CHAPTER TWO
Ilyan
Mom checked my bag three times before breakfast, and Dad checked it once afterward, which somehow took longer because he unpacked half of it across the kitchen table and decided everything had been arranged incorrectly.
"You put two thermal layers beside your tablet." Dad held both shirts up between two fingers like he had uncovered evidence in an engineering investigation. He was still wearing the dark work trousers he had come home in the night before, though his shirt had been replaced by an old gray one with a faded propulsion-company logo across the chest. "Why would you do that?"
"Because they fit there." I leaned against the counter while Topper sat inside the open travel bag where my clothes had been ten minutes earlier, only his green head and front feet visible above the edge.
"That isn't a packing system." Dad folded one thermal layer into a rectangle so exact that I suspected he had done the measurements in his head.
"It was working until you touched it." I reached for the shirt, but he moved it out of reach without even looking at me.
"It was surviving. There's a difference." Dad compressed both layers into one storage pouch and started rearranging the rest of the bag around them.
Mom stood near the front door with a checklist projected above her wrist. She had already dressed for work even though she had told the newsroom she would be late, her dark hair pulled into a knot that was beginning to loosen around the temples. "Medical authorization is uploaded, temporary security clearance is active, emergency contact is me, secondary contact is your father, and the residency insurance forms are signed." She scrolled farther down the list and looked toward me. "You packed the medication kit?"
"In the front pocket." I pointed toward the bag, though Dad had moved the front pocket somewhere else in the last five minutes.
Dad glanced up. "Why am I secondary?"
"Because Mom answers calls." I took the charging cells he had just removed and slid them back into the side compartment.
"I answer calls." Dad watched me ruin his arrangement.
"You answer eventually." I zipped the compartment before he could fix it again.
Mom lowered the checklist just enough to look over it at both of us. "Neither of you is starting an argument seven minutes before we leave." She tapped one final box, then noticed Topper in the center of the open bag. "I'm assuming the frog is not part of the Directorate packing list."
"He's coming." I reached down and lifted Topper under the front legs before Dad folded a shirt over him.
"Personal robotics are permitted aboard a military construction vessel?" Mom asked. She had the tone she used when she already knew the answer and wanted to hear whether I did.
"I checked twice. Class-C domestic companion units under twenty kilograms are allowed in assigned habitation spaces as long as they stay off the ship network." I set Topper on the counter, where his repaired rear foot clicked once against the surface.
Dad closed the bag and studied the robot. "He weighs more every year."
"I have accumulated replacement components," Topper said, his old speaker turning replacement into something metallic and slightly distorted.
"That isn't how mass works." Dad pulled the straps tight.
"It can be if the replacement components have mass." I took the bag from him and swung it over one shoulder.
Dad looked at me for a moment, apparently deciding whether to argue with the sentence on principle. "I regret teaching you things."
"You say that whenever I use them."
"I regret teaching you that too." He reached over and tightened one strap anyway.
The apartment was bright by then, Caelum's artificial morning spilling through the windows and turning the opposite towers gold. Transit bridges crossed between them at several levels, already crowded with commuters. Far above, the habitat's inner landscape curved gradually upward until neighborhoods and parks became distant colored bands against the manufactured sky.
Six weeks had sounded short when it was written on the Directorate letter.
It had sounded even shorter while I was trying to figure out what Black Star's experimental particle architecture actually was.
Over the last week, Mom had started labeling food I wouldn't be here to eat. Dad repaired the latch on my bedroom window after ignoring it for four months. Talia called three times more than usual and pretended every call was because she had nothing better to do.
Nobody said six weeks was a long time.
They just kept finding things to do before I left.
Mom closed the projection over her wrist and walked toward me. "Your shuttle departs in forty-six minutes, security boarding closes fifteen minutes before that, and I'd rather not discover how strict military departure schedules are while standing on the wrong side of the gate." She straightened my jacket collar with both hands, flattening one corner and then the other.
"We're leaving now." I stood still until she finished.
"You'll message when you board." Mom's fingers lingered near the collar before she lowered them. "Then again when you get your room assignment."
"I know." I adjusted the strap Dad had overtightened.
"And if something feels wrong, you call."
"Mom, it's a school residency." I glanced toward Dad, hoping for support. "On a Federation ship."
Dad picked up Topper's small charging dock from the table and tucked it into my bag. "That sentence was less comforting than you intended."
"You signed the paperwork." I gave him a look.
"I sign dangerous paperwork professionally." He checked the bag one final time. "Apparently we're broadening the family business."
Mom ignored him and reached into her coat. "Talia asked me to give you this before you left." She held out a little square packet wrapped in paper.
I knew it was from Talia before opening it because she was one of the only people I knew who still printed photographs simply because she liked being able to lose them.
The picture showed the two of us on one of Caelum's old observation terraces three years earlier. Talia had one arm hooked around my neck and two fingers raised behind my head, her red-brown curls still long enough to fall over one shoulder. I looked smaller, which I disliked, and my own red hair had apparently been trying to escape in six directions at once.
Across the back, Talia had written:
DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING EXPENSIVE.
Beneath that:
AND DON'T LET FROG DRIVE.
I laughed before I could stop myself. "She's deeply annoying."
Dad looked over my shoulder. "Both are excellent instructions."
"I do not possess vehicle authorization," Topper said from the counter, his black eyes moving toward the photograph.
"That's probably why she specified it." Dad opened the apartment door.
I slid the photograph into the inner pocket of my bag instead of putting it with everything else.
We left together.
That felt stranger than leaving.
Mom was normally already inside a newsroom by this hour. Dad was normally either asleep after a night shift or somewhere inside a containment lab arguing with a system that refused to behave. Seeing both of them beside me in the elevator made the morning feel as if the apartment had been rotated a few degrees while I wasn't looking.
Dad carried my bag again without asking.
I let him.
Caelum's lower transit district was crowded enough that we had to move with the flow once the elevator doors opened. Morning commuters streamed beneath high white structural arches and hanging gardens while arrival boards changed overhead. News displays cycled through traffic notices, market reports, a speech from some assembly committee, and warnings about restricted civilian movement around the orbital construction yards.
Black Star appeared on one wall as a black silhouette surrounded by a thin white border.
STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE SAFETY ZONE — CIVILIAN TRAFFIC RESTRICTIONS IN EFFECT
Dad looked at it for perhaps half a second.
I noticed because I had spent most of my life learning when Dad was pretending not to look at something.
He noticed me noticing.
The display changed to weather conditions for a district that had never experienced actual weather.
Neither of us said anything.
We found seats together on the central-axis train. Mom sat beside me while Dad took the opposite seat, my travel bag between his boots. Topper settled on my lap and placed both front feet against the window as the train pulled away from the residential core.
Caelum changed as we moved inward.
Apartment towers gave way to commercial blocks, then warehouses and maintenance structures. The broad artificial sky narrowed overhead until more of the habitat's actual skeleton showed through: enormous support ribs, transport tracks, water conduits, and cargo elevators climbing toward the central axis where the spin gravity weakened.
Topper followed one elevator with his head. "Vertical acceleration increasing." His body leaned slightly as though that helped him track it.
"You know that isn't us." I rested an arm across his back to keep him from climbing onto the glass.
"Observation does not imply confusion." His eyes remained on the moving elevator.
Dad looked across at me. "He gets that from you."
"I get it from you."
"That's considerably worse." Dad turned toward the window before I could answer.
Mom's wrist display buzzed once.
She ignored it.
It buzzed again.
She silenced it.
By the third notification I looked over. "You can answer it." I kept Topper from walking across my knees toward her.
"It can wait." Mom collapsed the projection without reading whatever had appeared.
Dad lifted one eyebrow.
Mom turned her head.
Dad lowered it and stared very intently at a cargo platform outside.
The central station occupied one of Caelum's oldest axial sections, where everything had been rebuilt so many times that polished public architecture existed beside exposed service trunks older than I was. Students with luggage gathered beneath program signs. Freight crews moved heavy cases across magnetic lanes. Federation personnel passed through separate security corridors while the floor trembled every few minutes with engines starting somewhere deeper inside the docking structure.
Our gate carried the silver seal of the Directorate of Advanced Science.
The other four students were already there.
I recognized Naomi Calder before I reached them.
Most people who paid attention to the academic boards knew Naomi's name even if they had never met her. She stood beside a woman wearing a green-and-white Earth Restoration Directorate jacket, both hands wrapped around the straps of a travel case that looked dense enough to contain mineral cores instead of clothes. Naomi was fifteen, dark brown skin a shade deeper than mine, tightly coiled hair gathered into a knot, and a small enamel Earth pin fixed beside her academy collar.
She noticed me looking at the pin.
I looked away before she could decide why.
The boy sitting on top of his suitcase noticed me next.
"Please tell me you brought food." He said it before hello, his curly black hair escaping from beneath a knitted cap while one foot bounced against the side of a travel case covered in freight stickers and bright hand-drawn shapes.
"I brought food." I adjusted my bag as Topper stopped beside my shoe.
The boy's attention dropped immediately. "You also brought a robotic frog." He leaned forward with both elbows on his knees. "That's considerably more useful."
"His name is Topper." I bent down and picked him up before the stranger could decide an introduction included touching him.
"Even better." He held out one hand toward Topper. "I'm Rafi Mercer, and I already like you more than everyone else here."
"Hello, Rafi." Topper's damaged speaker gave the name a faint crackle.
Rafi's grin widened. "See? We're done. Friendship established."
"You've known him for four seconds." I shifted Topper under one arm.
"Some bonds are immediate." Rafi looked around me toward my parents. "Do they know they raised the kind of person who brings a frog to a classified military ship?"
"They've had fourteen years to figure it out."
Dad, who had heard enough of that to understand the subject, handed my bag back to me. "We stopped trying around year nine."
Rafi's father laughed from behind him. He wore an old freight-worker jacket with reflective strips faded almost silver along the sleeves, while Rafi's mother was still trying to fix his collar despite his repeated attempts to lean away.
A girl standing several meters farther down the gate looked over at the noise.
Anya Venn looked exactly like someone who had read the entire residency handbook.
Her academy uniform had been pressed so cleanly that the seams seemed sharper than necessary. Straight black hair fell to her shoulders without much movement, and her white travel case matched the Directorate size recommendations almost perfectly. A pair of adults beside her were speaking quietly with one of the program officers, both dressed in the kind of tailored professional clothes that made everyone else's luggage look temporary.
Anya's eyes moved from Rafi to his suitcase.
Rafi caught her. "My little sisters decorated it." He slapped one hand against a purple six-pointed shape taking up half the side panel. "Custom work."
"I didn't ask." Anya returned to the tablet in her hands.
"You looked." Rafi pushed himself up from the suitcase.
"I possess eyes." She scrolled without glancing back.
"That's a good start." Rafi seemed pleased rather than offended.
The fourth student stood a little farther away from everyone.
Jun Aras was sixteen and somehow looked older mostly because he wasn't trying to. He had broad shoulders, straight dark hair cut close around his ears, and an academy jacket that had been repaired neatly along one cuff instead of replaced. A woman in medical scrubs adjusted his bag strap while his father stood beside them carrying two paper food containers.
"There will be food on the shuttle," Jun said while accepting one of the containers.
His father pushed the second toward him anyway. "Government food."
"That is still food." Jun tried returning it.
"That sentence is why you need this." His father tucked the container into the side of Jun's bag while Jun's mother smiled.
Jun looked at both of them, then left the container where it was.
Mom had been watching all four students with the quiet attention she usually pretended wasn't professional.
"Those are the others." She spoke beside me without pointing. "Naomi Calder, environmental engineering and biosystems. Rafi Mercer, structural materials. Anya Venn, computational architecture. Jun Aras, biomedical engineering and emergency medicine."
I looked at her. "How do you know all that?"
"I'm a journalist." She adjusted the strap over one shoulder.
"That's not an answer."
"It usually is." Mom's eyes shifted toward Naomi's mother. "Earth Restoration Directorate. Senior habitat-reclamation division."
"Please stop researching the other parents while I'm standing here." I lowered my voice.
Dad came back from the baggage scanner. "She researched my parents before our second date."
Mom looked at him. "Your father had three corporate lawsuits."
"He was interesting."
"You married me."
"That was later." Mom returned her attention to the security checkpoint as though Dad had proven her point.
The line moved forward.
I handed Topper to Dad while I stepped through the scanner. Nothing happened.
Dad followed carrying Topper.
Three indicators sounded at once.
The security officer looked down.
Dad looked at me.
I tried not to smile.
"It's his charging core." I pointed toward the access panel beneath Topper's belly. "And probably the replacement hip actuator."
The officer ran a handheld scanner across the little robot.
Topper stayed completely still until the device passed near his head. "Unauthorized diagnostic frequency detected." His speaker crackled loudly enough that the officer froze.
Dad covered his mouth with one hand.
I took Topper back. "He says things." I switched his external diagnostic warnings off.
Behind us, Rafi started laughing hard enough that his mother hit his shoulder.
The program coordinator arrived before security could decide whether Topper belonged on a watch list.
Dr. Elise Marr looked younger than I expected, probably somewhere in her thirties, with sandy hair cut above the collar of a gray Directorate coat and three separate tablets stacked under one arm. She wore civilian shoes instead of military boots, which made me trust her slightly more.
Scientists always carried too much.
"Students, I'm Dr. Marr." She waited until we had all gathered before continuing. "I'm your residency coordinator and primary systems liaison for the next six weeks. Before anybody gets excited, Black Star is an active military construction platform, not a school campus. You'll remain inside designated research, habitation, observation, and transit sections unless a member of the program staff escorts you elsewhere."
Rafi lifted one hand.
Dr. Marr looked directly at him. "If this is about food, yes, there are snacks aboard the shuttle."
Rafi lowered his hand, visibly satisfied. "Excellent."
His mother whispered something into his ear.
Rafi looked apologetic for almost three seconds.
Dr. Marr continued. "Your temporary clearances will open the doors you are authorized to use. They will not open command spaces, military operations, engineering cores, active weapons areas, combat Frame bays, or restricted laboratories. A denied access panel is not an invitation to become creative."
Dad looked at me.
I felt it without turning.
"Stop." I kept my voice low.
"I didn't say anything." Dad folded both arms.
"That's worse."
Dr. Marr began calling our names for final boarding.
Anya went first. Her parents embraced her briefly, said something quiet, and stepped back before she crossed through the gate with her suitcase rolling neatly beside her.
Jun went next. His mother hugged him while his father made one last attempt to put more food into the bag. Jun watched him do it, sighed, and moved the zipper aside so he could fit it properly.
Naomi's mother held both of her shoulders for several seconds while speaking low enough that none of us could hear. Naomi nodded, then hugged her tightly before taking the green case and walking through security.
When Dr. Marr called Rafi, both of his little sisters appeared from behind his parents.
One ran into him hard enough that he staggered.
The other started crying before she reached him.
Rafi dropped the joking expression so quickly it almost looked like a different face. He crouched, wrapped both arms around them, and said something into the older girl's ear while his father looked toward the ceiling and rubbed one hand across the back of his neck.
I looked at Topper instead.
Then Dr. Marr called my name.
Mom hugged me first.
Topper ended up pressed awkwardly between us until I shifted him to one side. Mom's cheek rested against my hair for a moment before she spoke. "Message me when the shuttle docks. Not when you remember three hours afterward."
"I'll message." I kept one arm around her until she released me.
Dad put one hand behind my neck and pulled me against his shoulder hard enough that my forehead clipped his collarbone.
"That was violent." I rubbed the spot after stepping back.
"You're alive." Dad tightened one of my bag straps one last time. "Don't touch anything marked blue."
"That was the workshop rule."
"Good rules scale." He handed me the bag.
The gate indicator changed.
Dr. Marr waited beyond it with the other students.
For a few seconds nobody moved.
Then I lifted Topper toward my parents. "Tell them goodbye."
Topper rotated his head toward Mom first. "Goodbye, Selene. Goodbye, Darius." His old speaker made Dad's name sound slightly deeper than normal.
Mom smiled and touched two fingers to the top of Topper's head.
Dad pointed at him. "Bring him back in one piece."
"What about me?" I asked while sliding one arm through my bag.
"You're easier to repair." Dad stepped backward before I could kick his shoe.
I laughed.
Then I crossed the gate.
The barrier closed behind me.
Mom raised one hand.
Dad did the same.
The crowd moved between us before I decided whether I wanted to look again.
The first shuttle climbed through Caelum's central axis slowly enough that gravity faded in stages.
At first I only felt lighter.
Then my stomach shifted.
Then Topper's rear feet stopped remaining firmly against my leg.
He looked down at the small gap between himself and my trousers. "Local gravitational acceleration is decreasing." His feet spread instinctively even though there was nothing to grip.
Rafi floated three centimeters above his seat cushion before his restraint caught him. "I already like this." He pressed his palms against the armrests like he was preparing to launch himself.
"Remain strapped in until we reach the transfer hub." Dr. Marr didn't look up from her tablet.
Rafi settled back into the seat but kept smiling. "I can like it while restrained."
The shuttle cabin had two rows of seats facing each other. Naomi sat opposite me, Jun beside her. Anya had chosen a seat close enough to Dr. Marr that she could see whatever presentation came first. Rafi had claimed the corner until a crew member made him move the snack bag he had buckled into the seat beside him.
Topper was secured next to me with a child restraint because nobody had apparently anticipated somebody bringing a robotic frog aboard.
His expression hadn't changed.
He somehow looked humiliated anyway.
"Your mobility appears restricted." I tightened the harness by one notch.
"My mobility is restricted." Topper pushed one foot against the strap.
"That's the point."
"Why are you not similarly restricted?"
I pulled my own harness outward far enough for him to see.
Topper stared at it for a moment and then stopped struggling.
Rafi leaned into the aisle. "Can I buy him?" His eyes stayed fixed on Topper.
"No." I rested one hand across the robot's back.
"How much did he cost?"
"Nothing. I found him beside a recycling chute."
Rafi's eyebrows rose. "That makes him want him more."
Anya finally looked away from her tablet. "Why would being discarded make him better?"
"Because somebody else gave up before you got there." Rafi rested his arms across the top of his seat. "That's half of structural engineering."
"It is absolutely not." Anya turned back toward the tablet.
Jun peeled the label off one of the food containers his father had packed and folded it into a neat little square. "What's the other half?"
"Pretending the first half was intentional." Rafi answered without hesitation.
Naomi laughed before she could stop herself.
Rafi looked toward her with the satisfaction of someone who had achieved an objective.
Dr. Marr finally lowered her tablet. "Since Mr. Mercer has decided to conduct interviews before orientation, we may as well establish who everyone is." She looked around the cabin. "You'll still be doing formal introductions later."
"Efficient." Rafi leaned back.
Anya's attention settled on me. "You're Ilyan Corven." She said my name like she was confirming a record rather than asking.
"I usually am." I adjusted Topper's restraint when one rear leg escaped.
"I read your containment optimization paper." Anya closed the tablet cover over one thumb.
I looked up. "People read that?"
"I did."
"That doesn't prove people read it," Rafi said from the corner.
Anya looked at him for one second.
He smiled.
Naomi leaned forward. "The closed-loop thermal model?" Her fingers rested around the little Earth pin at her collar.
"That one." I looked between them.
"I read part of it." Naomi tucked one boot beneath the opposite seat rail as gravity weakened further. "Your environmental assumptions were terrible."
Rafi made a small sound and covered his mouth with the back of one hand.
I stared at Naomi. "It was a particle-containment paper."
"You modeled the system inside a habitat."
"Because the assignment required a habitat environment."
"And then simplified the habitat until it behaved like a laboratory." Naomi leaned her elbows against her knees. "Cooling capacity isn't stable in a real settlement. Agriculture loads change. Atmospheric recycling changes. Population activity changes. External exposure changes. Maintenance interruptions happen."
I waited for her to finish.
"That's fair." I settled back against the seat.
Naomi blinked once.
Rafi looked almost disappointed. "That ended too peacefully." He reached into his snack bag and tore open something loudly.
"I can disagree with somebody without starting a war." I looked toward him.
"That sounds like no fun." Rafi put one piece of dried fruit into his mouth.
Anya's mouth moved slightly.
Not quite a smile.
Close.
The shuttle reached Caelum's axial hub several minutes later, where gravity weakened enough that walking became more suggestion than requirement.
A crew member demonstrated the guide rails before releasing us.
Rafi watched perhaps half of the demonstration.
The moment his restraint opened, he pushed from his seat too hard.
He crossed the cabin faster than he expected, caught the opposite rail with both hands, swung around it, and bumped shoulder-first into Jun.
Jun grabbed his upper arm and stopped the rotation. "I've reconsidered your earlier question." He pushed Rafi gently toward the floor strip. "I may be able to fix you."
Rafi found the magnetic section with both shoes. "I knew we were going to be friends."
Dr. Marr pinched the bridge of her nose and moved toward the airlock.
I released Topper.
He floated straight upward.
All four legs spread apart.
His body began rotating slowly toward one side.
I waited.
Topper's eyes blinked. "Mobility model inadequate." One front foot moved through empty air.
I caught him before his head hit the ceiling. "You're doing great." I tucked him under one arm.
Rafi laughed while pulling himself toward the hatch. "He's having the best day of anyone here."
The transfer shuttle was built differently from the habitat craft.
No wide commuter windows. No upright seats. The acceleration couches reclined deeper into the cabin, with thicker restraints and emergency masks built into the headrests. Everything smelled faintly of polymer and filtered air.
We strapped in.
Topper ended up secured against my chest inside the soft travel sling Mom had bought for him.
He looked comfortable.
I disliked that.
The shuttle separated from Caelum.
Acceleration pressed gently through the couch.
Naomi had the nearest window.
I didn't care until we cleared Caelum's exterior structure.
Then I leaned sideways in my restraints.
Naomi noticed. "Do you want the window?" Her hand rested against the lower frame.
"Yes." I stretched farther.
She looked outside again. "No." The corner of her mouth moved.
I stared at the side of her face.
Rafi leaned over the seat behind us. "I'll trade you mine for Topper."
"You don't have a window." I didn't turn.
"That's why the offer has such good margins."
Topper's head protruded from the sling beneath my chin. "Trade value appears unfavorable."
Rafi slapped the top of his seat. "He understands economics too."
The shuttle rolled.
Caelum moved away from the window.
Then Black Star came into view.
Nobody spoke for a while.
The public images hadn't lied.
They had simply failed.
A ship more than six hundred meters long could fit on a display, but putting it inside a rectangle did something to it. It made the scale understandable, which meant it made the scale wrong.
Black Star occupied the dark ahead of us like a piece of architecture somebody had cut loose from a city.
Its long armored spine stretched beyond the construction platforms surrounding it. Finished sections of hull were matte navy so dark they became almost black outside direct sunlight, while unfinished sections revealed gunmetal skeleton, primer-white plating, temporary pressure covers, exposed conduits, and scaffold towers clinging to the ship's sides.
Work lights burned across the carrier in isolated constellations.
Construction tugs moved around it.
At first I thought one was a drone.
Then the shuttle carried us close enough for me to see the cockpit.
Frames stood in exterior maintenance cradles near one of the carrier openings, and even eighteen-meter machines looked small against Black Star.
Rafi had stopped talking.
That might have been the clearest measurement of scale available.
Jun leaned toward the opposite window while Anya lowered her tablet into her lap. Naomi kept one hand against the glass, the Earth pin at her collar reflecting a point of white construction light.
The shuttle continued closing.
Black Star kept becoming larger.
The four radiator-control vanes lay folded along the hull, two still missing portions of final armor. Sensor clusters rose from recessed structures instead of protruding like older ship designs. Point-defense housings sat beneath armored shutters. Farther forward, enormous apertures were buried inside the hull where the main particle lances would eventually sit.
I stopped looking at the weapons when the rear engine section rotated into view.
The drive architecture was partly exposed.
Containment structures wrapped the engine assembly in layered rings, thick particle-transfer trunks disappearing forward through the hull beneath armored housings. Auxiliary maneuvering clusters surrounded the main drive, each one large enough for several people to work inside.
I leaned closer to Naomi's window.
She glanced at me. "You really do like pipes." Her eyes returned to the drive section.
"Those aren't pipes." I pointed toward the visible distribution trunks.
"They're long and hollow and something travels through them."
"Particle-transfer trunks."
"Large pipes." Naomi rested her chin against one hand.
I looked at her.
She smiled without turning.
Behind us, Rafi had finally recovered. "How much does something like this cost?" He pressed himself as close to his own small view panel as the harness allowed.
"Classified." Anya answered almost automatically.
"That means a lot."
"It means classified."
"It can mean both." Rafi glanced toward Dr. Marr.
Jun looked toward Black Star's central body instead. "How many people are onboard right now?" His attention followed an exterior lift moving along one section.
Dr. Marr turned her tablet so the screen faced downward. "Just under nine hundred between construction crews, military personnel, engineering teams, integration specialists, and support staff. The final complement will be considerably larger."
Rafi looked around our shuttle. "And five students."
"Five students." Dr. Marr nodded.
Something about hearing the number made me look at the others.
Naomi at the window.
Rafi still trying to see around everybody.
Anya already reopening a technical schematic.
Jun studying the ship quietly.
Me.
Topper made six if robots were allowed to ruin good numbers.
The shuttle entered final approach.
A docking aperture expanded ahead of us until the stars disappeared behind structure. Black armor, guide lights, maintenance rails, and layered pressure barriers swallowed the view.
We crossed the outer containment field.
The vibration changed.
Inside, the docking bay was enormous enough that the shuttle seemed suddenly small.
Cargo craft hung in articulated cradles beneath service gantries. Technicians moved along wall tracks wearing pressure suits and magnetic boots. A loading vehicle carried a sealed container across the far end of the bay, its wheels taller than Topper.
Our shuttle rotated.
The cradle locks struck the hull four times.
Each impact came through my seat.
Rafi tightened his hands around the restraints. "This is officially better than school." His eyes followed an overhead servicing arm passing above us.
"We haven't left the shuttle." Anya released her harness when the pressure indicator changed.
"Exactly. Strong start." Rafi pushed himself upright.
Dr. Marr caught the overhead rail. "Welcome aboard Black Star. Try not to make me regret saying that before dinner."
The inner hatch opened.
Ship air had a smell Caelum didn't.
Fresh paint.
Metal.
Lubricant.
Electrical insulation.
Plastic surfaces that hadn't been touched enough yet.
Filtered air stripped cleaner than anything in a city.
It smelled unfinished.
I liked it immediately.
A Federation lieutenant waited beyond the transfer lock with two security personnel and a civilian technician wearing the same gray Directorate coat as Dr. Marr. The lieutenant's uniform looked as if it had been printed onto him.
The technician had a stain on one sleeve.
I trusted the technician first.
"Residency group?" the lieutenant asked while accepting Dr. Marr's manifest.
"Five students." She passed her clearance across the reader.
The lieutenant counted us.
His eyes stopped on Topper.
"Five and a half, depending on how generous the manifest gets." I adjusted the sling.
Topper looked at him.
The lieutenant looked at Topper.
I decided the sentence had been enough.
Safety orientation began before we were twenty meters from the shuttle.
Red line for emergency shelter routes.
Green for medical.
White for unrestricted personnel transit.
Blue for engineering.
Dad would have hated the last one.
I took a picture and sent it to him.
THEY MARKED ENGINEERING BLUE.
His answer arrived before we reached the first lift.
LEAVE THE SHIP.
I smiled.
Mom's message appeared beneath his.
You docked?
I typed:
Yes. Still alive.
Three dots appeared.
I put the display away before the questions started arriving.
Black Star's corridors were wider than I expected but not decorative. Everything had been designed to move people, equipment, wounded crew, maintenance carts, ammunition containers, and replacement parts quickly through a ship that might be damaged in combat.
Handrails recessed into both walls for zero gravity. Magnetic guide strips ran beneath the floor. Pressure doors sat at regular intervals. Storage compartments disappeared behind flush armored panels.
Some surfaces looked finished enough to belong in a government advertisement.
Others simply stopped.
We passed a junction where polished wall plating ended beside a transparent construction barrier. Beyond it lay exposed structural ribs and bundled cables tagged with handwritten engineering markers.
Rafi slowed immediately. "That's load-bearing framework." He moved closer to the barrier.
Dr. Marr kept walking. "It will remain load-bearing if you keep moving."
"I'm not touching it."
"You can also not touch it from over here." She pointed down the corridor.
Rafi followed reluctantly, still looking backward.
The main lift carried us almost eighty meters through the hull.
A schematic on the wall tracked the car as a tiny light moving through Black Star's central body. Cargo below. Carrier operations aft. Habitation above and toward the center. Research forward of us. Command spaces buried deep behind armored layers.
Rafi raised his hand.
Dr. Marr saw it. "You are not touring the bridge."
He lowered his hand. "I was going to ask about lunch."
"The cafeteria is on Deck Forty-Two."
"That was my second question." He shifted the snack bag under his arm.
Our assigned quarters occupied a research habitation section originally designed for civilian specialists, visiting engineers, and scientific personnel.
Five doors lined one side of a warmer, narrower corridor.
Each already displayed a name.
CALDER, N.
MERCER, R.
VENN, A.
ARAS, J.
Then mine.
CORVEN, I.
I touched my wrist to the panel.
The door opened.
The room wasn't large, but it had everything I needed: a bed fixed into one wall, a desk with an integrated display, storage compartments, fold-down washbasin, emergency breathing unit, and a narrow dark viewport that faced an internal armored section instead of space.
I put Topper on the bed.
He bounced once.
"Surface compliance acceptable." He turned in a small circle.
Rafi appeared in my doorway. "Your room is exactly the same as mine." He leaned around the frame like he had expected to discover a private suite.
"I assumed that."
"I was hoping mine was defective."
"How would defective make it better?"
"Bigger." He looked toward the ceiling as if inspecting for hidden volume.
Dr. Marr called from the corridor. "You have six minutes to leave luggage and return."
Rafi backed out. "They're very strict about enjoying things here."
I set Topper's charger on the desk and reached for the door.
He jumped off the bed.
I pointed back toward the charger. "You stay here for the first tour." I knew from the immediate angle of his head that he disagreed.
"I am authorized for personal accompaniment." Topper moved one front foot toward the corridor.
"I'm not explaining you to another security officer."
He remained there for a moment, processing. "Reasonable." Topper turned back toward the bed.
Rafi was waiting outside. "You trained him better than my parents trained me."
"I didn't train him."
"That explains everything."
The research section occupied several decks wrapped around a central technical spine.
It was the first part of the ship where I started wanting Dr. Marr to walk slower.
Materials laboratories opened behind reinforced windows. Simulation chambers filled whole compartments. Environmental test rooms were lined with adjustable wall systems. Computational labs glowed behind glass with racks of isolated processors.
Every few meters there was something worth stopping for.
Dr. Marr allowed almost none of it.
At one observation window, I stopped anyway.
A particle-storage chamber occupied most of the compartment below us.
The actual reserve vessel sat behind thick shielding, but the transfer network surrounding it was exposed for construction access. Layered containment trunks ran from the chamber through heavy isolation valves and armored emergency bypasses.
I counted the primary distribution branches.
Then counted them again.
Six.
The public ship diagrams showed four.
"Corven." Dr. Marr's voice came from farther down the corridor.
I leaned closer to the glass.
Six.
"Corven." She had stopped walking now.
I pointed through the observation window. "Why are there six primary trunks?" The question made Anya stop beside me.
Dr. Marr walked back. "Because Black Star has more than four major distribution paths."
"The public architecture shows four." I enlarged a small diagram on my wrist and held it beside the glass.
Naomi stopped behind Anya.
Rafi nearly walked into Jun.
Dr. Marr looked through the glass, then at me. "The public architecture is simplified. Two additional lines support surge handling and restricted experimental loads."
"What experimental loads?" I asked while keeping the six branches in sight.
Dr. Marr held my gaze.
I waited.
"Excellent attempt." She turned and resumed the tour.
The civilian technician who had been following us stayed behind for a moment.
His name badge read KELLAN.
He glanced through the glass. "Don't worry." His voice stayed low enough that Dr. Marr probably wasn't supposed to hear it. "They'll show you enough to make your school laboratory unbearable when you get home."
Dr. Marr looked over her shoulder. "Kellan."
"I'm encouraging scientific curiosity." He caught up with her.
That made three adults who knew what the system was and refused to tell me.
I hated them.
I was having an excellent day.
The environmental systems deck changed Naomi.
Until then, she had stayed mostly quiet unless someone asked her something or insulted habitat modeling within hearing range. The moment Lieutenant Harrow opened the closed-cycle environmental schematic, Naomi moved to the front.
"How much oxygen recovery is biological under full occupancy?" she asked before the lieutenant had finished introducing herself. Her hand rested on the edge of the display as Black Star's environmental network unfolded into water, air, waste, agriculture, and chemical-recovery loops.
Lieutenant Harrow looked at her name badge. "Calder?"
Naomi nodded.
"Approximately thirty-one percent under intended long-duration configuration." Harrow expanded the agricultural systems. "The remainder is mechanical and chemical recovery."
"Intended configuration." Naomi pointed toward several gray sections. "Those gardens aren't operational."
"Not yet." Harrow brought up current commissioning figures.
"What's actual biological recovery now?"
"Seventeen percent."
Naomi frowned. "That's low for a ship designed to operate independently."
"We are also not deploying tomorrow." Harrow changed the diagram to unfinished systems. "Black Star is still under construction."
Naomi's mouth tightened slightly.
I looked at her.
She noticed. "What?"
"Nothing." I leaned against the rail.
"That looked like something."
"I was remembering our conversation about simplified models."
Rafi made a quiet choking noise behind us.
Naomi stared at me for a moment before the corner of her mouth moved. "Enjoy that while it lasts."
The medical deck belonged to Jun.
He didn't move to the front the way Naomi had.
He simply started asking questions the moment we entered.
"How many surgical theaters?" Jun walked beside the medical officer while bright white doors passed on either side of us.
"Six primary, two trauma, one specialized isolation."
"Independent pressure control?"
"Every theater."
"Blood synthesis?"
"Limited onboard production with cryogenic reserve storage."
"Radiation exposure?"
"Dedicated treatment rooms on this deck and secondary facilities near engineering."
Jun glanced through one transparent panel into an empty trauma room. "Frame cockpit extraction injuries?"
The officer looked at him differently after that.
"Common enough to design around." She opened the room so we could see inside.
A surgical table sat beneath articulated medical arms. Imaging equipment folded into the ceiling. Emergency blood synthesis and stabilization systems were built into the walls.
One cabinet contained heavy cutting tools.
Not surgical tools.
Metal cutters.
Powered spreaders.
Emergency saws.
Jun looked at them.
I did too.
Nobody said anything.
The door closed and we moved on.
The systems laboratory belonged to Anya.
That became obvious the moment a three-dimensional map of Black Star's information network appeared above the center table.
Thousands of lines threaded through the ship: sensors, navigation, communications, fire control, maintenance networks, localized processors, command redundancies, internal security, damage-control systems.
Anya forgot to look composed for nearly ten minutes.
"Why distribute this much processing if command architecture remains centralized?" She leaned over the projection, one hand braced against the table while enlarging a cluster of local processing nodes.
"Battle damage." The systems specialist isolated several sections.
"You expect network severance."
"We design for it."
"Then why preserve the central convergence layer?" Anya traced three lines toward the armored command core. "That becomes a vulnerability."
"For coordination." The specialist smiled slightly. "And because removing every vulnerability tends to remove functionality with it."
Anya stared at the architecture.
Rafi leaned toward me. "She's going to marry the computer."
"I heard that." Anya didn't look away.
"That's because the computer told you."
She finally turned her head. "Please find another hobby."
"I'm trying. The ship has a lot of options."
The materials laboratory belonged to Rafi.
That surprised me because he became quiet.
A Federation engineer rolled a damaged Frame armor plate into the center of the room on a reinforced cradle. The slab was taller than any of us and almost as wide, its surface cratered around one side while a torn edge exposed layers of composite plating, thermal mesh, structural reinforcement, and impact-dispersal material.
"What hit it?" Rafi moved closer until he was just short of the marked safety line.
"Particle-edge strike." The engineer pointed toward the deepest damage.
Rafi crouched.
He didn't joke.
He studied the torn backing layer for several seconds. "Why did the support mesh peel outward?" His fingers traced the direction without touching it. "If the strike came through the front, the delamination should spread inward."
The engineer glanced toward Dr. Marr, then back at him. "Pre-existing structural damage."
"Ballistic?"
The engineer changed the illumination angle.
A second fracture line became visible beneath the particle damage.
"Correct."
Rafi leaned closer. "So the particle-edge test found the old weakness instead of creating the whole failure."
"That's one interpretation."
"That's what happened." Rafi was already looking at a second crack.
The engineer smiled. "Probably."
Rafi raised one hand toward the plate and stopped himself. "Can I touch it?"
The engineer laughed. "Now you sound like the rest of them."
Rafi's grin came back.
Lunch happened almost an hour later than the schedule said.
The cafeteria on Deck Forty-Two disappointed Rafi immediately.
"This is too normal." He stared at his tray as though the Federation had personally misled him.
Naomi opened a soup container. "You wanted terrible food."
"I was promised crimes against cuisine." Rafi poked something on his plate.
"Nobody promised you anything." Anya aligned her utensils beside her tray.
Jun opened one of the containers his father had forced into his bag.
Steam rose from spiced rice, roasted vegetables, and strips of meat.
All four of us looked at him.
Jun looked around the table and seemed to realize what had happened. "My father packed too much." He moved the container toward the center.
Rafi reached for it.
Jun hit the back of his hand lightly with a spoon. "Use a plate." He slid several small dishes across the table.
Rafi stared at him. "You're putting conditions on charity."
"I've met you." Jun served himself first.
Rafi took one bite once he had a plate.
His eyes closed.
"Jun, I would die for your father." He pointed his fork toward him.
"That would upset him." Jun continued eating.
Naomi laughed into her soup.
Anya took a small portion after pretending not to be interested.
I took more.
Rafi looked at the empty seat beside me. "Where's Topper?" He turned as if the robot might be hiding under the table.
"Charging in my room."
"You left him alone?"
"He's a robot."
"That wasn't my question." Rafi stole another piece of roasted vegetable from the center dish.
"He's fine."
"You've known him for four hours and you're already worried," Anya said while cutting her food into unnecessarily precise pieces.
"I bond quickly." Rafi said it like this was an admirable technical trait.
"That explains several things." Anya ate without looking at him.
Dr. Marr appeared beside our table before any of us noticed her approach. "Finish eating. Orientation resumes in twenty minutes." She looked across the five of us, then toward me. "Specialization rotations begin tomorrow morning."
"Particle systems?" I asked before she finished.
"Eventually." Dr. Marr checked something on her tablet.
"When is eventually?" I set my fork down.
"Tomorrow afternoon." She started walking away. "Which technically makes my answer correct."
Naomi watched me follow Dr. Marr with my eyes. "You look like somebody just told you breathing becomes optional until tomorrow."
"I'm fine." I picked up the fork again.
"You stared at a particle-storage chamber for twelve minutes."
"It had six distribution trunks."
Rafi looked between us. "Is six exciting?"
"Yes," I said at the same moment Naomi said, "Apparently."
Rafi considered that. "I'm learning so much."
The observation gallery came late in the afternoon.
That was where we saw Earth.
Not on a classroom display.
Not behind Caelum's artificial sky.
Earth.
The observation chamber curved along the upper research section behind thick transparent armor and retractable radiation shutters. The ceiling disappeared into glass overhead, giving the room enough open sky that I had the brief sensation of stepping outside.
Earth filled nearly half the view.
Blue oceans reflected sunlight beneath enormous white storm systems. Brown and green land showed through broken clouds while the edge of night crossed one hemisphere. On the dark side, city lights began appearing in clusters along coastlines and old population centers.
I had seen Earth thousands of times.
I had seen it through habitat windows.
Through observatories.
Through live feeds.
Through classroom projections.
It had always shared the view with something.
Caelum structure.
Docking rails.
Glass reflections.
Buildings.
Here there was almost nothing around it.
Naomi moved toward the observation glass first.
Her hand rose to the Earth pin at her collar.
She rested her thumb against it.
Nobody spoke.
Rafi stopped beside her but didn't make a joke.
Jun remained several steps back.
Anya raised her tablet as though she intended to take a picture, then lowered it again.
I walked toward the glass.
Caelum hung off to one side of the planet.
From here, my home was a bright artificial object surrounded by space.
I raised my thumb.
The habitat disappeared behind it.
"Don't do that." Naomi's voice came quietly beside me.
I lowered my hand and looked at her. "Do what?"
"Cover it." She kept her attention on Caelum rather than me, one hand resting against the observation rail.
I put my hand into my jacket pocket. "Okay." I looked toward the habitat again.
Naomi's fingers moved over the edge of her Earth pin.
Dr. Marr let us stay past the scheduled time.
By the time we returned to the habitation deck, my room had lost the sterile quality it had when I first entered.
My bag sat open beside the bed.
The printed picture from Talia was on the desk because I had forgotten to put it away.
Topper sat beside it.
Not on the charger.
"Hello, Ilyan." His head rose as I entered.
"You were supposed to charge." I dropped my jacket over the chair.
"Charge level is eighty-six percent." Topper stepped off the desk onto the bed.
"That is not one hundred percent."
"It is sufficient."
A knock sounded against the open door before I could argue.
Rafi stood there holding a packet of dried fruit. "You have the frog." His eyes moved immediately toward Topper.
"I told you he was here."
"I thought you might be hiding him." Rafi entered without waiting for permission and dropped onto the edge of my bed.
"That would require a reason."
Rafi held out one piece of fruit toward Topper. "Would you like this?"
"He doesn't eat." I sat at the desk and opened tomorrow's schedule.
Rafi left the fruit between Topper's front feet anyway.
Topper looked down. "Organic matter detected."
Rafi smiled like he had accomplished something significant. "Progress."
Another knock came from the doorway.
Jun stood there, Naomi behind him, with Anya farther down the corridor.
I looked between them. "Did something happen?"
"Rafi said your room was larger." Naomi leaned around Jun enough to inspect it.
I looked at Rafi.
He shrugged. "I wanted independent confirmation."
Anya walked inside, examined the room once, then looked toward him. "It is identical."
"I know that now." Rafi ate the dried fruit he had offered Topper.
Jun lifted his wrist display. "Dr. Marr sent tomorrow's rotation schedule." He remained near the doorway while the file appeared on all of our displays.
Environmental systems.
Medical.
Computational architecture.
Materials engineering.
Then, near the bottom:
ADVANCED PARTICLE SYSTEMS — RESTRICTED OBSERVATION
I read the line twice.
Naomi saw me do it. "That's tomorrow afternoon." She leaned against the wall beside my desk.
"I know." I enlarged the schedule.
"You looked like somebody handed you a reactor."
Rafi leaned sideways from the bed to read over my shoulder. "Restricted observation sounds like they don't trust you."
"They shouldn't." Anya took my desk chair before I had a chance to reclaim it.
I looked at her.
She looked back without moving.
Rafi laughed.
Nobody left.
That happened without anybody deciding it.
Rafi stayed on my bed. Naomi settled against the wall. Anya kept the chair she had stolen. Jun eventually sat near the doorway with one knee raised and opened the last food container his father had packed.
We ate that too.
Rafi complained about the mattress.
Naomi complained about Black Star's incomplete environmental systems.
Anya complained about Rafi.
Jun mostly listened until Rafi said something scientifically offensive enough to require correction.
Topper sat in the middle of the floor because Rafi had decided he wanted to see him jump.
"Come on." Rafi tapped the floor in front of him twice. "Just once."
Topper remained perfectly still.
"You know how to jump."
"I possess multiple locomotion routines." Topper's speaker crackled.
"Then demonstrate one." Rafi pointed at the floor.
"You have established insufficient authority." Topper looked away from him.
Naomi laughed hard enough that she had to cover her mouth.
Rafi stared at the frog. "He's insulting me now."
"He learns quickly." Anya crossed one leg over the other in my chair.
My wrist display buzzed.
Mom.
How is everyone?
I looked around the room.
Rafi had started balancing a ration wrapper on Topper's head.
Anya was telling him to stop.
Naomi was reading my particle-systems schedule without asking.
Jun was repacking the remains of his father's food into smaller containers.
I typed:
They're weird.
Mom responded almost immediately.
Good. So are you.
I turned the display off.
Outside the room, Black Star hummed.
It wasn't loud enough to demand attention. The vibration lived beneath everything—the faint mechanical life of pumps, circulation systems, cooling, power distribution, ventilation, machinery running in places none of us could see.
I put one hand against the desk.
The vibration was stronger there.
Rafi finally gave up on making Topper jump and fell backward across my bed. "Tomorrow's going to be insane." He put both hands behind his head.
Anya glanced toward him. "Please don't use technical terminology you don't understand."
He grabbed my pillow and threw it at her.
Anya caught it against her chest.
For half a second she looked surprised that she had.
Then she threw it back.
Rafi ducked.
The pillow crossed the room and hit Naomi.
Naomi stared at him.
"That was her." Rafi pointed immediately at Anya.
Anya's expression hardened. "Coward."
Naomi threw the pillow.
Jun quietly moved the food out of the line of fire.
I caught the next throw before it hit Topper and sent it back toward Rafi. He missed the catch completely, and the pillow struck the wall behind him while all five of us started talking over one another.
An announcement rolled through the overhead speakers before anybody could throw it again.
"Attention all personnel. Construction shift transition begins at twenty-two hundred. Temporary access restrictions are now in effect on Decks Twelve through Nineteen, Thirty-One, and Forty-Seven through Fifty-Two. Authorized personnel only." The calm synthetic voice repeated the message while Anya automatically looked toward the ceiling.
I opened the ship map.
Deck Forty-Seven sat near the restricted research sections.
The same area listed on tomorrow's particle-systems rotation.
I enlarged the schedule once more.
Six distribution trunks.
Restricted observation.
Adaptive particle architecture.
Something waited farther inside Black Star that the public specifications refused to describe.
Rafi saw me looking at the schedule. "That face again." He sat up on the bed.
"What face?" I closed the display.
"The one where you're planning something you're going to pretend isn't planning."
"I'm not planning anything." I put my wrist down.
Anya watched me for another second from the chair.
She didn't believe me.
Neither did Naomi.
Black Star's low vibration continued beneath our feet while conversation filled the little room again, five voices layered over machinery built for a crew larger than our entire school.
Eleven hours earlier, I hadn't known any of them.
Now Rafi was lying across my bed, Naomi had my schedule, Anya had stolen my chair, Jun's father had fed all of us, and Topper had apparently decided none of them required immediate removal.
Somewhere beyond the walls, construction crews continued working through the night.
Far deeper in the ship, six particle trunks disappeared behind armor where every diagram I had seen insisted there should only have been four.
Tomorrow, I was finally going to see where they went.