Dragon Pearl(46)

I’d just had a small taste of what it felt like to be in sync with the ship, and I wasn’t looking forward to more of the same.

On the other hand, I did want to know what was happening to the Pale Lightning.

“I’ll do it,” I said, nodding firmly even though I was shaken.

The warrant officer clapped me on the shoulder, making me wince, and turned her attention to some new emergency.

I took a deep breath and focused once more on the control panel, which showed pulsing lines of light. I concentrated on them, carefully mapping each of the ship’s meridians to its equivalent in my own body. As I worked with the gi flows, my breathing slowed, and my pulse along with it. After a while, I could detect the ship’s wounds. Two shots had gotten past the shields; one hole was already being patched up. My muscles and joints ached as though I’d been sprinting pell-mell and making sudden starts and stops.

I found myself in two places at once. One version of me sat in front of the panel, adjusting the controls with more certainty than I’d had before. I knew what to do without having to think about it.

The other version of me was flying through deep space. Before, I’d always thought of space as cold and empty. But as the ship, I felt at home there, and I could sense other ships moving through the dark. I knew where the local star and its planets were, and I could detect the pulsing gravitational knot of the nearby Gate, the grand sweeping paths that connected star systems to each other like a skein of ever-shifting constellations.

The Pale Lightning gathered itself and fired its mass drivers. There was a burst of white light behind my eyes.

Then something slammed into my body.

“You went too deep!” I heard someone cry from a distance, but I didn’t understand the words. Everything dissolved into static, and I plummeted into blackness.





I woke up on a pallet in Medical. I’d been dreaming of Jinju—the red skies, and the dust that got into everything—and of my mother shaking her head at me. Then I remembered where I was, and who I was. Who I was pretending to be, that is. I looked down at my body and saw with relief that I was still in the guise of Jang.

I was a bit groggy, but I didn’t appear to be injured anywhere, and my body didn’t hurt. Perhaps I had only fainted. Or maybe they had injected me with a painkiller. If so, I was grateful it hadn’t interfered with my fox magic. The aunties had told me once that ordinary medicine wouldn’t do that. Still, I didn’t trust drugs, and I preferred not to spend any more time in the medical bay.

Since the ship was still in one piece, another of the engineers must have taken over for me when I passed out. I winced, remembering the sensation of the Pale Lightning taking fire. I’d been so deeply linked with the ship that I’d felt the assault as if it had happened to me.

This time, I knew my way around and, with the aid of Charm, it didn’t take long for me to sneak out. With everyone so preoccupied by the attack on the ship, it wasn’t difficult to persuade anybody I came across that I was no one significant.

I already knew where I was going. I would never get a better chance to check out the captain’s quarters. Because right then I was guaranteed that Captain Hwan would be on the bridge dealing with the battle.

Is it really worth it? I wondered. They think you’re Jang. They’re counting on you to get back to your station and help.

But I’d only be gone a little while, long enough to see if the captain had secreted away any information about who was behind the mercenaries or where the deserters had gone. I couldn’t forget my promise to Jang or my quest to find my brother.

Like a heart-stab, an image came to me—Jun pointing out the local constellations on the nights we snuck out to stare up at the sky. I remembered the way we’d stolen a single honey cookie from the pantry—Auntie Areum saved up for honey to make them, on account of her sweet tooth—and we passed it back and forth, nibbling each time we could name one of the Thousand Worlds. We’d drawn out the process as long as we could, but even so the cookie disappeared quickly.

Somewhere in the Thousand Worlds there must be people who would be willing to help restore Jinju, Jun had said. If I have to, I’ll visit every world to find them. I’d believed him then, and I believed him still.

I paused for breath on the way to the elevator. My heart was pounding too hard. My body didn’t like the way I was pushing it, and I wasn’t even walking all that quickly.

I slowed down until my heartbeat eased. I would have to take it easy while being careful not to get caught. The delay was aggravating, because I had no way of telling how long the battle would last. Part of me wanted the Pale Lightning to emerge victorious quickly, of course. But another part wanted as much time as possible.

The corridors of the Pale Lightning seemed to stretch out forever on either side. On the few occasions I passed people, I relied on nudges of Charm to keep them from looking at me too closely, even though wielding magic caused my head to swim. I was used to the ship being busier, but everyone was at battle stations.

The elevator ride to the officers’ deck felt like it took longer than usual. My skin was clammy with sweat, even though I hadn’t walked any great distance. I leaned heavily against the side of the elevator, clinging to the rail. I wondered if the engineers had had any difficulty with the ship when I fainted. I shuddered at the thought. Nothing I could do about that now, and I hoped that Captain Hwan, as much as I distrusted him, had matters under control.