Someone tore the patch off her arm, a sting like a ripped off Band-Aid, and she began to wake up.

She was lying face up on a white plastic platform, angled so that she was partially sitting up, like sleeping in a recliner. The bench folded out of the wall next to her, which seemed to be made of the same white plastic. As she came around, head throbbing, she sat up. The small square room around her was all made of the white plastic, except for a clear plastic wall opposite the bench. She didn't have to be a genius to recognize a cell. She took a moment to get her bearings and make sure she could stand without falling over, then she stumbled over to the clear wall, banging on it loudly.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Hey, someone come let me out of here!"

No one answered at first. She couldn't see much outside the cell. There was just a blank wall across from it. If she looked sideways far enough, she thought she could see a chair and a console like a helm. That worried her.

Then she heard footsteps and looked the other way to see a Ra'hom climbing up from a lower deck. She recognized it at once as Zee. He was carrying a mug of the weird sweet substance Ra'hom liked to have with breakfast.

"Hey!" she shouted at him. "Let me out. Where's Kay?"

"Back on the Diviner, I imagine," Zee said with a yawn, disinterested. He walked right past her to the console, sitting down and beginning to make adjustments to the controls.

"We're not on the Diviner?" Jewel asked, fear beginning to roll in her stomach.

"No," Zee replied. "We are on my private ship. I brought it with me in the Peritas vessel's storage bay so that I could leave as soon as I had what I needed."

"Once you'd stolen me," Jewel guessed, anger simmering under the fear.

"You are clever," Zee said indulgently, not even looking her way, focused on his work. "Can you guess what I want you for?"

Jewel was silent, unsure but unwilling to admit it.

"Come now, it should be obvious," Zee mocked her. "It is the same reason the Curator wanted you. The power, pet. When I present you to the Council, I will be promoted to their ranks immediately."

"But Kay discovered me," Jewel said. "They know that."

"They know a known traitor wants to present them with a new intelligent species," Zee corrected her. "A species the Peritas now know to be crazed and violent, thanks to your display back on the Diviner. And then you stole this ship and tried to escape. Luckily, I captured you. And now I am going to present you and your species to the Council as an immediate threat to Ra'hom kind. A barbarian from a savage planet that is even now beginning to explore their local system. Who knows how long we have before they come for Ra'hom with all their savagery? A gripping story, do you not you think?"

"But it isn't true!" Jewel said, horrified. "I'll tell them!"

"And who will believe you?" Zee said with an amused laugh. "You are just an animal, after all."

"You'll start a war!" Jewel shouted, slamming her fists on the glass. Then she closed her eyes, realizing that was exactly what he wanted. "But why would you care about that? Starting wars is what you do."

"War can be incredibly profitable if you do not make the mistake of fighting in it," Zee said mildly. "The Council is going to want my firsthand experience with your species when they move to exterminate you."

"This is the first time either of our species has ever found other intelligent life," Jewel said through gritted teeth. "We might be the only advanced societies in the universe. And you're going to make us kill each other."

"Well, you are hardly advanced." Zee scoffed. Jewel knew there was no point in trying to convince him. She sank down, crouching with her head against the glass, eyes closed. She heard him stand again and walk past her.

"Make yourself comfortable," he said. "You're going to be in that cell for a few months. And whatever resentment you have toward me, you should try to let go of."

She looked up to glare at him. Like hell she’d be letting go of anything.

“It is going to be a long few months,” Zee said. “And I am the only one on this ship. I am curious to see how effective a comfort animal you humans make. The sooner you learn to enjoy it, the easier it will be for both of us. Who knows? We may discover a reason to keep your species around after all.”

Jewel stared at him, horrified beyond words, but he only smiled and turned away.

Then he was gone, vanished off to the lower decks again. Jewel took a deep breath.

Okay, she thought. Priority one, escape. Priority two . . . I'll figure it out when I get there.

If there was one thing she had learned about the Ra'hom, it was that they would constantly underestimate her. There was a way out of this cell. She would find it. She would find a way to neutralize Zee. And then she would figure out how to control this ship and . . . fly it back to the Diviner? Back to Earth? Away from here, anyway.

She got to work examining every square inch of her cell. The bench folded seamlessly into the wall. With some work, she might be able to rip it off its hinges. But that would be noisy and time-consuming. She couldn't reach the ceiling, but she had a feeling if she could, she'd find that those ceiling panels moved. Ra'hom were not climbers. It seemed to be a big blind spot for them. She just needed to find a way to get up there.

As she contemplated this, she couldn't stop her thoughts from wandering to what Zee had said. She didn't know how long she'd been out, but the Peritas had probably already told the homeworld and the Council about the dangerous, frightening humans. Were they already planning an attack on Earth? Was fear of humans spreading even now? She had to stop it somehow.

She was the only one who could. The only one who even wanted to. She couldn't go back to Earth. She had to go to the Ra'hom home world and talk to the Council and convince them she wasn't dangerous. Right. Because an alien in a stolen ship bursting into their center of government didn't seem dangerous at all. They couldn't even speak her language.

Whatever. She'd worry about that when she was loose. She was still contemplating the bench, wondering if she could loosen it from the wall a little at a time and then stand it up against the wall so she could climb it to reach the ceiling. No, that was dumb. It'd never reach. She groaned in frustration.

"I need a drink," she muttered.

A familiar chime sounded, and an alcove opened in the wall holding a cup of water. A smile spread across Jewel's face. Ra'hom were idiots.

After requesting approximately a hundred glasses of water, one at a time, without removing the previous glasses from their alcoves, she had successfully created what amounted to a climbing wall. The alcoves, spread all over as the computer searched for unoccupied sections of wall from which to produce the glasses, had formed a convenient ladder right up to the ceiling.

Careful not to disturb the glasses, though she knew the wall would never close an alcove with her hand in it, she scaled the wall. It was an easy climb. She'd had a harder time in the habitats on the Diviner. She heard the sound of footsteps, Zee returning from the lower deck, and sped up, tempted as she was to linger long enough to flip him off. The ceiling tile moved easily, as she had known it would, and she pulled herself up into the narrow ceiling cavity with ease, replacing it behind her. Let Zee wonder for a bit how she'd managed to disappear.

She'd barely been crawling through the space above her cell—what even was this gap? An air vent? Maintenance tunnel? Leftover gap from modular construction?—for a few moments before she heard a loud, frantic alarm going off. Was that for her? It seemed a little excessive. She crawled faster regardless, searching for the right place to come down into the ship proper.

She kicked out a ceiling panel and dropped down into a corridor, the far wall of which was a window. She stared, caught off guard by the sudden vastness of space and the sight of another ship moving toward them very quickly. She might have less time to get out of here than she thought. A loud emergency klaxon was still sounding.

She sprinted down the corridor, which wasn't terribly long, curving at either end. The ship, she guessed, was not very large. She was back in the corridor her cell was in after only a few turns. Unfortunately, Zee was back at the helm. He turned when he heard her, expression baffled. He glanced between her and the cell in clear bafflement.

"How?" he demanded.

"Fuck you, that's how," Jewel declared, and she ran, dropping down the small ramp to the lower deck.

"If that is how you want to be," Zee roared, running after her. "The Council will just have to learn what they need to about your species from your corpse!"

Jewel sprinted, knowing she wouldn't be able to outrun him, trying to come up with a plan. She had some experience going hand to hand with the Ra'hom now, and she'd been trained in fighting people bigger than her. She could at least hold him off, if not beat him. But hold him off till what? She needed to take him down if she was going to steal this ship.

Her eyes widened as she spotted a familiar door ahead of her. It was a lifeboat, the same they had on the Diviner. If she couldn't take this ship, maybe she could take that at least. She just needed enough space to do it without getting gutted by Zee's claws.

A shudder rocked the ship, almost throwing Jewel to the floor. Zee looked up, swearing colorfully in Ra'homi. But as Jewel got up to make for the lifeboat door, he focused again, lunging for her. Jewel ducked and aimed a ferocious kick at his knee, which dropped him to kneeling long enough for Jewel to land a punch on his tentacles. Hitting a Ra'hom in the jaw wouldn't do anything. The bones of their skulls were far too thick. But those tentacles were soft and sensitive.

He shouted in pain, but it didn't stun him as she'd hoped. He grabbed her, dragging her into the range of his teeth, and in return, she jabbed her fingers into his eyes as hard as she was able. He released her with a wail, and Jewel ran again, flinging open the escape pod door. She'd barely opened it before a hand closed in her hair and yanked her painfully backward, slamming her against the bulkhead. Zee raised a claw to tear into her, but then she saw his eyes widen as he spotted the shadow on the wall behind her. He dropped her and flung himself aside just in time to avoid the swing of a literal sword coming down toward his head.

Kay stood in the hall, filling it with his rage, teeth bared and looking far more dangerous than the ceremonial Duelist's blade in his hand. Zee rolled to his feet and snarled back at the other Ra'hom, something in his own language that made Kay's tentacles stand on end, hissing with rage. He threw the sword aside and hurled himself at Zee, uncoiling like a tiger pouncing. Zee met him in the air, and they collided in a flurry of hateful animal blows, tearing at one another relentlessly. There was none of the grace and precision Kay had shown her in the martial forms he'd spent his life studying. It was raw, feral rage, tearing at one another with claws and teeth.

Jewel could only stare at first, afraid for Kay in spite of herself. They were going to kill each other. There was no way either of them was going to stop before at least one of them was dead. The sword was on the floor in front of her as they grappled with one another, Zee's teeth seeking Kay's throat. Kay had the advantage in size and training, but Zee was ruthless and fighting dirty, and for a moment, it looked like he might win. His teeth closed around Kay's throat and Kay shouted in pain, but the next second, Zee was releasing him with a wail as Jewel drove the sword into his back, glaring at him in undisguised hate. It wasn't a mortal wound, but it was enough that it had weakened and distracted him.

Kay attacked again, blood streaming from his throat, and this time, it was obvious he had the advantage, tearing into Zee as the other Ra'hom struggled to defend himself. Kay ripped the tentacles off Zee’s scalp in a bloody fistful, then he dug his claws in again and pulled Zee close to go for his throat. The smell of their battery acid blood was thick on the air.

When Zee fell still, Kay looked up to see Jewel climbing into the escape pod.

"Wait," he said, reaching for her.

She pointed the sword at him, still wet with Zee’s blood, as a warning while she backed into the pod. Her eyes were cold, the betrayal in them still fresh.

She closed the door between them, and the pod activated automatically, rocketing away from the ship at top speed. Jewel tried not to think about Kay watching her go.

The pod was only a little larger than a bathroom stall and circular. The floor and lower part of the walls were padded for comfort, big enough to lie down on but not stretch out completely. It clearly wasn't intended for long-term habitation. A computer panel was set into one wall. The lights dimmed whenever she wasn't moving, saving power.

She put her head on her knees, still clutching the sword tightly in one hand, her other arm around herself. Gradually, the lights dimmed all the way to darkness.