“You’re Adriana Price,” the captain said with no small amount of accusation.

Someone powered up a Price plasma rifle. I’d known they’d had them. I’d seen them as they’d pushed past me in the tunnel. I hadn’t thought the AU crew would use them against me, though.

But then, I’d also known this moment was coming.

Ratbag squirmed in my arms. I’d picked him up as soon as he’d come running into the stunned group of people with me. He licked my face, sensing my disquiet.

The captain stared at me as if I was a puzzle he’d finally solved.

“You cut off your hair,” he said.

I said nothing. What could I say? I was the monster’s creation.

His eyes scanned my clothing. Far from top-tier. They settled on the dried tear tracks on my face. I looked nothing like the newsfeed photos.

“López, Johnson,” he said. “Secure the area.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” the officers replied, their voices taut with tension.

The captain continued to stare at me as orders were given to his men and they fanned out. I started to fidget. I was acutely aware of the dead body of their engineer off to the side. Killed by my father’s security detail.

I had to stop calling them a detail, I thought inanely. They were a force of destruction, not a protection squad. I chewed on my bottom lip.

Tremblay ran a hand over his face, scratching his chin.

“You’ve been hiding in here since the coup?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

“You don’t say much,” he commented mildly.

I didn’t know what he wanted from me. He should have been mad. He should have been yelling at me. Arresting me, maybe.

He did none of those things. He just stared at me as his men disappeared in between Aquila’s electronic towers.

One guard had remained behind with the officer who’d suffered a head injury. Both were watching me and the captain closely. The one with all his faculties still intact, held his plasma rifle loosely in both hands. Powered up.

I flicked a glance at the gun and then a glance at Tremblay’s own pistol attached to his uniform trousers. The filleting knife was on the opposite thigh. I was defenceless.

Captain Tremblay let out a slow breath of air and said, “Why did you help us?”

“Because he has to be stopped,” I whispered.

“He’s your father,” the captain pointed out.

“He sold me to the mayor,” I said. The words sounded childish. I scowled at the need I felt to gain this man’s trust. The words that tumbled from my lips in desperation.

What would he care about my family problems?

“The mayor?” he said, still studying me.

I nodded my head.

Commander López returned then. She looked between the captain and myself, and then at the officer standing guard over the one with the head injury.

“Captain?” she said.

Tremblay didn’t take his eyes off me. “Yes, Commander?”

“We’ve found the food synthesiser,” she said. “And what looks like a nest.”

He did look at her briefly then.

“Explain?” he said, returning his attention to me.

“It’d be better if you saw it yourself, sir,” López said.

The captain nodded. “Lead the way, Ms Price,” he ordered.

I winced.

Ratbag gave a little whine, which made me loosen my grip on him. And then with an enthusiastic yip, he wiggled himself free and took off running toward the centre of the computer room.

“How did she get a dog onboard?” López said quietly behind me.

“Privilege,” the captain replied making me sad.

I walked the entire way feeling like the captain was drilling nails into the back of my head. Ratbag had beaten us there and was excitedly jumping around, yapping at all the officers, and trying to show them what a good boy he was.

None of the officers standing around my pit paid him any attention. Their eyes were all for my…nest.

Captain Tremblay came to a stop beside the depression in the gel floor. He stared at all the pillows. At the neatly folded blanket. At the datapad lying innocuously off to the side. Finally, his eyes landed on the synthesiser.

For an extremely long time, he didn’t say a thing.

And then, “Care to explain, Ms Price?”

“It’s Adi,” I said.

He turned to look at me, a scowl marring his features.

“I think I’ll stick with Ms Price,” he said levelly. “The synthesiser?”

“It was here when I got here. As well as the pillows.”

“And the dip in the gel flooring?” he queried.

I nodded my head.

“This does not paint you in a good light,” the captain said.

“How so?” I asked.

“Aquila did this.”

“Before he went…rogue.”

“Are you sure?”

Could I be? I’d come here after he’d gone rogue. But he’d permitted me to use the computer core room as a hiding place before that. So, did the AI prepare this nest for me before my father did something to his processors?

“I think it was beforehand,” I said.

“You think?” the captain asked doubtfully.

I sighed. Glanced around at all the men. No one moved. The captain gave no orders. He wanted me to say what I had to say in front of them all. He wasn’t going to make this any easier for me. And how could I blame him?

I was Nathan Price’s daughter.

“I needed a place to hide,” I said, resigning myself to this public humiliation. “I asked Aquila where that would be. He offered me sanctuary here where he could protect me.”

“Why? Why you? Why here? And why did you need to hide?”

“My father,” I said, which in retrospect was the wrong thing to say to a bunch of officers who’d just fought their way out of their own brig, had three of their people killed and another gravely wounded, by my father’s men.

“I see,” the captain said unconvincingly.

“You don’t understand,” I rushed to say.

“I understand your father has taken over the ship, corrupted our AI, and killed people. And I understand,” he went on, “that you have a wrist comm that allows you unprecedented access to parts of said ship no one else does and a home within the computer core itself. How do you think that looks?”

“Not good,” I whispered.

“No. Not good.”

No one said anything for a while. And then the captain looked at his men.

“Zenith will take the watch,” he said. “The rest of you, use that synthesiser and get some rest. Commander López.” He sighed. “You have Nova.”

She blanched. And then nodded her head.

“Yes, Captain,” she said, turning to two of the men and indicating they should follow her.

They walked a short distance away and then huddled together. I thought perhaps I was watching something very personal. I looked away.

The captain’s eyes met mine.

“Walk with me, Ms Price,” he said.

It wasn’t an invitation. It was an order.

I swallowed my pride and followed the captain, all the while cursing my father.