The book. The ship. Me. What do we all have in common?

I glance at the navigation display before looking back out at the endless stretch of space in front of me. We’re hours from Pajorat by now, but we still have so far to go. Jahdra has set a self-correcting course designed to bring us as close to the signal origin as possible.

I stare out into the darkness and wonder how much time I’ve already lost trying to solve a puzzle that can’t be solved, trying to find the solution to a riddle without an answer.

I pick up the book from the dash, flipping to the back, and look down at Shae’s handwriting scrawled across the page. Whether it’s meant to help me remember something or to forget, it doesn’t matter. I don’t need it anymore. Because all that matters, all it really is, is the difference between me and C-CIL. It’s the reason we’re two individuals instead of one. Because just like the book, just like Remus, I’ve been altered just enough to exist in two distinct iterations.

The book. The ship. And me.

All of us crossing time and space, not as we once were, but as something new, determined to serve our purpose, to set things right.

Or at least that’s what I choose to believe. What other explanation is there?

I toss the book aside and look down at the display screen in front of me. Epsilon stretches out in front of us, the number of inhabited planets and outposts becoming more and more scarce the deeper we venture. I wonder what else is out there waiting undiscovered in the dark.

There’s a quiet ping, and I shift my attention to the radar, watching as a ship edges its way onto the reading. Could it be someone we know? I ask myself. Maybe it’s the Arcadian. Kiv could’ve easily decided it was worth the trip to deliver Shae and C-CIL to the Chrysanthemum rather than spend the foreseeable future babysitting them. Or maybe—a half-formed memory pries its way into my thoughts—maybe it’s C-CIL. Maybe he’s taken Romulus and—

The ship shakes with an impact strike. They’re firing on us, I realize, just as a second ship appears on the radar, this one approaching from the opposite side.

“What was that?” Jahdra asks from behind me.

“Two ships just showed up on the radar,” I say over my shoulder. “One of them has fired on us. I’m running max EM on the hull and taking evasive maneuvers.”

I guess that rules out Kiv and C-CIL. Whoever it is, they haven’t come in peace. I can hear Jahdra ready the photon weaponry as I do my best to evade the two ships growing ever closer. Another ping.

“There’s a third ship,” I call to Jahdra as the vessel speeds toward us on the radar. “He’s moving fast.”

“Hail them,” she shouts to Chrys, who seems to lack an understanding of the present urgency.

The bridge is quiet for a moment as we wait for a response, but none comes. Part of me had wondered if it could be Pajorat system security waiting outside the borders to catch anyone trying to slip out and give inspection a miss. But they would have hailed us before opening fire. I suppose it could be Vanguard—they certainly don’t mind playing dirty—but if that were the case, they’d have either boarded the ship or blasted us clean out of the sky by now.

“They’re not moving off,” I report to Jahdra, my eyes still fixed on the radar. The display lights up with an active weapons trajectory, showing the photon bursts aimed at the closest enemy ship. I hold my breath and wait. After a moment or two, the vessel begins to drop back and change course slightly. “He’s falling back,” I say with a sigh of relief.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

But the other two vessels maintain course, slowly closing in on us. I wait for Jahdra’s orders, but before she can say anything, Chry’s announces an incoming hail.

“Hey there, MASSA-50, what’s your hurry?” comes the voice over the speaker.

I turn and look at Jahdra, the tense look of determination on her face giving way to one of surprise.

“Kash?!” she exclaims.

“J!” the voice answers. “I told you not to run.”

“So, you know this person?” I ask, watching Jahdra pace nervously back and forth across the bridge.

“Yes,” she says. “Well, kind of.”

I raise an eyebrow at her. He may have helped dispatch our attackers and gone so far as to bring the rest of our fuel all the way from Pajorat, but I still don’t know anything about this person, and I can’t help but be a little skeptical.

“We just met,” Jahdra explains.

“How—”

“On Pajorat.”

I nod slowly, processing this information.

“And you trust him?” I ask. I’m not implying that she shouldn’t, but his timing was almost suspiciously good.

Jahdra bites her lip and looks away. Apparently she does trust him, at least enough to let him aboard her ship. Though if they just met on Pajorat, I’m not sure how well she can really know him. But he did play a pivotal role in helping us get rid of those two ships just now, and even I have to concede that was above and beyond what most casual acquaintances would do.

“Well,” I say after Jahdra doesn’t answer, “who am I to second guess your judgment?” She turns to look at me with an expression of surprise and relief. I think she’s gotten used to me contradicting her at every opportunity, even if it’s not my intention. “After all, you’ve picked up a lot more questionable people,” I smirk, “and almost nothing bad has happened.”

Jahdra’s face breaks into a smile as she lets out a laugh. The sound takes me by surprise. It’s not the cold, derisive laugh I’ve almost come to expect. It’s warm. Genuine.

“Yeah, well let’s hope the worst is behind us,” she says. “But if he turns out to be some kind of psycho, I may have to ask you to look the other way while I shoot him out of the airlock.”

I return her smile, watching her leave and head toward the lift.

I’ve agreed to man the bridge while Jahdra and Kash handle the fuel he’s so generously come to deliver. Curious as I am to see the two interact, I know my time is better spent here, where I can try to come up with a plan.

I may feel like I know Jahdra, but the truth is, she’s unpredictable. I can’t rely on what I think I know about her, or Chrysanthemum, for that matter. But what I do know is that along as that signal is active, she’ll keep after it. It won’t be enough to change course—I’ll have to figure out a way to disable the signal altogether, before it’s too late.

I could take Remus and go, now, while she’s distracted—try and beat her to the source of the signal. But that means she’d be alone out here. Vulnerable. I wouldn’t be around if she runs into trouble, like we did just now. It’s too risky, I tell myself. There’s too much that could go wrong.

I could wait until we get closer, then wrest control of the ship and try to destroy the signal using Chrysanthemum’s weaponry. But not only would that require me to somehow gain control of Chrys’s systems while keeping Jahdra locked out, it means that I’d have to be willing to sacrifice anyone who might be at the signal origin.

The thought sends a shiver down my spine.

What I really need to do, what I wish I could do, is get a hold of Shae. She’s ten times smarter than I am, and I’m sure she’d be able to help me come up with something if I could just find a way to explain the situation to her. But Pajorat is too far out of comms range. I have no way to reach her.

Just then, Jahdra appears on the bridge with who I can only assume is Kash. It’s the same person I saw her with back on Pajorat, I realize.

“Kash, this is—” she starts before catching herself. “—my pilot,” she finishes.

“Byerley,” I say, introducing myself. I can see Jahdra watching me out of the corner of my eye, probably irritated that I gave Kash what she thinks is my real name.

“Byerley, huh?” Kash repeats, his mouth curling into a smile. “No shit. Like in the book?”

“What book?” I ask blankly, though obviously, I know exactly what he’s talking about.

“The Asimov book,” he says.

I shrug.

“Forget it,” he says, waving me off. “It’s great to meet you, Byerley. I’m Kash. Nice flying out there.”

I study him for a moment, trying to assess what kind of a person he might be, whether or not he can be trusted. But there’s nothing about him to suggest his intentions. There’s nothing to signal his past, to hint at his character. When I look at him, all I see is a man.

But there is something in the easy way he’s made himself at home on Chrysanthemum, the glimmer of knowing in his eye when he recognized my name, something that tells me this isn’t the last we’ll see of him.