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My face burned. “That's not why.”

“Oh?” Auntie Rajni's eye swiveled to me. “Why would a nice little rich girl like you be needing something like that, then? Hmm?”

“Does it really matter why she needs it, Auntie?” Ava cut in. “It's not so she can sneak out at night. I promise.”

“Kṛipayā,”
I leaned toward Auntie Rajni. This couldn't end here. I'd come too far. “This isn't for show. I need the real thing. Altered immigration papers, my school records, everything.”

The old woman harrumphed and fumbled her glasses back over her nose. “These things are always a risk. Always. I like to know my customers aren't going to go pointing fingers if Mummy finds out.” She gave me an acid look. At least she wasn't calling Ava names anymore.

“She won't,” Ava said.

“Let's hear it from her, then.”

“I won't,” I promised.

And I meant it. I wouldn't. Getting aboard that DSRI ship meant everything to me, and I would say anything to get there.

I bury my face in my hands. Ava will go mental when she finds out what I've done. I'm fairly sure hacking into the ship's communication and security logs and abusing my security clearance—or rather, Jyotsana's security clearance—to steal a research shuttle counts as doing something illegal. And after the risks she took for me, the promises I made to her . . . once they find out I'm gone, they'll scour my records for whatever warning signs they missed, and they're sure to find evidence of the hack then. The only thing keeping me from rubbing holes in my palms is the thought that if anyone understands desperate measures, it's Ava.

I check the time. An hour until I'm supposed to meet Cassia. I can't lie still another moment longer. I power down the handbook, push the bed shroud aside, find my boots, and lace them up as quietly as I can.

Lian stirs as I creep for the door. “Miyole? What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I whisper. “Checking on the pollination lab. I think I set the nitrogen levels too high.”

“Oh.” She rolls back over and drops her head on the pillow.

I stop in the lab to check on my pollinators one last time. The butterflies' wings tremor as the lights flicker on inside their biomes. I stand staring at them for a moment, and then step into the air lock that separates them from the rest of the ship. I seal the door, alter the atmospheric pressure to match the enclosure, and let myself in.

The humid air swallows me. My nose prickles at the hint of rot beneath the bright smell of vegetation. More than the well-kept grounds of the recreation gardens, this place reminds me of Mumbai—its parks after monsoon season and the thick, wet heat of the greenhouses at school. I kneel down slowly beside a young kapok tree rooted in the center of the biome. The butterflies flutter nervously at first, but I take a seat on the damp peat, and within seconds, they've forgotten my existence. I check the time again. Three-quarters of an hour to go.

I lean back against the bark and close my eyes. An hour from now, I'll either be slicing through the utter darkness of space or sitting in the brig. Either way, I won't be smelling anything but recycled air for a long time, and I won't be touching anything as real as damp leaves and dirt.

Something tickles my hand. I open my eyes. A mangrove skipper, all dusky blue except for a cobalt pattern dappled across its back, balances on my knuckles. I stop breathing. Normally, when I come into the biome, I'm all efficiency and motion, trying to get in and out with the least disturbance to the pollinators. The idea that one of my subjects might alight on me, given enough stillness and time, has never crossed my mind.

The butterfly flexes its wings. I let out a breath, shaky and soft, trying not to disturb it. Will this creature survive after I'm gone? Will it live long enough to lay its eggs? Or will it end up in one of Dr. Osmani's acrylic displays? What about me? Out in the Deep, I'll be as vulnerable as the mangrove skipper. How long will I survive without the
Ranganathan
to protect me from hull-piercing asteroids and slavers?

I hug my knees to my chest.
I could go back to bed, untie my boots, and sleep until ship's morning. Pretend none of this happened. Couldn't I? But Cassia will be waiting for me in the darkness of the dock. Could I live with myself if I knew I had the chance to help her get her brother back, to give Milah her father back, and didn't take it because I got cold feet at the last moment? Because I let fear get the best of me again? Will I be able to sleep at
night, or will I see the
dakait
's foot slipping my grasp every time I close my eyes?

I check my coms again. Fifteen minutes until I'm supposed to be on the dock. My sleep haze evaporates. Time to go. I don't know what will happen, or if anyone here will understand. Commander Dhar won't. Dr. Osmani won't. Rubio will hold court on how he always knew I was mad, and a liar. But that doesn't change what I have to do. It doesn't change what's right. I push myself to my feet. The mangrove skipper flits away, back to its cousins in the tree.

Chapter 8

I
exit the pollinator air lock and go up on tiptoe to reach the messenger bag I stashed in my alcove. I unstrap my coms from my wrist, zip a simple black jacket over my pressure suit, and power up my crow. Thank the stars Ava uploaded her good-bye message to it. I never would have thought to bring along a device that ran separate from the
Ranganathan
's systems otherwise.

Ten minutes.

The lights shut off as I seal the lab's outer door behind me, leaving my coms bracelet blinking red in the dark. In several minutes, Advani-ji will notify security she hasn't been receiving life signs from my suit, but in the meantime, the ship won't be tracking me. I start down the dim corridor, night playing above me.

Five minutes.

The dock slides into view, quiet and dark. I step off the walkway and into the shadow of some supply crates stacked near the entrance. If the security rotation schedule I accessed with Jyotsana's clearance is accurate, Cassia and I have a seven-minute window to steal the shuttle after the guard on duty clears the area.

I catch sight of him on the opposite end of the dock, near the phalanx of fighters primed for duty. His black-gray uniform nearly disappears in the low light, but his coms bracelet gives off a regular blue flash every ten seconds. I count between the flashes.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine . . .

Three minutes to go.

“Clear.” His voice carries across the silence. “Proceeding to sim labs.”

Sim labs.
My brain takes a moment to catch up. I just came from the sim labs.

The guard turns in my direction and starts walking.

“Chaila,”
I whisper, and shrink back behind the crates, as far as I can go. I didn't factor this in when I hacked the security roster. I'm wearing black over my pressure suit and I don't have my com bracelet to give me away, but the shadows aren't all that deep. One careful look in my direction, and the guard will spot me. I close my eyes and
hold my breath, as if my own blindness will help me stay hidden.

His footsteps approach, strong and even. I press my back against the crates.
Degree of pupil dilation corresponds to ambient light or lack thereof. . . .
He comes up beside me—
please don't stop—
and then passes out into the corridor and down the moving walkway.

I step out from the shadows and wait for my eyes to adjust. After a moment, Cassia emerges from behind her own wrecked ship, two satchels slung across her shoulders and another tucked under her arm. I raise my hand silently and start across the empty floor. She waves back and hurries to me as quickly as she can under the weight of the bags.

“You made it.” She offers me a fragile smile. Her hair hangs in loose waves, and she's slightly out of breath. “You came.”

“I told you I would.” At the sight of her, my fear fades.
This is right. I can fix this.

The corner of her mouth twists up. “I thought maybe I scared you off.”

“Not yet.” I grin and hold out a hand for one of the bags. “Here.”

Cassia clutches them tighter to her chest. “No, it's okay.”

“You're sure?” I frown.

“I've got them,” she says, at the exact moment a low, almost inaudible growl escapes the bag under her arm.

My eyes widen. “What is that?”

“Nothing.” Cassia pushes past me and starts for the row of shuttles docked on the left side of the bay.

“Hey!” I hiss. I hurry to catch up to her and grab her arm. We're wasting precious seconds. Any moment now, someone is going to notice us on one of the hundreds of fish-eyed cameras built into the walls and rafters. “Be serious. What do you have in there?”

She lifts her eyes to the ceiling and sighs, then slowly pulls back the bag's zipper. I know I'm not going to like whatever is inside, but I peer in anyway, and come face-to-face with a supremely pissed Tibbet. He glowers at me, his eyes black and dilated, and lets out another low growl that raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

I look up at Cassia in disbelief. “You brought the cat?”

She zips the bag partially closed again, leaving enough space to let in air. “I knew you wouldn't understand.” She turns on her heel and storms away.

“You're right.” I wrestle my voice back to a whisper and jog to keep pace with her. “Do you want to tell me why we need your pet to help us steal a shuttle?”

“He's not a
pet
.” She ducks beneath the nose of the shuttle we've chosen and wheels around on me. In a split second, her expression flips from annoyance to shock.

“Miyole . . . ,” she chokes out, before something cold and hard presses against the back of my neck.

“Don't move, memsahib.”

I freeze.
Rubio.

Rubio circles around, keeping his stunner trained on my chest. He looks from me to Cassia. “Either of you care to repeat that part about stealing a shuttle?”

“Rubio, listen . . .” My mouth has gone dry. I glance at Cassia, who is slowly pulling open the zipper on Tibbet's bag now. I shake my head. What is she playing at? “I don't think you heard us right. You must have misunderstood.”

“Oh, I'm sure I heard right.” He glances at Cassia, who stops unzipping, then back at me. “You're not as sly as you think, memsahib.”

“Rubio, please.” I'm pleading now, even though it kills me to grovel in front of him. Flashes of my own ruined future play in my head—Cassia and me in the brig; the inevitable investigation; “Who changed your records for you?”; returning to Earth empty-handed, Cassia's brother as lost as a grain of sand on a beach.

“You don't understand,” I say. “Commander Dhar didn't leave us any choice. We had to.”

“The only thing any of us
has
to do is call this in.” Rubio raises his wrist com.

“Wait!” I say, in the same moment Cassia chucks Tibbet's bag forward, straight at Rubio's chest.

The cat springs from the satchel and lands on Rubio. Rubio lets out a yelp and steps back, his face registering more surprise than pain, even though a fine hatchwork of red lines has sprung up on his neck and face where Tibbet's claws have raked him. Cassia swings her other bag at his head.

Rubio's eyes pop wide. He falls like lead, smacking his head on the floor with a sickening thud.

Not good. Very, very not good.

We both stand over him in stunned silence.

Cassia covers her hand with her mouth. “Is he dead?”

I kneel beside Rubio and press my fingers against his neck. His pulse flutters. “No. Concussed, maybe.”

She lets out a breath. “Good.” She lunges for his legs and pulls him few steps, his jacket bunching up under his head. “Help me.”

“Cassia—what are we doing?” I ask, lifting his arms and shuffling after her. Rubio hangs limp between us.

“We can't leave him here.”

I glance up at the cameras. Maybe no one is watching now, but they'll play it all back once we're gone and see what we did. “I think we can.”

“We don't know how much he overheard,” Cassia says. “He could tell them where we're going.”

“You don't mean . . .” I glance at the shuttle. “We can't take him with us.”

Cassia grunts and repositions her grip on Rubio's ankle. “I don't see how we have much choice. He's going to wake up and raise the alarm.”

Rubio moans. His head lolls back.

“And us overriding the security doors on a research shuttle won't?” I say.

“I guess we could hit him over the head again, if that's what you want.”

“No!” I say, louder than I mean to. The word echoes across the hangar. I frown at Cassia. We've lost too much time already. We can't afford to argue anymore. “You're right, okay?”

She drops Rubio's feet as I gently lower his injured head to the floor. I slide my crow from my pocket, thumb through to the right screen, and connect my small device to the shuttle's hatch controls. The latches give way with
a muted
thunk
, the hydraulics whine softly, and the hatch unfolds.

Cassia grabs Rubio's feet again and starts pulling him up the loading ramp. “I'll take care of him and Tibbet. You go power up.”

“You're sure?” I hesitate. “You can do it alone?”

“Go,” Cassia almost shouts. “That guard's going to be back any minute now.”

I nod and race up the ramp, through the shuttle's small storage and maintenance access compartment, the cramped living quarters not meant for more than a few nights away from the
Ranganathan
, and up the short ladder to the cockpit. I crawl into the pilot's seat, plug my crow into the controls' line-in, and flip on the auxiliary power. The ship's panels flare to life, candy bright and new beneath my hands. A hint of fresh-soldered metal hangs in the air. I doubt if anyone has ever flown this shuttle before. It would have been made special for the research mission.

Jyotsana's codes cut through the ship's security wall like butter. One by one, the systems come online—environmentals, telemetry, navigation, repulsion shields, gravity. The sound of clanging metal and a grunt from Cassia echo up from the shuttle's berth. I slide back the blinders on the viewport and gaze out over the hangar.
On the far side, the silhouette of a guard passes under the entryway and stops dead.

Vaat lag gayii.

“Cassia!” I shout. “Time to go!”

She appears at the bottom of the ladder to the cockpit. “But Tibbet . . .”

“Will you forget about the
chirkut
cat?” I snap.

She scowls at me. “That . . .” She struggles with the word. “
Chirkut
cat saved us both.”

I unlock the propulsion controls and feed power to the engines. A low thrum pulses through the ship's frame and a roar of wind licks in through the open hatch as the engines wind up.

“We can't!” I yell over the throbbing air. “We have to go!”

“I'm not leaving him!” she shouts back, and disappears.

I grip the propulsion bars and force myself to stay still. I may have the controls, but I can't leave without her. Across the hangar, the guard strides in our direction, stunner out, coms raised. This whole thing is going sideways, fast.

“Cassia!” My voice rattles in warning.

In answer, the hatch's hydraulics whine again, and the rushing chaos outside falls silent.

“Got him!” She appears again, breathless, at the base of the ladder. Tibbet stares up at me, moon-eyed and ruffled.

“Strap in,” I call, and open up the thrusters without waiting. The shuttle lurches forward at an uneven pitch. Its nose dips and scrapes along the dock with a tooth-turning screech.
Chaila.
I strain against the push bars, trying to keep us level. Flying under gravity is always the trickiest part, and this ship is heavier than my mother's old sloop, the one Ava inherited. It's the difference between riding a horse and an elephant. I wrestle the ship's nose up and edge us out over the hangar floor, the wind from our thrusters buffeting the guard below. He shouts soundlessly into his coms and points his stunner at our shuttle's belly.

I engage the shuttle's communications line and transmit the command to unseal the air lock. The immense bay doors on the outer end of the hangar jolt and begin to unwind in a slow rotation. The warning system lights flare to life, washing the dock in red. The shuttle muffles all the outside sound, but our communication line relays the warning claxon and the calm voice intoning instructions.

“ALL PERSONNEL, CLEAR HANGAR Q-17 FOR TAKEOFF. WARNING: AIR LOCK DEPRESSURIZATION IMMINENT.”

Below, the guard runs for the exit. A pinhole opens in the center of the inner air lock doors, then widens enough
to admit our ship. I guide us forward, hands shaking, until we reach the opening. The hull scrapes against the aperture, sending a tremor down the length of the shuttle, but then we're through, into the darkness of the air lock.

For a blind second, I wonder if we're trapped, our override codes revoked.

The voice comes back: “DEPRESSURIZING.” Our ship judders in the current as the pneumatics suck all the air from the chamber, but I grip the push bars and hold us steady.

“Miyole?” Cassia calls from below, and I remember she's blind down there with Rubio and the cat.

“Hold on,” I shout back. “We're almost through.”

The outer air lock door whirls open on a glittering bank of stars and the stark, pale expanse of the
Ranganathan
's spiraling hull. Vertigo takes me. The sky pitches, and my eyes fight to track its path. I lean against the push bars, dizzy, and the shuttle dives down, smacks against the air lock's outer rim, and then skips forward, out into the emptiness.

The
Ranganathan
's gravitational pull breaks, and my stomach flies up to meet my heart. In the small, endless stretch of time it takes the shuttle's own weaker gravitational field to flip on, I remember the time I went
jumping from one of the lower levels of the Mumbai levee with Vishva and some other girls from Revati. We had heard some of the older girls at school talking about a place where you could jump down into a retention pool and climb back out again. It didn't look so bad from below, but when I stood on the ledge, bare toes gripping the hot metal, the fall seemed bottomless. But I had to jump, because I had teased Miranda Jae about being scared. Until this moment, I had never known anything could match the terror of momentarily freeing yourself from the universe's grip, only to have it reclaim you at terminal velocity.

Pressure on my shoulder. “Miyole.”

I start. The universe's swing slows. I follow Cassia's furrowed gaze to the viewport.

“We have to move.” She squeezes into the copilot's seat beside me.

Right. I blink, trying to will away the last of my vertigo. We can't linger around like a drowsy peacock. We have to move before the
Ranganathan
sends its fighters to haul us back in.