I ran into the Belithain's command center, my naked feet slapping against the deck plates, my pajamas still clutched in one hand to prevent them from slipping.

  The com center was a shallow bowl, some five meters in diameter, with crew stations around the edge, and in lines across the floor. The captain's station was a five-man setup with old, cracking pilots’ couches each flanked by a pair of readouts. The far wall consisted of a single huge, curved com readout. It was black, offline, every Kylian in the room clustered around the transmission tech's station.

  Transmission towers don't talk. If anything, they play music.

  Supra-light communications are finicky at best. Sending magical pulses through the void is a bit like shouting into a tube, while someone is throwing rocks and blowing a horn from the other end. Sometimes the signal gets lost, or the order gets reversed, or everything is muted for a second or two.

  That's why towers use tonal octets to encode information. You send a triple chord as a carrier tone, telling the listener who they're listening to. On that, you layer harmonies, one for the sequence of the message, and five more for the content, and a final one as an error-correcting code. Everything void-numbingly slow, at most two pulses per second, and often repeated to minimize transmission loss. It's annoying and unreliable compared to sub-light radio communications, but it gets the message across light-years.

  Everybody uses octets. Nobody transmits clear speech.

  "-lease help," a very distorted voice said from the com. "Repeat, we are trapped on Remba, -aped on Rem-" The transmission looped backward in time and Riina's tech punched his readout, shifting it. "-refugees on the Nuestra Signiora Maria, of Santa Kylie, taken during a stopover on Remba, we-" the transmission erupted with rapid pops, then went dead. The tech started fiddling with his readout.

  He was wasting his time. I understood Riina's hurry, and why no one had said anything about my pajamas. They recognized the sound of gunfire just as well as I did.

  The com center was crammed and there was a smell of stale sweat in the air that the ventilation hadn't managed to disperse. The crew had been here some time already, and they were keyed up, jittery, bouncing with nerves. Riina's command team flanked the cracked captain's couch. Stanko, the head of security. Ailei, the head medic and teacher. Maia, the chief logistics engineer. Hao.

  Likely, they'd heard this transmission several times already.

  "When was this?" I said.

  "Two or three days ago," the tech said, in the Kylians' fluid, almost-singing accent. "Hard to tell."

  I did a quick calculation. Two or three days in transmission would mean sixty to eighty light-years.

  "You sure?" I said.

  "He's sure," Riina said, her sing-song voice presenting a more mature version of the tech's accent. "We've double-checked."

  "A directional transmission?" I said.

  "No," Riina said. She sounded tired, her wrinkles seeming doubly deep today, the dark blue of her jacket reminding me of the void, and even her tiny, lavender brooch feeling strict and foreboding. In the com center, she was the commander, not the kindly grandmother.

  I exhaled, focusing on the warmth and the sound my breath made as it escaped my lips. In theory, you can pick up a transmission from any distance, assuming your tower and the sending tower are large enough. Picking up a general transmission from sixty light-years away would require a receiving tower close to five kilometers in length, or an exponentially larger sending tower.

  I'd never heard of Remba. They weren't a transmission hub. Their tower would have to be small. Small-ish. Crudmunging huge, if we could pick it up.

  "How?" I said.

  "Congratulations, Jake," Riina said. "Your wards have done the impossible. Now figure out how we can get to Remba yesterday."

  I bit back an unfriendly answer. My wards had done an amazing thing. I didn't deserve crud.

  But Riina was feeling responsible. Not only for the Kylians on the Belithain, but also for the unnamed refugees calling for help from this Remba place. That was why the ship felt unbalanced. The warpstone engines had changed pitch. I conjured a thread of force, slipping it into the power wake around the warpstones. It was churning, hard.

  No wonder Riina wanted me involved. The Belithain was a long hauler, big and slow for all its massive warpstone engines. It would take months, maybe years to get to Remba. She needed something fast, and I was the only one who could provide it. I recognized the trap and the question she was asking, and my gut churned with resentment.

  "You know the answer to that just as well as I do," I said, and my tone left no question about how I felt. "We'll have to burn the Bucket."

  I waited for Riina to give the command to send everyone running. The Bucket was my ship. I'd given my assent.

  Nobody moved.

  "Are you sure?" Riina said, her words soft, her face intent.

  Intent on me. She really wanted to know.

  In that moment, it struck home why everyone on board the Belithain followed her, why I followed her. Because she cared. Because the Bucket was important to me, and I was willing to risk it, and she wanted to know whether I was doing it because I agreed with her, or because I was being forced into it.

  The anger and resentment evaporated. There hadn't been a trap. I'd read that into Riina's words myself. Yes, she'd pushed me, forced me to realize how important risking the Bucket was, but she wanted me to make a decision on my own, one that I could stand for.

  Maybe that was manipulation, but it was a completely different kind, for different reasons, than what I'd experienced at the academy. It was honest. I could live with honest manipulation.

  "Yes," I said. "I'm sure."

  A soft sigh flowed through the com center, thirty people who suddenly remembered to breathe. So they'd known, known the stakes and known the importance, and they'd stayed silent, following Riina's lead.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  I would have, too, if only to see her smile. She didn't, but the intense worry was gone from her eyes. This was the commander, back in force.

  "Remba is a Syndicate game world," Riina said.

  Her words hit me like an asteroid, crumpling my armor and shattering my peace. A Syndicate world. Her people were caught on a Syndicate world.

  For a heartbeat, I wanted to refuse, to take the Bucket and run. I squashed the impulse, drilling into it with rage and hate until it cracked and melted and left me standing alone and exposed.

  No, not alone. I had Riina, her Kylians, and Hao. I had the Belithain. I had the hatchling.

  Whom I'd have to leave behind. The Syndicates would enslave him, or kill him, or worse. The hatchling had to stay on the Belithain. I'd never left him for more than a few days. No one knew he existed, except Hao, who I didn't have a choice but to trust, and I'd have to take her with me. She kept the Bucket running. If we got into combat, if we needed repairs, she was the best.

  I'd have to expose the hatchling.

  Thinking it made my gut rush up and punch me in the throat. My mind was blank, my mouth was dry, I couldn't breathe.

  Couldn't the voidmucking Kylians have gotten stranded on a normal world?

  "Jake?" Riina said.

  She was still looking at me, still concerned. Still caring. I wanted to punch her head off. She didn't deserve that.

  "What are they hunting?" I said, trying to buy time.

  I couldn't leave civilians on a Syndicate world, especially Riina's civilians. Syndicate worlds were rare, the Feds not liking the pirate clans to have their own bases. Game worlds were even rarer, terraformed planets in the Goldilocks Zone given over to wildlife so those rich enough could entertain themselves by shooting things that couldn't shoot back. They could be hunting anything. Birds. Bears. Void wyrm hatchlings.

  "The 'pedia says spider-lizards," said Riina, peering at her readout. "Panzer-sloths. Tigers. Horses," Riina said.

  "Horses?" I echoed. The first ones I knew. But horses? My brain dredged the depths of my memory and came up with an image of a patchy-grey, six-legged, armored lizard. Big teeth. Feathers in a crest. I wouldn't want to go up against something like that, but people are crudmunging crazy about their hobbies, especially if they're rich.

  "Small, furry herd animals," Riina said. "Bred for transport and recreation."

  So, not meat-eating lizards. But...

  "Recreation?" I said, doubt in my voice.

  "Not that kind of recreation," Riina said sharply. "People ride them for fun. Like a legged ATV or micro-glider."

  Hunting horses made as much sense as sun-bathing in the interstellar void. It was a code for something. Drug distribution, maybe. Or an unlicensed trading post. Or hatchlings. I couldn't take him with me.

  Maybe if I left him in my cabin. The hatchling slept for weeks on end, woke only to feed. I could leave dried protein packs for him.

  "Meaning the Syndicate won't say what they hunt," I said, part of my brain still working on Riina's problem. "Worrying."

  A game world that didn't advertise its wares was like a storefront with blackened windows. You never knew what lay behind, but you could be fairly sure it was something you wouldn't like.

  "Very," Riina said.

  "We'll send the full security company with you," said Stanko.

  Meaning all the security troops the Belithain had, most of them green with barely a few months' training. Less people to discover the hatchling.

  Less protection if someone did.

  I almost didn't object. Stanko intimidated me. He was built like a reinforced shipping container and just as hard. The fact that he was half a head shorter than me didn't change the amount of menace he could project. He also brewed masterful tea.

  But bringing his grunts along to get killed wouldn't make a difference. Those green kids deserved better. At least onboard, they could protect the hatchling.

  I'd have to share my secret with someone. If I didn't come back, someone would need to take care of him. Whom did I trust?

  No one.

  "No," I said. "We'll need the space for the refugees. And whether we go in with a squad or a company won't make much difference against an entire Syndicate world."

  "We can take the specialists," Stanko countered. "I have two experienced marksmen, one of them trained before the diaspora, and a distinguished grenadier. We can manufacture a pair of light mortars and-"

  "No," I interrupted. Hao raised one of her bushy eyebrows. Stanko intimidated her, too, for all of him reaching just above her belt buckle.

  He cared for his troops. Not a complete crudmunger, for all of him being ex-navy. Maybe I could ask him to put a guard on my cabin. But he'd want to know why. No, there was only one person I could talk to.

  "This will have to be by subterfuge," I added hastily. "We buy our way in as a hunting party, purchase an associate position with one of the Syndicate clans. With the marksmen, but no mortars. A small party. Me, Hao, your gunners. We hire out our services as shooters and trackers. Once on the ground, we figure a way to get the Kylians out."

  Stanko blew air like a breached carrier. His breath smelled of fresh garlic. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that it hadn't been filled in a while. At least it was a change to its eternal churning. Crudmunching gut.

  "They won't accept you," Stanko said. "We know the Syndicates from Santa Kylie. They are hard, and closed."

  "They will take us," I said. "We have a ward beneath our paint."

  "Which is?"

  I swallowed, realizing that my palms were moist with sweat. I'd lived in hiding for so long, revealing my secrets felt like getting a boot in my gut. A large boot, swung by someone with a grudge.

  Void my gut. I knew the Syndicates. Stanko would only get his troops killed, and I wouldn't stand for that.

  "I have a magerifle," I said. "A real one. It will impress them."

  That got me another puff of garlic in the face, but a small one. I'd impressed Stanko. Imagine that. Maybe he was the right person to guard my cabin after all.

  "They will take it from you," he said.

  Or not.

  "They'll need someone to re-ward it, then," I said, letting my mouth do the thinking. "Better to take the warder with the gun. Costs less."

  "Commander?" Stanko said. For a heartbeat I thought he meant me. Then Riina answered.

  "It might work," she said, slowly. "Better than trying to take a world by force. Especially if we don't have the force."

  That got a murmur of assent from the rest of the command team, and a whispering from the present crew. Stanko nodded thoughtfully.

  Riina cared for her people, too. A lot. She'd fought for them on Rimont.

  Think. Was she the right one? I needed more time.

  "How many refugees are there?" I said. Distract and conquer. I'd heard it worked on kids. Worked great on commanding officers. Stanko glared. Maybe not.

  "The Nuestra Signiora Maria was a ferry hauler," one of the techs injected, saving me from the wrath of the security chief. "It's a-"

  "He knows what it is," Stanko said.

  And I did. Ferry haulers were small ships that combined cabins with cargo. Larger than the Bucket, but not by much. Maybe two hundred meters in length total. Crews around thirty or so, ten times as many passengers.

  "So, around three-fifty?" I said. "The Bucket could fit that many."

  "We're counting five hundred," Riina said. "The later escape ships tended to be packed."

  I queried my brain about the Kylian diaspora, coming up blank. Too many worries and not enough tea this morning. Also, no clothes. You can't think well in your pajamas, while your gut churns. All I could remember was the Syndicates coming in and taking over in the middle of the Kylian civil war.

  "The Bucket could still fit that," I said. "We land, we find the Kylians, we smuggle them on board, and we run. Quick and quiet."

  I hoped. If everything went well. I'd be back to take care of the hatchling within two months. He'd only wake once or twice. I could store up enough food for him, put a razor ward on the door.

  What if someone tried it, for good reasons, and got themselves killed? Got others killed? Razor wards didn't discriminate.

  "For a moment, I thought you were going to say quick and easy," Stanko said.

  "I'm not that much of a munger," I said with a smile. The smile felt fake to me.

  Surprisingly, he returned it.

  "Right," he said, then gave a meaningful gaze at my blue pajamas. "Might want to change into something more subtle, though. Going undercover and all."

  I could recognize a dismissal when I heard one. But I couldn't leave. I needed help. I needed Riina.

  "Commander," I said, "may I have a word in private?"

  Riina nodded. I turned, leading the way back to my cabin, and the hardest conversation of my entire life, my deepest secret revealed to another person. Because the void would burn before I took the hatchling to a Syndicate world.