Chapter Text

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THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

AT LEAST, THE PARTS I GOT RIGHT

Prologue 1 – in a part of the universe far from the solar system

“Are you ready?” asked Xeldap, the chief engineer on the Carilocyriac Time Travel Initiative.

“Can you ever be ready for something like this?” Asked his partner, Helpha. They had been hard at work on their accelerator for most of their careers, and finally, finally, they’d finished the prototype.

Of course, it had taken decades to prove the mere concept of time travel on paper, before they were allowed by the Science Academy to construct a model temporal accelerator to conduct today’s experiments with small objects.

They knew this day would be the greatest achievement in their planet’s history, and they wanted to lend it a bit of the gravitas it deserved. The first object ever to be sent back in time would be a small statuette of their city’s founding mother.

The image was familiar to every Carilocyriac schoolchild. The Founding Mother, known simply by title as her true name had been lost to time, rearing up on her mighty reptilian tail, brandishing a spear in each of her six arms, her fangs bared and her hood flaring a display of military dominance.

They hoped, one day, their accelerator could be used to travel back and speak with her, show her how far her civilization had come, and even ask her for some personal information for their records.

But first, the most important part of the experiment: setting the arrival point.

There was a small platform in the center of the room. All Xeldap would have to do is flip a switch, and it would broadcast a signal for a single second. If the accelerator worked, it would be able to hone in on that signal and transport the statue back to that exact time and place.

Xeldap readied himself, took a deep breath, and proudly frilled his own hood. Helpha followed suit, and he reached out to flip a switch.

“A set-and-forget beacon drive,” said a posh-sounding voice from behind them, causing them to both spin around to try and identify the source: a group of three Carilocyriacs dressed in strange black clothing lined with blue fur and glowing green crystals, “you don’t see people attempt those often.”

“So much math,” said the one on the left. “Most people at least attempt a wormhole generator.”

“Excuse me,” Helpha said, “this is a sterile test environment, you can’t be in here!”

“People only think wormhole generators are most common because they’re easiest to spot,” the one on the right said, “any time traveler worth their salt would do anything but a wormhole generator.”

“You need to get out of here right now!” Helpha insisted.

“Or what,” the one in the center asked with a hearty laugh, “you’ll draw up a blueprint at us? Babes, get to work on this thing.”

The one on the right pulled out a small handheld device and started punching numbers into it.

“What?!” Xeldap asked. “Are you from the Science Academy? We have a dispensation, all the permits are--.”

“Honey, we’re from whatever you want. We’ll be out of here in two shakes,” the one on the left laughed. “I almost said ‘out of your hair,’ can you imagine?”

“Must be a few idioms left in the translator from that job we did all that legwork for and only the boss actually got her boots on the ground,” the one on the right said, “what do we think of this lot, category six?”

“No need to punish the whole planet, as long as we can identify the source as that machine, this experiment,” the one in the center said. “We’re a surgical team, not a demolition crew. Let’s say… Category two. We’re budgeted for three attempts on this, if it turns out they didn’t learn their lesson, we can always take another run at it.”

“You’re the boss, for whatever reason,” the one on the right said. “Okay, it’s set.”

“Bye now! Bon chance on your experiment!” The one in the center waved, and the air around them seemed to fold until they were gone, without a trace.

“Bon chance?” Xeldap asked, never to receive an answer.

“What in the mother’s name was that about?” Helpha asked.

“They talked about tracing it all back to our experiment,” Xeldap replied. “Learning lessons. They said we were time travelers, and that we were doing it the smart way. You don’t think they could’ve been… I mean… what if they’re doing the same thing we are? Researchers from the future, trying to learn about a historic moment?”

“Then we’d better make sure their trip wasn’t a waste. Let’s give them a historic moment.”

Xeldap giggled with glee. “I’m not sure how it disrupts the scientific process to know we’ll be successful like that,” he said. “But, let’s find out!”

He flipped the switch, and the pedestal went outward in all directions in four dimensions. Xeldap and Helpha became the first casualties of a time-storm that ripped apart the entire company town servicing their laboratory, as well as a mile of surrounding desert. The storm ripped back in time a full week, erasing all trace of events in the town during that time. After the storm ended a week later, researchers at their sister station would report the inaugural accelerator experiment was scheduled for the exact center of the storm.

Time travel was deemed too dangerous a science to investigate, and all research into the subject was banned across Carilocyria. Fearing for the safety of their planet, no Carilocyriac researcher would ever attempt to build a time machine again.

Nobody but Xeldap and Helpha would ever know about the three mysterious intruders.

Prologue 2 – On Earth, in the childhood home Ariadne escaped from

Ariadne sat on the edge of her childhood bed. Amazingly, her parents had never done very much with it after she’d run away. The first time she’d ever come back, the room was devoid of dust, so she knew they’d been having it cleaned, but they hadn’t so much as changed the arrangement of the pillows on the bed. The perfect bedroom, preserved as though in amber, waiting for the return of the perfect daughter they wished she was. Even after all these years, that sting of rejection and abuse remained every time she returned.

She looked around at the bare walls. The drab, frightfully expensive bedspread. The closet full of school uniforms and nondescript, high-end blouses and skirts. The desk she’d once used to take apart old remote controls and cobble them into her latest experiment-- an indulgence her parents only allowed because she shared her mother’s techie sensibilities and intuition with machines-- felt like the only part of the room that had ever really been hers.

“You hear that?” She asked Ghostrunner. “That sound on the air?”

“The crickets?” Ghostrunner asked.

“Mixed in with the whir of helicopters and hovercraft,” Ariadne explained. “Diplomats and officers, shuttled back and forth, day and night, from the Capital of the world, back when it had a Capital. The soundtrack of my miserable childhood… God, I hated being here.” Ariadne took a long pause to compose herself. “Thank you for coming with me.”

“Anything,” Ghostrunner said, “I mean, you’re family. If I can make this whole… thing any easier.”

“Not just that,” she said. “I remember, when I was a little girl, a year or so before I ran away, my father took me to see his mother in San Juan.”

“Racquel the Elder,” Ghostrunner said knowingly, “you always spoke highly of your Abuela.”

“She was brilliant,” Ariadne said. “She would go up onto the rooftop of her little apartment, and paint landscapes and sunsets and portraits, the pets she’d had when she was little. But when she spoke to my father… well, for once, I felt like me and him had something in common.”

“What’s that?”

“Neither of us were what our families wanted us to be,” she said. “Rose through the political ranks in San Juan, married a rich girl Abuela didn’t approve of, moved to Alexandria, and signed up for a career of oppressing the rest of the system. She was so ashamed of him.”

“She was right to be,” Ghostrunner quipped. “Can you imagine if that was your kid?”

“She was a bigger person than I am, she didn’t disown him completely,” Ariadne said, “because of me.”

Ghostrunner sat down next to her, and leaned her head on her shoulder.

“She died, about two months after I left home,” Ariadne said. “She never knew where I went. What happened to me. I’ve never regretted running away, but… I’ve always regretted that.”

“I’m sorry,” Ghostrunner said. “Thank you for sharing this part of your life with me.”

“I wish she’d been able to meet Spacebreather, meet you,” Ariadne sighed, and then mused, “I hope I’m a better parent to you than they were to me.”

“Of course,” Ghostrunner said. “Are you crazy? Of course you are.”

“You know, when he died, he didn’t have any family left back home in Puerto Rico, and the new Caribbean Sovereigns refused to accept his body. Can’t really blame them. But here, they buried him with honors, alongside Presidents and Imperators, decorated generals and war heroes. He’s buried right here in town. About two miles out that winder,” Ariadne said, gesturing out the window and playing up her slight Appalachian twang. She laughed, as though she was finally getting a joke she’d heard years ago. “My mother used to slap me across the face if she caught me pronouncing it ‘winder.’ One time I called a waitress ‘sugar’ in front of my father and Dad dragged me to the car so firmly he dislocated my shoulder. Said I shouldn’t talk that way to a woman old enough to be my mother.”

“You’d be better than them even if they didn’t leave you the lowest possible bar to clear,” Ghostrunner said, suddenly realizing why Ariadne spoke the way she did, why her accent had only gotten thicker since she left home, why she always made a point of peppering in the folksy pet names, especially with older people. So much of her personality, her identity, was built on defiance of the people who’d raised her for the first eleven years of her life.

“My father was a bitter, angry, petty man. He hated everything, and everybody. He made that my problem, and I was terrified of him.” Ariadne said. “Used to sit right here and pray that god make me good enough that he wouldn’t hurt me again. When I was a kid, I just thought they were strict with me. Wasn’t until I was out in the big wide universe that I realized parents even could love their kids. Or, maybe, it wasn’t until then that I realized that love and fear weren’t the same feeling.”

Ghostrunner swallowed hard. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It wasn’t because you weren’t good enough.”

Ariadne smiled. “We all believe silly things when we’re kids. I believed that it was my fault my parents abused me, and that god was listening when I prayed.”

“I’m glad you know better now,” Ghostrunner told her.

Ariadne laughed. “Arlington Cemetery,” she said. “They interred my parents at Arlington. Isn’t that a sick fucking joke?”

She laughed again, a bit more darkly. Ghostrunner didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

“Here’s a better one: They kept me locked up my whole childhood, and now they’re under round-the-clock armed guard for all eternity.”

“Have you ever been to visit?” Ghostrunner asked.

Ariadne laughed it off, it was too ridiculous to merit a response. “Been down to San Juan, though. Abuelita’s buried there. It’s important to say goodbye to the people you love.”

Ghostrunner put her arms around Ariadne. She remembered, when she was young, how grateful she’d been when Ariadne brought her back to Haiti to visit her own parents’ graves. How it had taken her and Sasha months, during their stay in Xiagu, to help Sweettalk work up the courage to face her parents’ final resting place, and how Ariadne had held her hand, wiped her tears, and saw to it that flowers were planted in their honor.

“Hey,” Ghostrunner said, “I love you, and I could never be afraid of you.”

Ariadne hugged Ghostrunner back. “Love you too, kid,” she said. “Thanks again, for doing this with me.”

“If this is too much, we can go back to the station, prep for the Smuggler’s Guild job,” Ghostrunner said. “Peace can handle the crowd downstairs. Everyone thinks you’re a recluse anyway.”

“No, I need to do this,” Ariadne heaved a sigh. “Right now, when people look up the name Racquel Ramos, they’ll see me and my Abuela as a footnote in the story of a tyrant. It’s important that history see Raul and Rosario’s flesh and blood disowns and disavows everything they stood for. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction, towards a world where that crypt is the only place anyone bothers to honor them.”

Ariadne was styled to look approximately nothing like herself. Her usual work shirt and sturdy jeans had been replaced, for the evening, with a slinky black dress and high heels. Her protective braids were covered in a long, straight wig. Unlike in her day-to-day life, she was decidedly recognizable from the widely circulated news photos of Racquel Ramos, and nothing like the highly publicized footage of the notorious bandit, Ariadne.

“Do your best to blend in with the crowd,” Ariadne suggested. “They only need to see me at this thing. I’ll know you’re there, supporting me.”

Ghostrunner had already disappeared.

The official, public story was that Racquel had been granted asylum on Mars after fleeing from her abusive parents, and had returned about ten years ago, after their death, to claim her inheritance on their house. All of this was, of course, true, but was far from the whole truth.

The widespread belief was that she, traumatized by her childhood abuse and time as a refugee, lived a secluded life on the grounds, rarely being spotted by the public. Tonight would be the first public appearance of “Racquel Ramos” since her disappearance 15 years previously.

She hadn’t really known what to do with the house-- she certainly had no interest in living there-- until last year, when Peace Upendo’s term as Sovereign was up, and they decided to, for once, collaborate publicly on a legitimate endeavor.

The Racquel Ramos Foundation, named for Racquel the Elder, had existed for years, but for the most part was just the name of the bank account that funded the handful of soup kitchens and shelters that Ariadne owned for battered women, the unhoused, and anybody else who needed a bit of help. Now that Peace was involved, they had expanded the scope of their altruism tenfold. It operated out of the Ramos mansion and was able to provide aid to the victims of Earth’s imperialism within the bounds of the law, while Ariadne herself operated outside of it. Peace would run everything, using her political connections to make sure all the money ended up where it was needed most, and that none of it could be traced back to piracy.

Peace, as it turned out, was a wonder at this sort of thing, which was great for the foundation, but an occasional annoyance to Ariadne, who found it easier to supply funds to refill the foundation’s coffers than to come up with ideas for new philanthropic causes to funnel her ill-gotten gains to.

The launch event for the foundation showed that they were focusing not only on victims abroad, but those at home as well. It was a simple, high-publicity affair. The guests included diplomats and politicians-- Upendo was in attendance, as was Chief Magistrate Santiago-- as well as many of the city’s poor, and former political prisoners who’d been liberated following the fall of the Weaver regime.

Most of the attendees were dressed in their Sunday finest, but a few were dressed in casual clothes, some perhaps grimier than were appropriate for the setting. Ariadne couldn’t fault them for this, after all, what kind of charity would this be if it couldn’t stomach the sight of the poor? Besides, if she had her way, she’d be wearing jeans and an oil-stained tank top right now.

Ariadne had given a speech explaining that she was dedicated to helping in any way she could, that she would see that her grandmother’s legacy would be one of humanitarian aid, and then retired to the banquet area, where she picked at a tray of hors d'oeuvres, putting several miniature puff pastries filled with brie and raspberry and bacon-wrapped crab legs onto a smaller plate. She thanked her server with a substantial tip, and they hustled off.

A rather pale, rough-looking man in boots, jeans, and a tattered jacket covered in logos and appliques approached her with his own small plate of hors d'oeuvres. His hair and beard were brown and shaggy, and he had dark circles under his eyes.

“Racquel Ramos, right?” He asked, emphasizing her name in an inscrutably strange sort of way. His pronunciation wasn’t incorrect, but the question left Ariadne with the impression that she was a cashier whose customer addresses them by name after clearly reading it from a nametag. “I liked your speech. Didn’t really feel like your voice, though.”

Ariadne scoffed at this guy’s audacity. “I wouldn’t be the first person to use a speechwriter. Peace is an old family friend, and she’s a lot better with words than I am.”

“Hey, no shame in that,” the stranger said, popping a miniature crab cake into his mouth. “My apologies, I just mean, the speech was very… high-society. You just seem a lot more... approachable, down-to-earth, you know? I appreciate what you’re doing here. It’s gonna help a lot of people.”

“Am I correct to assume I’m helping you?” Ariadne asked.

The stranger laughed. “You don’t know the half of it,” he said. “Believe me, I can’t thank you enough for everything you’re doing. I remember this place, your parents, before you went missing. Hasn’t changed a bit-- I mean, the city has, but the house is exactly as I remember it--except, well… it’s in better hands now. If I’m being honest, no offense, I was never much a fan of them.”

“Me neither,” Ariadne chuckled. “None taken.”

“Right-wingers, man” he shook his head. “You look lovely, by the way.”

He sounded earnest, he clearly wasn’t making a pass at her, just making an observation. She suddenly got what he meant, by the speech not feeling like her voice.

“Yeah, I feel like I’m wearing a costume,” she said with a laugh, although she was entirely serious.

“Every outfit is a costume,” he said, “we’re all pretending not to be naked people.”

Ariadne laughed. “You’re a weird guy, you know that? Easy to talk to, though.”

“You’re not the first person to let me know,” he said, “back home I’m pretty sure a few of my friends wrote it in my high school yearbook.”

“So you’re not from around here, then?”

“Me? No, god no, I’m from… let’s say I’m from a bit up north,” the stranger said. “Visited here a few times. The city and these charming little towns, for what little suburbia can be charming. It was a different city back then, though. I always regretted not coming to visit more. But, I made more than my share of mistakes, when I was a young man.”

“You don’t look that old to me.” He might’ve had a few grays, and been a bit rough around the edges, but he couldn’t be a day over 35.

He laughed. “I appreciate that, too,” he said, popping one of the raspberry-brie pastries in his mouth. “And I really appreciate these hors d'oeuvres. Haven’t had these in years. Used to work weddings, vest and bowtie and everything, and you really got the good stuff. Hope the foundation is tipping the servers well.”

“Good priorities! Man after my own heart.” Ariadne laughed. “Looks like you already understand the foundation’s mission statement.”

The stranger laughed as well. “That’s the big secret. Make a good impression on the service workers, you get the best service. You’ve got all the power players in the system down here, but those guys and gals in the penguin suits? They’re the ones who really make the world go round.”

“Don’t I know it!” Ariadne said. “Between you and me, I can’t stomach these high-society types. My sister-in-law and her wife work in event planning, and you won’t find two bigger hearts than theirs.”

The stranger smiled sweetly through pursed lips, looking for all the world as though he loved her family-- not the former owners of this house, but her real family--dearly. He raised his glass, a highball with a mixed cocktail in it. “Give her my best, when you talk to her” he said. “Her wife too. Salt of the Earth.”

“I’ll do that, stranger,” she said. “It’s been an unexpected pleasure talking to you. What was your name?”

The stranger again smiled without opening his mouth. “Your wife as well, my absolute warmest regards.”

He raised his glass again, and made sure to make direct eye contact as Ariadne clinked her glass against his. The stranger sauntered off into the crowd, and was out of sight a moment later.

Ariadne leaned back against a nearby table, and sipped her own cocktail. Then, something occurred to her--

How had the stranger known she had a wife?

Prologue 3 – The Second Future, 20 years after divergence

“Cor, we’ve got to go,” Mingxia yelled, fleeing down a corridor and laying down cover fire, knowing their pursuer would expend resources patching up breaches to the space station. What was the point of all this, after all, if the whole station went up in smoke? It wouldn’t slow her down for more than a few steps, but it could be all the difference.

“Taryn, we ready?” Corantine slid under a falling wire as her pursuer severed it.

“At your signal, Captain,” replied the hologram of Taryn that only Corantine could see.

Corantine and Mingxia were still spry, but at just past 40, were not quite as quick as they once were. They finally got into the repurposed teleporter bay, and clasped a device onto the door panel that injected it with an encrypted code designed to baffle their pursuer.

“Taryn’s good,” Corantine said.

“I do what I can,” Taryn replied.

“Okay, don’t get a big head,” Mingxia said, gesturing at bullet hole in her armor plating, “It didn’t stop this.”

“It’s like she used to ask,” Corantine pointed out, “who the hell still uses a physical bullet, in this day and age?!”

“Maybe if we survive this, we start answering questions the first time we ask them,” Mingxia asked, “and not wait until old Mingxia catches a bullet in the shoulder.”

“In your shoulder pad,” Taryn corrected. “Tosin’s armor stopped it, and I designed Tosin’s armor. Medical scan shows it didn’t even break the skin. Hell, that suit’s still spacetight!”

“Semantics, I still felt the absolute fuck out of that impact,” Mingxia replied, “my compliments to the mister on his craftsmanship, though.”

“Tell him yourself, when you get there,” Taryn replied.

Another wave of causality rocked the station. Taryn’s everjade stabilizers would keep their new ship in the sky, although they weren’t as sophisticated as the ones the former captain had used to keep this station afloat.

“This storm’s taken out half the system,” Corantine mused. “Soon there won’t be anything left to consume. If we’d known about this stuff sooner--”

“If this works, we will,” Mingxia insisted. “You’re sure this’ll hold her?”

Their pursuer had stopped trying to hack through the door’s code and had started simply trying to physically hack through the door itself. The chilling sound of energy weapons against metal rang through the teleporter bay.

“Long enough,” Corantine replied with an exasperated sigh, “lock that thing onto our signals and start the departure sequence.”

Corantine gave Mingxia a kiss, and Mingxia got to work rigging up their departure.

“Remember, Taryn, once we’re through, the quantum lock won’t hold. You won’t be able to contact us. If we fail, you’re the new acting captain, and you won’t have time to stick around and see which way things go. Take the remaining crew, and get them to safety. Leave the system.” Corantine said. “Do it as soon as we’re on the other side. If we’re successful, you’ll end up back where you belong anyway.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Taryn said, and logged off.

“You don’t have to face her, Cor,” Mingxia said, “If we manage this thing, she won’t even remember it.”

“It’s important to me,” Corantine said. “Spacebreather would’ve wanted her to have a chance to see reason. She’s still my mother.”

“Sometimes I wonder about that,” Mingxia said, sweat glistening on her buzzed head from a combination of stress, adrenaline, and exertion. “Thirty seconds to departure.”

Finally, the door gave way, and they saw their pursuer, looking larger than life and more machine than woman. Dark gray metal plates woven together with black fibers, her shaved head wrapped tightly by the straps of her goggles, eight dark lenses that concealed her eyes completely and left it a mystery whether her natural eyes were even still behind them. Her once-friendly face was twisted into an expression of rage and grief, and her whole body was supported several feet off the ground by a series of metallic tendrils sharpened to a deadly point.

“We’re doing this,” Corantine said. “The only way you can stop it is if you kill me.”

Ariadne’s expression became even more pained, and she raised a tendril to strike.

“Look what you’ve become,” Corantine said.

“I can save her,” Ariadne growled back. “I can save us all.”

“Then do it, mom,” Corantine replied.

Ariadne’s tendril remained high in the air.

“Do it!” Corantine hissed.

Ariadne shrieked, and slammed her tendril into the floor. She hung her head, unable to harm her daughter.

“This isn’t over,” Ariadne growled. “This doesn’t change anything. Nothing in this universe can stop me protecting her!”

“We’ll see,” Ghostrunner replied, and she and Mingxia were swept away along an axis neither of them could fully perceive.

Chapter 1 – Machines in the Ghost

“How was prison?” Spacebreather asked Ariadne immediately upon her return home, who’d already dispensed with the dress and wig on the ride home, changing into her more familiar black jeans and purple work shirt.

Her wife had always had an understandable animosity towards her childhood home, a monument to the people who’d ordered her parents’ execution, overseen countless atrocities against her planet, and who had abused her wife all through her preadolescence. They had been married a long time now, and Ariadne knew “prison” was her playful nickname for the Ramos mansion.

“Here you go,” Ghostrunner said, tossing Spacebreather a framed wedding photo of Ariadne’s birth parents, taken from the Ramos homestead for the dartboard in the War Room.

“The event went well,” Ariadne replied. “Strange crowd, though. Some guy told me to give you his best.”

“My best to some guy,” Spacebreather said.

She couldn’t shake something off about that stranger’s request. She was wearing a wedding band, although many women wore rings for any number of reasons. She supposed that she had mentioned a sister-in-law, and it was a matter of public record she was an only child, so it stood to reason he could’ve figured out she was married. That she was married to a woman could’ve been a lucky guess, but she had no way of determining that. She resolved to put it out of mind as best she could, unless and until it started to matter.

“Ghostrunner, report down to the armory and gear up,” Ariadne ordered, and Ghostrunner complied, “Pilar, catch me up on what I missed while I was down on Earth.”

“Well,” Pilar started, “Carrie Beastmaster down in the menagerie says Tripwire’s cat is having kittens and it’s not yet clear who the father is, possible drama ahead, she’ll keep you posted. Cyan finished the latest round of beta testing on the Locker with the gals from Spec Ops, it should be ready for field testing on the Smuggler’s Guild job. The community garden in Xiagu is reporting a bountiful harvest; Backflip, Tripwire, and Lefthook’s teams executed flawless raids on box stores on Calisto, Triton, and Charon; and the new class of Whiptails are settled into the marked motels for their away missions. Oh, and your little lab assistant is complaining of some sort of crystalline buildup in your lab.”

“Tosin is a fabrication specialist and materials expert,” Ariadne said, “I’m sure he can handle a few stray crystals on his own.”

“That’s what he told me, nonetheless, you know how he is,” Pilar said, “I have several dozen pages of reports on it from him, all of which I found in my inbox because after six years he’s still too nervous to speak directly to me.”

“Terrific project for when we get back from the mission,” Ariadne explained. “Do we have any updates from Intel what, exactly, the Smuggler’s Guild is trying to, you know, smuggle?”

“Ghostrunner’s recon teams were very clear on the who and the where, but not so sure of the what. All we know is, it’s some kind of artifact the Balotelli Foundation dug up in a mining town in the asteroid belt,” Pilar said. “Our agents in the belt are reporting the smugglers killed the locals working the dig team, seized the artifact, and intend to sell it to the highest bidder.”

“There’s like nine people in that damn guild,” Ariadne said, “we might be over-preparing with an entire Whiptail squadron. Hell, we might be over-preparing with a ham sandwich and a pair of safety scissors. Lefthook could handle this herself.”

“There’s nine idiots in that guild,” Pilar said, “that’s how we heard about this in the first place. And if we’ve heard about it, odds are we’re not the only ones.”

Ariadne pinched the bridge of her nose. “Great.”

“Fastwing is downstairs getting the girls armored up,” Pilar said, “the bounty’s not really the purpose of this mission, try and focus on the field-testing, that gadget stuff always puts you in a good mood, you little library rat. You’ll have Uprising in your detail, and like the gals from Spec Ops always say, she’s the gold standard in quality assurance.”

Ariadne beamed with deep pride for how she had fostered Taryn Uprising’s natural rebelliousness and taught her to value it as a gift. Her common sense and critical thinking skills would make even the most seasoned risk analysts green with envy.

Taryn had made a point of reaching a point of simple proficiency, rather than mastery, in almost every department the crew had covered. She’d apprenticed with Sasha, Cookie, Pilar, Alicia, and even Ariadne herself. She had a real knack for first aid, was a decent cook, a crack shot with next to no hand-to-hand capability, an absolutely terrible pilot, and was skilled at improvising gadgets, so long as function was valued over form. She didn’t need to be the best at any of these things, she just needed to be good enough to know how they worked, so she could identify when and how they weren’t working right.

She’d found her calling, however, in Speculative Operations, the branch of Ariadne’s crew devoted to the cause of taking new technologies they’d either encountered or developed, and coming up with ways the crew could benefit from them. Taryn’s wealth of hands-on experience was incredibly handy for bridging the gap between theoretical and practical.

“We really did something right there,” Ariadne said, and then gave a laugh. “God, I’d better not screw up this robbery, though. If she’s with us, you know I’ll hear about it.”

“Glad you’re getting more comfortable with the effect we’ve had on the kids we take in,” Pilar said. “Almost as comfortable as you are bending the laws of nature to invent a communication device that solves a problem that doesn’t exist yet.”

Ariadne shrugged. Pilar knew who she married. The locker shouldn’t surprise her. “If this works, it’s gonna change how we do missions forever,” Ariadne concurred with Pilar’s assessment.

“Yes, I know, book-eater,” she said. “Get down there, Alicia’s waiting.”

Ariadne made her way into the corridor from the docking bay to the armory. The corridor wasn’t the prettiest part of their home, resembling the interior of a submarine more than a spaceship, with grate floors and visible steel support beams, but she wouldn’t dream of updating its appearance. This was one of the earliest parts of the station she had constructed, in the early days, when she was still working with salvaged scrap.

When they’d built it, they all had different ideas about what to call the station. Ariadne preferred to call it Ship Trap, a literary reference that had earned her playful teasing by both Pilar and Sasha. Pilar liked to call it The Eye, after the far-left political symbol popular on Mars. Sasha simply called it Home. Cookie had put forward Hy-Brasil as her own suggestion, and because the whole crew had worked under her in the kitchens, this was far and away the most widely-used name for it. Didn’t matter to Ariadne, though. She liked the nerdy thing she called it. That wasn’t the first time Pilar called her a “book-eater” and it would absolutely not be the last.

These days, they were working with quite a bit more. They’d integrated dozens of captured spacecraft into the structure of their space station, which had gone from a small interplanetary craft, to a medium-sized crescent-shaped space station, and then finally to a large megastructure that looked for all the world like a small floating city. Some of the ships they’d incorporated, like the Red God cult’s ship, were designed to feel more like an upscale hotel with wood paneling, plush carpets, and incandescent lights. Some of the industrial ships they’d captured felt more like an electronics store, with their linoleum floors, stark white halls, and fluorescent lighting.

Ariadne always felt the most at home in the parts of the station that were most like the armory. Something about looking around at a space she’d actually built herself, welded the panels and girders together with her own hands, set her at ease. It was a welcome change from having spent a short time in her childhood bedroom. She was a stranger there. This was where she belonged. Here is where she could take a deep breath and take a moment of serenity.

The serenity, however, was short-lived, as her young lab assistant quickly caught up to her while clutching a tablet to his chest.

Oluwatosin Adamolekun, known around the station simply by the nickname “Tosin,” was a lot to take in, visually. Ariadne was acutely aware he was actually quite handsome, from the chatter among the boys and girls in her care, although few of them seemed to know him very well. He was 20 years old and had finally managed to sprout a five-o-clock shadow, which was, Ariadne understood it, quite important to those among the crew who were attracted to men, across his sharp, defined features. He always smelled like spearmint candies, which was strange because nobody had ever seen him eat one. He assumed the glances he tended to attract were informed by malice or mockery, but more often than not, they were either attracted to him or else simply fascinated by how he chose to style himself.

Ariadne was actually glad he chose to style himself so strangely, because it perfectly reflected his personality in a way that his classically handsome features didn’t always convey, and she respected someone who was up-front about what to expect.

His white lab coat did little to mask the bright, clashing neon colors on the pattern of his button-down shirt, all of which stood out in stark contrast to his dark brown skin, and none of which matched the parrot-and-flamingo patterned bandana he used to tie back his long afro, which was twisted into long, loose locks that stuck out in every direction, giving his head a distinctly pineapple-like silhouette. He had several pens clipped to his lapels in seemingly random positions, and what little of his arms were visible up the sleeve of his lab coat showed that he was wearing at least three wristwatches, in addition to the visible pocketwatch in his lab coat, and the scientific timer attached to his lanyard. His eyes were, as they almost always were, covered by a pair of welding goggles, which served the dual purpose of protecting him in the laboratory, and helping soften the impact of what had been affectionately been described as “his crazy eyes,” which tended to give the impression that he was always a little too glad to be dealing with whatever situation was in front of him.

Which, of course, he almost always was.

“Mrs. Ariadne, a moment?” He asked nervously, his deep voice quavering but with the unmistakable, almost musical accent of the colony on Venus where he’d grown up.

“Unclench, Rockstar, you’ve known me for six years. You don’t still need to be anxious around me,” she said, motioning for him to walk with her. “And again, you can just call me Ariadne, or just Ari, you don’t need to say be so formal.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Ariadne,” he said, making it clear he had no intention of dropping the formality. His mama hadn’t raised him that way. “Did Mrs. Spacebreather tell you about the crystals?”

“She mentioned it,” she said. “You know, part of the reason I employ a qualified fabricator of your caliber in the first place is so that I don’t have to personally oversee all mineral buildup removal. I’m sure you’re more than capable of handling it.”

“I appreciate that, ma’am,” he said, and Ariadne gave him a look for having called her ma’am which he completely failed to notice, “and ordinarily I wouldn’t trouble you, but this buildup isn’t on any of the fabrication equipment. It’s right in the middle of the floor, a completely unknown substance--”

Ariadne stopped short, and Tosin almost didn’t notice at first. He took several steps and then had to turn around to continue the conversation. “Ma’am?”

“Ari,” she corrected. “Did you just say it was an unknown substance?”

“Completely,” he said, “I haven’t had a chance to examine its molecular structure yet, but there’s no match on initial scans, and I certainly don’t recognize it from appearance, texture, or taste--”

“--Okay, first of all,” Ariadne said, “I could have Sasha make up your death certificate today, and just leave the date blank, because the cause of death is going to be ‘licked a rock without knowing what it was.’ I like you, Tosin, and I don’t want to have to train a new fabrication specialist. So, like… don’t taste strange crystals that appear on the floor of my lab. ”

“Then how am I supposed to identify them, ma’am?” Tosin asked.

“Ari,” she corrected again, “and secondly, you’re calling it an unknown substance? I’ve seen you identify a metal’s chemical makeup by sound. I didn’t think there was a substance you didn’t know about.”

“Well, that’s what concerns me, m--” Tosin caught himself. “I’m sorry, I still just don’t feel comfortable calling you by your Christian name.”

Ariadne laughed at hearing her pirate moniker referred to as her “Christian name.”

“Tosin, do you drink?” she asked, and, remembering his tendency to take things literally, quickly clarified. “Alcohol, I mean, do you drink alcohol?”

“I suppose I’ve been known to mark a special occasion--”

“—great, so, next day off, you and I are gonna throw a few back until you stop taking me so seriously, okay?”

“If you say so, ma’am.”

Ariadne sighed, and gave up on getting him to call her by her name, at least for the moment. “So what I’m going to need you to do, is to take samples of those crystals, and do every test you’ve got. I want you on top of this. Find out what that stuff is, where it’s coming from, and most importantly, how we can either put it to use or get rid of it. I’m trusting you to take care of this.”

“Yes, ma’am!” He said.

“Sasha will be manning the station during the mission,” she said, “I’ll let her know she’s on-call to bring you back if you poison yourself by licking a rock.”

“I will try not to bother her,” Tosin said enthusiastically.

“Just try not to die, that’s the important thing. And in the future,” she said, “you don’t need my say-so to take care of this stuff. I put you in charge of my lab for a reason. I trust you to know what you’re doing.”

“I appreciate that, ma’am! I won’t let you down!” Tosin rushed out of the corridor behind her, and Ariadne heaved a sigh.

She pressed on, and entered the armory, where most of her away team-- consisting of Sweettalk, Taryn Uprising, and Ghostrunner-- was already waiting. Sweettalk was already wearing her spacetight armor, with her helmet sitting next to her, and Alicia was hard at work attaching small, round devices to the magnetic latch on each person’s belt.

“Just as a reminder,” she told them, “personal force fields will protect you from most projectiles, both physical and energy-based, but they are not an excuse to be reckless. Concentrated, continuous fire can break through even the strongest force field.”

“So we’re just… all going to pretend none of that happened?” Taryn replied.

“Don’t you start,” Alicia said. “Ariadne, your fabricator was just in here. He still can’t look me in the eye, and some of your away team refuse to stop forcing the issue.”

“Girls, he was only trying to be a good friend. He’s treating Alicia how he’d want her to treat him if the shoe was on the other foot,” Ariadne said. “Nobody’s less thrilled about what happened than me--”

“—except me!” Taryn pointed out.

“Even though it straight-up does not involve you,” Ghostrunner pointed out, and Taryn scoffed.

“I think Blue was the most thrilled about it,” Sweettalk added, eliciting a death glare from Taryn and a playful slap upside the head from Alicia.

“—but it DID happen,” Ariadne cut back in, struggling to keep the group on task, “and we all just have to… learn to live with that, moving forward.”

“He got himself all worked up expecting me to be mad, and wasn’t expecting me to find it funny. He’s a good kid. The sooner we all stop bringing it up, the sooner he and I can put it behind us and he can finally meet my eye line again. Who knows, maybe he’ll even let me take a crack at his hair!”

“Yes,” Ariadne agreed, “he’s a very private person and I think he’d appreciate a lot less focus on his personal, private business. Especially from you, Sweettalk, you’re weirdly captivated by him.”

“When we’ve got this new technology working,” Sweettalk said, “I want to use it to spend a day in that guy’s head. I want to study him.”

“Oh hush. Darlin’, he’s not a... stick insect you brought home in a jar. He’s a good kid,” Ariadne said.

“Oh, I know,” Sweettalk said. “I love the guy, he calls me Mrs. Sweettalk and greets me by kissing my hand. If I was single, and, you know, straight? I might be in real trouble with that one.”

“Cytherian quirk,” Ariadne replied, “they’re very big on manners and chivalry on Venus, and not always the best about personal space, but he means well.”

“I’m obsessed. He keeps a shot glass full of water on his desk and refills it whenever he needs a sip,” Sweettalk said. “Last time I went into his lab, he offered me some mango, and I figured, oh, he’s probably got a bowl of sliced mango somewhere, and I’ll always take some mango slices. He pulls a whole mango out of his lab coat and tosses it to me. Where did he even get that?!”

“Well, then, when we get back, you can help him deal with this crystal buildup in the lab,” Ariadne said.

“If you insist,” Sweettalk said, barely masking her delight. “But I really think Taryn should join us, she knows that lab like the back of her hand.”

Ghostrunner’s jaw dropped at this last pointed bit of emphasis. “You are unbelievable,” she muttered.

“Do something about it,” Sweettalk whispered back, and then, at full volume, said, “Taryn? You in?”

“Let’s… focus on getting back first,” Taryn said. “So, who’s gonna be in our heads?”

“That honor will be mine,” Alicia said. “No better way for the quartermaster to get acquainted with the equipment than hands-on practice.”

“And we’re sure it’s safe?” Sweettalk asked. “We’re not gonna have a repeat of somebody’s little date night fiasco?”

“I’m literally standing right here,” Alicia objected.

“Couldn’t be safer,” Ariadne replied. “We’ve tested it extensively here, now we just need to test it out there.”

The technology in question, known colloquially among the crew as “the locker,” was a little bit of ingenuity Cyan had cooked up, based on the technology her biological father had used to project recordings of himself into her mind.

In essence, the locker allowed the user to have an ally in the room with them, taking in their entire sensory experience and even projecting their voice and appearance into the space, without being visible, audible, or detectable in any way to anyone who was not wearing a receiver. A pirate could remain at home base and exist on the scene as though they were a ghost, which is where the system got its name: it was as though they’d taken a brief sojourn into Davy Jones’.

The receiver was was a small piece of metal which, due to the complex nanocircuitry Ariadne had embedded into its mass, could connect the nervous systems of two people through simple skin contact. Any two people touching the metal could see what the other person sees, hear what the other person hears, even feel and taste and smell what the other person did, so long as neither of them lost contact with the metal.

Of course, this presented them with the tricky logistical problem of how this could possibly be helpful in the field, if the only people it could work with had to be close enough to physically touch the same hunk of metal. They’d experimented with the possibility of transmitting a live-feed of all the information conveyed in the metal across space, but even using the FTLnet, there would be a slight lag, and it was too easily hacked, too easy to block out. What would they do, Cyan had pointed out, if someone intercepted the signal and stole sensitive information, or worse, traced the signal back to the station and found their location?

Ariadne and Alicia’s collaborative masterwork had provided the answer to this: The Teleportal.

Using the quantum shift generators they’d recovered from Dr. Simon’s compound, they managed to place the entire hunk of metal in a state of quantum superposition, the same particles existing in two places at once. The metal was then fashioned into wearable rings or bracelets, and placed on the pirate in the field.

While the two wearers could be hundreds of millions of miles away, they would always be in direct physical contact with the same piece of metal, relaying information instantly as though they were directly wired to one another in the same room. It was untraceable and unhackable.

In order to prevent the sensory input from the “ghost’s” location from creating a feedback loop and clouding the wearer’s senses, they would be placed in a stasis pod-- the “locker,” as it were-- allowing them to freely project their consciousness without bringing the sights, sounds, and smells of their location with them.

There were many practical uses for this, naturally having an extra set of eyes and ears meant twice the chances to notice potential threats, as well as the benefit of being able to communicate with headquarters instantaneously, but the most important feature, as far as Ariadne was concerned, was in addressing an occupational hazard that had plagued them for the entirety of their career as pirates:

Career criminals had a troubling tendency to get captured with some regularity.

With the locker, there would always be someone on the station who could reach the away team, as well as seeing where they were, even if communications were down, and even if the pirate in the field were unconscious, the ghost in the locker would be able to hear what their ears heard, smell what their nose smelled, and feel what their nerves sent to their brain.

“And you’re sure you’re comfortable having me in your head like that?” Alicia asked.

“Nobody I’d rather have in the passenger’s seat,” Ariadne said flatly, and meant it. “About time you returned the favor for the date night thing, anyway.”

“I’m never gonna live that down, huh?” Alicia quipped back. “I’d figure you’d at least rather have your wife in there, though.”

“Think about it, Fastwing,” Ariadne said, “Can’t kiss someone who’s in my head.”

“Try not to kiss her while I can feel it,” Alicia laughed.

“No promises,” Ariadne said.

Ariadne slipped the locker’s relay, a small silver ring, onto her finger, and then encased it in the gauntlet of her spacetight armor. It was second nature to her, now, getting suited up. She had magnetic implants in her back which ensured a perfect fit, as well as interfacing with the small pack that affixed to the back of the armor and allowed her to operate the cybernetic metal spider-legs that now felt like an extension of her body. The ship’s medic, Sasha Deathsbane, arrived to oversee Alicia’s stasis, wished her wife Sweettalk and her best friend Ghostrunner good luck with a goodbye kiss, and got to work prepping Alicia for her time in the pod.

Sweettalk, Ghostrunner, and Taryn ran ahead, pulse rifles slung over their shoulders, gossiping about something Taryn had said or done before she’d gotten there. Ari had noticed that there was something going on there-- Sweettalk was up to something and Ghostrunner disapproved of it-- but beyond that she was dreadfully out of the loop on that particular bit of gossip. Taryn was involved, but Ariadne knew all too well that it was folly to try and guess her agenda. She figured she’d be brought up to speed if and when it became any of her business.They’d momentarily be meeting with the last member of the away team, Cyan, who’d already suited up in preparation.

“You’re sure she’s ready for this?” Ariadne asked. “Lead medic on a mission, she’s come a long way.”

“You don’t have faith in her?” Sasha joked, placing a conduit headpiece around Alicia’s forehead.

“You know me, I’ll have faith in just about anybody,” Ariadne said, “I want to know if you have faith in her. That’s the real indicator.”

“She’s my star pupil. You’re in as good of hands with her as you’d be in with me, and this whole Locker thing is kinda her deal,” Sasha said. “Besides, I’m on call here in case Alicia needs a medic while you’re away.”

“I won’t,” Alicia said, “I’m going on ice.”

“Better to have it and not need it,” Sasha said. “Okay, you two ready?”

“As we’ll ever be,” Alicia confirmed.

Sasha closed the pod, stepped back, and clicked the activation switch, turning on the stasis field and placing Alicia in a near-complete particle lock, cycling every atom in the chamber through a five-second loop, leaving her almost, but not entirely, immune to the passage of time. The conduit headpiece created a localized disruption of the stasis field that allowed her brain activity to escape the loop, so her consciousness wouldn’t reset every five seconds.

The glass separating her from the rest of the armory went opaque, and the soundproofing switched on, leaving her completely switched off from the outside world’s sensory distractions.

“And she should be with you in three, two…” Sasha mouthed the end of the countdown silently.

“BLOOD FIRE,” Alicia’s voice rang out somewhere deeper than Ariadne’s ears, “is this what it feels like in your head?! How many cybernetic implants do you have?!”

“A lot,” Ariadne said, “I’m hearing you, but I’m still not seeing you.”

“I’m trying to find you,” Alicia’s voice called back. “Bitch, you didn’t tell me you were this integrated with the station. You can really see through any security camera, at any time?! My god, and the sensors on the security satellites too! Did you know you can actually feel the power levels in the antimatter core?!”

“I was acutely aware,” Ariadne said, turned to Sasha, and lowered her voice. “We may have wanted to ease her in with somebody who has fewer senses than I do.”

“Yeah, like whispering keeps you quiet,” a hologram of Alicia manifested physically in front of her, floating about a foot in the air, but as though she were standing on solid ground, “I’m hearing with your ears, and I can feel the words coming out of your mouth.”

“Brilliant,” Ariadne smiled. “So this hologram I’m seeing…”

She waved her hand in front of Alicia’s face, and snapped her fingers less than an inch away from her eye. No reaction.

“It’s just an image of me,” Alicia said, “I’m seeing out of your eyes, and apparently all your security cameras. I just saw you snap your fingers in thin air.”

“Sasha, are you getting all this?” Ariadne asked.

“I’m getting none of this,” Sasha said, “as you know, because you invented this tech, I can neither see nor hear her.”

“Perfect,” Ariadne said. “Keep your pager on, in case something goes wrong. And do me a favor?”

Sasha perked up.

“Can you just… check in on Tosin, while he runs some tests on the crystal thing in the lab? I’m worried he’s gonna eat one and choke to death.”

Sasha laughed. “Taryn’s not gonna be thrilled about missing that,” she said. “but aye aye.”

“Walk with me, Alicia,” she said, and began down the corridor to the docking bay. Alicia dutifully, automatically, floated with her, maintaining her position relative to Ariadne without seeming to take a step.

“Can the other girls hear you?” Ariadne asked. “The rest of the away team, they’re wearing the same rings as us.”

“Right now?” Alicia asked. “No, it seems with this many of you attached, I can pick and choose who I send sensory input to. Interesting. Wait, let me try something.”

Alicia’s avatar reached out and clasped Ariadne’s arm, through her rigid armor plating.

“What the hell?!” Ariadne startled, flinching back from the touch. “I felt that!”

“It’s not just sound and sight I can spoof like this,” Alicia said, “I can send touch as well.”

“How the hell does a hologram touch me?!” Ariadne asked.

“It doesn’t, not really,” Alicia said, “I just… visualized myself touching your arm, and I guess your nervous system sent all the appropriate signals. Same as how you can ‘hear’ my voice, and ‘see’ my face.”

“Always useful to know about new features,” Ariadne said, “nonetheless, let’s warn the other girls before the ghost hologram grabs them through what’s supposed to be bulletproof armor.”

“Will do,” Alicia laughed. “Jesus, this chip in your brain… I can feel that thing ticking away. Do you really run this thing all the time?”

“That thing is part of my brain now,” Ariadne replied, “it runs when the rest of my brain runs, and rests when it rests.”

“So you’re just… constantly designing new gear in there, whenever you’re conscious?” Alicia asked.

“That’s what I was doing before the implant, I used to have to draw up the schematics in my head, then try and manually sketch them out and render them on the computer, with my hands, like an animal,” Ariadne said. “Only difference now is, I can just pluck the schematics out of my head, throw them onto a big screen, and put them right into production. Leaves me more time to think about running our little society. Speaking of, what the hell is Taryn’s deal lately?”

“Do you really want the teenage drama?” Alicia asked.

Ariadne sighed. “I suppose it’s what I signed up for.”

“She’s sensitive about what happened with Tosin and Blue,” Alicia said, barely holding back a laugh.

“We all are,” Ariadne said, “she’s incorrigible, and if I didn’t love her, and you, I would flush your… life partner into space every time she showed her face on my station.”

“She was on her best behavior!” Alicia offered as a genuine defense. “Tosin’s an odd bird, and that… works for her. She laid on the charm, offered him a kiss, he took it. And that’s all that happened.”

Ariadne stopped walking until Alicia told the truth.

“Okay fine,” Alicia admitted, “second base, max. Swear to god, it didn’t go any further than that. I’d have heard about it if it did.”

“Then why was he so overcome with guilt that he tearfully confessed the whole thing to you?” Ariadne asked.

“He didn’t know that me and Blue were together, let alone the finer points of our relationship,” Alicia said. “When he found out, he thought she was two-timing me. Like you said, he was trying to be a good friend. Had no way of knowing that this is behavior I encourage in her.”

“So why does Taryn give a shit?” Ariadne asked. “She barely even knows Blue. They only met once, twelve years ago.”

Ariadne considered this for a moment. Blue and Taryn’s encounter had been eventful to say the least, but the few discussions they’d had about that day led Ariadne to believe Taryn didn’t really remember Blue. She’d been unconscious for most of it, and it was understandable why she wouldn’t want to think back on that day, but if she did remember, it wouldn’t be surprising that she had complicated feelings about the woman. Plus, Taryn had always idolized Alicia-- wanted to know everything about her, dress like her, and even asked to do her hair the same way as a child-- and maybe she felt a little protective over her. It wouldn’t be the first time someone was upset that Blue was dating their loved one, and probably wouldn’t be the last, either.

“Maybe she doesn’t know Blue. She sure knows Tosin, though,” Alicia pointed out. “They’re close friends.”

“So, if anything she should be happy for him,” Ariadne said, more baffled than ever. “Whatever else is true of her, Blue’s crazy hot.”

“Do the math on this one, Ari,” Alicia said, “Were you never young and dumb, and blinded by, well…”

“OH,” Ariadne said. “Jeez, sorry, I guess I… yeah, Taryn’s bi, and I guess Tosin is technically a man. Not sure who or what he’s into, but I guess he’s probably into at least one girl, if he made out with Blue.”

“He’s very difficult to read,” Alicia said. “Taryn is not.”

“Maybe not for you. I’ve known her since she was seven, and I still can’t seem to wrap my head around what she’s thinking. That girl is a tornado,” Ariadne said. “Hey, is this why Sweettalk was--”

“Yes,” Alicia said flatly.

“She usually doesn’t start scheming like this until she’s had a few drinks,” Ariadne said, then thought of something worrisome. “She… hasn’t had a few drinks, you don’t think, just before the mission, has she?”

“She hasn’t,” Alicia said, “oh my god, wait, I just realized-- I can feel all of your blood sugar and alcohol levels! You really should eat something before we go.”

“Cookie put a batch of mandu on the ship for us to eat en route,” Ariadne said. “You ever tried her mandu? Absolutely breathtaking.”

Alicia stifled a laugh. “No, I think that’s just you and Pilar.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Ariadne said, “or I won’t eat any and you won’t get to taste them.”

“No, I’ll be good,” Alicia insisted, feeling the whole away team’s hunger and the threat of missing out on Cookie’s exquisitely prepared in-flight snacks, “only single-entendres from here on out.”

Ariadne arrived in the docking bay and saw her away team prepped by Pilar’s ship, the Apanqura, a sleek, intimidating gunboat that resembled a massive, mechanical, segmented crustacean. On most of their missions, they took Ariadne’s ship, the Thread, which was built primarily for stealth and speed, but the Apanqura was built for maneuverability, and this mission was deep in the asteroid belt. If they wanted Spacebreather’s firepower, they would need to take a ship that could move through tight spaces with ease.

“Fastwing in your head?” Spacebreather asked, ready and waiting to pilot them to and from their destination.

Alicia responded, “tell her I could fly this thing faster than her.”

“She says hi,” Ariadne said, and Pilar kissed her.

“Remember that I’m capable of smacking you,” Alicia laughed, and the away team boarded the Apanqura.

“Alright, ladies,” Pilar said, “let’s steal us an artifact.”