Co beat Natalya to the bridge, nearly crashing into the weapons console as she interfaced with the controls. A holographic display showed the position of the guns and the position of the enemy ship.

“What are we dealing with?” Natalya asked, shuddering again as Augustus twisted and turned the wheel.

“Decent sized Prosper ship. Cannon and speed better than ours,” Augustus answered.

“I scanned the ship,” Sisi said, standing in front of the communications console. “It has no record, but matches up with a ship that was stolen—”

“I don’t need a history lesson, just how to get away from it,” Natalya interrupted. “Jasper. Course.”

“We’re going to have to be clever to outrun it,” Jasper answered.

“He’s shooting us in our engines at a frequency of…” Sisi began, then thought better of explaining the myriad modulations of ship-to-ship cannon-slugs while time was short. “He’s not going to blow us up, just stop us.”

“Good to know,” Natalya said.

The screens in front of the consoles showed the pale blue glow of Teal, its partially Prosper-formed moon near eclipsing the bright star the planet orbited. A modular ship with the tell-tale boxiness of a Prosper vessel was closing fast behind Chimera. Prosper-built vessels were all about efficiency, and tended to be enormous constructions composed of interconnecting blocks. This allowed them to be easily built, but made the ships unwieldy in atmosphere and look pixilated. This one, the same gray color as the hoppers, looked like a serrated knife, pointed, narrow, and with a jagged bottom.

The ship’s design gave Natalya an idea.

“Put in a course around Teal’s moon, fast orbit, close as we can without dusting the ground,” Natalya ordered.

“Okay,” Jasper said, hesitant.

“Augustus, take us in quick and get ready to kill the engines. Co, fire a cannon-slug dead ahead once I give the mark. Sisi, can you make the frequency of the slug match that given off by a ship?”

“Close enough. And I can send a comm flare that will mimic this ship!” Sisi said, fingers coursing over her console like a master pianist in a concert.

Chimera shuddered with another impact.

“Now, now, let’s not do the rough stuff before we get to know each other,” Augustus said, twirling the wheel in an evasive maneuver that sent the ship tumbling through the space between Teal and its moon.

“He’s sending a signal he wants to talk,” Sisi said. “He seems to have you confused with a female dog, though, because that’s what he keeps calling you.”

“Cut communication,” Natalya ordered.

“All set,” Jasper announced.

“Orbit. Now!”

Augustus leveled out Chimera’s flight. The front viewscreen showed the ship’s subjective position, the image of the twirling stars solidifying as Augustus flew in a straight-lined path toward Teal’s growing moon.

Punching the acceleration, it looked like Augustus was going to crash headlong into the moon’s crater-marked, dull green surface, when he turned in an orbital arc.

Atmosphere exploded around them. Teal’s moon had only just begun Prosper-forming, a time-consuming process that took several Prosper-relative decades. It had turned the dead, gray moon into a moss-covered desert with an unstable atmosphere made up of a soup of various gasses. Without energy-intensive Prosper-forming satellites and gravity well-producing ships to compress it, the atmosphere slowly leaked off the unfinished world.

Chimera exploded through the weak magnetosphere and sent a wave of gasses into space, projecting giant atmospheric ripples in its wake. It was all very messy and noisy, but such a close trajectory would give them a boost to escape the other ship, the moon’s gravity sling-shotting them after half an orbit.

Since the other ship was Prosper-made, it couldn’t follow too close, the risk of losing control too great in even the thin atmosphere of Teal’s moon. So the ship reversed course, turning about to give chase on the other side.

The enemy had predicted Chimera would sling-shot into deep space, so Natalya had Sisi flash the opalescents.

Once they emerged on the other side of the moon, atmosphere flaring all around them, Natalya said, “Mark!”

Chimera stopped dead. The energy needed to halt their motion would have shown up on any scanners, but the moon hid them from view, and the blast Co fired dead ahead mimicked a ship going opalescent.

Half an instant after they reached dead stop, Sisi killed the power to everything but the oxygen, artificial gravity, and minor scanners. They watched as the grey Prosper ship chased the false trail. It transformed into a brilliant cascade of colors, flared white, and disappeared, giving chase with its own opalescents.

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Natalya counted to three. Then she exhaled.

“That was close, wasn’t it, Pili?” Sisi said, and patted her stuffed penguin.

“Set a course for The Moon, Jasper,” Natalya said.

“What do we need on The Moon, Natalya?” Ptolemy asked, appearing at the bridge’s thick hatch.

Natalya raised a fist to punch Ptolemy in the face, but lowered it as she took a deep breath, glaring fire at the suit-clad man. “This was not just a refugee run,” she said.

“I told you that.”

“You didn’t tell me everything!”

“How could I?”

Natalya did punch the man then. But Ptolemy held up a gloved hand to block it, using its thick padding to secure Natalya’s fist.

“I expected you’d be angry, Natalya,” Ptolemy said.

Natalya head-butted him.

Ptolemy stepped back, removing the glove to put a hand to his bleeding nose.

“I didn’t expect that,” Ptolemy admitted.

“I had practice,” Natalya said, rubbing her bruised forehead. “Now I need to know why I got shot twice and had to head-butt a psycho off my ship before I do it again with the psycho in front of me!”

“As I recall, you made it to the ship without injury. Delaying our journey to—”

Natalya tried to shove Ptolemy out of the way. He had been prepared for another attack, however, and stepped aside without being touched.

Natalya turned from Ptolemy and descended the steps.

“Where are you going?” Ptolemy shouted at Natalya.

Natalya didn’t respond. She just ran to the cargo bay.

“Natalya. Natalya! Don’t be hasty!” Ptolemy called, chasing the captain into the cargo bay.

The safe containing the Key Core was still secured in a compartment near the gangplank, where Sisi had left it. The airlock adjacent to it had a set of restraints for loading under vacuum, along with a few oxygen tanks, enviro-suits, and a rocket platform that would allow for in-flight repairs. Natalya knew she had no chance of lifting the Key Core, but the cargo bay was empty, so she strapped herself into the loading restraints and pressed the atmosphere override.

Ptolemy stopped at the cargo bay’s aperture hatch, smiling with relief that Natalya wasn’t handling the Key Core. His eyes widened with shock and he braced his arms against the sides of the hatch when he saw Natalya’s hand go to the airlock lever.

If she switched off the gravity and opened the airlock, the evacuating atmosphere would suck the safe, and any idiot standing in the cargo bay, into space.

“Natalya, stop!” Ptolemy shouted.

“Captain,” Natalya countered, hand on the chipped yellow paint of the cold, metal lever. “I am captain of this ship and in command of what we do during jobs. I let the hoppers kill Dana to get that Key Core, so you tell me what it’s for right now!”

“Who’s Dana?”

Natalya’s grip went white on the lever.

“The refugee!” Ptolemy said, raising his hands in conciliation. “I’m guessing that was the refugee you had.”

“I saved the Key Core because you said it was mission priority,” Natalya said.

“I’m sorry, Na… Captain. You made the right decision, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Convince me.”

“It’s what will get us out of this war, out of the smuggling business and back into a path of—”

“I don’t need platitudes, Ptolemy, I need answers. You’ve talked for months about some kooky plan,” Natalya said. “That’s all well and good when the money’s coming in and all we’re doing is blockade runs and smuggling people out of warzones. But you lost a girl’s life here. I need to know it was worth it.”

“We didn’t actually see her die,” Sisi admitted, appearing behind Ptolemy.

“See?” Ptolemy said, walking into the cargo bay with his hands still in the air. “You didn’t react this way when all those people on Puqi died. You’ve killed dozens on missions. This was just one life. Why did this one matter?”

Jasper entered the cargo bay behind Sisi, the Prophet raising a curious eyebrow at Natalya. She suddenly felt very silly, but with Sisi there she could change tactics.

“Sisi, toss the Key Core out the airlock. We’re going to blow it up,” Natalya said.

“Neat!” Sisi said, fetching her welpro.

“No, no!” Ptolemy said, standing between Sisi and the safe.

“Why? I can make another one.”

“Not without your lab, and not one that could fit to specifications.”

“Specifications for what?” Natalya asked.

Ptolemy looked at the two women, and the Prophet, staring at him. His eyes darted back and forth, shivering like a mainframe running a complex algorithm. When his eyes stilled, he straightened his back, adjusted his tie, and took a deep breath.

“We’re getting out of this war. And what’s inside this safe will allow us to do that,” Ptolemy answered.

“Yeah. You said that,” Natalya replied, unhooking herself from the restraints. “Now make with the explaining before I ask Sisi how many gravities it would take to detach your head from your neck.”

Sisi laughed and said, “It’s actually referred to as kilograms of force, not gravities, and I would need at least twenty-six thousand depending on—”

“Thank you, Sisi, that’s all I need to know right now.”

“This isn’t some kooky plan, and it isn’t something I’ve made up to escape the war. It’s to escape this whole galaxy. It’s a way to found a new colony. My colony,” Ptolemy explained.

Natalya laughed. It took a huge amount of energy and manpower, not to mention a huge amount of precise calculations, just to begin Prosper-forming a planet. And even then it took decades. Only major governments had the resources, and even if someone came up with a way to do it on their own, say a mega-corporation looking for a tax evasion scheme, the governments would stamp it out or take possession of the planet.

Teal Autonomous System was the closest thing to an independent world, and that hadn’t worked out so well. There were a few other tiny colonies, like The Moon, that only stayed independent through mismanagement and distrust. But the strategic impact of any new planets was too important to be left outside government control. Plus, they had the military to enforce this status quo.

Ptolemy claimed, before he’d hired Natalya and bought passage on Chimera, that he was one of the owners of a mega-corporation. Han Unlimited, it was called. Nothing more than an investment firm. A big one, but a company that held ownership in myriad other companies rather than a company that actually made things. Natalya had once ran a check on Ptolemy, and found that his name matched with someone who at one time had owned a significant percentage of Han Unlimited. But that share had been sold off. And no records existed of the wealth Ptolemy Pdenner claimed he once had. No public records, that is.

“Yeah, you’re going to pull Han Unlimited out of your ear and start repopulating Teal,” Natalya laughed. “That’s why you’ve been bumming on this ship for six months running refugees for spare change. Just passing the time, right?”

This was the reason Natalya knew the man was full of it when he claimed to have a massive fortune. The money they made on these refugee runs was good, but nothing compared to what ownership in a major company was. A single quarter’s dividend from Han Unlimited would pay for Chimera and all its jobs ten times over.

“Setbacks happen, Captain, and the money has been widely spent on contacts and provisions, since the rest was spent on a gamble,” Ptolemy said.

“Didn’t know you had a betting problem, Ptolemy,” Natalya chuckled.

“I have a space station. You wanted answers, Captain, there it is. I built a space station that can fully Prosper-form a planet within a year. And that Key Core activates it.”