In my dreams, I tried to run towards something. I couldn't see what it was, but I knew I wanted it more than anything, but my feet were tangled in a sticky mess. Long cords wrapped around my arms as I tried to free myself, but, whatever I did, I was trapped.

“Hey, darlin’. Zayda, we’re almost there.”

The dream released me as soon as I felt the touch of his hand on my cheek.

I sat up and he stepped back from the narrow bunk.

The cold weight I'd carried in my chest all day got heavier, but there was nothing to do but carry on.

“Be right there.” I nodded towards the privacy booth and Mack headed back to the cockpit.

I splashed water on my face, rebraided my hair, and took a selfish minute to stare into the mirror.

Good.

At least I looked as crappy as I felt.

Normally, I could tell myself that whatever the job was, I'd get through it. This is what I had been trained for. That the Agency, that Stanton, had saved me and that's where all of my loyalty should be.

This time, the words were like ashes in my mouth. Bitter and useless, and all I had left.

I slid into the copilot’s seat and fastened my harness. Mack’s tension filled the cockpit.

“Ready to see what's there?”

He nodded, jaw tight, and then punched us back into normal space.

What the hell?

We emerged in a meteor field, and only Mack’s reflexes kept us out of the way of an oncoming chunk of ice.

But that wasn't what caught my attention.

In front of us floated a giant spaceship. Rather, the remains of one.

The hull was battered, pieces ripped away and covered in metal scaffolding. I couldn't tell if it was being repaired or broken down completely.

“Mack...” I looked over at him and undid my harness, kneeling by his side and violating every safety protocol in the book.

His face was pale, bloodless, his eyes stunned and wide.

“Mack, talk to me. What is that?”

“The Daedalus. What happened to The Daedalus?” he whispered.

And he didn't seem to hear anything I said.

Before I could ask for more, in a shimmer of pale light, a cluster of tiny silver ships, sharp, triangular, and deadly, formed a cloud between us and the wrecked ship.

Their noses all pointed at us, and I braced for weapons fire.

But nothing came.

“Hunter’s Darts. But they're not attacking.” He blinked, seemed to realize where he was for the first time.

“Zayda, strap back in. This isn’t going to be good.”

I followed his orders, but they didn't advance, didn't fire.

“Can we go around them?”

Mack eased The Queen to port. And the cloud of ships moved with eerie synchronicity, keeping us away from the Daedalus.

No matter how we moved, they blocked us.

“We can't go there. I can’t go home.”

No, he couldn't. But I worried about something else.

“Mack, they knew we were here so fast. How could they know we were coming? They didn’t have time to pick us up on sensors and get into formation.”

The question snapped him out of his trance. “Wherever my brothers are, they wouldn't still be here. Not with Hunters around. No one would be. It's just an empty ghost now.” But he stared long at the ships facing us. “I want answers.”

So did I. Brothers, Hunters, I wanted answers to it all.

But first things first.

As one, the swarm of Hunters slowly advanced.

“I don't think they want us here anymore,” I whispered.

“I don't want to be here, either.” He glanced over. “You think you're pretty sure how that weird engine works?”

“I think so. Maybe. I've seen specs for it.”

“Good enough. Let's make sure they can’t follow us, then.” And, over my protests, he slapped the fold engine on.

For a second, I was pulled in every direction, turned inside out and then back again.

And, suddenly, it stopped.

We were in orbit around Orem Station, Minor blinking above us.

“You were right.” Mack caught his breath faster than I did, but even he had a slight tremor to his voice. “Let's not do that again unless it's absolutely necessary.” I nodded my agreement. “But I'm glad we’re not there anymore. Let's take her in.”

As we left The Queen’s bay, I touched Mack’s arm. He froze but didn't pull away.

“We need to go see Granny.”

“No. You need to go back to the hive. Tell her the ship’s running fine. More than fine.”

He was stalling me, but something had to be said.

I touched the back of his neck, where the marks of the mind wipe had faded almost to invisibility. “But there's more to it, and you know it.”

Mack’s eyes bored into mine, demanding questions I couldn’t yet answer. “And of everyone down here we know, Granny seems like she might be able to help.”

He snorted, and his fingers wrapped around mine. A little bit of the heavy weight fell away.

“Void knows, she knows everything else. Let's go.”

* * *

For once, Granny seemed surprised to see us. “Everything all right, children?”

“The Queen checked out just fine,” I said. Mack still looked stunned. For now, I’d talk for both of us. “Interesting little surprise in the engine room.”

She smiled. “Thought you'd find that.”

“That checked out fine, too. Which turned out to be a good thing.”

Her eyebrows rose slightly, but that was the only indication she gave of the significance of what I had said.

“If you've got time, we'd like to talk to you about a few things we found on our trip.”

She looked between us, then nodded. “Come on back. Marga, if anybody comes by, tell them I'm out for a bit.”

A chorus of children's voices drowned out any response Marga might've made.

As we went down the hallway, I caught a glimpse of the blonde woman we'd rescued that morning from the ghosts. “Is she all right?”

“She will be.”

Granny Z stopped at a door and slid open a panel. She entered a code sequence. Nothing happened for long seconds, then Mack pulled me back as the wall before us opened into blackness.

“Sounded like we might need a little more privacy than usual, to talk about your trip.” She stepped through into the dark. “Hurry up, children, the door’s timed to close quickly.”

Instead of going up, to where I had thought most of the living spaces were located, we went down, under the hive, under the decking of the level.

“Where are we?” I wondered, looking around as the narrow stairway suddenly opened up into a room ablaze with light.

“I'm an old dragon, and this is my horde.” She sat at a round table, its wood surface gleaming with age.

It wasn't a bad description. Every nook and cranny was filled with countless mementos.

At a glance, I would guess only a small portion had any value other than for the memories, but some of those that did… It was no wonder Granny Z wasn't worried about charging her guests for credits.

“I'll give you a walk through the museum anytime,” she said dryly. “But I don’t think that’s why you wanted to talk.”

I looked at Mack, but he seemed lost in thought. I didn't know how, but if the memories were returning, I hoped it was for the best.

“Do you have any way to find and extract a tracker from a person?”

Granny blinked. “That was a little more upfront than I'd expected from you. Any particular reason you're wondering?”

“Yes.”

She didn't ask any more questions, just wandered into a corner of the room, rooting through shelves and muttering.

Mack turned to me. “You think there's a tracker.”

I guided him to a chair at the table. “Something was obviously done to you. Those ships, those Hunters, they knew you were there the instant we dropped out of warp. Almost like they knew to expect you.” I took a deep breath. “I think when your memories were taken, you were tagged, yes.”

Anger narrowed his eyes, tightened his jaw. “Get it out.”

Granny came back with a scanner several generations newer than what was up at the clinic. I looked at it, then her. “And I'm the one that's not upfront?”

She shrugged and handed it over. “You just don’t ask the right questions.”

“Let’s start with the easy places.” I ran the scanner down one arm, then the other. Nothing.

Over the broad plains of his chest, hotly aware that the scanner followed the same path my hands had taken down his skin the night before.

“Turn around, son.”

Across the breadth of his shoulders, then... “There it is, the little bastard.”

The scanner lit up again as I rechecked. There is was, right under Mack’s left shoulder blade.

He stiffened.

“At least we know about it now, right?” I rubbed his shoulder. “Come on, let’s see about getting it out.”

Mack slid his shirt off and I caught my breath.

Granny’s eyes met mine and, for the first time, she looked shocked.

His back was covered in scars, thick and thin ones, straight and curved, until it was a tapestry of pain.

I ran my hand down the skin. The texture was smooth, but the marks told their own story.

How could I not have known?

Then I kicked myself. Easily enough. I'd never seen his back in the light.

“I think we’ve found the cause of some of those nightmares,” I whispered.

Mack shook his head. “Other stuff to deal with first.”

Maybe. What I saw couldn’t be forgotten. But if he could deal with it, so could I.

“There it is.” I found the insertion mark, blended in with the rest of the scars.

I pressed, and could feel it just under the skin. “Doesn’t look like we’ll have to get too deep into the muscle.”

Granny stood up again. “I've got a little bit of numbing agent upstairs, keep it around for the kids.”

“Got a knife down here?” I couldn’t blame Mack for the carefully controlled rage in his voice. “Use it.”

While Granny took a surprisingly long time to find a blade, he wrapped his arm around my waist and rested his forehead on my chest.

I started to speak, but he shook his head. “No. Nothing else until we get this thing out of me. Please, darlin’.”

The anger had passed from his voice, leaving only exhaustion.

I stroked his hair in silence until Granny returned. “Here we are, children. Let's do this.” She started, then handed me the blade. “Your hands are probably steadier than mine these days. Don’t tell anyone, though.”

It wasn't deep. I had the tiny dull brass disk out and in my hand almost as soon as I'd made the first cut.

“What do we do with it?”

“Give it to me.”

“I have a better idea,” Granny said. “I'll be right back.” She took the tracker and disappeared back up the stairs.

Mack reached for his shirt.

“Wait for me to bandage it, or we’re going to have to go shopping for more shirts for you as well.”

But the cut had already started healing.

I thought about that. Thought about what I knew or guessed about him. How deeply and how often the cuts would have to have been made to leave scars like that.

Granny came back smiling wickedly.

“Gave it to the children. Told them to take turns hiding it. I'd give them each fifteen credits if they made sure it was in the worst smelly places they could find.”

Her smile faded. “Is this to do with what's happening on Minor?”

Mack and I looked at each other, startled. “What do you know about that?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I know more about the station and that place than probably anybody alive. People are being taken off the streets of my station. Maybe not always good people, but still, my people. People they think no one will miss. Up they go. And, in time, away.”

I sat suddenly, knees shaking. The prison was just a convenient place to stash me when I made trouble, was somehow discovered copying over the files. Wasn’t it?

What if it was another piece of the puzzle? What if it was the key?

Mack’s arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind, and I leaned into him, into his support.

No more choosing. No more lies.

I reached up for his hand, twining my fingers with his, and started the story.

It didn't take long to untangle it all. The mission, the evidence I'd found of collusion between the station's governor and the criminal syndicates. Worse, the large transactions I couldn’t trace.

We had a mystery player in the game, and in my bones, I knew it was a deadly opponent.

“Maybe,” I finished up. “Maybe the prison is just another part of that. Maybe they need people for some reason, to be moved to Minor, where they can get the labor out of them.”

Granny Z nodded. “And when they’re not useful even there, the ghosts come.”

“When nothing else is left, they’re still bodies, still parts.” Mack rubbed his head. “That’s always going to be useful to someone.”