“Voidmother, Allmaker, 

Be it this day 

To bring peace through this symbol.

Be it this day to bring protection

That we might protect our youths

Like you gave over our moon to protect us

And that we might shield them

Like You shielded us when our enemies 

Sought to destroy us.

Let this symbol serve as a reminder

Both to those that need protection 

And to those that are called

 to protect.”

 Furlian Prayer of Protection for Wardlings and Children.

 [Courtesy of the Holy Church of Furl.] 

  “Has anyone seen Miss West?”  

  Zara sighed heavily, leaning over to re-fasten one of her boots on the busy Liskian street. From the comm link hanging around her neck, she heard their Second Engineer’s voice crackle through in answer. 

“For the seventh time, Captain– No.” Clanging from the engine room transmitted through the comm. “She’s probably lollygagging her way up here.”

  “I haven’t seen her,” Sevus said, the transmitter making his voice sound even quieter than normal.

  Around the medic, Bots and Organics alike chattered away on the narrow street that separated the hangars from the inset line of shops. Maybe on an upper level, the higher paying Offworlders got more space and a less rowdy crowd, but this street, Zara noticed, was a highway for people on their way to somewhere else– and since most of them were Offworlders, none of them cared that it was six in the morning and that most normal people were sleeping. 

  She straightened, looking back as the last of her packages were wrapped at the frycake stall. The owner nodded to her, eyes dark and hair blond. 

  “The moment we see her,” Aster said through the comm as Zara walked up to the frycake stall, “we leave.” 

  Taking the small packages from the bench, the Covienian spared Zara a side glance– a look of mistrust that transcended all racial barriers and translated into every culture. 

  Zara bit her tongue. 

  More than anything, she wanted to remind him that she had just given him money and supported his business, but she didn’t. Instead, she rolled her eyes– visibly– and left. Another look that transcended cultural barriers. 

  She unwrapped a package, continuing on her walk down the street when she heard a tell-tale, metal squeak behind her.

  A moment later, Xander had caught up with her, slightly breathless as he readjusted his grip on his noisy crutch. 

  “No sign of her,” he said, flicking his eyes up the road. “I even asked at the small Registry at the end of the street, but the man there said he only saw her yesterday with Captain Rigg– he was quite rude to me, though.” 

  Zara grunted in acknowledgement, taking another bite of her frycake. Typical Covienian, and typical Xander, she wanted to say, but she was enjoying her food too much to spare the energy. 

  Xander didn’t sigh at her, but she knew that he wanted to. 

  “Did you get one for Evren?” was all he ended up asking. 

  “Stop worrying, mom, I got one for everyone,” Zara said through a mouthful of food. “But I feel like frycakes are for maintenance hands who show up on time.”

  Xander glanced over all the packages cradled in Zara’s arm, counting them under his breath. 

  The medic turned away to hide the frycakes from view. “Quit it out– stop counting them!” She gave the Geodian a sharp look. “I got enough, okay?” 

  Zara’s attempts at trying to hide the packages were, unfortunately, a failure. Xander stopped counting and raised his eyebrows. 

“You got one too many.”

  The medic readjusted her armload of warm cargo, swallowing her mouthful only to take another. “No, I didn’t. I got two for me because I'm carrying them– and that’s what we call freight tax in the freelance merchant biz.” 

  Xander offered a hand. “Well, I can carry some–”

  “No,” Zara scoffed, but it turned out to be more of a choking sound with all the frycake in her mouth. “You don’t need any more. I mean, look at you.” 

  With a soft gasp, Xander looked down at himself.

  “What?” he quaked softly, before catching the subtle squint at the corner of Zara’s eyes. He lost his look of hurt, instead assuming a small glare. “I thought you were above Charge’s sense of humour,” he muttered. “I am merely enjoying my life as a free Geodian, thank you very much.” 

  Zara bit into the cake, telling herself it was close enough to biting her tongue, while Xander continued to talk. 

  “You know, having no flab is a sign of a very unhappy life,” Xander was saying. “And if I’m stranded on a desert planet with no food, I will last longer, you know.” 

  Zara turned a baleful eye to her companion as they passed an open hangar in the middle of repairing its ceiling. “You’ll last forever, you mean.” 

  Xander’s exasperated sigh was enough to know he’d missed the teasing tone of Zara’s voice. He directed another small glare towards the Avaiyyatian. 

  “Did you ask me to come with you just so you could mock my weight?” he asked, putting his free hand on his hip. “Because you could have done that back at the hangar. If Aster finds out we both snuck out, we are dead–” 

  Zara sighed, looking at her frycake before biting it again. “I know,” she confessed. “I actually wanted you to come so we could talk about Aster.” 

  Xander's reaction was proof enough for Zara that this conversation was, indeed, long overdue. 

  The ex-gladiator looked away, mumbling as he thrust his free hand into his coat pocket. “Oh, yes,” he muttered, “and to tell me everything I've done in the last interphase has been wrong, and selfish, and I should listen to him about everything, right?” 

  Zara waited a small moment before she spoke, watching him 

“Nihl's crickets. Why are you so angry?” she asked. “And… are you angry at me or Aster?”

  Xander looked down with a mutter. “What’s the difference?” 

  Something like anger bit into the side of Zara’s lungs, deep within her ribcage and under the many layers protecting her from the early morning cold. She frowned at the stabbing sensation, staying the emotion as to not consume her next sentence. She blew out a breath. 

  “You know, you could do with a lot more grace when it comes to Captain Rigg–” 

  Xander tilted his head, looking sidelong at Zara. “You mean grace for when he was going to kick Evren out of the hangar?” 

  “You mean the kid that threatened to hand us over to Kovals'?” Zara countered, a little more anger in her voice than she'd intended. “She’s also a thief, you know.” 

  “She’s just a kid!” Xander burst out. “But Aster hates her–” 

  Zara scoffed. “Kids can be weird! I mean, look at Charge–” She gestured down the street towards the distant doors of hangar 42. “Cause we all know he’s lying about how old he is.” 

  Xander frowned at her. “What do you want me to say?” he asked unhappily as his crutch squeaked in protest at Zara’s brisk pace. “That bringing Evren up for you to hire as the maintenance hand was a bad decision? That I should have not repaid her kindness when she helped us locate our Lightcore?” Xander stopped walking, turning to Zara with a somewhat defensive look on his features. “Did you really bring me out here so that you could get me to agree with Captain Rigg that Evren was a waste of time and money?” 

  Zara stopped, too, a frown forming in between her pale eyebrows. “No. I didn’t.”

  Xander spread his hand as the crowd passed them, bustling and humming and signing with motions foreign to the two merchants. 

  “Then what do you want me to do?” Xander asked. “Give Aster more grace for shouting at her at the table? For lying last night when he said he would help us? Back in the trash bin?” 

  Zara went to interrupt, but Xander stopped her, holding up his dark, ivory-striped hand.

  “No, no, no– do not tell me that the same Captain Rigg that was shortchanged by Oli Preasigat– like some common freight pilot– would do anything to provoke Kovals'.”   

  Zara drew in a long breath. “Unlike some people, Xander, he knows he can’t win every fight–”  

  "But he does not even try!” the Geodian protested. “He did not even want to challenge the mechanics last night when they were mocking us.”

  Zara squinted at the Geodian. “So you’re saying that’s it? You’ve just lost faith in Captain Rigg, and you’ll be taking matters into your own hands, now?” 

  Xander straightened, lowering his voice. “That is not what I said–” 

  “Well, it’s what you meant!” Zara shouted at him, realising she had gotten angry instead of saying her original thought. She turned away, mentally repenting for all the times she had blamed Aster for the constant fights he seemed to be having with Xander– the Geodian just made it too damn easy to be angry at. She could feel Xander’s eyes on the back of her head as she aggressively studied a ventilation unit high above them, clinging to the ceiling like it was afraid of falling down. 

  “Damn you, Xander,” Zara breathed out, still not looking at him. “I dragged you out here because I wanted to tell you that the anniversary just passed.” Zara looked down, biting the inside of her cheek painfully. 

  “It was last interphase– and of course he wouldn’t tell anyone, he never does– but I wanted you to know… I made you and Charge apologise last night, because…” 

  The feeling of self-loathing that arose in Zara’s chest after she'd spent a minute trying to find the right words to say was suffocating. She wished herself to be a dummy on the ground, so she could kick it endlessly for not being able to handle this conversation as well as she thought she could. 

  Xander shifted, his low tone nearly lost in the noise of the rowdy street when he spoke. 

  “Why did you not tell me sooner?” Xander struggled for words for a moment. “Why not tell… all of us?” 

  Zara gave him a look– not an angry one, but a stern one. An honest one. “So you could tiptoe around him? You know that would just make him angrier.” She readjusted the packages in her arms– a sore substitute for a tired shrug. “I know you don't agree with him, but contrary to what you may believe… Captain Rigg happens to be an authority on angering the wrong kinds of people.” 

  Xander looked down, all traces of anger on his face chased away by remorse. 

  The medic continued. 

  “And if this anniversary reminds him of anything– it’s that we don’t win every fight. We don’t save every person. And gamble as we might with the scrappy cards we’re dealt, there really is no way we can know who’s gonna be alive at the end of the game.” 

  Zara shut her eyes, regretting the impact of her words before they even left her lips. 

  “Can’t you… can’t you understand that, too, Xander?” 

  When she looked up, she made sure not to look at any of the Hatiresh in his hair, the scars along his arms, or the paler shade of his right eye. 

  Xander looked down the street, hazel eyes tracing the faded numerals above each hangar door. “Here I was thinking he was just angry at me,” he said at last. 

  “He’s angry at the universe, Xander,” Zara explained. “Has been since the day I met him.” She allowed a small smile to spread into her tone as she turned and continued her pace down the street– a bit slower, this time. “And you always assume people are angry at you.” 

  Xander rubbed the back of his neck, dark fingers tracing scars long healed as he followed beside her. “Force of habit,” the ex-gladiator confessed. He assumed a strange look, looking down as he dropped his hand. 

  “I… know Captain Rigg is a good captain, Zara.” He looked up at her briefly. “But don’t you think he worries too much? And that worry… it keeps him from helping other people? Sometimes… keeps him from helping us?” 

  Zara pretended to think about it. “I think we need to give him space.” 

  “For how long?” Xander asked. 

  “Probably until we get far away from Covien.” Zara surveyed the busy street for a tangle of unbrushed hair, or a shoulderless red shirt. “Until then,” she continued, “I don't think Aster’s mood is going to improve.” 

6:30 AM, Seventhday, Covien 

  In other parts of Covien, it was possible that mornings were enjoyed by breakfast, the walk to work, or time spent with family. In the light of Covien’s pale, thinning sun, one might even take a moment to pause briefly and say a prayer.

  But within the dark confines of the Passerine’s navigation room, no such activities were being had. In fact, barely any life stirred in the room, excepting one hunched and squinting Fletric, who sat at a large wooden desk, muttering to himself tunelessly as he flicked through holographic charts.

  The figure looked at the clock by the pilot’s seat, cursed when he saw the time, and went back to work. 

  Housing all of the transport’s sensitive tech like information consoles, projection units, and navigation equipment, the nav-room was possibly the quietest room in the Passerine. And while it was true they all made some kind of noise– the whirring, clicking, and pulsing of a machine, alive– it was the nature of the noise that made it seem quiet. So steady and persistent that Captain Rigg found it as comforting as silence, if not more so. 

  Bolted securely to the floor, the wooden desk that dominated the mid-section of the room held the projection unit humming a tune of ones and zeros at its centre. From this chorus came streams of data in the shape of pearly white beams, all aligning themselves to display a holographic copy of planets, stars, laneways and moons– a glowing mimicry of the real system as it floated about the room like an apparition. 

  Shelves lined either side of the room, laden with hundreds of different kinds of books– atlases, star charts, any language guides that might be needed, along with stories, myths, and the many histories the Kosmoverse was adorned in. Globes of every kind lined the top of each bookshelf, standing guard next to stellascopes and tridents, and gazing out with their multicoloured lenses to watch Captain Rigg work, like silent, brass sentinels. 

  Most things on the shelves were all, at one point, useful, while others were less useful and more entertaining, but everything– everything– was chosen and collected by the captain that examined the shining projection with unhappy mutterings. For as strange and curious as the collections were, they were no more strange and curious than their collector. 

  Consulting his notes one last time, Captain Rigg reached for the control panel on the desk, switching to a different projected system.

The pearly light obliged, presenting the Fletric with a binary system that sported a gaping black hole at its centre. He frowned, mentally calculating the paths he needed to take to avoid the tight gravitational forces at work there. Aster pushed himself from his desk and turned to a bookshelf, pulling out a faded red book.

   “Serebinos, Serebinos,” he muttered, flicking through the holographic pages until he reached the desired location. He put a few fingers on his chin as he muttered aloud,

  “'Population of 22 million, holds no Scelirian ties. Part of the Empirium since the Silent War…' This might do.” Captain Rigg scanned the page for known exports. “'Straw, Quence, Silica, Kaolinite… biopolyplast… and glue.'" 

  But no salt.

He snapped the book shut, strutting back to the projection and flicking to a different view. “Come on, let this work, let this work…” he muttered, typing coordinates into the unit’s control panel.

  Covien appeared as a small spec. 

  Captain Rigg inputted a new command and another set of coordinates, a larger planet twinkling into view; under it, the word 'Phobia' shone out proudly into the room. 

  At Captain Rigg’s fingers a line was drawn between the two bodies– an averaged flight path that shone like thread in the luminescent hologram. Nodding to himself, he typed in his last command, and the projection formed a small, binary system that rotated slowly around the room like a holographic coret ball.

  Serebinos Nine. 

  Captain Rigg took a step back, studying the three celestial bodies as they shifted in the milky light, like Sirens waiting to strike. Distantly, he could hear his crew talk over the comm, but he blocked it out, calculations running in his head as he tried to focus. Reaching forward to the control panel, he pressed the lowest button apprehensively. 

  Confirm date? the control panel chimed. 

   Captain Rigg swallowed and pressed it again, systems aligning themselves according to the dates he had given it.

  Serebinos Nine spun itself across the room– far, far, far from the shimmering line drawn between Covien and Phobia.

  Aster looked at the system, far out of his reach, and closed his eyes, rubbing the right one as it ached dreadfully. “Damnit!” He drew in a long breath, resting his fists on the table with a curse.  

  “Wrong time of year…” 

  When he finally mustered the courage to look back at Covien, Operis, Cimmi and Tarda all orbited their matron planet like the obedient little moons they were– steadily, quietly. Watching the projection was so mesmerizing that he barely noticed the coarse grain of his desk as his fists pressed painfully into the fibers there.

Covien seemed so small, almost as if he could clench it in his fist if he so desired, but all he remained doing was staring at it, a weight as heavy as the moons themselves pressing down on him.   

  Captain Rigg shut his eyes, finding the comm that hung around his neck. The communication device was shaped like a bulky, awkward sort of hexagon. Usually, Captain Rigg preferred the ones that went around his wrist, but Charge had collected those a few interphases ago, and was in the middle of ‘upgrading them.’ Captain Rigg knew by now that to ask the Secodack what he was doing would be a huge waste of time, so he accepted the temporary comm without complaint. He cleared his throat, holding it to his mouth. 

  “Is Miss West in the hangar yet?” he asked, surprising even himself at how weary his voice had become. He really should have gone to bed the night before.

  “Not unless she’s hiding in an engine,” Charge answered through the comm bitingly.

“Let's just leave, Captain. She’s not coming.” 

  “Uh… she was not… out by the hold… when I checked…” Xander answered.

  Captain Rigg tilted his head down, fists digging into the fibres of his desk once more.

“What’s the status of the Lightcore?”

  “Ready and waiting, Captain. Tarik says it’s good to go when you are,” Charge answered, some distant clanging breaking through the comm from the engine room. 

  Captain Rigg nodded. “And the crates?”

  “Twenty beautiful, empty cargo-class crates. Loaded about an hour ago… thanks to Sevus, of course,” Xander answered, still sounding somewhat hesitant. 

  The Fletric looked up, gazing at a bookshelf across the navigation room, and muttered to himself. A small burst of anger bubbled up into his chest, making him grind his teeth together. Captain Rigg looked at the projection one last time, turning to the helm.

  “We need another hand today,” he said into the comm. “If Evren can’t keep her promises and be on time, then we need to readjust our timetable. Charge, you’ll help in the hold today. We’ll push out the pre-flight checks on the new Lightcore till tonight.”

  “Oh joy,” Charge said. “Another all-nighter.” 

  Captain Rigg rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry. We can all catch up on sleep with the two-week trip to Novesena. Until then– and without Miss West– it’s all hands on deck.” 

  “Charge doesn’t sleep,” Xander scoffed. “He just plugs into the wall.”

  “Hey, I would if I could,” Charge started, “but someone smells so bad it’s impossible.”

  “It’s you!” Xander thundered through the comm, losing his, usually, calm demeanour.

  “Like Eth it is,” Charge scoffed. “Take a bath, bunkie–”

  “What do you think happened to Evren, Captain?” Sevus asked, interrupting Xander and Charge's squabble. “Won’t she wonder where we’ve gone?”

  Captain Rigg pushed himself off the desk, turning to the upper part of the navigation room that was the Passerine's helm-pit. 

  “I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter now.” He stepped up between the two pilots' seats. “We’re on our own.” 

   Throwing the book on the co-pilot's seat, he sat down, taking a breath and finding his eyes on the doors to hangar 42 through the windows of the helm-pit. 

  He felt angry. Angry at himself, and angry at Evren, too. Angry that she had promised to be here, and angry that she wasn’t. Angry that he didn’t know where she was, or why she was late, and angry that there was no real way he could find out. Angry that the past few days had only given him more questions about her, and not less. Angry that he hadn’t been able to say sorry to her, and angry that she hadn’t wanted the soup he’d given her. 

  More than anything, though he was loath to admit it, he was angry that he had balanced so much of this day on her presence, and that without Evren West, his crew were going to be pressed for time and overworked– which they already were. 

  If only Xander hadn’t hurt himself, Captain Rigg thought angrily, then they wouldn't even need Evren. 

  Even as he thought about it, he felt a stabbing reminder of the night before–

  Of Evren, delicately taking out her ticket, explaining why she had lied to the crew in the first place, explaining that all she wanted to do was see her family again– that living on this planet was never something she had wanted to do.

  It was something he couldn’t shake, and no matter how angry he found himself at her fickle promises, he couldn’t quite get himself to wish that she’d never been hired. 

  He shut his eyes, looking away from the doors. “Helm to engines, fire them up. We’re leaving.” 

  Charge’s voice crackled through. “Copy that.”

  “What?” Zara asked. “We can’t leave yet!” 

  Captain Rigg frowned. “Why not?” 

  There was a long pause on the comms. Charge was the one who finally answered, a smile in his sing-song retort. 

  “Because someone snuck out to get food...” 

  “What?” Captain Rigg snapped.

  “I… got some for everyone?” Zara explained, breathing hard. “Just give us a moment, please–” 

  Aster gripped the comm in his hand, tightly. “Really, Zara? I expected this of Xander, but I thought you were above this.” He stopped. “Wait– ‘us?’” 

  “Ah, Captain, my captain,” Charge started helpfully. “I think you’ve just been mutinied against for a frycake–” 

  “Shut up, Charge!” said everyone at once. 

  Captain Rigg hung his head, strands of greying hair falling from his shoulders. “Out of all the days–” he started. 

  “Yeah, I know, I know… bad timing.” 

  “Bad timing is an understatement!” Captain Rigg found himself shouting. “For the love of the Allmaker, just get back to the hangar.”  

  Captain Rigg waited for the tight sense of frustration to ease out of his chest. To distract himself, he counted. 

  Thirty. 

  Fourty. 

  Fifty.

  Finally, he was rewarded with a sound he never could tire of.

  Through the right window he saw turbine one spark to life, turning from orange to blue. The entire vessel shook with the force, and continued to shake as the turbine on his left started to glow, matching its companion. 

  The steering console started to connect, passing energy through its thin, delicate cables that allowed Captain Rigg to control the turbines from the helm. The steering yoke activated and came forward from the console. Captain Rigg looked over to the co-pilot's seat, its control unlit, where it would stay unlit, as he had deactivated the co-piloting equipment years ago, formatting the controls to be run by the only reliable person on his crew.

Him.

  He breathed in deeply, like he could taste the energy that vibrated through his soft leather boots. 

  Thirty seconds later, Aster saw Zara burst through the hangar doors, heaving for air as she struggled with several packages in her arm. 

  “Aster, something broke the doors,” Zara puffed, “they won’t latch.” 

  Aster released a breath of relief when he saw her, but managed to make the noise sound angry somehow. He flicked on his navimetre in preparation. “Not a 'right now' problem,” he said, inputting information into the little panel.

"But they'll fine us," Sevus interjected worriedly. "If they find the hangar any different to how we--"

"I said 'not a right now problem,' Mr. Clacher," Aster interrupted, his voice possessing no invite for further anxieties.

  From the corner of his eye, the Captain watched as Zara continued to puff across the hangar towards the ship. Fickle medic, he thought as Xander appeared in the doorway a moment later. Talk about double standards. 

  The Avaiyyatian was halfway across the hangar when something drew her attention to the left, the transport’s wing hiding the reason from Aster’s view. Not a moment later, Zara broke into a run– weariness forgotten as a new urgency entered the hangar, and she disappeared. Xander followed her, wearing a perplexed frown on his face.

  “Zara, what happened?” Aster asked, sitting forward in his seat.

  A long, terrible kind of moment stretched out as silence ate away at the holes inside Captain Rigg’s patience. Tapping his foot against the hexagonal tiling of the helm’s floor, he frowned, waiting– always waiting– for a response from his crew. 

 “Oh my gods–” Zara said. 

  Aster breathed out angrily. “What’s happened?” 

"Aster–”  Zara started sounding more weary than ever. “It’s Evren. She’s here– she’s in the hangar.” 

  “What?” Captain Rigg looked around the helm-pit at a loss for words. “Well, does she have a good excuse for making us late?” 

  There was a small pause before Zara spoke again. 

“Yeah… I think so.”

  There was another pause– the engines rumbled, the doors to the hold clamped shut, and the landing ramp was drawn in. 

  “Okay,” Xander said, breathless– he too, sounded upset. “We’re all in. I really think we should go, Captain. Now. ” 

"Now, you want to go,” Captain Rigg muttered gruffly, dropping the comm around his neck; turning to his Navitmetre, he inputted the coordinates for Refinery Bay. He frowned in concentration as he pulled down the power breaker for the console, the anti-grav flicking on through the control link as it locked into place.  

  Taking a breath, he slowly increased the power to the turbines, feeling the vessel lift off the ground. He knew that behind the thick, reinforced glass of the Passerine’s helm windows, the sound of the twin engine ship would be deafening inside the metal hangar. 

  “Xasan. Update.” He pulled a lever to his right, the ship groaning softly as the landing gear folded into itself and tucked under the Passerine’s belly. 

  “Everything’s  fine… Let’s just get out of here,” Zara answered.

  Captain Rigg didn’t need to be told twice. 

  With a firm grip and a grim expression, Captain Rigg pulled back on the steering yoke, watching the proximity sensors with keen eyes as he maneuvered his ship out of hangar 42. 

  The vessel slid out of its rusty confines, and Aster pivoted the ship, setting its nose towards the sun-soaked ocean of grass. With a deep breath, Captain Rigg pushed forward, and the ship pitched dowards, downwards, downwards, until it was a mere Tap from the ground. 

  Arcing out of the free fall and into the flat flight path, Captain Rigg steered his ship towards Refinery Bay. 

  Miles of grass raced beneath the Passerine, colonies of scratchy stalks reflected in the speeding metal belly of the ship. 

  Plain-dwelling rodents ran to their homes in fear, while Scavengers looked up absently from their tasks to watch the ship fly over the Hollow Wastes– like many had passed them before, and many would pass them again. 

  All the while– like wrathful conversations being had in the far distance– storm clouds grappled with the sky in a turbulent prelude to a thunderstorm. Like a restless crowd quieting for a concert’s crescendo, the entire plain seemed to be settling in to watch the struggle of power, almost like it already knew who was going to win. Almost like it had been waiting for it for a very long time. Almost like it wanted the discord resolved. 

  Craved it, even. 

  But natural things like thunderstorms and rain clouds were very simple compared to the complex, sticky emotions of an organic mind, and Captain Rigg found himself wishing he could trade his for the overarching, black and white conflict of a storm as he gazed thoughtlessly through the Passerine’s windows.

  Tapping his fingers on the steering yoke, Captain Rigg watched the Hollow Wastes pass under him with an intense frown. 

  Half an hour had passed since they'd left Lisk. 

  It had been half an hour of absolute comm silence. 

  He looked at the ship-wide comm panel set into the wall of the helm-pit. Tapping his fingers again, he went to activate it, but stopped himself once more. 

  “If there was something wrong,” he said, “she would have told me. Trust your crew… trust your crew…” 

  He picked up the red book beside him, scanning the pages for information he had already memorised. 

  World upon world, far within the true, wild Western Sector; most of them in need of salt, and all of them out of the Phobian flight path.

  Behind him, he heard the door to the nav-room open. 

  “Finally,” he muttered, snapping his book shut just as the door slammed against the wall of the room.

  The noise nearly shot Captain Rigg out of his seat, and heart racing, he twisted around, hand going to the Pulser at his hip as visions of inky Quricks and other vengeful Fringe monsters lunged into his head. 

  Evren West pressed her back against the door of the nav-room, heaving for air as she clutched a small white crate to her chest, like she had been running from the very monsters in Captain Rigg’s head. 

  Captain Rigg, paralysed in his seat with a stupidly shocked expression on his face, watched as the girl sank to the ground. She hadn’t seen him from behind the pilot’s seat, and for some distant reason, he prayed she wouldn’t.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off the bandages on her right arm. Usually, they were clean and tidy– today, pools of red seeped through and spread down her arm. Her red, shoulderless shirt was missing and in its place was a dark, sleeveless top. In the place of her floppy boots, she had scrapes and abrasions along her feet. 

  Hunched against the door, Evren blinked rapidly, like she was tired and disoriented, muttering to herself as she searched through in her crate. With shaking hands, Evren gave up looking through her crate and dumped it on the floor, spilling its contents over the hexagonal tiling. 

  “Where–where is it?” she slurred. “Where did I put it? It has to be here– it has to be here– it has to be here.” 

  With wide eyes, Captain Rigg watched as Evren went still. 

  She blinked, her eyelids seeming heavier and heavier every time she did so. Out of the pile of knicknacks, she held up a figurine of some kind, fear steadily dissolving into horror. Blinking rapidly, Evren seemed to be struggling to focus. Slowly, her horror melted away into anger. Her knuckles went white around the small figurine. 

  Before Aster knew it, he heard a sharp crack, and the figurine split into pieces. No sooner had the thing splintered, Evren had thrown it from her in a tight, frustrated cry.

“No!” 

  She collapsed onto her crate– heaving for breath, or trying not to cry, Aster wasn’t sure. 

  Captain Rigg’s mind had gone blank. He couldn’t form any thoughts and he certainly couldn’t speak. What in the Kosmos had just happened?

  As Aster thought about all this, Evren looked up like she had heard something behind the metal of the ship’s heavy walls. She spied the desk in the middle of the room and scrambled for it, scooping up her things and stuffing them back into the crate.

She disappeared as Aster heard footsteps, the door opening a second later.

  Zara walked in. 

  The medic did not even look at Aster. She stalked across the room and looked straight under the desk– fooled for not one moment at the Geodian’s attempts at hiding. 

  “What in Eth are you doing?” Zara asked, bent over. 

  Evren popped out from the other side, scrambling to her feet almost like she was drunk. “Don’t!” the small girl threw behind her, “I don’t want to take them off!”

  Captain Rigg pushed himself from his seat slowly, flicking on auto-control and stepping from the helm silently. 

  Zara had her hands spread apart in a gesture of peace as she faced Evren across the desk.

  “Evren, you’re hurt. You’re… you’re not thinking right.” 

  Evren stood unsteadily, keeping the desk between her and the medic as the Avaiyyatian started to circle it. 

  “I don’t want to… And-and you can’t make me!” Evren cried, clutching her crate to her chest as tears welled up in her eyes.

  Aster frowned, taking another step down into the nav-room. Something really wasn't right. 

  Zara sighed, a whole-body movement that consisted of her shoulders drooping and her head pointed up to the heavens in a moment of acute frustration.

  “Sweet mother of everything– no one is making you do anything you don’t want to.” She gave the small Geodian a pointed stare, continuing. “But your arm is bleeding. And I  should look at it before something bad happens.” 

  With her back turned towards him, Aster couldn’t see Evren’s face, but she shook her head violently. When she spoke, her voice was strangely weak. 

  “I won’t– I mean, I don’t wanna… I don’t want to.. take the bandages… off. It’s… importan' to… m–” 

  Aster saw Evren’s knees buckle before the girl even started to fall. Closing the distance, he caught the Geodian like a limp fish. 

  Evren’s head rolled back as her crate slipped from her fingers, its contents spilling loudly as it clattered to the nav-room floor for the second time. 

  Aster looked up at Zara. 

  “What in the–” He looked down at Evren. “Why is she–” He looked back up at Zara.

“What’s happened?”

  Zara was quickly by Aster’s side, glancing at him apprehensively as he held the unconscious Geodian. “Are you okay?” 

  Aster’s gaze kept switching between Evren and his medic. “Am I okay?” he burst out. “What the hell happened to our maintenance hand?” 

  Studying his face a moment longer, the young medic looked back to the Geodian, stepping closer. “That, Captain, is what I am trying to figure out.” She held a finger to the girl’s neck, checking her pulse. “But what just happened here was a very dramatic display of low blood sugar.” She nodded to Evren, glancing up at Aster. “You wanted a good excuse, so here it is.” 

  Aster looked down at Evren as Zara explained. “She was behind the hangar bins–”

  “Hiding?” Aster queried..  

  “Unconscious,” Zara interrupted. “Very unconscious.” 

  Captain Rigg looked down at the Geodian in his arms, a frown creasing his Fletric markings. 

  Well great, he thought to himself bitterly. His only capable helper for the day was unconscious. 

  Now that he was closer to her, he could clearly see the dark shadows under her eyes, and a large scratch across her cheek. The bandages she wore were as he had noticed, bloody and soiled, but also hastily wrapped– a stark contrast to the tidy fabric she would wrap her arm in when she came to work. His eyes were drawn to her wrist, where, if he wasn’t mistaken, the whitened fabric had been singed, or, burned? He looked back at Zara. 

  “What happened to her?” he asked. 

Taking a device from her pocket, Zara ran it over the bandaged limb, a chorus of beeps sounding from it. 

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. It was a freak coincidence I saw her when I did.” Zara frowned, looking at the output panel on the device. “I noticed some moths going crazy over by the trash bins, but then I saw her hand sticking out.” The medic shook her head. “I have no idea how long she’d been there.”

  Aster looked down at the shallowly breathing girl as he readjusted his grasp on her, but it only seemed to make her harder to hold. He thought back to the conversation he had had with her when they'd split ways at the hangar doors the night previous. 

  She had seemed energetic, and optimistic– excited, even.

 “Why didn’t you tell me this happened?” he asked, looking up. “I thought–” He stopped himself, looking away. He didn’t really want to tell his medic what he thought. 

  “So you just found her like this?” he ended up asking as Zara watched him.

  Zara turned, gesturing for Aster to follow her. The captain was forced to loop an arm under Evren’s legs to lift her off the ground properly, but she didn’t feel as heavy as Aster thought she would. 

  He hurried to follow Zara across the navigation room as she talked. 

“Well, I didn’t find her like this– I found her unconscious next to a softboard box. The panic-induced freak-out is a new development,” Zara said, walking out of view. “It’s probably related to how little reserves she has right now.” 

  Captain Rigg frowned, stepping through the door to the nav-room and into the small hallway that connected to the rest of the ship. “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t get to look at her for long before she woke up and booked it out of the med-room, but I did have a Vital attached to her long enough to figure out that our lying little mechscrubber here has the nutrient read-out of a belly-up corpse. I couldn’t find any sign of the trace minerals Geodians her age need, let alone universal ones like vitamin D, or zinc. Plus, she has the lowest blood sugar I’ve seen on any breathing Organic.” Shaking her head, the medic looked back at Aster. “It’s like something bloody syphoned it.”

  Aster looked down as a thought flashed across his mind. An uncomfortable one. 

  “That sounds… a lot like something else.”

   Zara seemed amused at the statement as she walked, even though Aster thought it was as far from amusing as one could get. “Her temperature is normal, Aster– and I’m pretty sure that if there was a Siren around, we’d know.” 

  Again, Aster bit his tongue, deciding that he needed to be less paranoid. He looked at the girl he was carrying. She didn’t really weigh much, not as much as a Geodian should weigh.

  “So you’re saying… she's starving?” 

  “It’s not that simple. Less starving and more like... missing the things she actually needs for a girl her age.”

  Zara turned down the stairs instead of heading towards the med-room, and Aster shifted the small mechscrubber in his arms.

  “Why would she come to our hangar? Why not go to the authorities if she was… attacked?” 

  Zara spared a glance at her captain. “She’s just a kid, Aster. A scared kid.” 

  Captain Rigg followed Zara into the warm light of the crew-room. “Kovals' didn't seem to think so last night,” Aster admitted. He stopped himself. “If this was Kovals'… She could have led them to hangar 42.” 

  Hurrying down the stairs to the crew-room, the medic threw her answer over her shoulder. “If she did, why didn’t they attack us this morning?” She stepped off the last step of the stairway with a shout. “Clacher!” 

  The Nefnat appeared from the kitchen, tea towel in hand and a quizzical look on his face. His eyes drew up to where Captain Rigg was halfway down the steps with the small Geodian in his arms.

  “Oh good, you found her,” the Nefnat breathed out, relieved. 

  Aster bit his cheek angrily. Did everyone know what was happening except him?

  Zara walked towards the ragged couch that sat beneath the large viewing window of the crew room, patting it quickly. “Aster, put her here. I think the med-room freaked her out.” She turned to Sevus. When she spoke, her voice had transformed from a simple merchant medic into something much more authoritative.

  “Clacher, go to the med-room. I need a new Vital and the Tab that’s clicked into the wall by the monitor panels. And bring my med bag!” 

  Sevus nodded stiffly, leaping up the stairs, and in literally three seconds, he was gone.

  Aster set Evren down more gently than how he had originally caught her. He was worried about how urgent Zara was being. “Is it really that bad?” 

  Zara shook her head. “No. But to put Sevus in soldier-mode you have to shout at him or else he gets anxious and checks out.” 

  Aster took a step back from the couch. He couldn’t take his eyes from the bandages around Evren’s arm. Something tightened around his chest, like a rubber band compressing his lungs. 

  How quickly he had assumed Evren to just be bad at keeping promises… 

  He cleared his throat, like that could dispel his guilt. He pointed to a thick wound that ran down the side of Evren's foot, one that reached nearly halfway up her calf– exposed now that her shoes were gone. It seemed old, but it was red and irritated. “Was that from last night?” 

  Zara glanced at it. “No. A phase or two old, probably.” She sighed, tilting her head. “Kid's definitely been through the wars, that’s for sure.” 

  Aster looked up to find Zara already watching him. “I heard her say something about her arm?” 

  She looked away as he turned, clearing her throat. “Yeah…” she said at length. “She snapped awake when I started to unravel the bandages around her wrist.” 

  Aster watched Evren as she breathed in and out, shallow breaths of a troubled sleep. While he watched her, he heard Sevus bound back into the crew room and leap down the stairs. 

  The medic thanked him, and Sevus hurried back into the kitchen. All the while the captain’s eyes lingered on the burnt bandages around Evren’s wrist. “Well, now that she's passed out, perhaps you could look at them now?” 

  “No,” Zara responded, pulling items out of her bag. “I’m going to get her blood sugar back up. I scanned her arm before when she was in the nav-room, anyway. It doesn’t seem as deep as I thought it was, so I won’t touch it.” 

  “Why not?” the captain asked, perplexed as he watched the young Avaiyyatian sort through things on their wooden table. “We don’t even know what happened to her– figuring out what’s under all those bandages may even give us a clue as to–” 

  “She’s incapacitated!” Zara snapped, rounding on Aster. “I won’t do it. Not when she’s unconscious– not when she doesn’t have a say.” She knelt next to the couch, muttering, “It’s not that bad, anyway.” 

  Aster folded his arms, breathing in. “Zara, you know that’s not what I–” he stopped himself, biting his lip.Who was he to argue with her? 

  While he thought, he could feel Sevus hovering behind him.

  “Do you know what happened to her?” the Nefnat asked, sounding just as confused as Aster felt.

  “I don’t know,” Zara said curtly, “but we won’t have any answers until she wakes up.” 

  So you’re saying she’s starving?

  Captain Rigg tapped his fingers on the steering yoke. Looking beside him, Evren’s white crate of things sat comfortably in the chair next to him. The weathered data Tab stared at him from atop her crumpled red shirt, watching him with its dusty screen and dented case.

  It’s been one hell of a ride to get that ticket, though. I’ve been here for… a long time.

  He looked back at the Hollow Wastes, keeping the steady rhythm under his fingers in time to some kind of song that hid just beneath the blur of a distant memory. 

  Why did he have to find the most complicated people to work for him? 

  His eyes flicked up to the coral box in between the fuel gauges. Then away.

  She’s just a kid, Aster. A scared kid. 

  Captain Rigg looked down in his other hand, the collected pieces of Evren’s figurine resting on his palm. Fractured– shaken– scarred. 

  He put them into his pocket, blowing out a breath. 

  So what are we? The less bad, or the more safe? 

  A beast with many heads– that’s what Miss West was reminding him of. Like a creature with a hundred faces she could take on and off at will. A mechscrubber, a maintenance hand, a street urchin, an old Entrillian reader– one moment, she was threatening and scared, the next, hardworking, honest, and kind. 

  After a long moment, Captain Rigg looked back to the data Tab. 

  A beast with many heads– or a girl with just one secret?

  He pulled the device out of the crate and turned it on. The loading screen appeared in vivid green, a little loop rotating lazily as the device booted through half a dozen error messages. The device was possibly hundreds of years old– Pre-Silent war, if he had to guess. 

  “You look like you’ve been through hell,” he muttered over the device, and it chimed dully in reply. It agreed. 

Currently, it was formatted to hold information, split into categories. Informationals, audial informationals, and a small file holding nothing but a singular line of text: a serial number for a ship either very old, or very unique, judging by its low value. 

  Aster disregarded it, toggling to the informationals and finding a plethora of reading materials, resources on language, culture guides, maps, and even story books from multiple races. 

  Many, if not all of the files, had one or zero views. 

 “Big surprise,” he muttered, thinking of how Evren had ‘reorganised’ the crates on Thirday.

  Absently, he used the three small buttons at the edge of its case to toggle to the audial projections, expecting to find the same thing. Pausing to re-examine what he saw, he squinted, thinking he had misread the symbols.    

 The Nefnat Initiative, an overview: replay count 38 times. 

All Y-sector Systems and Anomalies: replay count 104 times. 

The Medium and The Fifteen Systems. 

The Kore and Its Guilds. 

The Secrets of Wanderers' Guide. 

Kletisian Outposts.

Post War Exports of the Seco Systems.

Known Astroportrology–

  Captain Rigg toggled through articles, videos, visual informationals; projections on history, culture, science, animals, and orbits. With each new file he looked at, he found himself having more questions about the small Geodian instead of less. And it didn’t help that each file had the option to test the viewer's knowledge of the material they had learned, and Aster saw most of the scores were well above what he had assumed Evren to know. 

  He leant closer to the screen, squinting as he tried to piece together what he was seeing.

 Starways Into the Medium: average score 98%. 

  “98%?” Captain Rigg echoed, leaning over in his chair to look at the numbers again. 

  He twisted around, looking down into the nav-room at his own bookshelves in thought. Shaking his head, he dismissed the thought angrily. “Of course I would get 98%,” he muttered. “I’m a bloody pilot.” 

  Captain Rigg turned the Tab off, putting the device into his pocket unhappily. 

  If Evren West was a beast with many heads, he felt like he had just found a few more, and he wasn’t delighted with that fact at all. 

  Very soon, like all over-tired, unhappy people find themselves doing, Aster found himself lost in thought– looking out across the Wastes, again, far, troubling thoughts stirring in his mind like restless undercurrents. In the distance, unnatural structures came and went on the plains as his transport sped by– like silent witnesses to his troubles– unmoving, unhelpful, and out of reach. 

  Eventually, he put his hand into his pocket, bringing out the pieces of the figurine and frowning darkly at it. 

  “Doesn’t much matter who she is, but if you’re anything to go by,” he muttered, “Evren West clearly isn’t safe in Lisk anymore.” 

  Evren’s crate in hand, Captain Rigg opened the door to the navigation room. He breathed in, then out, muttering to himself in rehearsal. “‘Of course, if you felt unsafe, you could stay with us till your transport left–’” He shook his head, pausing in the open doorway. “No, no… that’s too direct. Maybe… ‘if Kovals' was the one who found you, we can make sure you get to your transport tomorrow?’” Rolling his eyes, Captain Rigg took a step out of the nav-room. 

  “Like she’d ever feel safe with someone who’s threatened to shoot her on multiple occasions. Stupid Aster. Stupid-stupid-stupid.” 

  Captain Rigg pulled the navigation room’s door shut behind him, turning the wheel to lock the metal in place when he heard Evren’s voice echoing down the hallway from the crew-room. 

  “What?” Evren’s voice ping-ponged around, cheery and energetic. “No, not attacked! Well, attacked by a storm, maybe–” 

  Captain Rigg frowned– hand stilling on the metal wheel. 

  A question was asked in a tone Aster couldn’t make out, and his ear twitched as he strained to hear the words. 

  Evren’s answer came loudly and easily. “That’s when I fell into the lift– serves me right for walking around in the rain.” 

   Turning in place, Captain Rigg’s frown deepened. He readjusted the satchel around his shoulders, weighted with the money to pay the salt dealer. 

  As he walked down the hallway, the ship powered down– turbines cooling to a dull grey. Aster passed the viewing port to his left, looking through the thick, reinforced glass to the roof of the salt storehouse he had been instructed to land at. 

  Xander’s disjointed query echoed around the inside of the hallway. “But your arm? And you were unconscious–” 

  Charge interrupted him. “And Zara said you kept on passing out like a faulty lightbulb.” 

  Aster heard Evren’s laugh, surprised at how genuine it appeared.

 “Well, you try staggering around in the dark without knocking your head. I was just shook, that's all. You don’t need to worry about it. I really feel fine.” 

  More questions were asked, but they were quieter. Aster stepped onto the thin, balcony-like walkway that circled the crew-room. Below, Zara, Charge, and Xander sat at the crew table, clustered around Evren as they asked her questions, and she did her best to answer them through mouthfuls of greymeal. She had no Vital attached to her arm, and her old bandages had been replaced. 

  Aster descended the stairs heavily, and Zara looked up, her thin hand clasped around a steaming cup. 

  “Landing felt a little rushed,” she commented, taking a long swirl of her neon, glowing drink. 

  “Balancer is out,” Aster answered, voice low. “I’ll need to have a look at it before we leave.” 

  Sevus turned to Aster, clearing his throat as he shuffled to the captain’s side.  

  “Miss West was just telling us what happened to her,” the Nefnat explained hurriedly, never able to tolerate anyone from being out of the loop. “She got caught in that rainstorm we had last night.” 

  Captain Rigg shifted his gaze from Sevus to Evren, who gulped down a mouthful of grey looking mush. She coughed slightly, the food evidently more hot than she thought it was. 

  “Sorry about earlier, Captain Rigg,” Evren rasped. “I think I may have disturbed you.” 

   Captain Rigg inclined his head, walking to the table and setting the white crate down wordlessly. 

  Evren seemed surprised as she looked at the box, looking back up at the captain. “Oh, I must have left that… in the… room.” Putting it on the bench next to her, she nodded to Captain Rigg in thanks. 

  As she did so,  Xander appeared to be thinking as he took a bite of cold frycake. “I do not get it,” he confessed finally. “Why were you in the hangar, then?” 

  Evren looked back at Xander. 

  “I told you,” she reminded gently, still eating her greymeal in between words. “I got lost on my way home after we parted ways at hangar 42. I got let out on an open street where the rain was coming in sideways and it made everything all slippery, and then I fell into that lift shaft and hurt my arm. By the time I woke up and found out where I was, it turned out I was closer to hangar 42 than home, and given it was nearly sunrise, I decided to wait there for you guys to wake up.” Evren finished her story with a smile.

  “And then the next thing I know, Sevus is feeding me the most delicious thing I think I’ve ever tasted.” She smiled happily at the Nefant who stood next to Captain Rigg, and he rubbed the back of his neck shyly. 

  “I’m glad you like it,” he muttered under his breath.

  Unsurprisingly, Evren finished off her bowl of greymeal and ran her spoon around the sides, careful to not let a single gram go to waste. 

  Captain Rigg thought back to what Zara had said. She’s deficient in every nutrient a Geodian her age needs. 

  Evren looked down at her bowl longingly, then back at Sevus. “Is there… any more?” 

  The room swiftly fell silent. 

  Charge looked from Evren’s empty bowl to her face. Horror above horror in his eyes.

  “You… want more greymeal?” he asked. 

  Evren blinked, looking back to the bowl. “Is there something wrong with it?”

  Sevus leant over the table and took Evren’s bowl.

 “No there isn’t, Miss West; you’re just the first person who appreciates my cooking.” 

  As the cook went back to the kitchen, Charge spread his hands, twisting in his seat with a loud stage whisper, “I appreciate you!”  

As soon as Sevus was out of earshot, Charge threw a wadded up ball of waxy paper across the table at Xander– who caught it, and covertly shoved it in his pocket with his own frycake wrapper. 

  Even as his crew bustled about, Aster couldn’t take his eyes off of Evren. Chirpy, happy Evren, who had regained her curiosity and strength almost supernaturally. He hadn’t said a word. He didn’t trust himself to.

  “I really do apologise,” the small mechscrubber was saying to Zara as another bowl of food was put in front of her discreetly. “I didn’t mean to make anyone’s day harder. You guys must have a lot to do.” 

  Zara shrugged as she watched Evren start on her second bowl of food. “What was I going to do? Leave our only capable helper crashed out behind a rubbish bin?”  

  “Did… did I have my poncho with me?” Evren asked, and Zara shook her head. 

  “Sorry, no poncho. You must have lost them with your boots.”

  “Oh, bummer,” Evren smiled sadly in defeat, and for a moment, Aster saw something flicker over her expression. But as soon as it had come, it disappeared. 

  This wasn’t right, Captain Rigg thought. None of this seemed to fit what had happened earlier. The fear, the Kletisian, the bandages– it all pointed towards something greater than getting lost in a lift and losing a poncho. 

  “Right, well, is there something you’d like me to do, Captain Rigg?” the girl was asking helpfully, pushing herself from the table. “Have to earn my seventy five Disks somehow, right?” 

  Captain Rigg nodded. “Yes, of– of course.” He glanced at the taller Geodian sitting across from Evren. “Since Xander is injured, you’ll just be helping with lifting crates– or, well. You were going to…” he trailed off, looking at Zara.

  Evren noticed the exchange. “No, wait–” she pleaded, turning to Zara. “I swear my arm doesn’t hurt– and I really can help. I need to help!” 

   If Zara was taken aback by the outburst, she didn’t show it. She took another sip of her drink. Slowly. “You were passed out an hour ago,” the woman reminded her. 

  Evren nodded rapidly, smiling. “I told you that’s normal for Geodians– something to do with metabo… metababolisisim…?” Suddenly unsure of the word, the girl trailed away. 

  “Metabolism?” Zara interjected flatly. 

  Evren nodded rapidly. “Yes, that! I bandaged my arm and ate some food, and I-I feel much, much better now.” 

  Xander cocked his head on the other side of the wooden table. “Not that I am advocating for Evren to work today, but I am afraid that is true. Geodians don’t need a lot of time to recover like that.” 

  Zara sighed loudly. It was obvious she wasn’t impressed with the race’s unfair ability to recuperate. “Fine. She can work. But I’m not re-bandaging her feet if she gets them dirty.” 

  After a moment of deliberation, Captain Rigg frowned. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea–” 

  “I’m really fine,” Evren interrupted, “Please.” 

  Evren’s chirpy attitude bled away with the word, but only for a second. 

  Captain Rigg nodded, clearing his throat and gesturing to the engine room door behind him. “Whatever you want to do. Xander, please show Miss West where the hand-Hauler is, and Charge, I’ll need you to–” 

  Charge was already pushing himself from the table. “Go into the loft and get the ropes,” he finished drearily, holding up a hand as he trudged past Aster. “Yeah, I know.” 

  Zara watched him go from her place at the table. “You’re an inspiration to us all, Perseid.” Pushing herself from the table wearily, Zara took Evren’s bowl and walked to the kitchen cut-out in the wall. She handed it to Sevus as Aster looked at the spot Evren had been sitting.

   Vaguely, he heard Xander and Evren disappear through the hall that lead to the engine bay, and in the corner of the room, Charge pulled down the stairs to the loft, grumbling the whole way up into the thin, attic-like space nestled at the very top of the ship. 

  “What’s bothering you?” Zara asked behind him, her voice light but somewhat curious. 

  Turning, Aster found himself already frowning. “Why does it not bother you…” he started slowly, “that that kid is blatantly lying to us?” 

  The medic returned the captain’s frown– perhaps, in a way, mirroring it. “Why do you say that?” 

  Aster spread his hands. “You’re not an idiot, Zara. You saw how scared she was in the nav-room–”

  “She hid under a desk– that doesn’t make her a liar.” Zara straightened. “It makes her a paranoid kid who’s grown up on a crime-ridden planet.” She inclined her head, searching her captain’s face for something she wasn’t finding. “And even if Evren isn’t telling the truth… what makes you think you’re entitled to it?” 

  If there was anything Aster could have said to that, he missed any such opportunity to voice it as Zara turned to the heavy door of the crew-room, giving Aster a strange kind of look. Her next words were spoken softly, but they were firm.

  “At the end of the contract, what difference does it make?”

  As the door to the crew-room opened and closed behind the medic, Captain Rigg found his gaze settled on the loft’s open cover as Charge searched for extra ropes. 

  It wasn’t very long after that that he turned, too, and followed his crew. Frustrated, he shook himself of his thoughts, but he could not shake himself of the blatant lie that Evren West had told at his table. 

  Captain Rigg watched the windmills turn lazily in the wind from the top of the salt warehouse, scanning the salt fields between the town and where he'd parked his ship. 

  If Aster had never seen any other towns before, it would probably be what he would call a ‘nice town.’ It sported a tidy array of buildings and houses that sprawled around the dry ocean bed like crustaceans on the bottom of the sea floor. Up on the once divided shores were the large refineries that the town was aptly named after– large, imposing sorts of things that didn’t match the rest of the architecture one bit– but much like it’s Mayhemic neighbor, it used these abandoned, hollowed out buildings for other things.

  It mimicked Lisk in a way of recycling and reuse, but with its own unique air– quite literally. It smelled of salt and minerals, carried by the thick heavy winds that blew across the empty ocean beds. Windmills and air catchers spun lazily in an endless pursuit of power as the salt air blew ever westward, a handful of humming power stations dotting the town to tie that energy there. 

  At his back, Captain Rigg heard a large thud, and the tell-tale noise of machinery starting up. He turned just in time to see a small portion of the storehouse roof open up like an origami creature, revealing a platform that was rising into view.

  To his left, Evren dutifully brought out the cargo class crates he had bought the night before, depositing them in a hasty line that went down the ship’s side. 

  Xander and Zara bustled around the hold as they moved platforms out of the way, refastening things they had shifted– all the while arguing about something just out of his hearing. 

    Aster looked back to the platform to see a figure standing on a crate, talking up to a three-span-Hauler-Bot that stood at attention behind the cargo– a salt-stained, ebony sentinel standing guard.  

  Even from a distance, the man held a hunch that only age could give, but this fact didn’t stop him from jumping down from the crates sprightly as the platform rose to its final height. It clicked into place with loud boom that echoed through the metal of the warehouse like a distant explosion. 

  Captain Rigg fought to stop the tide of memories that rushed into his mind at the noise. 

  The man by the salt surveyed the new ship on his roof, and then started the long way across the tarmac to meet the newcomers. Two six-legged mutts pranced about the man like disobedient shadows that galloped jovially behind their owner. The old trader waved a greeting. 

  Captain Rigg returned it tiredly. Stretching his neck, Aster blew out a long breath as he muttered, “Normal contract. You can do this.” 

  The mutts caught up to Aster before their owner did, and the Fletric did his best to satisfy their demands for being pat as they circled around him and yapped in excitement. 

  “They remember you,” a croaky voice said, and Aster looked up from petting a mutt to the elderly Tironian that regarded him. “And they like you, which I can’t say is a given for all the traders who pass through here.” 

  Aster straightened, extending his hand to the other man. Salt-stained pants and thick suspenders held up a shirt that most likely was once red, and wide blue stripes lined the person's face, mimicking the pointiness of his ears. 

 “Tzir Tarnagi,” Captain Rigg greeted. “I apologise for being late. We encountered some unforeseen trouble.” 

  Shaking his hand, Tzir waved the captain’s concerns away with his other. “All is well, all is well– I was worried you were up and shot in that settlement over yonder.” Tzir pointed a thumb towards the direction of Lisk, drawing his hand back.

  Mentally, Captain Rigg reviewed the last few days in a silent frown. “Almost. But not quite.” 

  Tzir smiled, raising his partially-missing eyebrows. “Credit where credit is high.” He surveyed the Passerine, brown eyes taking in the dual wings, turbines, and bird-like design. “Takes a brave Offworlder to escape that hollowed out heap with all their arms and legs.”

  “Well,” Captain Rigg started, “all our arms and legs we have, in addition to,” – he gestured to the cargo class crates Evren was in the process of stacking– “the trade we talked about?” 

  Tzir walked over to the stack, running his hands along the nearest crate as Evren hurried away, back into the hold. “Oh, those are nice. Very nice. How many?”

  Captain Rigg didn’t really need to think about it, but he pretended to. “Twenty.”

  Tzir seemed pleased with the information. “I’d say that's half the price we agreed on, so that puts it at…” Tzir squinted, straightening. “2,500 Pieces?” 

  “2,500 Pieces it is,” Aster replied, doing his best to smother the intense rise of relief in his chest. 

  Aster glanced into the hold where Evren retrieved the last of the crates with the hauler with a distant, somewhat distracted expression. She looked over at Captain Rigg and his suspicious gaze, and immediately away again, working a little faster.  

  Aster’s squint only narrowed. How could she think that anyone would believe her story about the lifts? She wouldn’t get lost… she’s lived on Covienian for so long. She knew her way around better than anyone…

  “Captain Rigg?” Tzir asked. 

  Aster snapped his head back around. “Pardon?” 

  Tzir was eyeing him strangely as he continued. “I was merely saying, no offence to you or your reputation, but when you said you would find cargo class crates in Lisk to trade me, I was thinking you meant those scrappy ones they sell to Offworlders.” Tzir turned back to the empty crates, pressing on one thoughtfully. “But these are good. Well made.” 

  Aster scratched the back of his neck, looking back at Evren. One of Tzir’s mutts was trying to get in the way as she unloaded cargo crates. She rubbed under its chin, unable to resist the animal’s pleas for affection. 

  “We might have had some help,” he said at last. 

  Tzir followed his gaze. “Ah, an inside gal. Good,” Tzir intoned, then frowned at his mutt who was disturbing his customers. “Oi! Shakshuka, leave it!”

  Evren looked up at the salt dealer in something like panic, withdrawing her hand like she had done something wrong. “I’m sorry!” She tripped over herself, fear making her syllables run together like wet paint. “I didn’t mean to– I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine, Miss West,” Aster called hurriedly. “He was just calling the hound, is all.” 

  The mutt made its forlorn way back to Tzir, who rubbed behind its ears. “My apologies, Captain Rigg. I didn’t mean to upset your crew.”

  Aster waved his words off, glancing back to the ship where Evren had disappeared again. “That’s quite alright.” 

  “A jumpy little creature, isn’t she?” Tzir remarked. 

  Aster hesitated. “Yes, well, I believe if anyone is allowed to be, it’s her.” 

   “Ah,” Tzir intoned. “Had a rough time of it, has she?”

  Aster frowned. This, he had no answer for. At least, not the answer he wanted.

  Everyone on the ship knew Evren West had had a rough time, but the trouble lay within deciding just what kind of trouble she had found. Aster shook himself of his thoughts, trying to disengage himself from the all too familiar anger of not knowing. 

 “I think we’re all just a bit worn down,” he answered finally, pulling the satchel he wore over his head. “Here. I believe this is what we owe– 2,500 Pieces. And my crew will finish unloading your crates in just a moment.” He passed the satchel to Tzir, who took it gratefully and looked at the tiny bags of Pieces inside. 

  The Tironian paused for a moment, looking up with an interesting expression. 

  “Exactly 2,500,” Tzir remarked. “You just… had this amount with you?”

   Aster spread his hands, “It's a lucky guess.”

  Tzir surveyed his newest customer, “Are you now?” 

  The look was a little too knowing for Aster’s taste, so the Fletric cleared his throat, changing the subject. 

  “I’m more than grateful to you for offering work to non-Empirium merchants,” Captain Rigg continued, returning his hands to his pockets. “We had some bad luck with our last contract here.” 

  Tzir closed the satchel and put it over his own head, adjusting it on his shoulder as he talked. “Astrostorm season usually does that,” he said soberly. “Electrical shortages, supply shortages, and lack of import makes folks here desperate and mad. And if the Astrostorms aren’t bad enough, it’s the damn scientists who come after that really take the frycake.” The Tironian shook his head bitterly. “Bad for business, them Gray Raven folk.” 

  Captain Rigg tilted his head. “Aren’t… they just here to collect the unstable debris?” 

  Tzir hesitated a moment before he spoke, like he was studying Captain Rigg and deciding whether or not he should tell him something. 

  “Not always,” Tzir said finally, coming to a decision. The old Tironian waited another moment before looking towards the direction of the lonesome Liskian ranges– far beyond the horizon. The wind on the top of his warehouse stirred around him before he spoke, tone low. 

  “All we hear out this far are whispers– whispers of a piece of debris that has been stolen from Gray Raven, and they’re mighty wrathful that it’s gone. Can’t really explain it in words, but Gray Raven has a strange kind of power here. If it stays missing long enough, they might just shut down the laneway again…” 

  Captain Rigg frowned at the words. He had heard of desperate, low-level science guilds fighting stupid legal battles over Astrogate debris out in the Blue Fringe, but he never really knew what it looked like, or how it could even marginally benefit the universe. 

  And he had never, ever cared. 

  “Shut down the laneway?” Captain Rigg asked skeptically, (that, he did care about.)

“Just to… find some debris? What kind of debris is it? It’s not a ship, is it?” 

  With a weary shrug, Tzir raised his eyebrows. “Who knows? Not me– I’m just a salter who has a soft spot for indpendents.” Tzir pointed to the Passerine. “Who thinks it’s best you leave our lovely planet before Gray Raven gets serious.” 

  Processing this information, Captain Rigg tried to decide whether or not Tzir was simply being paranoid, or if there was a small truth in his words. 

  Tzir turned, leaving him to decide.

  “I’ll go get Ole’ Beti to bring the salt over,” Tzir called over his shoulder, his mutts hopping excitedly behind him. “Then you folks can load it on in!” 

  Aster waved a distracted acknowledgement, turning slowly to face his ship– a new weight on his mind. 

Evren had stopped moving by the line of empty crates, watching him with a strange look, like she, too, had been troubled by the news of the common world scientists. 

  Captain Rigg did his best to smother out his suspicious expression and stepped forward, putting his hands in his pockets and feeling the broken Kletisian in one, and data Tab in the other. 

  “Seems a bit drastic, doesn’t it?” Captain Rigg started as Evren resumed her task. 

  The girl nodded, not quite looking at the Fletric as she worked. “Gray Raven is drastic,” she muttered. 

  “Is that why you were scared when the scientists landed on Covien the other day?” 

  She looked up, crate in hand and eyebrows raised. Captain Rigg could almost feel the fear that emanated from her, but her expression was perked– neutral, even. 

  “Scared? Of the scientists?” Evren put the crate down, laughing. “Why would I be afraid of-of… some scientists?” 

  Captain Rigg cleared his throat. “I meant the laneway getting shut down again.”   

  Evren stopped laughing. She straightened. “Oh.” Taking another crate off the hauler, she looked down at it momentarily. “Oh, yes. I was worried about that…” 

  “Was?” the captain echoed, tilting his head. 

  “What? Did I say 'was'? I meant 'am'. I am worried about that.” 

  Turning away, she was careful to avoid Captain Rigg’s eyes as she passed, retreating into the hold. 

  Hesitantly, he followed her, standing in the doorway of the hold as she loaded more crates onto the hauler. 

  Xander looked up from where he was logging the crates out of the hold’s inventory tab. He nodded to the captain cheerfully. “Did it go well?” 

  Aster nodded in answer, switching his gaze from one Geodian to the other. “What kind of lift did you fall into?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral like usual.

  Evren paused for a moment. “I… it was… well, it must have been… a small one.” 

  Xander looked between Aster and Evren, a frown forming. “Is everything alright?” the ex-gladiator asked, accent thick with worry. 

  “It’s fine,” Captain Rigg answered his deckhand, still looking at Evren. “And when you got out of said lift, then why did you return home to collect all your possessions?” 

  Evren opened her mouth, then shut it. The small Geodian couldn’t help but glance at her crate that she had left in the corner of the hold for safekeeping. She laughed after a moment. “What makes you think that’s… all my possessions?”

  Captain Rigg’s eyes flicked to the right shoulder of her shirt that was missing, then the bandages around her feet in place of shoes. When his eyes flicked back to Evren’s, she realised what was happening– a despairing kind of look of someone who knew they were being evaluated. 

  “A question isn’t an answer, Miss West,” was all Captain Rigg said.

  The girl took a deep breath, about to say something when she shut her mouth sharply. Looking at her hands, she flexed them. Something changed within her demeanour. The young girl straightened, turning her gaze to Captain Rigg with a small frown. 

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Why can’t you just… believe me like the others?” 

  Xander came to stand next to Evren, tablet in hand. “Little Geo, what are you talking about?” 

  Aster narrowed his eyes. “She’s talking about how she lied about what happened last night.” 

  The captain felt, more than saw, Xander look away. 

  Evren took a breath, refusing to look away from Captain Rigg’s pointed stare. “Why  do you care?” she asked quietly. 

  Without his consent, Aster’s mind plunged back to the argument he had had with Evren on the street. He bit back his guilt– a habitual feeling. 

  “Someone obviously attacked you.” He took a breath in. “And it was most likely Kovals'… ” He paused, watching Evren’s face twitch with either anger or a very strange kind of desperation. He spread his hands, hoping his next words were the right ones. “Look, if you… if you tell us what’s going on, we can help you– We can make sure you get to your transport tomorrow.” He dropped his hands. “But I can’t help you if you aren’t honest with me.”

  Evren scoffed softly, looking down. “I told you nothing’s wrong– not anymore.” 

  The words chipped the edge of Captain Rigg’s resolve to stay calm like slate against shell.

   “Oh, right,” Captain Rigg intoned, stepping into the hold a few more feet. “I forgot, nothing is wrong, and you just got lost– simple. Just one of the smartest Geodians I’ve met accidently falling into a lift and hiding in a rundown hangar, unconscious– but it's nothing out of the ordinary, right?” 

  “I told you, nothing happened!” Evren burst out, fists tightening

  Aster’s voice rose to match the girl's, frustration tightening in his chest. “Stop being stubborn–” 

  “Why? Don’t like the competition?” Evren shot back.

  Aster narrowed his eyes, refraining from another retort. Angering Evren West hadn't been on his list of things to do; he simply wanted to help. He took a breath, and lowered his voice. “Lifts don’t leave singe marks on wrists, Miss West.” 

  Evren looked away sharply. 

  Torn and confused, Xander looked between them, but held his tongue. 

  “And I know asking for help seems hard,” Aster continued, “but I don’t think you know what kind of… trouble… you might be in.” 

  Something odd happened– the apprehension that previously was on Evren’s features, melted away into something much more uncomfortable. 

  “You think…” Evren started, voice low, “I don’t know what kind of trouble I’m in?” She looked up, features dark as she waited for Aster to answer her. 

  Captain Rigg had seen many, many things in his life– monsters, criminals, even stood face to face with creatures from other realms– but the look in Evren’s eyes made him more uncomfortable than he wanted to admit.

  Captain Rigg hesitated. “I think… you are quite young,” he settled on. “And I don’t think you’re safe in Lisk.” 

   “Well, well, Captain Rigg– congratulations!” She took a step forward, spreading her hands and shaking them a little for effect. “Did they make you a captain because you’re so smart?” 

  Captain Rigg frowned. “Miss West,” he said, a warning in his voice.

  “What?” she asked, dropping her hands and stepping closer. “Are you going to get angry at me again? And do you think I would care if you did?” She laughed coarsely, running both hands through her hair. “Six months, starving on this planet– six months getting bullied, and being looked down on, and getting stolen from over and over and over again–”

 Evren dug her palms into her eyes painfully. “Six months of trying to do the right thing, and trying to get offworld, and six months of failing miserably! Why should I care if you’re angry at me for lying? So what if I lied? So what if you’re mad? So what if Kovals' stole my ticket and nearly cut my hand off–” She dropped her hands in a jerky, frustrated movement, looking back at Captain Rigg. 

  “And so what if you want to help? Do you think it’s going to change anything?” She gestured to the captain. “Do you think anything that anyone does is going to change anything on this planet?” 

  Captain Rigg was motionless before her anger, unable to articulate any of the concerns that flashed in his mind. There were just too many things that he should say, and a thousand more that he could say– but all of them were weak and inadequate in this situation, much like he was currently feeling. 

  Evren waited for his reply, challenging the captain to speak. “Well?”  

  Aster frowned, unable to feel anything other than the burning shame of upsetting the small Geodian, again. 

  “I… I’m sorry you felt like you needed to lie about this, Miss West,” he found himself saying, the words barely making it past the inadequacy in his throat.

  The words didn’t help. Evren looked down violently, breathing rapidly, in, and then out.

Before Captain Rigg registered it, she'd pushed past him, hand-Hauler in tow and steps loud against the landing ramp.

  Aster turned, watching her head of unbrushed brown hair disappear from sight– a sinking feeling in his gut like an anchor cut loose from its moor.    

  “Kovals'…” Xander started listlessly across the hold, looking to his captain in the silence that followed. “Stole her ticket?”

  Aster looked down at a piece of Kletisian he had taken from his pocket. 

  “But… how is she going to see her family?” Xander asked, his tone becoming pained. “She… she worked so hard for it… and Kovals'…” The large Geodian put a hand to his head, translating his panicked thoughts into Entrillian shakily. “She said she fell into a lift– Kovals' wasn’t supposed to… they weren’t supposed to find her. She was supposed to… ” Xander couldn’t finish his thought. Instead, he hung his head. 

  “Why would they do this?”

  Aster moved, and Xander looked up to watch his captain retreat up the stairs of the hold, hands in his pocket– eyes distant.

  “Captain?” Xander tried, but much like Aster, he was too late. 

  The captain had disappeared.