Thomas recognized the sensation of Artemis entering transition space.

He stopped and braced one hand against the corridor wall as nausea rolled through him. The deck seemed to shift in several directions at once, though he knew the ship itself had not moved.

“Are you all right?” Phillip asked from behind him.

“Transit sickness.” Thomas swallowed and waited for his stomach to settle. “Still gets me every time. I’ll be fine.”

Phillip nodded and looked along the corridor in both directions.

Thomas watched him. “You felt that, didn’t you?” Thomas asked.

“The lurch?”

“That was the transition.” Thomas studied him more closely. “Most first-time passengers end up on the deck. Nausea, vertigo, loss of balance. It can take dozens of transitions before the body adjusts.”

“Good to know.” Phillip started forward. Thomas did not follow. Phillip looked back.

“So why aren’t you sick?” Thomas asked.

Phillip frowned. He had felt the transition. More than that, some part of him had recognized it before Thomas explained what it was. He did not know how.

The pressure at the back of his mind began to grow.

Feel it. The unease was real.

Acknowledge it. He knew something he had no reason to know.

Move through it.

“I have no idea,” Phillip said. “But if it’ll make you feel better, I can stick a finger down my throat.”

Thomas continued watching him.

“Where’s the transmitter?” Phillip asked.

“In there.” Thomas nodded toward a sealed door farther along the passage.

Phillip took several steps, then noticed Thomas still had not moved. “I don’t know why I’m not sick,” he said over his shoulder. “It stands to reason it has something to do with why I was floating in space.”

“That is what concerns me.”

“It concerns me too.” Phillip turned to face him. “I don’t know whether getting my memory back will produce an answer either of us likes. Until then, we’re on the same side.” He resumed walking.

“You let me know if that changes,” Thomas muttered as he pushed himself away from the wall and followed.

The compartment beyond the door was lined with consoles, access panels, and communications hardware. Phillip stopped inside. He had begun recognizing the visual language of the ship: blue for normal operation, amber for restricted access, red for emergency systems. The room before him contained all three in overlapping clusters.

“All yours,” he said.

Thomas entered and moved toward a bank of red-and-yellow-striped access panels. Communication aboard a ship relied on layers of redundant systems. Local intercoms connected compartments. Tactical circuits linked departments and combat stations. External arrays handled ordinary radio and laser traffic.

The hyper-pulse transmitter could send brief messages across interstellar distances. It was also one of the most heavily secured systems aboard the ship. Thomas knelt beside the marked housing and removed the outer panel. Phillip returned to the doorway and watched the corridor.

“So,” Thomas said as he reached into the exposed circuitry, “has any more of your memory come back?”

“Bits and pieces.”

“Anything useful?”

“Depends on your definition.”

Thomas disconnected one lead and traced it deeper into the panel. “Home? Family?”

“Shouldn’t you be concentrating?”

“Talking helps me concentrate.” A small spark snapped against his glove. “Family?” he repeated.

“I don’t remember one. No friends either.”

The compartment lights dimmed. Thomas cursed quietly and pulled another cluster of cables from the housing.

“You have a family?” Phillip asked, glancing back.

“Everyone has a family.” Thomas sighed as he looked into the open panel. “My father is an admiral.”

Phillip waited, but Thomas did not elaborate.

“What about work?” Thomas asked instead. “Do you remember what you did?”

Phillip thought of the pirate in the galley. The fight had not felt strange while it was happening. Neither had killing the man. Phillip had acted deliberately, efficiently, and without hesitation. Now he stood watch while Thomas sabotaged a military communications system, expecting armed men to arrive and preparing to kill them when they did.

None of it felt unfamiliar.

“No,” Phillip said.

Thomas looked over his shoulder.

Phillip kept his attention on the corridor.

“I don’t remember.”

“Almost have it.” Thomas began reconnecting the cables in a different sequence. A burst of sparks escaped the panel. The compartment lights went dark, then returned at half strength. A low electrical hum built beneath the consoles. Thomas withdrew his hands. “That’s it. Move.”

Phillip stepped aside as Thomas hurried through the doorway. The hum rose in pitch. Then the transmitter discharged. A deep pulse passed through the deck, more pressure than sound. The lights along the corridor flickered as the hyper-pulse array dumped energy into a single transmission.

Thomas headed away from the compartment. “Hurry. They’ll know which system generated the pulse.”

Phillip caught his arm and stopped him. Footsteps echoed from the passage ahead. More came from behind.

“They already do.”

“We can double back.”

“Better idea.” Phillip pulled the captured rifle from his shoulder. He guided Thomas against one wall and took position opposite him. Then he turned and fired several bursts down the empty corridor behind them.

Needles flashed blue through the dim light and struck the bulkheads farther away. Three pirates rounded the corner ahead.

Phillip looked toward them, raising the rifle’s stock across the lower half of his visor. “We’ll cover you!” he shouted as he fired another burst down the corridor.

The pirates slowed.

“They’re in the transmitter room!” Thomas called, immediately joining Phillip’s fire.

One of the pirates looked toward the doorway behind them. Another pulse rolled from the communications compartment.

“Go!” Phillip shouted.

The three pirates moved past them, spreading along both walls and firing toward the nonexistent enemy. They reached the transmitter room and stacked on either side of the entrance.

The lead man signaled. All three entered.

Phillip and Thomas ran.

They turned the next corner before the pirates realized the room was empty.

“I don’t hear them anymore,” Phillip said, tapping the side of his helmet.

“They changed channels,” Thomas said.

“Can we find their frequency?”

“Probably not. Those sets are top-line military equipment. Secure, frequency-hopping, encrypted.”

“We’re wearing the same equipment.”

“We don’t have their encryption keys.”

The corridor lights flickered again. Then the transmitter’s electrical hum stopped.

“They cut the signal,” Thomas said.

“Did the message get out?”

“It was only a standard distress burst. No details.”

“Will Fleet Command know where it came from?”

“They’ll know Artemis transmitted it and that we failed to authenticate afterward.”

“So they’ll start looking.”

“Yes.”

They reached a ladder leading into the lower sections of the ship. Thomas descended first, favoring his injured arm. Phillip followed.

“If we haven’t retaken the ship when they find us,” Thomas said, “you may regret launching all the escape pods.”

Phillip looked down at him.

“The Concordat won’t leave Artemis in pirate hands,” Thomas clarified. “If she can’t be recovered quickly, they’ll destroy her.”

“That seems extreme.”

“There are special circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

Thomas reached the deck below and stepped away from the ladder. "You wouldn’t understand.”

Phillip dropped beside him. “Try me.”

A burst of needles tore down the corridor. The magnetic field around Thomas’s suit shimmered. Most of the projectiles curved away, but several struck his armor at shallow angles and scattered across the deck.

Thomas threw himself behind a support frame.

Phillip took cover on the opposite side and fired toward the attackers. “Any other way out?” he asked.

Thomas glanced around the junction. “Back the way we came. There should be another ladder beyond the transmitter room.”

He sounded confident about the route, less so about whether they could reach it.

They retreated toward the ladder they had just descended. Another group of pirates appeared at its base. Needles flashed from both directions. Thomas dropped behind a junction support. Phillip pressed in beside him, returning fire down the first corridor while Thomas fired toward the ladder. They were trapped between the two groups.

“Why are we hiding if we have these fields?” Phillip asked.

“Because they don’t always work,” Thomas answered between bursts. “The more impacts the field absorbs, the weaker it gets. Enough needles arrive at once, and some will pass through.”

“Wonderful.” Phillip checked the ammunition counter on his rifle. The remaining number was falling quickly. “We can’t keep this up.”

Thomas glanced at his own display and swore. A door stood between their position and the first group of pirates. Red indicators surrounded its frame.

Phillip pointed toward it. “Where does that go?”

Thomas followed his gesture. “Airlock.”

“So it goes outside.”

“We’re in transition.”

“We’re in a crossfire.”

Thomas fired toward the ladder, forcing one of the attackers back into cover. “Outside isn’t normal space. The transition field can interfere with electronics, pressure seals, even biological tissue. These suits weren’t designed for extended exposure.”

Another cluster of needles struck Phillip’s field. The distortion flashed bright enough to blind him for an instant. Phillip tapped the suit. “State of the art?”

Thomas considered the question. Another stream of needles struck the support beside them. Both magnetic fields flickered in response.

“State of the art,” Thomas conceded.

The two men looked at each other. It was the chance they had.

“How do we open both doors?” Phillip asked, firing another burst down the corridor.

Thomas glanced toward the airlock controls. “Emergency fire vent. It overrides the safeties and opens the outer hatch. If I flag this corridor as part of the fire zone, it should open the inner door too.”

“Should?”

“It will.” Thomas leaned out and fired toward the ladder. “But if we do this, we tether inside the lock. The suits have emergency restraint lines. If we aren’t clipped to the ship when the doors open, we don’t come back.”

“Tell me what to do.”

Thomas pointed toward the airlock. “We move together. Once we’re inside, find the D-ring at your left hip. Pull it free and clip the tether to the restraint bar. Then seal your helmet.”

“What about them?” Phillip nodded toward the pirates.

Thomas glanced between the two groups. “They won’t know what we’re doing until it’s too late.”

“And if they do?”

“We shoot them until the door closes.”

Phillip nodded. “Good plan.”

Phillip rose first, firing down the corridor toward the pirates beyond the airlock. Thomas stepped out behind him and laid fire toward the ladder.

The pirates answered from both directions. Needles filled the passage.

The magnetic fields around Phillip and Thomas flared repeatedly beneath the impacts, each flash brighter and less stable than the last. They reached the airlock.

Thomas struck the control, opening the inner door. “Inside!”

Phillip backed through first, firing until his rifle clicked empty. Thomas entered behind him and struck the control again.

The door began closing. A pirate sprinted toward the narrowing gap. Thomas fired through it, forcing the man back until the inner door sealed.

“Left hip,” Thomas said.

Phillip found the D-ring attached to his belt and pulled. A braided metal tether unspooled from the suit.

“Clip it to the bar.”

A reinforced restraint rail ran along the inner wall. Phillip snapped the tether into place. Thomas secured his own line beside it, then reached over and yanked Phillip’s connection once to confirm it was locked.

“Helmet.” Thomas pressed a control near his collar.

Overlapping plates unfolded from the back of his suit and flowed across his head, locking together into a seamless helmet.

Phillip found the same control. The plates closed around him with startling speed. His visor activated. Pressure, oxygen, temperature, and suit integrity appeared along its lower edge.

“Comms check,” Thomas said through the suit channel.

“I hear you.”

“Brace against the bar. Don’t wrap the tether around an arm or leg. When it pulls tight, let the suit take it.”

The pirates reached the inner door. One struck the window with the stock of his weapon. Another began working at the emergency release panel.

Thomas moved to the outer controls. His fingers hesitated above them. Phillip saw the pause. Thomas looked through the glass at the pirates gathering in the corridor, then back at the two secured tethers.

There were no other options. He entered a rapid sequence and the display turned red.

EMERGENCY FIRE-VENT PROTOCOL

“Ready?” Thomas asked.

He did not wait for the answer. Thomas confirmed the command and the outer hatch opened. A blinding white light flooded the airlock. A fraction of a second later, the inner door opened as well.

Air, loose equipment, and the pirates waiting in the corridor exploded outward. Phillip and Thomas were torn from the deck. Their tethers unspooled behind them as they flew through the outer hatch. The unsecured pirates followed, tumbling helplessly into the light.

The lines snapped taut. Phillip spun violently at the end of his tether, the restraint harness spreading the force across his body exactly as Thomas had promised.

Thomas had been right about something else, Phillip was not prepared for what waited outside.

White surrounded him. Not illumination. Not emptiness. A vast, dense brilliance filled everything beyond the hull. Black points pierced it in every direction—holes more absolute than darkness, each ringed by thin bands of color that seemed to drain into them.

The white resisted his movement. It pressed against the suit like deep water, thick enough to feel and strong enough to pull him toward the distant black points.

Phillip barely saw any of it. The white opened something inside him. Another place replaced the transition field.

A room. White. Endless.

He sensed walls nearby, close enough to touch, yet his eyes found no corners, texture, shadow, or boundary. The absence of definition transformed a confined chamber into an infinite space.

There was a table. He was on it. He knew the table, the place. He felt hatred for both.

They healed him there. Bones were set. Muscle was rebuilt. Skin closed without scars. Damage accumulated across missions was measured, repaired, and removed.

So were the memories attached to it. Every injury carried an experience. Every scar recorded something endured. Every connection was read, measured, and judged for value.

They erased the irrelevant. Repurposed the viable. Phillip felt it happening again. Pain without injury. Loss without anything he could name.

Events flashed through his mind as someone examined them, weighed them, and discarded them. Faces appeared and vanished before he could recognize them. Places collapsed into white before he could hold their shapes. He remembered the forgotten and felt it being taken away in the same instant. Nothing remained but the white.

Then a shadow crossed the ceiling. The room gained form around it. Hatred returned first. Then fear. Anger. Desperation.The certainty that something essential had been removed from him so many times that the absence itself had become familiar.

A face moved above him. Dark blue skin. Wide-set black eyes. A series of hisses and clicks that he understood without any translator.

“We are done. Put it away.”

The memory broke.

Phillip found himself floating outside Artemis.

White transition energy pressed around him. His tether stretched back toward the airlock. The suit surrounded him, sealed and real. He flexed his hands. Moved his arms. Resistance pushed against them, but he could move through it.

Phillip turned his head and caught sight ot Thomas floating nearby, tethered to the same restraint bar. His posture had gone slack. Phillip pulled himself along his line and caught Thomas by the shoulder. The lieutenant stirred. His helmet turned toward Phillip.

“You all right?” Thomas asked.

Phillip nodded, though Thomas could not see the movement clearly through the reflective plates.

Thomas’s motions were slow. Too slow.

Phillip rotated him.

A single needle had penetrated the suit near his side. The shaft protruded from the armor, and a thin stream of blood drifted from the puncture into the surrounding white.

“Suit still has pressure,” Thomas said weakly. His voice faded. “State of the art.”

Phillip looked sharply up at him.

Thomas had gone still.

Next Chapter: X