“Job’s on Seraphis,” Ramy says through a mouthful of pizza. “You know what that means.”

I sigh. I really wish he’d chew first.

“Yeah, it means I’m playing lookout,” I say, resting my arms on the table.

“Don’t say it like that,” he says. “Somebody’s gonna have a new life thanks to you,” he says pointing at me with his crust before shoving it in his mouth.

“Sure,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“I mean it,” he says. “Your job is just important as everybody else’s. You know that, right?”

I give a murmur of assent. It’s not that I don’t believe him, it’s just that it doesn’t feel as real from up here. I know keeping a lookout is important, but it would be kind of nice to get to actually meet some of the people we’re helping.

I mean, yeah, I get to meet a lot of people on Chrysanthemum, but that’s mostly the more traditional passengers. The passengers who don’t need a cover vessel and a lookout. The ones you don’t have to worry about hiding when Garda come around.

I’d like to meet some of the people from Seraphis. The ones starting a new life. The ones no one else is willing to help.

“Hey,” Ramy says, waiting for me to meet his eye. “We on for a game of ball later?”

I force a smile.

“That depends,” I say. “You ready to get your ass handed to you?”

He laughs and reaches across the table to muss my hair, but I duck, pushing his hands away before they can reach me. Even when he’s being annoying, it’s impossible to stay in a bad mood when he’s around.

“One more for the road,” Ramy says, grabbing another slice of pizza as he gets up from the table. “I gotta get out of here. You good?”

“Anomalous reading: isolated planetary-mass object detected.”

Chrys’s voice rouses me from my daydream.

“What’s that now?” I ask. I check the navigation display, and sure enough, it looks like we’ve got a rogue planet ahead. Well, that would certainly explain the increased grav pull we’ve been feeling.

I walk over to the far side of the bridge and look out in the direction of the reading. I can’t make anything out. At least not yet. But it gives me a little jolt of excitement nonetheless.

We’re getting close. I can feel it.

I still don’t dare adjust our course to approach the signal head-on. Skirting the gravimetric disturbance is already giving the ship enough of a workout.

“Talk to me, Chrys,” I call out. “What’s it looking like out there?”

“Particle density is elevated. High levels of radiation detected. Exterior temperature is 2.3 Kelvins.”

I don’t love the sound of that. Though I guess I have to take everything coming through the external sensors with a grain of salt.

“How’s my engine doing?” I ask.

“Engine functionality at 72%.”

I don’t love that either. But there’s not much I can do about it at this point.

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It’s been less than an hour since we picked up the rogue planet on sensors, and the closer we get, the greater the gravimetric distortions. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get the secondary engine up and running, but I’m not in much of a position to be leaving the bridge. The ever-increasing grav pull means I’m more or less stuck doing manual navigation.

What’s more, the radar’s been lighting up like a Christmas tree with phantom vessel readings, and I get occasional bursts of static over the comms for no apparent reason. I could really use an extra set of hands on deck, or at least someone to talk to to try and keep sane, but at least we’re still on track to get to the signal origin before long.

My mind goes to Byer. I hope he’s doing okay. Remus is only a fraction of Chrysanthemum’s size, so I can’t imagine he’s having an easy time in these conditions. I hope it wasn’t a mistake letting him go out there on his own. But hey, it looks like he’s been successful in getting Omen off my back. Maybe he’s even managed to get out of Antinomy space.

I look out into the dark expanse on the other side of the glass. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little excited to get a glimpse of the rogue planet on our path. I always found there to be something intriguing about a planet without a system. It may be giving the ship some trouble, but that doesn’t mean I’m not eager to check it out.

That’s when I notice something on the horizon—it’s not a planet, though. It’s a ship.

“Holy shit!” I yell, throwing myself toward the nav controls. “Where did that thing come from?”

I glance at the radar, but it’s useless. The readings are too sporadic.

I look out ahead, the ship getting closer and closer. They’re traveling along the same trajectory as we are, in the same direction even, but they’re moving slower than we are. We’re coming up fast, too fast, and the other ship maintains course as if it doesn’t even notice we’re there.

Move, I try to will the ship in front of us. Move, damnit!

I try to adjust course to maneuver around it, but the helm is slow to respond, already struggling against the grav pull of the planet along our path.

“Hail them!” I shout, but there’s no response from Chrys or the other ship.

My eyes dart to the row of collision pods in the back corner of the bridge.

Not yet, I tell myself. We’re gonna make it. We’re gonna be fine.

It feels useless to continue and struggle against the planet’s grav pull. The force of it is disproportionate—hundreds of times greater than what it should be. But if I steer us in the direction of the planet and try to use the added force of its gravity to shift our course, we may not be able to regain control. The last thing I want is to get pulled into orbit around a rogue planet in the middle of restricted space without a way out. Of course we could always just get lucky and somehow miss a collision with the vessel anyway, but my luck doesn’t seem like it’s worth much these days.

I stand bent over the nav controls, ready to bolt for a collision pod at any second and manually adjust the exhaust speed, hoping to give us a little extra push. My hand shakes as it hovers above the control, and my heart beats wildly in my chest as the adrenaline courses through my veins.

My eyes dart back and forth between the control screen and the vessel ahead, my heart pounding out of control. The ship ahead looks like it may be moving off slightly, heading in the other direction.

This is it. We’re gonna make it.

My heart leaps as our berth begins to widen.

We’re gonna make it!

I watch the other ship as we blow past, and it disappears just as suddenly as it appeared.

As the shock of the moment begins to give way to relief, I let myself fall into the nav chair. I spin around, giving a whoop of victory. I almost can’t believe I’m still alive right now.

I take a few deep breaths, trying to process what just happened. My mind replays the event, picking through the details to try and make sense of things.

I lock my hands behind my head and lean back in the chair.

“Hey, Chrys,” I say, furrowing my brow. “Call me crazy, but was that a MASSA-50?”

I’m almost positive it was, and I should know.

“Please specify,” Chrys responds.

“Oh, forget it,” I groan, wiping my hands over my face.

Whatever just happened, I’m glad it’s over. I stand up, wiping my sweaty palms on the legs of my pants, and head to the back display panel to check the system readings.

I pull up the signal display and feel my heart almost stop.

“Jesus Christ, we’re right on top of it,” I say under my breath. The signal origin is showing as just ahead, slightly off our plotted trajectory.

It’s coming from the rogue planet, from the direction that MASSA-50 just went.

No. It couldn’t be, I shake my head.

But there’s no sense in trying to rationalize another explanation. I mean, how many other MASSA-50s could there be out here?

I feel my legs weaken beneath me. It doesn’t make any sense.

It doesn’t have to make sense, because I know. I know with every part of me.

We’re not out here in Antinomy space by coincidence or chance or even choice.

Chrysanthemum’s not just stuck in a temporal distortion—it’s creating it.