Raisa ignored the pain in her side as she pressed between the metal wall and the jumbled mess of wires that seemed to lead nowhere. None of it made logical sense. Some of them looped around, only to head back in the direction from which they came. Others were spliced together in ways she wouldn’t consider safe. Honestly, it was a wonder the ship had flown as long as it had.

“Well?” Viktor’s voice called from the opening in the wall. She shone her handheld light toward him but couldn’t make out his face. The hand strap was broken, so she had to grip the rectangular device with her fingers. “See anything?”

Raisa placed her hands on the wires, trying to feel where the currents flowed. Some were completely dead. She found one that felt hot to the touch and appeared to be pulling more current than it should. “Maybe. I’m going to follow—”

“No, that’s far enough. Come out,” Jackson called. “It’s not safe. We’re having a hard time seeing you.”

She gave a small laugh at his order, even as she followed the wire away from the wall opening. “Come in here and make me.”

“What is it with the female crew we take on always crawling into tight spaces?” Viktor asked, his voice softer than before. “Mei in the ceiling. Alexis in the air vents. Raisa in the walls. Violette, you have any urges to crawl under the floor grates?”

“Whose Mei?” Raisa called, feeling comforted by the sound of voices. The light she carried didn’t reveal much but dust and wires.

“The wife of Jackson and Lochlann’s original captain,” Viktor answered. “They live on Qurilixen.”

“Never heard of it,” Raisa said.

“They’re a bunch of shifter—hey, watch it,” Viktor made a small sound of irritation.

“As the ship security officer, I command—” Jackson tried to order.

She laughed louder, cutting him off. “Take it easy. I know what I’m doing.”

Raisa hoped she was right. She didn’t feel any immediate danger, but the system was unstable. She inched along the inside of the wall, trying not to scrape her back on the rows of bolts holding the wall panels in place. As she moved, she tapped her fingers to the hot wire to follow where it led.

“Raisa?” she heard Jackson yell.

“I’m fine,” she reassured him. His concern was both annoying and sweet—maybe more annoying than sweet. She was a grown woman who had made her way around the high skies and numerous planets just fine. Sure, Torgan wasn’t a prime example of that, but hey, here she was—alive.

Her light shone over a bracket that had a screw loose. She automatically lifted her hand, willing the screw to tighten. It moved without her having to touch it.

The wires continued to thread in various directions, some up to the ceiling or into the floor. What in the galaxies was going on in this ship? She followed the hot wire, ducking under cold pipes as she was led deeper into the ship, away from the wall. Bundles of tubes were strung together, possibly for the in-room medics. She came to an area that had a little more space to maneuver in, probably to allow for repairs. She followed the wire until it disappeared into a wall.

Raisa felt along a bolted seam. Most of them had been welded shut, but for a small access panel near the floor. She flattened her hand and hovered it over the bolts, causing them to slowly unscrew, one by one. Without this gift, she wouldn’t have been able to open the panel. The bolts clanked on the other side of the barrier. When she’d finished, she tried to push the panel. It wouldn’t move. She searched for something to wedge into the sides to pry it out, and in the end had to use her short nails. With considerable effort, she managed to loosen it enough that she could will it out of the wall. She hovered her hands over it and pulled at the metal. It fell in her lap.

Raisa shone her light into the dark hole, expecting to see more access corridors and wires. Nothing else should be this deep in the ship’s belly.

As her light hit a smooth white floor, she wasn’t so sure. She glanced at the panel she’d pulled. It was sprayed with a thick white lacquer and had a foreign word painted on it. She assumed to mark it as an access panel.

She knelt close to the floor and flashed her light, trying to see inside. Metal posts held a platform, so she couldn’t look up. Clutching her light, she cautiously crawled forward. Whatever this dark room was it hummed with power.

She thought she heard an echo of her name but ignored the shout. Fear crept over her, knotting her stomach with anticipation and dread. Whatever this room was, it didn’t feel like it belonged in this ship.

The floor was cool to the touch as she made her way inside. She bumped her knee on the access hatch and the light dropped to the floor. At the sound of the crash, lights illuminated the room.

Raisa pressed her lips tightly together to keep from gasping and held very still. When nothing moved, she slowly made her way from under a table and stood.

The small room had been painted white with the same plastic lacquer of the panel door. The concave molding between the floor and walls erased any sense of an edge. Aside from the gray metal table, the floor space was empty. Two walls were filled with small, transparent drawers. They looked to be full of vials. A holographic screen descended from the ceiling, but the menu was unreadable. She felt more than heard an air vent pulling air from the room and guessed that was why it lacked the dust that filled the corridors.

As she walked, the floor vibrated and opened. A padded medical chair rose into the center of the room. The gears made no sound except for a light thunk-thunk when it fitted and latched into place. Clearly made for humanoids, the table had leg and arm extensions and straps.

Raisa held very still, unsure what to make of the room, only to feel a strong sense that she should not have found it. Seeing a seam that had to be the way out, she reached into the crawlspace and pulled the panel back into place, using small grooves on the white side to hold it. It suctioned and sealed the moment it touched it against the wall. The air vent stopped and silence filled the room.

Raisa walked cautiously around the chair. She lifted her hand to touch a glass drawer holding the vials. At the contact, a small screen lit up like an inventory of that container.

“Rinabac, Grarf, Tolofat, Lithemadix.” She read the alien words. Were these medications? Some of the markings on the vials looked vaguely familiar, but she wasn’t a doctor.

“Computer?” she asked.

A low tone sounded, as if to signify the mainframe did not recognize her.

Where in all the Bravon fire balls was she? Who were these people? Why did they have a secret operating room in the middle of their ship?

The wall opened, and a small orb appeared. It drifted forward. Raisa held up her hand defensively to block lights as the unit scanned her. A hard zap hit the tip of her finger, causing it to bleed as if she’d pricked it on a needle. She stuck the finger in her mouth as the orb retracted the way it came.

“Message received,” she mumbled, “the grumpy computer doesn’t want to talk.”

When nothing else happened, she turned back to the inventory screen.

Raisa lightly pressed her finger to the word Grarf to see if the drawer would open. It was stupid. She realized that the moment she touched it. She glanced back to the wall to make sure the orb didn’t return.

The vials within the drawer moved and she saw a needle come down and pull liquid out of the vial. She couldn’t see where it went, but she closed her eyes to sense if there were any changes in the electrics or mechanics of the unit. Following a tingling sensation with her Angelion senses, she heard a small hissing noise, and then a series of clicks.

“What have you done now, Raisa?” she whispered to herself. She looked up to make sure nothing was going to come from the ceiling and inject her like in the captain’s quarters. She had no idea what these vials were—medicines, biological weapons, poisons—or what species they were intended for.

When the Grarf didn’t appear to do anything, she inched her way toward the door. It was smooth with no handle or hand scanner. As she touched the surface, the door opened to let her pass into a dark hall.

Realizing she still clutched the light, she shone it into the short passageway before stepping in. The door closed behind her, leaving her in the dark a few seconds before another flat holographic image appeared about an inch away from the far wall. This time it was a floating, floor-length viewing screen of one of the ship’s main corridors. A small button flashed in the corner, only to freeze when Lucien ran past. Once he was gone, the button flashed again.

As Raisa walked toward the hologram, she detected movement on her left. She jolted in alarm, turning to find a humanoid behind a transparent panel.

She pulled back in fright and the light slipped from her fingers. She scrambled to pick it up.

Her hands shaking, Raisa shone her light upward to find a stasis chamber. The soft glow of the holographic image gave little illumination. In the chamber, the humanoid’s blue-tinted skin almost seemed to reflect the blue bedding, until Raisa realized it wasn’t bedding but a shimmering gown covering the woman from neck to calves.

“Hey, Blue,” Raisa whispered, giving her the only name she could think of in her nervous state. “What are you doing in here?”

She waited in apprehension as she shone the light on Blue’s face to watch for signs of life. Blue didn’t move. Her dark hair was brushed back behind her. Someone had taken great care in laying her out for hypersleep. Raisa drew the light down over the woman’s shoulder and arm. Peeks of Blue’s dark hair could be seen along her waist. Her hands rested at her sides, the nails long. Her feet were bare, with five elongated toes on each.

The movement Raisa had seen was an injector retracting from the woman’s arm.

Oops. Did I do that?

Raisa shone the light on the woman’s face, watching to see if anything changed after the shot. There were no signs of life. Blue looked frozen in time. The Grarf, if that was what was injected, didn’t appear to have an effect.

Raisa turned to look at the opposite wall. Instead of a stasis chamber, there was a tank filled with a dark substance. She crept closer, pressing the light to the transparent barrier to try to see what was inside. As she slid it along the tank, she found a skeletal frame floating in the dark liquid.

Her breath caught and held. The creature was not exactly humanoid, in the sense it had eight bony protrusions coming from the waist like the legs of a spider, but the torso and arms of a man.

Raisa hurried toward the image of the ship’s corridor. Jackson ran past the screen as she tried to press the frozen button. It didn’t move. She pressed it again and again, trying to get out. Only when Jackson was out of sight did a door swing toward her on electric hinges, letting her walk through the corridor’s wall. As she stepped out, she pressed her back to the far wall and watched as the door close.

She slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

“Do you hear anything?” Jackson yelled.

“Raisa,” one of the men yelled from the direction Lucien had gone.

“Raisa,” came another voice from the opposite way.

They were searching inside the walls for her.

She tried to answer, but her voice caught and she had to swallow. Her hands trembled and, for a moment, as she stared at the very normal-looking wall, she wondered if she’d hallucinated the secret medical chamber.

“Start removing every fifth panel,” Jackson ordered. “Hurry. Let’s find her. She’s been out of contact too long.” He came around the corner mumbling, “I knew it was a bad idea to let her go in there. Hardheaded woman—” The last word was cut off as he stumbled to a stop. “Raisa?”

“I…” She lifted a finger to point at the wall.

“I found her,” Jackson yelled as he rushed toward her.

“I found…” She tried again. Her heart beat incredibly fast, and she felt lightheaded as if the adrenaline levels in her body suddenly dropped.

“Raisa?” Jackson knelt beside her. His concerned eyes held her gaze. “Why didn’t you answer me when I called?”

“Where was she?” Viktor asked. He jogged down the corridor, followed by Lochlann and Alexis. She’d only met Lochlann in passing, but he seemed a decent fellow. Definitely not one to captain a crew with strange tank creatures and woman in stasis next to a secret laboratory. Lucien, Violette, and Dev came from the other direction.

“Where did you come from?” Lucien asked. “We were on both ends of this corridor. How did you slip past us?”

She took a deep breath and gestured at the wall. It occurred to her that the room she’d been in was soundproofed. She hadn’t heard their calls for her after she’d sealed herself in. “I might have found your problem.”

“Is there a loose connection behind that panel?” Alexis asked, placing her hand on the wall. Her eyes took on a faraway look, as if she wasn’t seeing her hand but something in her mind. “The schematics I downloaded don’t have anything of importance in this location, some communications wires and possibly suction delivery tubes, which was an optional installation when these ships were purchased new, though I haven’t seen evidence of any.”

Raisa tried to stand, uncomfortable with the way they crowded around her and looked down as she sat on the floor. Jackson took her arm and helped guide her up the wall. She continued to lean against it, not because she needed the support, but because the corridor was full. As far as she knew, the only person on the ship that was missing was Rick, who was probably piloting the craft.

Oh, and the blue lady behind the wall.

She cleared her throat. “The electrical malfunction was most likely caused by a significant power drain on your system, which took priority over all else. Rick mentioned he had a new viewing screen installed in his quarters. If you all installed new technology, and simply spliced into existing connections, it was only a matter of time before it overloaded the grid.”

“I knew Rick was to blame,” Viktor said.

“One viewing screen wouldn’t have done it. I’m guessing it was a bunch of little things over the years. There is a lot of bizarre wiring choices in this ship. Wires loop for no discernable reason. Things are spliced and connected. I even saw a length of wire that had been cut and repaired in two spots rather than running a whole new line.”

Everyone turned to look at Viktor.

Viktor lifted his hands. “Hey, I’ve been telling you all for years I’m just patching things together, and that we needed to put more money into real repairs. No one cared as long as I could keep us limping along.”

Raisa felt a little sorry for him, so she added, “I’m guessing a lot of these repairs were done before you came into possession of the ship. Unless you’ve been flying it for thirty or forty years?”

“Ha! See, not my fault.” Viktor smiled as if vindicated. “Still Rick’s doing.”

Raisa watched them all carefully as she spoke. Not one of them gave any indication they were worried by what was behind the wall. It was possible they didn’t know.

“How did you get this ship?” she asked.

“Our former captain, Samantha, won it in a high-stakes card game,” said Lucien.

“Gambling?” Raisa repeated in surprise. “So you didn’t have it inspected before you flew?”

“We looked at it,” Viktor said.

“It’s flown just fine,” Lucien added.

“We didn’t have a sale inspection,” Dev clarified. The man was unnerving as he towered over them. It wasn’t his red skin or dark eyes, but the stern way he stared at her, like she was a child in trouble. Or maybe it was the reminder that his Bevlon side and her Angelion side were supposed to hate each other. Raisa had no reason to hate him.

“Why do you ask?” Jackson studied her. “What does this have to do with the power drain on the ship?”

Raisa wasn’t sure how to start, so she stepped toward the wall that had opened into the secret room and ran a hand over the metal. Aside from the normal seams, it looked like any other section of hall. “I don’t know how to open it.”

“Do you want me to get the tools?” Viktor offered, already rushing away to do just that.

“What are you looking for?” Jackson asked, placing his hand on the smooth surface.

“There’s this room,” she tried to explain. “On the other side of this wall.”

“You sense the mechanics behind the wall?” asked Violette.

“No. Yes, but no,” Raisa said, aware that all eyes were on her. “The wall opens. I walked out of it. There is this corridor that leads to a white room, and…”

As she spoke she watched their expressions move from listening to doubtful to concerned.

Jackson placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Raisa. We should never have let you go inside the walls to check. It’s not safe in there. Maybe the pain medicine I gave you is having a strange side effect, and you’re seeing things. We should get you back to bed so you can heal.”

“Let me try this from the other direction. I was in the wall looking at your wiring system—which is messier than lykan fur, for the record—and I found a hot wire that was drawing more power than is normal for a ship, especially considering the current power fluctuations. I followed the wire—”

“Were you electrocuted?” Lucien guessed.

“No. I followed it to an access panel. I pulled it out and crawled into a secret room on this ship. It was white, with an alien language I couldn’t understand, and there were these vials, and a surgical medical chair shaped for humanoids, with straps. And I pushed a vial button that ended up injecting—”

“You injected yourself with an alien drug?” Violette questioned.

“No, I injected…” She frowned. They were having a hard time believing her. She couldn’t blame them. This was their ship and she was new to them. They didn’t know if she had a history of insanity. Claiming there was a dead alien and a woman in some kind of a hypersleep chamber wouldn’t help her case.

“Yes?” Jackson prompted. His gaze was worried, but he didn’t look at her like the others. He was trying to believe her.

“There was an orb and it zapped my finger.” Her fingertip had a spot of drying blood on it and she held it up as proof.

“It’s all right, Raisa.” Jackson moved to place his arm around her shoulders. “We’ll keep an eye on the wall so you don’t need to worry. You concentrate on rest. You’ve been through a lot.”

“No!” Raisa slipped out from his hold and slapped her hand against the wall. This time she made contact with her bleeding finger. “It was right here.”

As the tiny drop of her blood touched the metal, the wall absorbed the red smear.

“What just happened?” Dev asked, trying to protectively force his wife behind his back. Violette grimaced in annoyance and pushed her way back around to watch.

The wall made a noise. Jackson placed a hand on her shoulder and tried to urge her away.

“What’s it doing?” Alexis asked.

The hidden door opened, swinging inward to reveal the corridor.

“I told you!” Raisa exclaimed. “There’s a secret room.”

“Holy black hole.” Viktor dropped the tools he carried. “What did you guys do?”

Raisa tried to step inside. Both Dev and Jackson grabbed her arms to hold her back.

“I want to go,” Alexis said, sounding excited.

“I want to see, too,” Violette added.

“I’m good. You have fun,” said Lucien.

“As security officers, only Jackson and I will go in,” Dev decided.

“I’ve already been in. Besides, you need me to open doors.” Raisa lifted her finger. She had no idea if that were true or not. “It has my blood profile on file now.”

Dev sighed.

Jackson reluctantly nodded. “Stay between us.”

Jackson stepped in first. Raisa followed him, only to stop in the doorway and reach back. “Viktor, hand me my light?”

He fumbled to pick it up from the floor but finally handed it over.

The corridor walls were now empty. “There were two…”

“Two what?” Dev started to follow her—but the door closed behind her to lock him out.