The planet of Star’s Reach was humanity’s first colony when they conquered the heavens. The brightest, most inquiring minds of the day had given up their prominent positions in hospitals, universities, political cabinet and laboratories to make the ten-year trip to a planet they had only theorised might exist, and when they sighted the little grey orb through the windows of their ship, they wept with joy. They named the planet after their vessel, and the city they founded became Star’s Landing.

They took everything they knew and made a new home. Architecture, literature, music, language – Star’s Landing became the bastion of humanity’s arts. There was art deco and Renaissance, Gothic and Neoclassical. There was Earth.

But from the bridge of Wyvern, all Blake saw was grey.

He sat at the pilot’s panel with Miki on his shoulder, watching the planet ahead. Keil hurried in behind, followed by Jace, a strip of ham hanging from his mouth and the remains of two meals on his plate. Before anyone could speak, a voice rang through the ship’s speakers.

“You have reached the Star’s Reach checkpoint,” said a stern male voice. Plates smashed behind Blake, making him jump and knock Miki off his shoulder; Keil grabbed his heart. “Please have your documents ready to submit upon arrival. We are scanning your ship for illegal goods and contraband. We thank you for your patience.”

“Shit,” Jace whispered.

Keil, pale, turned to Blake. “Do you have the documents?” he said.

Blake blinked. His stomach clenched. Documents? He had never even thought about documents.

“You stole a ship with no documents?” blurted Jace.

Keil began hyperventilating. “Can you register a ship as stolen without documents? Do you think someone registered the ship as stolen? What happens when they realise the ship is stolen? Can they shoot us? Oh, I don’t want to be shot, Blake –“

Panicking, Blake pressed a few buttons on the pilot’s panel. Someone had to do something.

“Blake,” said Jace from behind.

The pilot’s panel finally gave up what Blake wanted: a control panel. It slid from beneath the console and presented a joystick and a variety of sliders. He grabbed the stick.

“Moon-head, no – what are you -?”

He shoved the joystick forwards.

Keil and Jace stumbled backwards, Miki cartwheeling through the air after them. Blake felt Wyvern buck and roar, and she kicked into gear with speed that he had not expected. Something began to bleep in a high-pitched warning but Blake had no idea where it was coming from or what it was. The bridge shuddered and shook.

“Let go!” said Jace from somewhere behind, and all at once his hands were on top of Blake’s on the joystick. He jerked left; Blake pulled right. The ship banked.

“If you continue to run, we will open fire,” said the stern voice.

“They’re chasing us?” Keil cried.

“Blake, let go!” said Jace again, tugging the stick.

Blake sucked his cheeks in and slammed his elbow up and back. There was a huge crack. Jace’s hands flew off the stick to nurse his nose and try to slow the blood and for a blissful moment, Blake had full control of Wyvern.

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Then he felt pressure around his neck.

He choked, tried to fight against Jace’s forearm while keeping his hand on the joystick. The ship ducked and dove as he wrestled, left hand on Jace’s tense wrist; Blake wasn’t sure if he was being fired at or not because stars were exploding behind his eyes.

He drove his elbow back again and hit something soft. Jace spat out his breath but his chokehold remained firm. Blake could feel warm gobs of blood from Jace’s nose dripping onto his scalp and shoulder. He could hardly breathe. His neck felt like it was going to burst.

“Jace, let go of him!” wailed Keil in the distance.

“I’b a dot-tor!” Jace said. “I cab asbixiate hib all I bant! Try be!”

“This isn’t helping anything, please!”

Blake’s eyelids drooped. His blood cooled, then felt too hot for his body.

Are you coming to help me or not? he thought, thinking of silver and power and feeling… nothing. Nothing but the struggle of his lungs and the ringing in his ears. On my own, then? Fine.

He let go of the joystick.

The ship around him slowed as he scrabbled at Jace’s arm, digging his nails deep into the flesh, trying as best as he could to pry the doctor off him. They hit the ground with a thump and several curses.

“Not so big dow, Bood-head!” Jace said, attempting to get to his knees to reaffirm the hold. Blake lost his grip all at once, hands slick with blood and sweat and spit.

Now would be good, he thought.

“Jace, stop! He’s suffocating!”

And then, as if he was terrified at something, Jace let go.

Blake dragged in a breath and fell to his hands and knees, coughing and spluttering. The silver aura that he had been begging for, now the danger was past him, started to fade from his fingers and forearms. Keil kneeled, took Blake’s shoulders.

“Can you breathe? Are you okay?”

Blake could not speak. His throat and neck hurt, and the small of his back ached like he had been lifting weights all day. His dry mouth and wet eyes could only express the barest gratitude. Jace sat at the base of the pilot’s panel, head bowed as he pinched his nose, his arms bruised and scratched. Blood was everywhere – all down Jace’s white shirt and trousers, on the floor, the panel, the seats, the floor. At some point, Miki had grabbed the controls of the ship and begun to fly, a splatter of scarlet on his prong ear.

“Miki, can you land us?” Keil asked, looking up.

“Arrr-pap-pap.”

“Come on, Blake. Up.”

Jace did not move. He sat swaying, white-faced. Blake let Keil hoist him upwards and drag him out of the bridge.

Eventually, Blake ended up in the sick bay, on an examination bed. He lay so quiet and still that Keil had to keep checking to make sure he was still alive. The fight had shaken Keil more than he had thought – after all, he had already seen Blake turn a man’s face inside-out with a Scopic Gauntlet – and he felt ashamed because he had stood in the background, paralysed with inaction, unable to help.

Like always.

It had seemed like Jace really was going to kill Blake. Blake’s eyes had turned red and his cheeks had purpled, and the sweat on Jace’s brow had shown Keil exactly how hard he was holding. Jace had only let go because the silver glow appeared again, just when it appeared that Blake was about to pass out. Keil had never seen a man look so afraid as Jace had when the sheen slid over Blake’s shoulders.

Keil took a sobering, quiet breath. There was no point in thinking about it, now. He had other things to do to keep them alive.

“What are you doing?”

Keil jumped and turned nervously to the bed. Blake’s throat was puce with bruising, black where Jace’s wrist had dug into the bottom of his chin, and his voice was a hoarse whisper, but he looked much better than he had.

“I’m…” The truth was not going to hurt. “Falsifying some documents,” Keil said. “It’s very illegal and I am not in the habit of doing very illegal things. This is all new to me, I do hope I’ve done it right…”

He looked at the document he had pulled up on the holoconsole. It probably was not going to fool an expert, but the Zephyr registration form was as legitimate as he could make it without writing pure fiction.

“What’s your surname, Blake?” he said.

Blake’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“Sorry?”

“Your last name. For the documents.”

But Blake said nothing. He turned back to the ceiling and his face went still again.

“Just put the ship in your name,” he whispered.

Keil did not know why he felt frightened, then, but it gripped him all at once. He didn’t know this man, this fugitive. What was he doing?

“Hey Gedius, stob bis-usig bedical equipbent.”

Keil watched Jace walk through the door, hand still catching blood from his nose, and scowl at Blake.

“I dink you broke by dose, arsehole.”

And he shut himself in the medical office, alone.