by Yoon Ha Lee
“Just curious,” I said, shrugging and throwing a little Charm Sujin’s way to make them believe me.
I was torn. On the one hand, maybe, if I hadn’t choked, I could have come up with a way to salvage the conversation with Hwan. On the other hand, I was relieved he was gone. Having a tiger stare at me with those amber eyes made me nervous. There was no higher predator, after all. I was grateful he thought of me as his crew member and not his prey.
Our next duty was a shift in the robot maintenance room. The senior cadet in charge looked bored as he pointed to a gleaming laundry robot standing against the wall. It had a head like an overturned wash bucket, two long arms as well as a scrub-brush extension, and a ridged washboard surface on its torso.
Sujin grimaced as they ran through the diagnostics in the robot’s rear control panel. Despite its shiny metal exterior, the robot refused to move or respond to any of the test commands. Instead, a single red light blinked wanly from its forehead area.
“This one’s no good,” Sujin said, banging on the robot in frustration. A front panel fell open to reveal a fold-down ironing board.
“Don’t do that,” I said automatically, although sometimes giving a machine a good thump was exactly what you needed to do to get it working again. “Here, let me try.”
It didn’t look too different from the household robots I’d occasionally had to repair back home—it was just a newer model. Sujin watched while I pulled out the battery pack. I counted to sixty, then put it back in. The robot chimed, its lights cycling back to blue. “See?” I said. “Always try a reboot first.”
“I’ll remember that,” Sujin said. “The more robots we fix, the less laundry we’ll have to do the old-fashioned way!” The goblin smiled at me, and I smiled back, relieved that my asking about Jun hadn’t made them suspicious.
We rushed to lessons and made it just in time. Haneul was already there, tapping her foot impatiently. Lieutenant Hyosu hadn’t assigned us seats—another nice thing about her class—which meant I could sit near Sujin and Haneul, the cadets I knew best. I felt bad about deceiving them by pretending to be Jang. The more I got to know them, the more I liked them.
That day, Hyosu was instructing us on the ship’s internal security system. She called on one of the older cadets and asked him, “What can you tell us about the ship’s meridians?”
“They’re lines of mystic energy that run throughout the ship,” he said. “If they get blocked, the ship will malfunction, just like a person gets sick when their gi is disrupted.”
I remembered the physician examining me, checking my gi—life force—for any signs of blockage.
“Correct,” said Hyosu. “When an engineer interfaces with the ship’s energies, we call that Engineer’s Trance. If the meridians are compromised, engineers can get injured because their gi is synced with that of the ship.”
Gyeong-Ja raised her hand. “How would a meridian get compromised in the first place?”
“Good question,” said Hyosu. “We have external shields to protect us from regular attacks—missiles and lasers and so on. Most of the meridians are inside the ship, but sabotage is still a possibility—from hackers overloading the systems or subverting the maintenance robots. Mercenaries are getting more and more clever.”
The mood in the room turned somber as the lieutenant continued. “Normally a battle cruiser like the Pale Lightning is more than a match for mercs. But in the Ghost Sector, things have become more dangerous. It has always been a base of operations for raiders, because sensible people don’t want to go anywhere near the Fourth Colony. Lately, though, violence has escalated. High Command wants us to intimidate the mercs, and the pirates are striking back any way they know how.”
Another cadet raised her hand. “Why are mercenaries tolerated at all?” she asked.
“It’s complicated.” Hyosu sighed. “They serve a convenient role for the Thousand Worlds’ major factions. Individual worlds and space stations aren’t allowed to have private armies—that would threaten the peace. But planets and factions get into feuds anyway. Since they can’t declare war outright, they raid each other instead, and the mercenaries are the ones paid to do the dirty work.”
I couldn’t help asking a question of my own. “Don’t the mercenaries have to get their supplies from somewhere, though? Couldn’t people shut them down from that end?”
“They could,” Hyosu said, “if enough people worked together. Unfortunately for us, a lot of planetary governments find the mercenaries so useful, they look the other way when the mercs come around for repairs or resupply.”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant,” I said, “but why haven’t the Space Forces cleaned out the Ghost Sector earlier? Why leave it until now?”
Someone behind me snickered, and I flushed.
Lieutenant Hyosu spoke sternly to the rude offender. “Don’t be so quick to laugh, Cadet. All questions are valid.” Then she turned to me. “The short answer is that the Space Forces rely on all the Thousand Worlds for funding. The mercs use the Ghost Sector as a base of operations. If we offended individual planets by shutting off their access to mercs, they would hit us in the budget. Battle cruisers aren’t cheap, you know.”
Hyosu looked around seriously at all of us. “Space Forces Command believes that the Dragon Pearl has surfaced in the Ghost Sector. That’s why we’re breaking the status quo. The mercenaries are all looking for it. We have to get to it first.”
I tried not to squirm in my seat. I didn’t want to reveal my interest in the artifact.
Luckily for me, Gyeong-Ja asked about it. “Is the Pearl that important?” she asked. “I mean, the stories are two hundred years old. Is it even real?”
Hyosu pursed her lips. “The Dragon Pearl might not be as powerful as the legends claim, but we can’t risk it falling into the wrong hands. Think about it, Cadet. If the Pearl could transform an entire barren world, give it forests and seas and make it suitable for habitation, it could just as easily destroy a world, turn it into a lifeless desert. That kind of magic needs to be controlled by the proper authorities, not sold to the highest bidder.”
I shivered at the thought of someone using the Pearl’s magic to lay waste to a living world. All planets deserved to exist, even one as shabby as Jinju.
“What I’m trying to say here,” Hyosu continued, “is that our cruise around the sector has already proven more dangerous than usual, and it may get more dangerous yet. That unlucky freighter docked in our bay won’t be the last victim of greedy pirates. There could be more rescue missions—missions that involve cadets.”
I felt everyone in the class turn to look at me, but I held my head up high and refused to meet their gazes. I wondered if Jang’s ghost had heard any of this lesson, because it explained a lot.
Hyosu returned to the topic of the meridians and how to protect the ship’s energy flow. We spent the rest of class memorizing the locations where the gi was most vulnerable. While the Pale Lightning had officers who specialized in overseeing the meridians and making sure the gi was flowing properly, we cadets might be called upon to help defend key locations in the event the ship was boarded by hostiles.
My head swam with all this new information. Hyosu was a good teacher, but it was a lot to absorb. I’d taken notes on my assigned slate, which I’d have to review later. After all, I knew from experience that raiders were a real threat.
Had Jun and his friends joined their ranks, hoping for a chance at the Dragon Pearl? Had he turned into a soldier-for-hire? I couldn’t imagine that. I refused to imagine that. No, it had to be something else. But what?
I was too tired to puzzle it out. Pretending to be someone else was exhausting. I knew how I was going to spend my free time that afternoon—conked out on my bunk.
Both Jun and Jang would have to wait.
“Hey!” Sujin whispered just as I closed my eyes.
“Hmm?” I said, not wanting to get up and face the world. I smelled moisture in the air, which meant Sujin had brought Haneul
with them. Only a dragon could make it rain in the closed world of a starship. If I annoyed her too much, Haneul could drench me.
“Have you forgotten about our regular game of baduk?” she asked. “You keep swearing you’ll beat me, and you haven’t yet.”
Uh-oh. I’d have to play as Jang, and I didn’t know how good he was. I was decent at the game, and at home I used to watch professional matches on the holonet when I could snatch some free moments. If Jang always lost to Haneul, maybe I wouldn’t have to scare up skills I didn’t have.
“Why?” I asked, keeping my tone light. “What handicap are you going to give me today?” I didn’t know if she typically allotted Jang extra pieces to even things up, but I’d soon find out. . . .
“I’ll give you five instead of four,” she said, “seeing as how you had a tough time on your rescue mission.”
I relaxed inwardly. My question hadn’t raised any suspicions. “Fine,” I said, and sat up. Maybe I could quiz her about my brother while we played. I gestured for her to lead the way, and Sujin and I followed.
Haneul took us to the lower recreation room, which contained equipment for games like table tennis and geomdo, or fencing. Two soldiers were sparring in one of the corners with their swords of split bamboo. I sneaked a glance, fascinated. Both of them wore traditional-style armor and helmets, but I still couldn’t imagine standing up beneath those heavy blows. Foxes were known for cleverness and trickery, not brute strength.
A few other people were playing board games. One unoccupied table had a baduk set atop it, and Haneul slid easily into a chair. I took the seat opposite her. Sujin sat between us and brought out a slate. I glanced at what my goblin friend was reading. . . . A chemistry text? Well, it took all kinds.
Baduk was played on a grid of nineteen by nineteen lines, and the stones—black for me, because I was supposedly the weaker player, and white for Haneul—were placed on the intersections of those lines. The object was to capture the most territory by setting down pieces to form boundaries. Since Haneul had given me a handicap, I started with five stones already in play.
Haneul frowned, then picked up a white stone, gripping it between her forefinger and middle finger in the proper manner. She snapped it onto the board. I responded after a moment, and we exchanged moves without speaking for a time. I was starting to get rattled, because even with the handicap stones I was struggling to keep up.
“You’re doing better than usual,” Sujin said at last. I hadn’t realized they were paying attention in between reading about chemistry.
I laughed nervously. “Lucky today, I guess.”
“Haneul never gives me a handicap,” Sujin muttered.
“You don’t need one,” she retorted. “As for you,” she said, turning back to me, “never count on luck. You used up almost all of yours in surviving that attack!”
I didn’t want to talk about that—it was too dangerous, because I didn’t know what had happened during Jang’s last moments. I decided to distract her by asking questions, which I needed to do anyway.
“It could be worse,” I said. Time for some more Charm. “At least I didn’t end up missing, like Jun and the rest. . . .” I apologized mentally to Jun for bad-mouthing him. But how else was I going to find out what was going on?
Haneul glanced around the room. The air grew crackly with static, as in an electrical storm, and the players nearest us scowled and got up to leave. I was starting to understand why dragon folk rarely went into spy work. She lowered her voice and asked, “Do you believe the rumors?”
I pounced on the opening. “Which ones?” I asked.
Haneul squirmed. “It wasn’t like any of us younger cadets knew Jun well, but he seemed solid enough. I was surprised when the captain declared him a deserter. Some of the others, like Corporal Hyun-Joo, sure. She was always so sour-faced, I’m not surprised she was up to something. But Jun was a good soldier.”
At least Haneul remembered my brother. That was a start. “I bet pirates got him while he was on a mission,” I said, because gossip about mercs was so common no one would think twice of it.
“Well, from what I heard, he and his comrades weren’t on a regular assignment,” Sujin said in a whisper. “They really did leave on their own.”
I tried not to reveal my shock. So Jun actually was a deserter!
“I wonder whose idea it was, and why they were all so desperate to get away,” Sujin went on.
Haneul studied the board, narrowing her eyes at a pattern in the center. Finally she placed her stone. “It can’t have been Jun’s idea,” she said in a hushed tone. “I mean, one of the people with the group was a lieutenant. And everyone said she was loyal. Even if it’s true what people are saying—that they decided to chase after the Dragon Pearl—it doesn’t make sense.”
So my theory that Jun had been forced into going might be right. I remained convinced that Jun’s motives were pure. He’d never cared about money. . . .
“I don’t know about that,” Sujin said, cynical. “A lot of people are eager to get their hands on that thing. I know you don’t like hearing about it, Haneul, but the Dragon Society in particular would pay handsomely for it. If they control all the ways to do terraforming magic, they can raise their fees as high as they want and no one can do anything about it.”
“The Dragon Society wouldn’t stoop so low,” Haneul said stiffly. “Besides, it’s a wild-goose chase. The Pearl probably got destroyed long ago.”
Sujin shook their head but didn’t press the point.
I forced myself to relax. I couldn’t let them see how much I cared about this. “Let’s say a soldier deserted and somehow retrieved the Pearl,” I said. “What would they do? They’d be a fugitive the rest of their life.” I glanced over the board, then placed my stone to keep one of my groups from being captured. Haneul might be beating me, but I was determined to make her work for it.
“That bothered me, too,” Haneul said. “Maybe they have debts we don’t know about and are really desperate.”
I thought of Captain Hye at Nari’s gambling parlor and grimaced at the memory.
“If so, Jun, for one, hid it well,” Sujin said. “He worked hard. Even when some of the other cadets made nasty remarks about his steader heritage, he kept his cool.”
I had to keep my mouth from twitching into a smile of pride.
“The ones in Bunk Two straightened up fast after he vanished,” Sujin went on. “I mean, they got questioned more than anyone else about what happened.”
I made a note of that information. While I didn’t get much chance to talk to people outside of class, it would be easy to look up which cadets had bunked with Jun. Figuring out a good excuse to approach them would be harder, even with the aid of Charm.
I finally plunked down a black stone on the game board. It was a weak move, and I knew it. Fortunately, Haneul’s mind wasn’t on the match anymore. The air crackled again, and a small wind swirled around us. I hadn’t realized this topic would bother her so much.
Haneul caught me staring at her and blushed. “Sorry about that,” she said. She closed her eyes and recited a chant under her breath until the energy in the air dissipated.
“Do you think we’ll ever catch up to the deserters?” I asked after Haneul had calmed down.
“I hope so,” she said. “They need to face the captain’s justice.”
“They probably just heard a rumor about the Dragon Pearl’s location, got greedy, and struck out on their own,” Sujin said. “But if that’s the case, it’s odd that the captain didn’t try harder to locate them. . . .”
The more I thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. If Jun had known something about the Dragon Pearl, he should have told the captain. Unless he couldn’t trust Hwan for some reason. . . . I winced involuntarily.
Luckily, Haneul misinterpreted my expression. “We shouldn’t keep talking about mercs in front of Jang,” she said to Sujin.
“It’s all right,” I said hastily. “I’ll double-
check any personal shield I use in the future!” I meant it, too.
In the back of my mind, I heard Jang’s dry chuckle. So he was somewhere nearby. I wondered what he thought of this conversation.
Sujin wasn’t done talking about the deserters. “The other strange thing,” they said, “is that we should have been able to track the shuttle pretty easily. Shuttles can’t outrun a big battle cruiser like the Pale Lightning, and they shouldn’t be able to hide from one, either.”
I hadn’t thought of that before, but the anomaly bothered me, too. Had someone covered for their escape? If so, they must be lying low. No wonder Captain Hwan was touchy about the subject.
For the rest of the baduk match, those questions distracted me. Haneul defeated me handily, which meant that I had to pick up some of her chores. I didn’t care—I was too busy dreaming of ways to dig up more information.
Afterward, I made my excuses and went back to the barracks to think. For a change, no one else was there.
No one, that is, except Jang.
“Hello,” I said awkwardly. “I’ve been making progress. Did you hear what Lieutenant Hyosu said about increased merc activity—?”
“You made me a promise,” he said. Cold air whirled around him, making me shiver, and his long, ragged hair fell about his face. “You keep getting distracted by the deserters. I don’t care about them.”
I suppressed a growl. Jun wasn’t a distraction. He was the whole reason I was there! But I had to appease Jang. “Yes, I understand,” I said in my most soothing voice. “I won’t let you down.”
“You’d better not,” he said, “or you’ll regret it.” He laid his hand on mine, then vanished, leaving behind a chill that went all the way to the bone.
At mess the next morning, I accidentally dropped my chop-sticks on the floor, and while I was retrieving them, I knocked my head on the table and spilled my gruel.
Sujin asked, “What’s wrong with you today?”
Jang’s threat weighed heavily on me. I needed answers for him and had no more time to waste. “The mercs who almost fried me,” I asked, “how much do we know about them?”