I started opening files at random, quickly discovering that they were all written in some kind of cypher. But was the key included somewhere on the device? Possibly in another location, or maybe deeper in the operating system? I figured I should look.

  Time passed quickly as I became absorbed in the effort, navigating the root file structure of the slab and searching for anything that might look like a decoder key. Without anything to give me a hint of how the cypher had been designed, there was no way I would be able to crack it. I lost track of how long I spent in the hunt, only made aware when I realized how badly I needed to pee.

  I carefully removed Alter’s tendril from my leg before standing up, leaving the slab beside her. Tiptoeing to the Elevator, I winced when it sounded off on its arrival, though Alter didn’t seem to stir. A wave of panic rushed through me as I realized she could be dead and I wouldn’t know how to confirm it. She had told me she would be okay. I had to believe that.

  I got off on Deck Three, entering the head and relieving myself as quickly as I could, not wanting to leave her alone for too long.

  The door opened and Matt walked in. He smiled when he saw me. “What’s up, bro? Decided to take a break from that thing?”

  “I had to go so bad,” I replied. “But I need to get back up there. Alter helped me crack the security.”

  “No shit? Did you find anything yet?”

  “Not yet. I just started looking through the device. The files I found are all encoded with a cypher. A second layer of security. It’s going to take time to work through it. If I can work through it at all.”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You always do. You’re probably hungry. You want Asshole to make you something before you go back? We can hang for a bit.”

  “Sorry, man. I need to get back to it.”

  He would never say or show it, but I knew him well enough to know he was disappointed by my rejection. We had hardly interacted since we’d escaped the penal satellite, mainly because of the time I spent working on the slab.

  “I feel about as useful as legs on a fish,” he said. “You help fix the thrusters, you crack open the top secret slab, you break us out of prison.” He sighed. “I mean, I’m grateful and proud. But I feel like I should be doing more.”

  “You’re doing a lot,” I replied.

  “We both know that’s bullshit. Even Druck’s made himself more useful around here than I have.” He laughed sardonically.

  “What’s really bothering you, Matt?”

  “On Earth, I was the big deal. Good looking, nice car, great singing voice. And I’d just inherited four million dollars. But here, in this element, you’re becoming the rockstar. And I want to be happy for you. I am happy for you, but…”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “Yeah, kind of. I mean, I’m still better looking and all that, but that doesn’t really help us right now. None of what I know is helpful.”

  “That doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future. We’ve only been out here a few weeks.”

  “And look at the mess we’ve made.”

  “And you don’t think being good looking or a black belt will come in handy?”

  “Not as handy as the stuff you can do.”

  “I’m not used to you being insecure.”

  “I’m not insecure. I just want to pull my own weight, you know?”

  I put my hand on his shoulder. It felt strange because he had done the same to me so many times when I had been the one who needed a pep talk. “You will. You are. I’m sure of it. I’m going to head back up for another hour or two, and then come down to eat. I’m hungry, but I can’t just abandon my progress right now. Maybe we can jam for a little while when I’m done.”

  “Sure, I’ll probably still be up. Zar wants to watch That Darn Cat. She said Alter kept telling her to try it.”

  “Alter does like that movie more than any sane life form should. I’ll see you later.”

  “All right. Good luck with the cypher.”

  “Thanks.”

  I left the head, more worried about Alter since I had been delayed. Returning to Deck Five, I found her in her Enigma form, the slab in her hands.

  “Hey,” I said. “Are you feeling better?” She looked up at me. I could tell by her expression that something was definitely wrong. “What is it? Are you hurt? Sick? What can I do?”

  “No,” she said softly. “It’s not that.” I noticed her hands trembling as she turned the slab around so I could see it.

  “What is it?” I asked, moving closer and leaning in to get a better look. It wasn’t the ciphered text I had seen earlier. Instead, I found myself staring at what I took to be an alien alphabet of some kind, etched into a dark metal.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know how or why, but whatever this is, whatever it says, it scares the hell out of me.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “Where did you find that?” I asked, reaching her and putting out my hands to take the slab. “I wasn’t gone that long.”

  “I knew you had left,” Alter replied, handing me the device. “I didn’t want you to come back to my primordial form. It’s…embarrassing. And weak. But fighting against the essence to change my face the way you asked was very difficult.”

  “There’s no reason to be embarrassed. Not with me. I already know who and what you are. That’s the nature of your species. You can’t change it. And you did something in a few minutes I spent days trying to achieve. You got us past the roadblock.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

  I brought it close to my face to get a better look at the symbols. I didn’t recognize any of them, but that didn’t surprise me. The Manticore Spiral was full of non-human intelligent life forms. “Where?” I asked again.

  “You were looking in the datastore. I checked the hyperstream.”

  “Hyperstream?”

  “It’s like email. A place to send and receive messages over the hypercom. Except this message was never transmitted. Just written and saved on the device. I don’t know if the intent was to transmit the message and the slab was stolen before it was completed or if whoever controlled the slab to begin with intended to use the hyperstream interface completely localized to the device. Neither use is unheard of, especially in relation to how we came into its possession.”

  I closed the image, staring at the list of additional files attached to the message. There had to be over two hundred. Opening another revealed a second set of symbols etched into the same metal. “Do you think this is what we were paid to deliver?”

  “From my experience, yes. But I can’t tell you if our job was to recover the slab for Nobukku after it was stolen by a third party, if the slab was sent to a recipient to write the message, or if the message was written, delivered to its recipient, and then returned.”

  “Is there any way to track its movements?”

  “That would defeat the purpose of the privacy it's clearly trying to maintain.”

  “Right.” I closed the images, glancing at Alter. “And no indication of who wrote the message or who the intended recipient might be?”

  “No. Although the message itself might offer some clue. Matched with what you told me about Avelus, I think Duke Sedaya is likely one of the parties involved.”

  I glanced down at the short message in the body of the stream and started reading.

  The final pieces are in place. With this last batch of plates, I believe the grimoire is complete. I understand your students have already begun studying the previous plates. This is good. Once the first novices have finished their training, we will finally be ready to put the larger plans into motion. Sucaath has pledged that once the Gilded are returned to prominence, his alliance is assured.

  I read the paragraph three more times. There was no real clue regarding the identities of the sender or recipient within the message. Sedaya was a suspect because of Keep, and the only reason Nobukku came to mind was because of the slab’s origin. But that didn’t rule out Baron Nivan either, especially since he ran Kasper for the Duke. I already knew from Quasar that his son had been a real asshole. Like son, like father?

  “Who’s Sucaath?” I asked, looking up at Alter. “Any ideas?”

  “No,” she replied. “I’ve never heard the name before. Once we’re out of hyperspace I can query the hypernet to see if he’s a nobleman elsewhere in the Spiral. From reading the message, I assumed he had something to do with these images.”

  “Yeah. And the mention of a grimoire is kind of crazy. Doesn’t that usually mean a book of magic?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think it does. Have you ever heard of magic, real magic, in the Spiral?”

  “There are always rumors of people who can perform acts that seem impossible and many would label as magical. I don’t believe in them. Creative people can often find ways to use technology and psychology to make things appear as if there’s some supernatural force at play.”

  “David Copperfield,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “An Earthian magician. He made the Statue of Liberty disappear. At least, that’s what my mother and Google told me. Way before my time.”

  “Something like that, then,” she agreed.

  “But the note specifically says grimoire in relation to these plates,” I said, scrolling the list of images. “And there are individuals learning how to use these plates to do magic, I guess?” The thought sent a shiver down my spine. What if magic was real and Sedaya had control over it?

  “Anyway, it seems there’s a larger set out there, and that these are needed to complete it. Do you think we have the only copy?”

  “Considering how much care was taken to move this slab across the Quadrant, it stands to reason that it is. Outside the source of the images, anyway.”

  “I wonder if interrupting the delivery kept this out of Sedaya’s hands. He already hates us. I might want to give him a call to gloat.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I’m just kidding. But think about it. If the message means what we think it means, and this really is part of a book of magic, and Sedaya is possibly training wizards? Unless all they’ll be able to do is make the Statue of Liberty disappear, Keep’s warning is a lot more real, and a lot more serious than I realized. Why didn’t he tell me Sedaya is Darth Vader?”

  “What if he didn’t know what was on the slab?” Alter said.

  “He had to have some idea. He didn’t keep it or leave it behind. He gave it to me. He wanted me to find this.”

  “What if he wanted you to find it so you could crack it and tell him about the contents?”

  “Then he shouldn’t have set me up to go to prison,” I growled. “How was I supposed to crack anything from a penal satellite?”

  “I can’t answer that, Ben.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. We really need to talk to him and find out what all of this is about. I don’t get why he always has to be so vague. Was he like that with you, too?”

  “Pretty much always.”

  “We should call a meeting and present what we’ve learned to the crew,” I decided. “I’m sure Quasar will want to know, and I don’t see any reason not to share with the others.”

  “What about Druck?”

  “What about him?”

  “Are you sure we can trust him?”

  “Do you have a reason why you think we can’t?”

  She nodded. “He’s not in favor of the Empress or the Hegemony. He’s made that abundantly clear. I’m not suggesting he’s a spy for Sedaya or anything like that. But I do think it’s possible he could be bought by Sedaya. Which makes anything we tell him susceptible to leaving this ship.”

  “How do I call an all-hands and leave him out of it? And how do we keep a secret everyone knows except him?”

  “You can’t. Not for long, anyway. Maybe we should consider asking him to disembark on Furion?”

  I stared at her, uncomfortable with the idea. “You mean fire him? Before he’s even done anything other than prove himself useful as a backup mechanic and maybe in the future as a mech pilot? I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me. It wouldn’t be fair to do that to him.”

  “We’re only as strong as the weakest link. He’s exactly the kind of person Sedaya uses to get what he wants.”

  “Just because he doesn’t like the Empress? How popular is she, anyway?”

  “It depends on where you are in the Spiral. In some places, she’s revered. Others, reviled.”

  “But disliking her isn’t a weird character flaw or something?”

  “Not at all. But it’s more than that. He’s SFH. A mercenary. His entire living is centered around loyalty to the highest bidder. And we can never outbid Sedaya.”

  “Where I come from, if you want someone to stay loyal when better opportunities are available elsewhere, you give them incentive they can’t get anywhere else.”

  “Like what?”

  “A seat at the table, for one. We have to take our chances with him and hope he likes us enough to consider not betraying us if the opportunity arises.”

  She sighed. “Ben, I’ve worked with people like Druck before. I think it’s a mistake.”

  A few weeks ago, I would have capitulated to her opinion. Matt thought he hadn’t done anything useful, and I disagreed. At an absolute minimum, he had given me the pep talk I needed to realize that Star Squadron me was part of regular me, and that I really could be a leader. Of course, as far as I was concerned he had done a lot more than that.

  “I appreciate your feedback,” I said. “I’m not trying to be rude, but maybe we need to work with a little less cynicism. It seems to be rampant in the Fertile Quadrant. Druck’s in.”

  Alter’s mouth shifted slightly as though she was prepared to argue. She smiled instead, though I wasn’t completely sure how sincere it was. “You’re the Captain.”

  “Thank you. Come down to the lounge with me so we can inform the crew.”

  I thought she might hit me with her passive-aggressive formality to show her objection to my decision. “Sure, Ben,” she replied instead, shifting form to Pilot Alter.

  As we headed to Deck Three, a simple thought raced through my mind.

  What the hell was Keep trying to drag us into?

  CHAPTER 26

  The rest of the crew received my info dump without too much comment, though Quasar had a hard time accepting that grimoire had anything to do with magic. Her interpretation was that the author had appropriated the word to give the plates that had been assembled a unique title, making it immediately recognizable to anyone in the know. After all, it wasn’t like the word grimoire was passed around the Quad or the larger Spiral on a regular basis. A code-word of sorts, without resorting to actual code.

  Her explanation made enough sense to convince me, while Matt and Druck insisted the meaning was the meaning and that was that. That part of the discussion turned Alter into a tiebreaker, and she had properly managed the drama by refusing to come to a conclusion right away. Even so, we had all agreed on two main ideas.

  First, whatever any of it meant, the two parties behind it, plus Sucaath, whoever that was, were engaged in something shady.

  Second, none of the intel was actionable until we dropped out of hyperspace and resupplied on Furion. For me, that resupply also included visiting Alter’s contact about my cancer. We added contacting Keep to our todo list, along with searching the hypernet for both Sucaath and the symbols on the metal plates, hoping to discover their origins. Quasar also wanted to find a Royal Guard station on the planet where she might be able to pass on a veiled tip, but none of us were sure how that would work out considering her situation as an escaped convict.

  I couldn’t wait to get there.

  That eagerness made the last three days of the transit feel like three years. Without the slab to occupy my attention, I reverted back to the routine I had undertaken during our prior hyperspace jumps. Physical training in the morning, a few hours of studying operating system code, a few more learning more about the Spiral. Admittedly, the last one was a lot more fun with Druck and Quasar added to the mix. They offered a divergent first-hand narrative of life in the Spiral the books in Head Case’s datastore couldn’t match, coloring between the lines in ways that often caused them to butt heads. Despite their disagreements and bickering, I could see a mutual respect developing between them. A bond that left me encouraged that my instinct about Druck was spot on. He truly seemed to enjoy being part of the crew.

  Crew. A well-defined concept, but still hard for me to think about without disbelief. I was a starship captain. I had a crew. Individuals who had joined up with us voluntarily, who wanted to be part of whatever we were doing. I had plenty of friends on Earth, but most of them had either come through Matt or I only knew them online, through in-game comms or social media. This was different. This was awesome. No matter what happened when we reached Furion, nothing could take away what Matt and I had accomplished.

  And I was really starting to believe we could do so much more. I didn’t want to die with the universe considering us bad guys. Escaped convicts. Keep had asked me if I wanted to be a hero and I had hedged. At the time, I wanted to live more than I wanted to be remembered. Now? I wasn’t as sure. But then, maybe I only felt that way because I was so close to getting what I wanted.

  “Coming out of hyperspace,” Alter said from the co-pilot’s seat. Matt, Quasar, and Druck filled in the sofa behind us, the entire crew present on the flight deck for the drop.

  “I’ve got the stick,” I said, prepared to take evasive action if we arrived too close to another vessel.

  “In five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

  She hit the switch, pulling the hyperdrive offline. Space immediately began filling in again in front of us, quickly revealing a lightly populated drop zone. The path ahead remained clear, the closest ship nearly two thousand kilometers distant.