Stewing over their predicament, Naecia slid around the tiny metal panels of Aeshua’s puzzle amulet. She wasn’t trying to solve it – it was a pleasant distraction that reminded her of home. In fact, she was consciously trying to keep it unsolved. Solving it would be like ending the chapter of a story, her family’s story. The trinket was her last remaining physical connection to those she loved, a conduit to them, and while she played at it, she was keen for it to remain unfinished. She lolled her head to the side and made eye contact with Oush, who floated in the neighboring cell. In exercising remote dominion over the ship, the Vortu Cruiser Terror’s Glaive had shut down the gravity generator.

“Hey,” she said. They were able speak freely now. Aptat had opened communications between their cells, so the captive Stringers could brainstorm together, and had promised their freedom if they devised a way to defend the Silent Child against the coming assault. They weren’t entirely sure whether to believe their captor or not, but what choice was there? It had been over three cygies. So far, no plausible solutions had yet been presented that would prevent their demise. They had one more cygie before the Vortu arrived.

Oush was in the midst of reviewing the ship’s equipment manifest and didn’t so much move his head as shift the mobile eyes in his orange face to different locales within it. “What news, Naecia?”

Even though they’d been prisoners together on the Knell, Oush, Izairis, and Naecia had never before been permitted to speak. Their introductions were nevertheless brief – even after so long in confinement, Oush wasn’t a huge talker. The little Naecia had learned was that he had been a “grappling-thespian” near a shipbuilding station at Apho Scion, one of a triumvirate of planets orbiting Stru, a yellow star nine gilleys from Pangema. According to him, he’d been a natural at the craft of faux pugilism and quite the local celebrity due to his size, dramatic timing, and ability to bleed out of his face on command. He’d been abducted in the middle of a scripted bout where his persona, a heel named The Bolide, was about to perform his hugely popular signature move – a bombastic elbow drop titled The Re-Entry. He’d climbed a gantry, whipped the fans into a frenzy, and leapt. He never landed.

Asog Arrohauk had been ready, simply scooping him out of the air with a capture drone. Apparently, when he wasn’t showboating in front of sellout crowds, he’d been researching his mysterious knack for unconventional weaponry and Arrohauk had sniffed the signal.

Naecia grunted, scrolling through the ship’s design schematics on a data pad. “Not much here. Aptat really decked this thing out when they designed it, though. Poshest setup you ever saw. Two entirely separate living quarters. Two! On a long-range ship?”

“A lot of extra weight,” said Oush. “Nice defense system, though. Too bad it’s locked out.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Naecia answered.