by F. T. Lukens
Forehead pressed to the cool deck floor, Ren choked on fear. His breath went reedy and thin. He exhaled in choppy pants, and in his panic, his world narrowed to the thick dread pushing through his veins, and the sweat beading along the back of his neck, and the syrupy consistency of the air. The ship called to him, and he wanted to go to the systems, be embraced by wires and electricity, but he’d done that before and lost six weeks of his life.
He fought for breath and struggled against the impulse to give in to the warmth of his power. He couldn’t run from his problems. And no one was around but him. No one was here to save him or protect the ship and that fact alone was his fault. He pressed his hands flat against the floor and counted in his head. He used the familiar rhythms of the ship to time his breathing and mindfully eased the tightness of each muscle until he relaxed, boneless, against the floor.
Once his body had calmed, he catalogued the facts he knew. The Phoenix Corps thought him to be dead. They’d seen him fall. Ren had watched Rowan report that they couldn’t save them. This girl, Darby, had information, but it might be limited and old. And if they were after him, they wouldn’t send a pair of thieves.
Clearheaded, Ren sat up and draped his body across the front of the couch. He found it funny how surviving didn’t erase the scars of the past and how panic made it difficult to be rational. Not so funny was how, in his panic, he lost his attention on the door and he didn’t block the override.
The sound of the bay door opening on creaky hinges echoed through the ship. Weeds! Ren crawled to the comm in the common room and flicked it on with a thought.
“Third time’s the charm,” Darby said, her voice crackling over the open line.
“Shh, you don’t know if anyone is here.”
“Oh yeah, I do. Crew manifest says four hands and all four of them are on the drift. The captain and her muscle are coordinating a merchant exchange and the medic and pilot were in the marketplace picking up supplies. And I know Rowan Morgan—she doesn’t trust anyone enough to leave them on ship without trusting them enough to be on the list.”
Ren frowned. He eased into the ship and into the monitoring systems and the security cameras. The intruders were already in the cargo bay, wandering around the large open area, inspecting the few boxes. She kicked a crate and muttered junk under her breath. It was the box Ollie had given him, full of broken tech, a way for Ren to channel his energy.
Irritated, Ren crackled in the comms.
“Did you hear that?” her partner asked. “I think someone is here.”
“No one is here, okay! I scoped it out. The ship is empty. I promise.”
“Not quite,” Ren said. “And don’t kick my things.” His voice rang out, its rasp echoing down the corridors and into the empty spaces. He sounded like a ghost, like the specter of a dying ship.
Darby startled, and her companion turned and ran. He jumped through the open bay door and disappeared. Before she could run, Ren sped through the systems and engaged the airlock. It slammed shut just as Darby skidded to a stop in front of it. She grasped the handle, but it wouldn’t turn, and she pounded her fist on the keypad, to no avail.
“Let me out!” She threw her body against the bulkhead, then gave it a kick and cursed when her boot collided with the thick metal.
“How do you know about the Phoenix Corps following this ship?”
Darby pushed away from the airlock and narrowed her eyes. “Let me go, and I’ll tell you.”
“I don’t bargain with thieves.”
She spun around, eyes narrowed, hair falling in her face. “It’s not fair that you can see me, and I can’t see you. Come on out. Let’s talk.” She scowled. Hands in her pockets, shoulders hunched. “Besides, I haven’t stolen anything.”
“Yet,” Ren said, noting how the side of Darby’s mouth tilted up at the addendum. He swallowed, his throat dry, and leaned heavily against the wall. “You’re trespassing.”
“And you sound horrible. Are you sick? Quarantined? Is that why you’re not on the drift with the others?” She tapped her temple. “Ah, that would explain why you’re not on the manifest. Don’t want to alert drift authority to a potential duster contagion. Confined to the ship, but that also means you’re probably confined on the ship as well.” She hopped up a step onto the stairs that led to the interior of the Star Stream. “You wouldn’t be able to stop me, would you?” She skipped up a few more, daring, teasing.
Ren frowned. A drop of sweat rolled down his spine. “Tell me what you know about the Corps and this ship, and I’ll open the door. I won’t tell the captain that you were ever here.”
Darby spun on her heel and jumped down to the bay floor. “She doesn’t scare me.”
“Then you don’t know her. And I’m fine with keeping you here until she returns.”
Paling slightly in the dim light of the cargo bay, Darby held up her hands. Her fingernails sparkled with purple polish. “Fine. What was the question?”
“What do you know about the Phoenix Corps and the captain?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? Morgan has something valuable to them. So valuable they followed the crew planet-side twice. Rumors say it’s a weapon. That they destroyed it and took one of your crew.”
Ren bristled. “Where did you hear that?”
Darby brushed her knuckles on the fabric of her shirt and ambled around the cargo bay. Discovering the camera mounted high in the corner, she moved beneath it and stared. She winked and mouthed hi there then blew a kiss. “I hear things. I know things. Information is currency.”
“If they destroyed the object, then why are you here?”
Darby shrugged. “I don’t think they actually did. Morgan has been staying away from the main drifts for several weeks. Almost like she’s hiding but still in plain sight. She’s staying on the outskirts.”
“And?”
“And that’s what I would do if I had a weapon the Corps thought they’d destroyed but hadn’t. I’d still look like I was functioning as normal, but I wouldn’t waltz into their den.” Darby shuffled through the cargo and peered into crevices. “Nice trick with the door, by the way,” she continued. “Not many are wired to close like that with remote access. It makes them too easy to open that way as well, and that’s dangerous, especially in space. Who are you?”
Ren rubbed his forehead with his thumb; a headache thumped over his right eye. He resisted responding with the weapon. “I’m the ship.”
Darby laughed. “Yeah, right. I’m guessing you’re some poor dust bunny who’s hitched a ride with Morgan for a few stops but isn’t doing so well in transit. Space sickness? Though that’s not contagious and not limited to dusters. You sound a little like a duster. And they have been planet-side. Pick you up in a space port? Did you bat your eyelashes and tell them how you wanted to see what was beyond your dirty little world?”
“Not quite.” Ren slumped against the wall. His strength was failing. He needed the crew to return. “You talk a lot.”
“It’s how I think.”
Ren wasn’t sure who was stalling whom now. Was she waiting for him to pass out? She wouldn’t find the kind of weapon she thought she was looking for. Would she leave if he gave her an out or would she run to her friend and return?
“Last question,” he said, voice grating. “Then I’ll open the door, and you can leave and not return.”
“Sounds fair.”
“What do you know about the crew member that was taken?” He spoke around the lump in his throat. Asher. What happened to him? Was he all right? Grief sapped the rest of Ren’s strength, and he sagged.
“Nothing, really. Some rumors say it was a member of Rowan’s blood family, but if that was the case, wouldn’t their mother intervene? She holds a bit of influence, right? My theory is that it was her lover. But Rowan isn’t really known for lovers either.”
Ren shuddered.
Tears stung behind his eyes. He unlocked the door and it popped open. “Go.”
He watched through the security screen as Darby hesitated at the threshold. “Hey, are you okay, ship? You sound… I don’t know… sad? Can ships be sad?”
“Leave!” All the lights flared to life in one blinding moment. The ship filled with sound and energy and blue sparks gathered in the corners and the air went heavy with potential.
Darby ran.
Ren slammed the door behind her. Sluggish and empty and miserable, he pulled from the ship. His side throbbed, and his head ached, and, for a moment, he wished he hadn’t woken up at all. He stretched out as best he could on the deck plate and used his arm as a makeshift pillow. His eyes fluttered shut, and he passed out.
* * *
Blurry shapes spun around him. Outlines of shadows and bright light and indistinct globs of color swayed on the outskirts of his vision. Something darted in the corner of his eye, but Ren couldn’t chase it, couldn’t turn to figure out what was going on. A voice, distorted and slow, called to him, but Ren couldn’t decipher what it was saying. Everything was nebulous and strange: streaks of color moved with no discernible patterns and sound bumped into sound, discordant and awful.
This was a dream. Ren had been here before, confused and disoriented, but the feeling was the same, the feeling of being watched, of being compelled, of sensing someone desperate to reach him.
Slowly, impressions solidified into shapes and became objects. Ren concentrated, and his surroundings sharpened, came into focus. It was like looking through an old telescope with someone turning the lens and the soft-yellow fuzzed circle becoming the broken moon he knew from his childhood. Except he wasn’t on Erden, and he certainly wasn’t looking through a telescope he and Liam had found in a trash heap.
Liam.
The space cleared suddenly, and Ren’s stomach twisted with the quick change in clarity. He stood in a blinding white room.
“Ren? Is that you? You’re alive?”
Ren raised his hand to block the harsh light and peered into a corner.
“Liam?”
Ren reached out—
* * *
An ear-piercing shriek jolted Ren from his sleep. He pried his eyes open in time to watch a crate of supplies drop from Penelope’s hands and scatter across the floor. A roll of gauze tumbled past his outstretched fingers.
“Ren?”
He jerked in surprise, then groaned when pain flared from his side. Pen was on her knees in an instant, her soft hands cradled his face, and her wide, brown eyes filled his vision. Her long curls caressed his cheeks and ears. Ren turned his head away and closed his eyes, searching for the white room and Liam, but that only earned him a slap across his cheek.
“Hey!”
“Don’t ‘hey’ me, mister. Stay awake.”
“What’s going on?” Her boots banging on the deck plate, Rowan thundered into the common area. Ollie’s rapid stomps followed, as well as Lucas’s. “Pen, are you all right? What happened?”
Ren tilted his head back and caught Rowan’s eye.
She squeaked; her hands flew to her open mouth. “What the stars? Ren? How did you get in here? What’s going on?”
“Ren?” Ollie yelled as he and Lucas fought for position in the doorway.
Ren smiled weakly. “Hi.”
“Help me get him to the couch,” Penelope ordered.
Ren gritted his teeth as they lifted him and moved him the few feet to the old sofa. He protested being laid flat, and, despite Pen’s scowl, they maneuvered his body into a sitting position. Rowan handed him a glass of water, and Ren drank it down. The cool liquid felt like rain on his desert-dry throat.
Penelope pulled up his shirt and poked at the bandage.
“Are you the reason it’s a sauna in here?” Rowan asked, taking the glass from his trembling grip and setting it on the nearby table. She placed her hands on her hips. Her long blonde braid fell over her shoulder so the end tickled the indent of her waist. She wore her jacket open and a weapon strapped to her outer thigh.
Ren clutched at the blanket around his shoulders. “It’s freezing.”
“No,” Penelope said, frowning at the wound. “That’s only you. And luckily you didn’t undo any of my work.”
“You fixed me. How?”
“Cobbled together supplies. Medicine, medical glue, small antiseptic forcefields, nutrient tubes, and well, mending thread.” Her touch light, she smoothed the bandage.
“And no small amount of skill,” Lucas added.
Ren touched Penelope’s hand. “Thank you.”
Penelope’s long lashes fanned her cheeks as she blushed. “You’re lucky to be alive, Ren.”
“Yeah, and most people think you’re dead,” Lucas added. He spun one of the dining chairs around and straddled it. “Though you look good for a dead person.”
Pen cast her husband a withering glare, and Lucas grinned, cheeks dimpling.
“Thanks, I guess.” Ren picked at a thread on the hem of his shirt. “I figured we weren’t being followed or we wouldn’t be docked at a drift.”
Penelope settled next to him on the couch. Rowan stood in front of him. Lucas stared intently from his chair. His goggles sat atop his head, contorting his light brown hair in messy spikes. Ollie stayed on the outskirts of the group with his massive arms crossed over his chest and eyed Ren as if he was a ghost. Ren didn’t mind, since he felt like one anyway.
The four of them were beautiful and Ren was lucky to know them and to be a part of their family. “What happened?” he asked.
Rowan quirked an eyebrow. “I was hoping you might be able to fill in some of the details we’re missing. Asher gave us a quick and simple version—how things went to dirt on Crei, Millicent betrayed you, and then the Corps showed up and you were injured. You died right there,” Rowan nodded to the table. “At least, that’s what we told the Corps.”
“I even showed them a vid of when you flatlined,” Penelope said. “It fooled them enough.”
Ren swallowed. He didn’t think he’d be able to eat at that table ever again.
“What Ash said was true. Millicent betrayed us. The whole time on the ship, she could pull me in and push me out. Those times when I almost hurt all of you, that was her, luring me into the systems during my nightmares.” Ren studied his hands. “She wanted me to embrace something I couldn’t be and, when I fought her, when I kept myself from hurting you all, from allowing the power to consume me, she turned on me. On us. She sided with Vos, and they escaped.”
Vos. The name was sour in Ren’s mouth. Previously baron of a fief on Ren’s home world, he was responsible for Ren’s capture from his village. He was the catalyst for Ren discovering his powers. Ren had foiled Vos’s plans of drift and planet domination once and helped make him number one on the Corps’ most-wanted list. But when they’d met again, Vos had outmaneuvered him, and Ren had lost. Ren vowed he wouldn’t lose again.
“How did the Corps find you?”
Ren blew out a harsh breath. “Asher called them when we realized Vos was on the planet. He thought he could trade—Vos for me. And that, once the Corps had him, they’d reinstate Asher and let me go.”
Rowan’s features softened. “And you were shot?”
“By Corporal Zag. He figured out on Erden at the citadel that the usual weapons wouldn’t work on me. So he used an ancient projectile and… you know that part.”
Penelope’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Yes, we know that part.”
“I remember a little from being in the ship and watching through the vid feeds. But… Asher?” he hazarded.
“Out of our reach,” Rowan said with a disgusted noise. “The Corps swept him away, and w
e haven’t heard from him since. He didn’t get much of a chance to talk to us before he left. He only made it clear that we must look after you.”
“We need to find him,” Ren said. He clenched his fists on his knees. “I have to find him and save him, and maybe he’ll forgive me.”
“You’re dead,” Rowan said, bending down. “Do you get that? This is your chance to leave. You can disappear. Go home. I’ll even pay your way. But if you go looking for Asher, all of his hard work, all of our deceptions, will have been for nothing.”
Ren ran a hand down his face. His eyes stung. His lips were chapped and raw. Every movement took effort. His stomach growled with intense hunger. “I can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve done for me,” he said, voice soft. “And I understand if you’re not going to follow me into this, but I’m going to find Asher. I’m going to free him from the Corps. I don’t know what will happen after that, if they’re going to chase me the rest of my life, or if I’ll get to rest. But Asher did everything he could to save me, and I’m returning the favor. With or without you.”
The group stared in silence and the declaration fatigued Ren further. He sank into the ratty cushions. Even though he’d slept for the last six weeks, the excitement of waking up, stopping a potential thief, and proposing espionage against a major military power had sapped the little strength he had.
Rowan dropped her hands from her hips. “Let’s table this discussion. For now. You’re tired and probably hungry. And we’ve planned to stay on this little drift for at least a day.”
Ren nodded, the fight having bled out of him. “Oh, by the way, someone broke into the ship.”
Rowan’s features clouded. “What?”
Ren told them about the override and the conversation he’d had with Darby. The longer he spoke, the more upset Rowan became, and Ollie’s eyebrows inched higher.
“You told her you were the ship?” he asked with a large smile.