My hands were covered in blood. It oozed between my fingers, snaking down my wrists and pooling across the floor of the small room. No matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn’t get it to budge, the viscous liquid turning everything a sickening shade of scarlet.

I flinched as something bit into my skin, and looked down to see a tiny shard of glass sticking out. Cursing under my breath, I pulled the fragment out and tossed it into the trash, listening for the clink of it as it fell. I reached for yet another damp cloth, desperate to get everything cleaned up as quickly as possible. The sooner I was done, the better. I’d already worked my way through a considerable stack of cloths, most now piled high in a laundry bag to my right, which looked like the remnants of a murder scene.

The stench was overwhelming, filling my nostrils with an acrid, metallic tang. Had it been normal, human blood, it would have been horrifying, but at least I would have known where it came from. This was something different entirely. Several shades of red, a patch of blue, and a funny streak of black flowed together to make one nauseating puddle of grossness. I didn’t want to touch it, let alone clean it up, but here I was, stuck in the stuffy confines of the ship’s storeroom, crouched down in a pool of alien blood, wishing every kind of pain imaginable on the woman who had caused this mess.

Pandora had dropped a tray of vials earlier, and though she claimed it was an accident, I suspected foul play. Naturally, she hadn’t bothered to clean the aftermath up herself, but had demanded I get down on my knees and do it instead. No doubt she thought herself too important to do any grunt work. That was certainly the way she was acting, strutting about the ship like a peacock, keeping us all busy to the point of exhaustion while she messed around with a few dials and controls.

We’d been on the Vanquish for a week already, heading for Zai, and it felt like the longest week of my life. Around every corner, there was something else Pandora wanted us to do. She never gave any of us a moment to ourselves. Each morning, there was an enormous list to plow through, but we knew there would only be more jobs if we ever reached the end of it. Not that we ever did.

I understood why she was doing it, but that only served to make me more annoyed. Pandora was keeping all five of us—Navan, Bashrik, Angie, Lauren, and myself—as busy as possible, to prevent us from congregating in secret or stealing a moment to discuss plans with one another. She wasn’t an idiot; she had to know we had other reasons for wanting to be away from Vysanthe, and she was making sure we didn’t get a single second to put those reasons into action.

After all, we’d been shipped off in such a hurry, the five of us had barely had the chance to speak with one another about what we might do when we reached the Fed outpost near Zai. Queen Brisha had demanded we leave the day after my stunt at the new alchemy lab, perhaps fearing another manic attack involving an explosives belt and her beloved generators. It wasn’t ideal, since it meant we had to miss out on the mission to Queen Gianne’s underground hangar to destroy her new fleet, but there was nothing we could do about that. Navan had tried to persuade her to let us complete that mission first, but Brisha wasn’t having any of it. With guards flanking us, we’d been frog-marched from our quarters down to the waiting Vanquish.

And now, we were far away from that world, piercing the eternity of space, headed for Zai. Much to our irritation, we’d been forced to tell Pandora about the deep-space tech in the underground hangar, knowing her rebel resources might be our best bet at keeping it secret. With surprising solemnity, she had promised she would get Orion to see to it—whatever that meant. Even so, I worried what might happen if Brisha discovered the technology and the lies we’d told before Orion could do anything about it.

It was funny, the way my mind settled on certain things while I was in the middle of some menial task Pandora had set. In solitude, scrubbing for hours, it was hard not to dwell on fears and errors.

Still, at least I wasn’t in the engine room polishing the thousands of pipes, big and miniscule, that crisscrossed all over the thrumming chamber, running in labyrinthine tracks across the ceilings and walls, and even under the floor. Navan and Bashrik had been sentenced to that particular duty today, and I knew they’d come back at the next mealtime shouting at the tops of their voices, their hearing muffled by the roar of the engines. The Vanquish was not a sleek, state-of-the art machine like the Asterope, with silky smooth, purring engines—it was a military beast, built for might and power, not deep-space speed.

Sometimes, Navan and I would pass in the corridor on the way to our next tasks, and I would tap the spot just above my heart, where my climpet still flashed, the light showing my love for him was still as strong as ever. He would smile and tap his, or lift his shirt to show me, if he was feeling particularly defiant to Pandora’s surveillance. I usually preferred the latter, though I wasn’t all that keen on Pandora looking in, getting a cheap thrill out of it. Besides, knowing her, she’d probably think we were communicating in some peculiar Morse code, though she hadn’t said anything about it just yet.

Drawing my mind away from Navan, I thought of Lauren, who was in the supply closet down the hallway making an inventory of every little thing the ship had, while Angie was stuck in the laundry room cleaning every scrap of material for the dozenth time. I could already visualize her emerging from the humidity of the laundry room, her already-curly hair frizzed up into an unruly blond mass, her face deeply unimpressed. The inventory would go missing at the end of the day, meaning someone would have to do it again tomorrow, but we’d grown used to that annoyance. Pandora saw to it that every task needed repeating, purely to keep us away from one another. “The devil makes work for idle hands,” and all that.

I know what I’d like to do with my idle hands, I thought bitterly, wondering how it would feel to smack Pandora hard across the face. Delightful, I imagined.

She just would not leave us alone, to the point where she’d taken to sleeping in the same room as us. Not only that, but she was monitoring our every move with recording devices that were dotted all over the ship. Wherever I walked, the devices moved to follow me, their camera lenses glinting like eyes, surveying every corner, every walkway, every room. One was watching me right now, at the far end of the store cupboard, peering down over my shoulder. I thought of Pandora sitting in her control room, chuckling to herself as she watched the camera feeds, and felt my hands tighten around the damp, blood-soaked cloths. She really was insufferable.

Just then, the alarm on my wristband beeped, telling me it was almost three o’clock—not that time had much purpose or meaning out in space, where there was no sunlight or moonlight, only the endless expanse of stars stretching through the darkness. Even so, it felt nice to have something routine, to keep my grasp on earthly, normal things.

I hurled the last of the sodden cloths into the laundry bag, knowing Angie would hate me for dropping off so many, threw it over my shoulder, and headed out of the store cupboard. A few unsightly streaks of crimson marked the ground, but they would dry. Besides, if Pandora didn’t like it, she’d just get me to do it all over again.

Keeping my head down, I walked briskly down the hallway toward the observation deck, leaving the sack outside the laundry room on my way. I rapped on the door to let Angie know it was there, but I didn’t stay to see her irate face. It was almost my turn to check for any updates on the Note, and I was determined not to be late because of Pandora’s spillage.

I had just reached the main space of the vessel when a jolt vibrated through the ship. With the gravity drives enabled, there was no graceful floating, just the hard impact of being weighted to the ground, as though we were on land. Stumbling to one side, I knocked into the wall, grasping for a handhold to keep me upright as a second shudder rippled through the vessel, shaking it violently. Still gripping the side of the wall, I peered into the main space, trying to see what was going on. There were no windows in the main chamber of the Vanquish, but the cockpit was on the other side of it, the door wide open, revealing Pandora in the captain’s chair, her hands darting over the control panel, struggling to steer the ship.

I turned as the sound of erratic footsteps echoed in the passageway behind me. Navan, Bashrik, Angie, and Lauren were all running toward me, swaying from side to side with the jarring movements of the ship.

“What’s going on?” Navan asked as we moved into the main space and headed for the cockpit.

“We’re passing through a field of metal debris. It came out of nowhere!” Pandora yelled, her fingertips moving so fast they were almost a blur. “Bashrik, take the second set of controls and help me navigate! Lauren, Angie, secure any loose items in the cockpit. The last thing we need is something crashing down and hitting one of us while we’re trying to steer. Riley, Navan, man the force guns—we need to push this debris away from the ship before it does too much damage!” she barked, her eyes never leaving the screen in front of her, where objects kept popping up, flashing red when they got too close.

“I don’t have any training with weaponry like this. I’m used to two-man fighting vessels, not giant military gunships!” I replied anxiously, while the others hurried to their posts. Only Navan hung back, waiting for me.

“Just figure it out, Riley! We don’t have time for your pathetic insecurities!” Pandora bellowed back, her eyes narrowing as she took us past a particularly aggressive block of compressed metal.

With my cheeks flushing angrily, I turned and took off through the main space of the ship, with Navan in hot pursuit. We were headed for the weapons control section on the floor beneath the one we were currently running across. Turning down the corridor, we sprinted to the end, where a stairwell disappeared into the metal ground. With our booted feet clanging on the winding, steel steps, we reached the bottom of the ship, sprinting in the direction of the gun-pods, the vessel still jolting back and forth, knocking us off balance. Well, knocking me off balance. Navan seemed to figure out how to run in a straight line, despite the jarring movements.

Reaching the reinforced glass gun-pods, which stuck out beneath the belly of the ship like transparent eggs, we sat next to one another, staring out at the debris that floated across the landscape in every direction. The weapons panels lit up, showing the targets that surrounded the vessel. Each one beeped and flashed bright red if it got too close to the ship, much like on the panel Pandora was using.

“Where the heck did all of this come from?” I asked, staring down at the controls. Five buttons dotted the side of the screen, each holding the key to a different weapon. “And which of these buttons will get rid of it?”

Navan came over and showed me which button held the symbol for force guns. “It’s hard to say where all this debris came from. It could’ve come from any direction. This stuff could’ve been floating across space for years, but nobody bothers with a cleanup unless it’s in their jurisdiction. Even then, most don’t bother,” he replied grimly, taking up the pod next door and tapping his own force-gun button.

“Do we just fire?” I wondered, feeling nervous. I had excelled in my fighter-pilot training, but this was a whole different field of weaponry. The ship was bigger, the guns were huge, and there was a lot at stake. Unlike on the training field, where everything was a simulation, there was no restart button here.

“Yes,” Navan said. His hands moved across the panel, targeting blocks of debris, the pulse of his force gun sending them hurtling away from the vessel. It looked simple enough…

Looking down at my panel and pretending I was back in the fighter ships, I took a deep breath and told myself to focus. This was no different from how we had practiced back on Vysanthe. Steeling myself, I let my hands do the work, moving deftly across the panel. It was only when I targeted a large chunk of ominous-looking metal that I realized Navan’s button was in a different position from mine. By then, it was too late.

Without warning, an enormous blast made the Vanquish tremble as a trail of blinding white light shot outward, slicing the chunk of metal clean in two. Everything beyond the ship played out in silence, but I could tell the impact on the metal was huge. A moment later, the two halves veered off, with one jagged shard heading straight for us. Navan scrambled to rectify the situation, his hands darting against the screen, but the metal was too close, and too quick. It was going to hit us, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

It collided with the Vanquish head-on, the force of the collision sending me flying forward, straight out of my seat. Had Navan not stuck out his arm to catch me, I would’ve smacked into the solid glass of the pod wall, no doubt breaking my neck in the process.

“Are you okay?” Navan asked, putting his arm around me.

I nodded, the air knocked clean out of me. I didn’t get the chance to say anything else, as the sound of thundering boots ricocheted down the hallway behind us. Pandora charged through the underbelly of the ship, her eyes glittering with fury.

“What are you playing at down here? You almost got us killed!” she snarled, glancing at the control panel. I noticed she didn’t look at Navan while flinging her accusations. It was clear it was my fault this had happened. “You selected the cannons, you idiot! I told you to use force guns!” she shouted, pushing me roughly to one side and sitting down in my seat. Immediately, she set to work, skillfully sending the debris away from the ship, her hands moving expertly.

“I’ve never used this panel before!” I tried to defend myself, but it fell on deaf ears. She wasn’t interested in what I had to say.

“Damage report?” Pandora asked, pressing the comms button on the control panel, while the force guns continued to push the debris out of our path.

Bashrik’s voice crackled through. “Minimal damage. The hull took a beating, but there are no breaches. Guns are operational, engines are operational, shields are operational. It’s just a cosmetic issue. The old girl won’t look as pretty again,” he remarked, offering a tight laugh.

“Very good. Keep running diagnostics. If anything has been damaged, I want to know about it immediately,” Pandora insisted.

“Will keep you updated,” Bashrik replied. A click signaled his return to running checks on the ship, the conversation over.

“Navan, go and help navigate while your brother runs diagnostics,” Pandora instructed, still not looking up from her work.

“Of course,” he said, flashing me an apologetic glance. I could sense the rage rippling off Pandora in waves, but surely there was something I could do to help? I had made a simple mistake—anyone could have done it. The only problem was, it wasn’t anyone who had done it. It was me. I waited for her to give me something to do, but the words never came.

Taking me by the hand, Navan led me out of the gun-pod and up to the main deck, where Bashrik was darting between several panels, a frantic look on his face. Ahead, the debris still floated across the vast windshield of the Vanquish, but Pandora’s skillfully placed force blasts were sending each one out of our way, keeping us on a steady course to safety. I hated that I had let the team down. More than that, I hated that she had seen me do it. Undoubtedly, she would have a few savage words with me later, once she had finished saving our skins.

With the prospect of a verbal lashing glaring like a beacon in my mind, I wondered if getting split apart by a giant shard of metal might be more pleasant after all. At least, that way, I would never have to see the anger and derision in Pandora’s eyes again.

Standing back, I watched as Navan helped Bashrik on the controls, feeling stupid and useless. Angie and Lauren had finished fixing all the loose items into place, and now they were busy watching the path of the Vanquish as it weaved through the remainder of the debris field. And so, I stood there, doing the same, waiting for the moment when we were out of harm’s way.

Eventually, the last few pieces of debris disappeared, the rest of it drifting along behind us. As soon as that last chunk vanished into the darkness of space, I heard the ominous sound of heavy boots on the metal walkway once more. It was like hearing the executioner coming toward me.

Pandora stormed into the cockpit, her furious eyes seeking me out. We might have navigated out of a treacherous path, but I was in deep trouble now.