“Ratbag,” I said, stumbling into the computer core pit. “Ratbag,” I repeated on a sob, scooping up my furry friend. “Oh God, Ratbag, it’s bad.”

He licked my cheeks as tears streamed down them.

“They’re alive,” I said. “At least some of them are. But they’re in the brig. Ratbag, he killed the captain and first officer. And he hasn’t been feeding them. They looked so gaunt and pale. The…the man I spoke to, he was swaying. Oh God,” I said with a whimper. “Oh God.”

I didn’t know what to do. I kept shaking my head. Staring at nothing. The tears dribbling off the edge of my chin. Ratbag’s little tongue licked at my face as if he could lick away the mess we were in.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said aloud.

I had to do something. But I had no idea what to do.

I sat there for so long, Ratbag got bored and jumped out of my arms. Then started sniffing around the food synthesiser as if he could smell the food.

“The food,” I said, getting up and automatically pressing in the order for Ratbag’s favourite. I crouched down next to him and watched him eat. “It was sitting right there,” I said. “The guards must have brought it in to taunt them with it. But they’ll go back. Won’t they? Either to see if their prisoners are dead or taunt them some more. And if they go back…”

I stood up.

“Shit,” I said, starting to climb out of the pit. “Hold on,” I added and ran back to the synthesiser.

I pressed in an order for twelve ready meals. There were twelve officers in that brig; the rest of the AU crew had to be confined to quarters. I shoved the ready meals in the apron and attached it to my belt. Then made sure the filleting knife was secure.

“Back in a jiffy,” I said to Ratbag and ran flat out to the wall I used to get in and out of the computer core section.

I was getting good at making my way through the tunnels. I’d mapped a lot of them now. I didn’t have anything to draw it on as I wasn’t prepared to risk switching the datapad on. Which made for boring nights. No books. But I had a very good memory and could remember complicated equations and diagrams in my head.

I’d got that from my father. Perhaps the only decent thing I ever received from my dad.

I made it back to the brig hatch in record time and then tapped out a signal to see if it was all clear. It took a second or two, but a reply came back. Whoever was using Morse was pretty bad at it, because I could have sworn it said, “We’re fish” instead of “We’re good.”

I swiped my wrist comm at the hatch and peered out.

“You’re back,” the guy I’d spoken to said. The one they called Captain Tremblay.

I stared at him and nodded my head.

The corner of his lips tipped up at the side.

“Why?” he asked.

“Um,” I said, climbing out of the tunnel. “The trays. I should put them back before they notice them missing.”

“Do you really think the brig’s not being watched?” he said.

“Have they been in here since I left?” I asked.

“No.” He seemed puzzled by that.

“I’ve noticed,” I said as I opened access panels on their containment field and accepted the empty trays, “that not all areas are working as they should be. Whatever they did to Aquila wasn’t perfect.”

“You can say that again,” the woman in the cell next to the…captain said.

“What else have you noticed?” Captain Tremblay asked, ignoring the female officer.

“Well,” I said, sliding trays into their sealed slots on the trolley, “I haven’t seen any AU crew members at all. And the leaseholder’s security team are everywhere in armour.”

“They’re mercs,” he said. “Hired guns. Not a security team.”

“Oh,” I said, worried I’d given myself away, but he didn’t say anything else. “Well,” I added, accepting the last tray and placing it in its slot, “the civilians are on a curfew. 1800 in their quarters, anyone seen outside after that is, well, roughed up.”

“Roughed up?”

“They destroyed one of the stalls in the Habitat Two central hub.” I couldn’t look at anyone when I said that. “And they shot a civilian when he refused to be confined to quarters.”

“Jesus,” the captain muttered. “How many are there? Are there more than we were told?”

“What were you told?” I asked.

“A twenty-strong security force.”

I stared at him. “Wouldn’t you know if more had got on the ship?”

“They could have been hidden amongst the paid passengers.”

I nodded my head, astounded again at my father’s duplicity.

“So, there’s only twenty of them?” he asked.

“Um, no,” I said. “There’s fifty that I know of.”

“Fifty?” the woman officer said, sounding stunned.

“You’ve counted fifty?” the captain asked.

“Yeah,” I said quickly. “That’s what I said.” I hadn’t counted fifty. I just knew my father had fifty in his security force. Whether he had more or not now, I wasn’t sure. The potential for such was unfortunately there, I had to admit.

There were a lot of paid passengers beholden to my father.

“Um, here,” I said, starting to dish out the ready meals. “You’ve got water, right?”

“Yes,” the captain said, accepting the meal from me.

“I’ll try to get back again tomorrow,” I offered. “I’ll knock first. Ah, maybe use a different code when you answer.”

“What code did we use?” the captain asked.

I blinked at him. “Fish. It was something about fish.”

“I did not!” an officer said in the cell opposite the captain.

“Yeah, sure, Johnson,” another said. “You were sleeping, remember?”

I dusted my hands down my trousers when all the meals were delivered. I could do this. I could help them eat enough to survive.

“What’s that on your belt?” the captain asked.

“What?” I said, covering the filleting knife with both hands.

“The knife.”

“Protection.”

“Can you get more?”

“Not easily,” I admitted, my hands slowly coming away from the knife.

The captain stepped forward, closer to the cell containment field.

“Adi,” he said. “We’re in dire straights here. The ship is under the command of a madman.”

I winced and then tried to cover it up with a cough and a hand to my mouth.

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Captain Tremblay said. “But you seem to be able to get to places others can’t. And I’ll be frank; yours is the first friendly face we’ve seen since this whole disastrous event started.”

“I want to help you,” I said, stepping closer to his cell. “I really do. But you don’t understand.”

“I do,” he said, stepping closer still. There was just a thin containment field between us now. “I do, I promise you,” he said. “But sometimes we have to find it in ourselves to dig deep. When injustices are being done, and no one else is willing to stand up to them, then sometimes we have to be the one that says enough. No more. And do that dangerous thing.”

“There’s no one else,” I whispered.

“No, Adi. But if you help us to get out of here, we’ll put things right. I promise you,” he said. “We’ll find the leaseholder and make him pay for those deaths. For that stall. For that civilian that stood up to his men.”

I could barely breathe. I couldn’t move an inch. I stood no more than a foot away from a man who had just promised to hurt my dad.

I stood there and thought, where were you when my mother died?

Where were you when he kicked Ratbag?

“OK,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.

“Good girl,” he replied with a smile that transformed him.

I scowled. “How old are you, anyway?” I demanded.

The woman in the next cell snorted. Someone else whistled.

“Old enough,” he said.

“And I’m not a little girl, either,” I snapped.

He raised his hands in surrender and shook his head, lips spread wide.

“I didn’t say that. You’re not a little girl. Not at all,” he said, trying not to laugh.

I rolled my eyes at him and swiped my wrist comm at the field to his cell. The access panel opened. “Here,” I said, thrusting the fillet knife into his cell. “Have this, Old Man.”

The woman next door was about to roll around on the floor; she was laughing so much. The male officers nearby weren’t much better.

The captain reached up and took the knife and then in a move too quick for me to track, he wrapped his free hand around my wrist.

His thumb stroked over my wrist comm.

“Where did you get this?” he whispered.

I tugged on my hand, but he didn’t release me. I was very much aware he held a knife now. I'd given the man who trapped me a freaking weapon.

I stared up at him, keeping my face bland. Unafraid. I’d had practice at it, and I knew it worked.

He studied me and then slowly let go of my wrist.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said and spun on my heel, walking as steadily as I could toward the gel wall.

The hatch opened. I glanced back.

Captain Tremblay hadn’t moved an inch and was still watching me.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that.