Dragon Pearl(28)

After I’d finished, I considered my options. I needed to find out whether Sujin and Haneul knew Jun—they were a likelier source of information than the lieutenant. But I didn’t want to ask outright, because it might make them suspicious. It would be better if I got to know them first—which would be tricky, since we were already supposed to be acquainted.

“Thank you,” I said to Sujin. “That’ll keep me going until dinner.”

Haneul frowned. “You already missed mess!”

Mess. I forgot that was what they called meals around here. Jun had used some military terms in his letters home, but I hadn’t absorbed them the way he would have as a cadet. Great, I was going to have to learn all the jargon, too. I wondered how long it had taken Jun to adjust to life in the Space Forces. Of course, he hadn’t been thrown in the deep end immediately like this. . . . Or had he?

Sujin ignored my slip. “I wasn’t thinking,” they said with chagrin. “I should have conjured up something more substantial for you. At this point, you’d probably be better off filching something from the galley, though. Snacks are the best I can manage.”

“Please,” Haneul said with a sniff. “You’d live on nothing but cookies and shrimp crackers if you could, Sujin. We have nutritional guidelines for a reason, you know!”

“I’ll take shrimp crackers,” I said, my mouth watering at the prospect.

I’d already figured out that, of the two of them, Haneul was the stickler for following the rules. That could work in my favor. At least she knew what the rules were, and I could lean on her until I got a chance to corral Jang’s ghost. In the meantime, I didn’t care how unhealthy shrimp crackers were—I just wanted something to fill my aching belly.

Sujin waved their spork and a box of the promised shrimp crackers materialized in thin air. This time my nose only tickled slightly, maybe because I was getting used to the goblin’s magic. “Giving him junk food’s better than letting him starve, right?”

It took me a few moments to react. I was going to have to get used to people referring to me as a him. “Right,” I said with a weak chuckle, opening the package. It didn’t look like I would be able to get rid of Haneul or Sujin anytime soon, so I figured I might as well eat while I had the opportunity.

Sorry, Jun, I thought. I’m on my way, I promise. I may not have found out much yet, but I had managed to reach his ship. New clues were sure to come to light if I kept my eyes and ears open. I gobbled down all the crackers, knowing I was going to need my strength for the days to come.





That first day aboard the Pale Lightning seemed to stretch on forever. While on my way to the restroom after inventory duty, I got an officer’s rank wrong and he assigned me toilet-scrubbing duty to “help” me remember. At least toilets, while smelly, didn’t care how I addressed them.

The battle cruiser had unisex bathrooms. Another cadet came in while I was busy working and did her business. With Charm I confused her enough that I could ask some quick questions about the Pale Lightning’s layout. She answered, all right, by using a grease pencil to draw diagrams on the floor I had just scrubbed clean. While she explained the elevators and their codes, I kept straining to hear if anyone else was about to come in. Luckily for me, no one did. After she left, I had to memorize everything before getting down on my hands and knees to erase it. By the time I was done, my back ached terribly.

From the outside, the Pale Lightning resembled a tube with a ring around its middle, which the ship spun when it had to generate artificial gravity the hard way. The ship’s levels were concentric cylindrical shells around that ring, which explained the curved passageways. A series of elevators connected the different levels, and there were backup maintenance shafts in case of power failure.

It was useful information. Unfortunately, learning it all meant that I reported back to the barracks late. I was thankful Haneul had let it slip that Jang slept in Bunk 12 in Barracks 5, like she and Sujin did, or I would have been even later.

The senior cadet in charge of Bunk 12 didn’t seem to care that I’d wandered in past lights-out; he waved me listlessly to the only empty bed. Sujin and Haneul were both asleep. If I hadn’t already figured out that Haneul was a dragon, her snoring would have given her away.

When Lieutenant Ju-Won swung by to check on us, I found out that the senior cadet had reported me for being late.

“You’re going to have to do better, even if you’re not feeling back to normal yet,” Ju-Won said to me as I slid under my sheets. And she assigned me more toilet scrubbing, starting two hours before mess the next morning.


Despite the fact that I could have used the extra hours of sleep, I did a better job of cleaning the bathroom the second time. I suspected I wouldn’t be sleeping in anytime soon, not while I was on this ship. But Jun had served on it, too, once. If he had survived the experience, so could I. Had he ever been unfortunate enough to be stuck with latrine duty? I wondered.

I kept hoping Jang would pop up so I could consult with him, but no such luck. Maybe he was discouraged by the fact that people kept coming in to use the restroom. He hadn’t seemed eager to reveal his presence to his former comrades.

Once I was finished with the cleaning, I washed myself up, then ran to the mess hall for our level, slowing down only when I heard others approaching. I thanked the ancestors for my fox senses, because the others were officers. Cadets were at the bottom of the pecking order, and anything I did wrong in the officers’ eyes might mean more demerits—and chores.