when Erryla turned her over, Cira realized, she never would be. “A solution elegant enough to stump and impress you would’ve taken an expert mind, and Tink’s not there. Yet.”
It was a shamelessly desperate attempt to generate interest in, or at least curiosity about, the stowaways. No one rose to the bait. The silence stretched and strained. Cira was out of things to say. All she could do now was wait for someone else to make a move.
“What is supposed to change?” Erryla finally asked. “You can’t seriously expect us to trust your stowaways.”
“Yes, I can.” Cira took a slow breath and forced herself to look at her mother for the first time since this conversation started. The look on the captain’s face sent shivers of fear down Cira’s spine. “Ships are disappearing. Even more have stopped communicating for no apparent reason. We’re not in a position to turn down help, no matter the source. Besides, if I’m right, we’re running out of time.”
“Before what?” Erryla growled.
Cira’s gaze skittered up to meet the captain’s eyes before locking on Tinker’s maps again. Had Erryla heard that as a threat? A plasma-hot hand clenched tight around Cira’s lungs at the speed with which her mother had lost faith in her. It was several seconds before she could breathe and several more before she could speak. She tried to keep her voice even, but fear and hurt shook each word. “Before whatever happened to Feris and Amitis happens to us, too.”
“I’m not saying I agree,” Farran began, “but Cira isn’t entirely wrong, either. I for one have had some serious doubt that a child—even one who’s capable of building a sensor web like that—could develop a way to disappear an entire ship.”
“Valid point,” Halver said. “The ensign could be right, no matter how furious we all are with her for…well, for a lot, honestly.”
Erryla turned her back to Cira to face Halver. The movement was unnecessary. If Erryla had tilted her head, it would’ve been enough. Apparently, the captain truly couldn’t stand the sight of her daughter.
“You think it’s worth the risk?” the captain asked her second. “Control won’t like it.”
Halver scoffed. “Control will be judging us from the complete safety of Paxis Station. They can merrily skip right into a black hole for all I care.”
Farran and Adrienn laughed—Farran bitterly and Adrienn with an edge of frenzy. Her mothers silently glanced at each other with the speaking look of people who’d known each other for cycles. Meida and Erryla had mastered this form of communication long before Cira was born, but she could usually translate these moments. Suddenly, though, it felt like they were using a foreign tongue, and the longer the silence lasted, the deeper Cira’s anxiety became.
“I can get Riston to tell us where the others are so you can initiate Drop Protocol,” she blurted, desperate to break the silence. “Then no one will be caught in the crossfire.”
Erryla huffed, disdain in the sound, but Meida asked, “You think ze’ll listen to you?”
“Yes, but only if I can promise the others won’t be hurt. And only if ze believes the crew you send to get them will follow that order.”
“Before today, I would’ve sworn everyone on my crew followed orders,” Erryla muttered, the words landing on Cira’s skin like thorns.
The soft ping of an incoming message interrupted, and an alert flashed in the corner of the main screen. Erryla brought it up, enlarging the brief note so everyone could read it.
From: PSSC Control
To: Captain Erryla Antares; Commander Halver Liddens, First Officer; Lieutenant Farran Badri, Chief Security Officer; Lieutenant Commander Meida Dalil-Antares, Chief Engineer; Lieutenant Adrienn Naess, Chief Medical Officer—
We received your update and are reviewing the situation. Please maintain quarantine and stand by.
“Maintain quarantine,” Erryla muttered. “Could they possibly be less helpful?”
“I’m sure they could if they tried,” Halver responded dryly.
“Fine.” Erryla took a long breath and released it slowly. “You have five minutes to convince zem to give us their intel, Ensign, and I’ll be going in with you or you won’t go at all.”
And then the captain, her mother, left without once looking back.
Only after the door had closed did Cira realize something else. Erryla had barely looked at Cira since the truth had come out. She also hadn’t once said Cira’s name.
Cira may have lost Erryla for good, no matter what happened next.
Personal Video Correspondence
From: Captain Erryla Antares, Pax Novis
To: Commissioner Brann Jasper-Antares
Terra-Sol date 3814.256
Message status: Send pending
Transcript below
Zeze, I don’t know what to do. There are stowaways on my ship, and regulations say I should either space them or drop them in security-locked cryopods until I can turn them over to authorities on Paxis, but they’re children. Orphans. One of them is already dead. I can’t believe—don’t want to believe, I guess—that they’re responsible for the problems that’ve been plaguing the ship for weeks. Worse, though…worse… [a deep breath] Cira is involved in this. She’s the one who let them on the ship and helped them stay hidden for cycles. They’ve been on Pax Novis for cycles and I never knew because my own daughter kept it from me. She lied and now she—
[Her voice cracks. She covers her mouth with her hand for a moment]
I don’t think I can protect her from this, Zeze. Regulations say she should already be locked away with the stowaways, and stars forgive me, I almost did it. She swears she can help us track down the person actually responsible for the sabotage on board, though. Or, she swears her stowaways can help, and she has convincing proof. They’ve already done a lot to track movement in the hidden sections of the ship. If we were in any other situation, I’d be offering the lot of them positions on the crew, but we’re not, and I can’t, and I don’t know what to do with this!
You always… [she takes a deep, shuddering breath] You always seemed to know how to handle impossible situations. I don’t know if even you’ll be able to see a way out of this one for me, but I need your help. Please, Zeze, tell me what to do. I don’t know how to find my way out here anymore. There aren’t any stars I know to guide me.
Chapter Eighteen
Riston
Terra-Sol date 3814.257
It took Riston an extraordinarily long time to realize ze wasn’t completely cut off from the ship. Ze couldn’t access any files or even the public library of stories and vids, but ze could ask the computer for the time and date.
“Terra-Sol date 3814.257,” the calm, neutral voice reported. “Time, 0125 hours.”
Only half a day had passed. It felt like ze’d been imprisoned twice as long. Ze wasn’t sure why; after three cycles on Novis, ze should be used to both confined spaces and forced idleness. This wasn’t simply endless inactivity, though. This was a constant cycle of anxiety, adrenaline, and numb boredom that wouldn’t let zem relax for long. Ze couldn’t decide which fate was more likely at this point, death or eternal incarceration, and somehow not knowing that made everything else worse. Ze’d tried to sleep, forcing zirself to move to the medbed farthest from where Shadow laid. Unconsciousness proved elusive, but ze stayed on the thinly padded bed even after ze gave up on sleep, soaking in the small measure of comfort. I
t didn’t help.
Near-silence had descended hours ago when the command crew withdrew from medical, leaving only a single nurse behind. Well, the nurse and the security guards posted at both entrances. Ze hadn’t seen them, but it was what ze would’ve done. The totality of the silence, though, meant Riston instantly noticed when it broke; even the faint shoosh of a door seemed as foreboding as the rumble of a distant explosion. Zir adrenaline spiked, but ze didn’t move, remaining seated on the bed with zir forehead pressed against zir knees. The height of the bed made it easier to covertly watch the main room. It was as empty as before, but not as silent. Ze heard footsteps and muffled conversation. Ze gripped zir legs tighter and held zir breath.
Someone was coming. It might be Erryla to ask more questions or Adrienn to prep Riston for a cryopod. With zir luck, though, Farran was about to use Riston for target practice.
The first guess had been half right. The captain was striding closer, but she wasn’t alone. Cira was only two steps behind.
Zir head snapped up and ze leaned in as electricity surged through zem, fear and relief and surprise clashing into a brutally potent force. Cira was here. No matter how badly ze wanted to stay still and hide zir reaction until ze could figure out what was happening, ze couldn’t. Ze scooted to the end of the bed and slowly put zir feet down, gaze never straying from her face. The floor was cold under zir bare feet, and zir legs protested the weight ze was asking them to bear after so long immobile. Ze had to use the bed to stay upright, and to stop zirself from lunging forward and pressing closer to the barrier.
Cira looked beautiful. There were bruises of exhaustion under her eyes, a stiffness to her movements, and too many wrinkles in her uniform, but she still looked beautiful.
And then she smiled. “Hi, Riston.”
Her fatigue was even clearer in her voice. Riston nodded in return. Ze wanted to say hello, but ze didn’t trust zir voice to work. Or that ze’d be able to stop talking if ze started now. The way Cira’s smile softened made zem think she understood.
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