“Do I look like I’m trying to bust you for illegal possession?” we yelled.

“Top drawer. On your left.”

We lunged for the cabinet. The birthing pile formed twin tendrils that shot out at us. Twisting midair, we cleared them in our leap. Amachi took two strides, dove under the throbbing tendril, and slashed them. She crouched low, shifting her weight from leg to leg as she leaned back and forth, her chakrams twirling about her wrists.

We grabbed the pehla stick. Designed strictly as a defensive weapon, if one had imagination, it could be reprogrammed. Set to overload. We reversed the polarity of one end and sent a feedback loop along its internal circuit. The pehla stick flared. We dodged again.

Amachi rolled, passing underneath us, moving away from the birthing pile as a distraction. As it targeted us, she hurled a chakram into its heart. It turned its attention to her, allowing us the moment to toss the charged pehla stick into it. A field pulse knocked us both into the wall. Stunned, we sat where we landed and waited to see who would move next.

The pile stilled.

With a tentative step, Amachi stood up, holding her chakram perpendicular to her body like a knife at the ready to stab. But nothing moved. “Someone with access tapped into my workstation.”

“Destroying all your work.”

“Most of it, yes.” She poked at the nanobot pile.

“You know what this means, right?”

“Yes.” She turned to stare at us full on, her face stern and grave. “Xola was murdered. And someone just tried to cover it up.”

14 STACIA CHIKEKE
The Cypher (Returning to Titan)

Nothing in her command history—no interstellar anomaly, no emergency breakdown on the ship, no exploration accident, no enemy encounter—terrified Stacia the way watching Bek convulse on the floor did. Her heart raced in her mouth. Her throat constricted. She remembered being torn between her duty as captain and her duty as mother. All the times she fell short as a mother. Not having time to play. Not being able to watch him perform. All the times she lost her temper. The entire family had. And felt the failure of her journey with his disease, the not knowing, the endless tests. The guilt of being broken. That maybe something in her genestream caused his condition. The helplessness whenever he so much as spiked a fever. The anxiety of not knowing what to expect next. Standing powerless as pain spasmed her son’s body.

However, her training required her to still be a captain and wasn’t going to let fear overtake her.

“Maya, we need a crash cart at my quarters!” Stacia touched Bek’s forehead. Damp and hot. “He’s burning up.”