Phillip paused as a shock wave rolled through Artemis.

The deck shifted beneath him, and a low vibration passed through the bulkheads before fading. He wondered what new disaster had occurred, but there was no time to investigate. He and Kales had already passed two groups of pirates moving through the corridors and firing into vents and access ducts. Each time, the searchers had been so focused on the ceilings that Phillip had seen them first and guided Kales out of sight.

Eventually, they reached what Kales identified as the command level.

“The captain’s quarters are close,” the doctor whispered.

They moved carefully along the wall until they reached the cabin door. A security indicator glowed beside the frame. Kales entered a medical-emergency code.

The lock released.

Inside, Phillip found a compartment that was more functional than luxurious. A desk and command terminal occupied one side. Storage compartments and personal shelves lined the other. Nearly everything had been arranged with the same rigid order Phillip associated with Captain Getz.

Kales crossed to a secured cabinet behind the desk. “Once I open the safe, it will trigger an alert on the bridge,” he reminded Phillip. “Anyone watching the command station will know someone accessed it.”

“We’ll worry about that after it’s open.”

Kales nodded and activated the panel. He entered the same medical override, followed by a second series of commands. The indicator turned red. Before the lock released, another pulse passed through the ship. The deck seemed to drop beneath Phillip. The walls shifted in a direction he could feel but not see.

Artemis had entered transition again. Phillip looked around, half expecting the ship to announce their destination. Apparently, five hundred years of progress had not given military vessels the courtesy of a subway system.

Another thing he recognized without remembering.

The safe opened, and Kales stepped aside. Phillip found the pistol inside, along with two additional magazines. He lifted the weapon and felt immediate familiarity settle into his hands.

Weight. Balance. Grip.

His thumb found the magazine release without thought. He checked the magazine, returned it, then drew the slide back far enough to inspect the chamber. A round was already chambered.

“Well, that isn’t safe,” he muttered, sounding almost disappointed.

“You need to be careful where you fire it,” Kales warned. “A projectile weapon can penetrate the internal walls. Possibly the hull.”

Phillip released the slide and holstered the pistol. “That’s why I wanted it.”

“We should leave.”

They crossed toward the door, but Kales stopped beside a narrow ventilation panel near the base of the wall. He crouched and tried to pull it free. Phillip leaned down and helped him wrench it loose. They left the panel lying crooked against the opening before slipping back into the corridor.

“You think they’ll believe a Serpis came through something that small?” Phillip asked.

“I don’t think they know enough about the Serpis to dismiss it, and I think what they don’t know frightens them more than it frightens me.”

Kales looked back toward the opening. “You’re saying G’Dahn could fit through there?”

“The Serpis are remarkably pliable. Their skeletal structure appears to be partially flexible.”

“Partially?”

“The information we have is limited.” Kales searched for an explanation. “Their bodies contain considerably more muscle and connective tissue than ours. They can compress, twist, and extend themselves in ways a human body cannot.”

“Like an octopus?”

Kales shrugged. Phillip had apparently reached the limit of the doctor’s expertise. They reached a cluster of crew quarters and slipped into the first unsecured room. Phillip closed the door behind them, and they waited in silence.

No footsteps approached. No alarm sounded nearby.

“Now what?” Kales asked.

“We meet G’Dahn.”

“You still intend to follow his plan?”

“We need to know what his plan is.”

“Shouldn’t we try to talk him out of destroying the ship?”

“No.” Phillip’s answer came quickly. “He has wanted Artemis destroyed since the attack began.”

Perhaps longer, he thought. Phillip remembered seeing G’Dahn outside the decontamination room shortly after waking. At the time, the Serpis had been only another impossible detail in a future Phillip did not understand. Now the memory felt less accidental.

“Why?” Kales asked.

Phillip looked at him. “The capsule you found me in—was it made by the Serpis?”

“What?” Kales stared. “No. How would I know that?”

“Did G’Dahn ever examine it?”

“He said he did not recognize its design.” Kales’s expression sharpened. “Why are you asking?”

Phillip released a slow breath. “Forget it.”

He did not trust Kales enough to explain the memory from transition space. Phillip barely trusted the memory itself. He possessed impressions, fear, and the image of a blue face speaking a language he should not understand.

There could be dozens of reasons G’Dahn wanted to destroy the ship. Phillip only knew that the desire felt personal.

“Where is the observation deck?” he asked.

“Two levels above us.”

“Then let’s go.” They left the crew quarters and continued until they reached another ladder trunk. Phillip went first, listening before opening each hatch. Kales followed and directed him through the next corridor.

New deck, new passage, same routine. Listen for pirates, follow Kales.

Several ventilation panels along the route had been pierced by needles. Some remained lodged in the metal, while others had passed completely through. At the end of the corridor, they found a set of double doors held partly open by the body of a crewman. Phillip checked the room beyond, then stepped through. Kales followed.

The observation deck was a broad compartment with curved walls and a transparent ceiling. Heavy armor plates currently covered the viewing panels, sealing away the white outside. Chairs and small tables had been secured along the deck, though several had broken loose during the fighting.

There was no sign of G’Dahn. Phillip nevertheless felt that the Serpis was close. Kales opened his mouth, but Phillip raised a hand to stop him

A soft scraping came from a narrow vent near the base of the wall. The grille shifted outward, and G’Dahn pressed through the opening. His shoulders narrowed as his body compressed, then expanded again as he pulled himself into the room. Within seconds, he stood at his full height.

Phillip looked at the vent. The comparison to an octopus no longer seemed unreasonable.

Several needles protruded from G’Dahn’s arm and upper leg. The flesh around them tightened and rippled. One by one, the projectiles worked backward through the wounds and dropped onto the deck.

“Their efforts to find me are becoming less abstract,” G’Dahn said.

Irritation carried through the translator’s flat delivery. Phillip felt a brief, guilty satisfaction. G’Dahn plainly considered the pirates beneath him, but they had at least managed to injure him. That made his insistence that the ship could not be retaken more suspicious.

“Are you certain we cannot recover Artemis?” Phillip asked.

G’Dahn’s eyes narrowed. “They possess too much control. Even I could not retake the bridge with an acceptable probability of success.”

“Acceptable to whom?”

“Destroying the ship is the only way to ensure the threat is eliminated,” G’Dahn said.

Phillip understood that G’Dahn was no longer speaking only about the warheads. He also sensed the Serpis was continually reassessing the value of both humans in the room.

“Then how do we destroy it?” Phillip asked.

“We will force an implosion in the engines. The resulting collapse should consume the vessel and its warheads with minimal external contamination.”

“Can we do it now?”

“No. The ship has returned to transition.”

“We can’t overload the engines while they’re running?”

“Their energy is being expended too rapidly to accumulate beyond containment limits. The overload must begin after we return to normal space.”

Phillip nodded but said nothing.

“There may still be a way to alert Fleet Command,” Kales said.

G’Dahn turned toward him sharply. “The pirates have already used one of the warheads, Doctor.”

Kales stared.

“They destroyed Nirenda Station.”

“What?”

“They could not have.”

“They did.” G’Dahn’s voice remained cold. “They are likely moving toward another target now. If they use one of the remaining warheads against a planet, the casualties will be far greater.”

“How many people were on the station?” Phillip asked.

“Hundreds,” G’Dahn replied. “Possibly thousands.”

“The peace conference,” Kales said. He leaned back against the wall as the significance reached him. “They were holding the conference to end the Cluster War.”

“Was the attack political?” Phillip asked.

“Does it matter?” G’Dahn answered. “Our task remains unchanged.”

Kales seemed not to hear them. His face had gone slack. Phillip recognized something in the doctor’s expression—a loss too large to understand all at once.

Images stirred behind Phillip’s own eyes. Smoke. Noise. An awareness that someone was gone. The fragments carried grief but no names, places, or context. He understood Kales’s reaction without being able to identify the experience that had taught him.

“They have to be stopped,” Kales said. His voice held resignation rather than panic.

“Good,” G’Dahn replied. “I will require your assistance.”

Kales looked up. “What can I do?”

“You will disable the radiation filtration surrounding the engine-control section. The resulting exposure should incapacitate the men holding Engineering. Once they are no longer capable of resistance, I will initiate the engine implosion.”

G’Dahn turned toward Phillip. “The engineering controls and the command systems on the bridge must then be destroyed. Otherwise, the overload can be stopped from either location.”

The Serpis held out a small circular device. Phillip took it. The object fit easily in his palm. A recessed switch and a single indicator occupied one side.

“What is it?”

“The initiation unit from one of Artemis’s anti-ship missiles. I have connected it to the missile’s remaining explosive charge.”

“You removed an explosive from a missile?”

“The warhead was unnecessary.”

Phillip looked at the device again.

“If activated on the bridge, it will destroy the command systems,” G’Dahn continued.

“Including me?”

“No one will survive the ship’s implosion.” G’Dahn’s answer was immediate and without emphasis.

Kales looked toward the floor. “I’ll need to reach Engineering to disable the filters.”

“The most reliable method would require you to access the filtration controls directly,” G’Dahn said. “I do not believe the pirates are guarding that compartment.”

“I’ll be exposed as soon as I shut them down.” The alarm in Kales’s voice made the consequences clear. Then he appeared to remember Nirenda Station and his resistance collapsed.

“Can you find the bridge?” G’Dahn asked Phillip.

“I think so.”

“Wait until Artemis leaves transition. The destruction of the bridge will be our signal to begin.”

G’Dahn looked once more at Kales. The doctor answered with a subdued nod.

The Serpis compressed himself and slipped back through the narrow vent. His body disappeared into the opening with barely a sound.

Phillip waited until the scraping inside the duct had faded. Then he crossed to Kales.

“Are you still here?”

Kales continued staring at the deck. “I had a friend on that station.” His voice was soft. “I hadn’t seen him in years. I always thought I would eventually. Now I can’t even understand that he’s gone.”

Kales looked toward Phillip.

“All those people. For what?”

“I need you here now.” Phillip kept his voice firm without raising it. “You’ll have time to deal with this later. Right now, we have work to do.”

“If they strike a planet, they could kill millions.” Kales’s breathing quickened. “I cannot even imagine—”

“Listen to me.”

Kales looked up.

“G’Dahn is using this.”

“What?”

“He isn’t primarily concerned about the warheads, the pirates, or the people on Nirenda Station.” Phillip glanced toward the vent. “And he does not intend to die aboard this ship.”

Kales shook his head.

“He intends to implode the engines. How could he survive that? There’s no way off the vessel.”

“I’m not certain there isn’t.”

Phillip stepped closer. “How much more radiation can a Serpis withstand than a human?”

“I don’t know. They are resistant to many conditions that would injure us.”

“So whatever incapacitates the pirates in Engineering may not incapacitate him.”

Kales considered that. His earlier study of the Serpis had apparently not provided a definite answer.

“You and I have the only guaranteed suicide assignments,” Phillip continued. “You stand beside the radiation filters. I carry an explosive onto the bridge.”

“You think he’s lying about the implosion?”

“I think he’s telling us enough truth to get what he wants.” Phillip pointed toward Kales. “Do not expose yourself to the radiation. If necessary, do not disable the filters at all. Stay alive until G’Dahn finishes with the engines.”

“And then?”

“Cancel the implosion after he leaves.”

“Cancel it?” Kales’s confusion began sliding back toward panic. “What about the warheads?”

“I think I have another way to deal with them.” Phillip closed Kales’s hand around the edge of a nearby table, giving him something solid to hold. “Your job is to remain alive and stop the overload.”

“What about you? G’Dahn expects the bridge to explode. If he doesn’t hear it, he’ll know we betrayed him.”

Phillip looked down at the missile detonator in his hand.

A phrase surfaced from somewhere in the missing part of his mind.

“The Serpis will get his earth-shattering kaboom.”

Kales stared at him. Phillip shrugged, no more certain of the reference than the doctor was. He started toward the doorway.

“Why should I trust you?” Kales called.

Phillip stopped just inside the entrance and looked back. “You have to decide that for yourself.” He glanced toward the vent through which G’Dahn had disappeared. “But in my favor, I’m not the one telling you to kill yourself.”

Phillip stepped into the corridor, leaving Kales to make his choice.

Next Chapter: XV