In the copious preparations I made for this journey — the numerous hours spent surveying top-secret documents, burning my fingers against the overheated bits of alien weaponry, sharpening my mind for hairpin-turn reactions in the event of Xani encounters — no one told me how fucking boring space travel would be.

At a minimum, I expected a brighter show from the passing stars in their natural habitat. I expected I'd have a front-row seat on our celestial safari, but their lights blur behind the filter of our impossible scopes. The portholes, every single one of them, is thick with orange gel, distorting the sky for our jelly-covered eyes. I didn't realize we'd be making this whole trip blindfolded. There's nothing to do. I rest my head against the heel of my hand and heave a boisterous sigh, shoving my frustration out through my lungs.

"Would you mind doing that somewhere else?" Knuckles' voice floats from his workstation at a long table lining the back of his grungy lab. A single pendant bulb hovers over his head as he bends forward, fully immersed in his tinkering. A clinking melody from his old stereo bleats out in the corner, pinching my nerves.

My face slips from the precipice of my palm, bunching my cheek against it, causing my slack mouth to open. I breathe the warm air and return it warmer. He peers over his shoulder and shakes his head when he sees me in my condition.

"You're worse than fungus. Don't you have somewhere else to be?"

As Janika Lorn, Commander of ARC10, yes. I have plenty of places to be. Aboard this loose-screwed pile of congealed space-litter, I should be patrolling the halls at this late hour in the event that our hostile hosts, the Xani, clank out from their segregated quadrants to annihilate my civilians in their sleep. I should check-in with my elite special forces unit, the SOCOM VIPERs, who are stationed throughout ARC10 to protect our two thousand civilians—ensuring they have not somehow managed to kill themselves in some gruesome fashion or another. I should also head to the Nest to question whether or not the vigilant operators of SCOPE are—

"You may not be aware, but pregnant women do need sleep. What with the ungrateful parasitic barnacle sucking essential resources from its interminably vexing host and whatnot. Go do that and get the hell out of my lab with your insufferable breathing."

I exhale with gusto one more time — just for fun — and pull my leg through the bench. The distance between the table and the sliding door of Knuckles' personal workspace is minuscule. Three steps and I'm out. We're clustered here, thrown in like spare bolts in a junk drawer. The misshapen metal protrusions of the bulkhead poke out above our heads. Some rooms are nothing more than a door that leads to a jutting angle of rust-brown metal. Daily, the people of ARC10 dodge the sharp edges of the ship, attempting to avoid touching the gooey orange substance that slides over the walls from globulous pustules. Knuckles, however, prefers to obsessively rid his lab of the stuff and, with welders gloves and goggles, scrapes it from his sight with the sharp edge of a shovel. Maybe it's why I spend so much time here. It's the least ugly cabin on the entire ship.

Besides my own private haven.

When I get to the door, it slides open to release me. I pause, grin, gulp in a noisy breath of air. . .

"Don't you dare." He spins around in his swivel stool, pointing a pair of needle nose pliers at me. "Honestly, you're a worse headache than dropping a cinderblock on my frontal lobe." His fluffy white eyebrows sag over his dark eyes and dark skin, giving him the appearance of the tired old man. At his age, I know that's exactly what he is, but the dark eyes don't fool me. They're luminescent with lightning behind them. He returns to his previous position, hunched over his gadgets. "By the way," he mutters. "Happy Christmas."

"I thought Christmas was only celebrated by those who can experience joy."

He drops his tools. "It's only been two weeks, Lorn. Two weeks. If this is some horrid portents of what I can expect for the next four years and eleven and a half months, then please, find me the nearest airlock and let me take my chances." He pauses, his gaze focused on the pieces of his project before him. I can see the frown form from where I mock him in his entryway. "Oh, Holy Saint Harriet. And by the end of this, there will be two of you."

I smirk and turn to leave. "Merry Christmas, Uncle Knuckles."

"Never say that to me again."

I step away from the sliding door and wait for it to close behind me, slicing me out of his presence so I can occupy the room of my shame alone. I hate being here. The quicker I leave the room with the solitary orange examination table in the middle of the room, the happier I'll be. There's a history there I'd rather not remember. I rest my hand on my belly, touching the soft curve under my uniform on my retreat.

There's no reason to think about that day now. It's Christmas. Continuing to stride out the lab and into the public passageways of ARC10, I keep my head up, my eyes forward, and my breathing regulated. Out here, I must be on guard — must be aware of the nuances of the environment because in the sliver of a second, I could be cut to a pile of bones and guts.

I peer left and right, the same infinite dreariness of the access way is identical no matter where I look. As if the long winding tunnel is the intestines of a monster and I'm the undigested food stuck on the inside. The only sound that follows me is the plunk of my boots and the patter of my dangling laces clanging against the human-installed perforated flooring. It stalks me, joining me as my solitary companion on the journey home. Without the strung lights pinned to the metal walls, I'd be swimming in blackness. The recycled air circulates around our bodies, flowing in and out of our noses as if it wasn't there. There's no fresh breath, no need to gasp. Our lungs might be making the motions simply because our brains remember that's what they're there for. But the air tastes like nothing. If it wasn't for our own intervention, the noises from our mouths, the touch of one person brushing up against another, traveling in ARC10 would be similar to becoming cargo inside a coffin.

The thought rattles me.

I'm not dead. None of us are. I drum my fingers against the swell under my shirt.

We're not dead, and it's Christmas.

To fill the vapid journey, I pull at the memories of holidays long past. As a kid, Simon would drag me to Our Lady of the Impenetrable Heap and we'd sit there on those painful, mismatched metal benches before the stone woman and crumbling barrier between us. I'd be in my best grays, buttoned to my chin, my hair in Simon's traditional pathetic attempt at pigtail braids for the special occasion. I remember squirming along with the other kids, suffocating from the heat of the million candles weeping white wax over the walls. We'd sing songs. We'd celebrate the day the Lady gave birth to a son — a man we never mentioned much. I'm not sure where he went after the apocalypse, but we still like to talk about him on his birthday. When the heat was too unbearable, we'd be released.

I remember the parties after the Christmas service. The warmth was different—it was relief. The crowd would return to The Kitchen Sink where Simon would make treats from pseudo-sugar. The yellow grains covered little buns that fit perfectly in kid-hands. My favorite childhood memories are of children reaching toward his four-fingered grasp that clutched the basket of buns. He always saved an extra for Dean. But me, I'd wait for something special.

"Merry Christmas, sweetheart," he'd say, passing a chunk of real honeycomb clutched between waxy sheets of baking paper. I'd wander off, my face a sticky disaster merely seconds later, while he would retreat to the bar with the adults and drink Junk Juice with floating apple chunks. He and the ancient ones who lived full lives before the apocalypse would slip into their memories and disappear.

I didn't realize how much Simon scraped together our few creds to gift that brick of sweetness every single year. I never appreciated what he did to try and bring me little hints of childhood joy. He got me real honey. Something pure. It was the only time of year I was allowed to share in one of his Before Days artifacts. What could I possibly gift my son to let him know I was a kid once too?

I shake off the wave of panic riding on the tails of immense sadness that overtake my brain. Christmas is weird. Will Dean want to drag our kid to the chapel on the high holidays, wherever the chapel is? Holding him in his lap, singing the songs of — no.

No.

Stop. Don't go down that path. Don't build a future on a dream. Go to sleep.

My body hums, alert, jumpy, ready for action. This sudden, new-found energy keeps me antsy at the most strange hours of the night and day. I check my PAHLM, the Personal Analytics for Human Life Mechanism a blaring blue guide in the dark.

0311.

As the ship careens into space through the darkness, I still try to keep the people of the URE in some semblance of normal sleep patterns. It's three in the morning, but it might as well be noon. My body doesn't recognize the constant specs of light as morning or night. There are no time-markers to indicate whether we're rising, falling, or spinning into a pointless oblivion. Again, the ship's sole function is to trick me into believing I'm dead.

I press my hand up to the scanner for the entry of my tiny cabin. It blinks twice and the door slides open, granting me access to the smallest crumb of space that exists just for me. But it's mine. The sheet metal walls present not a single spec of color other than some gradation of black and gray, but it's mine. And I love it. There's a small corner in one end of the room where I've cleared out the contents. It's spacious enough to fit a metal crate I found abandoned in the Marketplace. To make it just a little plusher, I lined with extra padding and blankets I'd raided from the ship's dry store room. I smile fondly at my make-shift cradle as I pull off my boots, drop my jacket, and stretch out on the bed. Sinking into the thin but glorious cushion, I release the tight breath I'd been holding since rising that morning.

The little star icon on my PAHLM catches my eye, as it does many times through the day. But only here in the sanctuary of my cabin have I allowed myself the pleasure of watching it pulse.

I tap it. It blinks a steady rhythm at me in soft red.

"Oh good, you're still behaving," I say to the empty room as I unfasten the bottom two buttons on my shirt, letting the material fall to the side and reveal the bump that has grown more firm and plump these last two weeks. The stretching skin itches.

Already at the screen, I perform the rest of my nightly ritual.

[Saved messages: DFREYER]

[Saved Message 1]

HEAR MY SOUL SPEAK -- OF THE VERY INSTANT THAT I SAW YOU DID MY HEART FLY AT YOUR SERVICE

[Saved Message 2]

PAGE 201 -- BUT I BET YOU KNEW THAT ALREADY

My finger traces the holographic words that hover above my hand. Basking in the cool blue glow, I burst and let the joy spill over the room.

I'll wait, Dean—I promise I'm still waiting. It was one mistake. We can make this work.

I look for the traces of him scattered around my room — the white pocket peeking out from the inside of his tattered copy of Brave New World on the shelf over my pillow, the exposed corners of his mother's trunk of illegal tomes that doesn't fit under my bunk in the way I hoped it would, my favorite brown jacket with the cream collar that captured the way he smells like Earth. Dean is everywhere, and I hope that he somehow managed to scrape enough of me together to take with him.

There's a knock at the door.

"Come in," I say, rushing to button up the shirt to cover my swell.

The door slides open and Warrant Specialist Orra Coodi stands before me with shoulders back, chin up, and distant, averted eyes. Her rich, black hair swirls in a tight knot behind her head, making her already tight expression tighter. She's the pinnacle of professionalism. Even now, at oh-three hundred, she's sharp.

"Sorry to bother you, Commander. Code Crust."

I groan. I know it's unprofessional, but we're two weeks into this mission and this is the fifth case of this shit I've dealt with since launch. "Status?"

"We've secured him for questioning."

"That's good work, Coodi." This has become routine. They don't need me to stand around and bestow directions anymore. My second-in-command can handle this one on her own. "Follow new protocol and you should be good. I believe in you." I stretch to unlace my boot again.

"He asked for you. Specifically."

I pause as a list of the problematic citizens run through my mind. Only one name sends my nerves spiraling out of control. Warren Freyer. Could he have gotten into Crust? He's the only one who would ask for me. "I'll be down in a few."

"We're getting full in there," Coodi states plainly, still gazing at nothing ahead. "A few more cases and we'll probably be at max capacity. I don't think anyone anticipated we'd have so many people needing incarceration on this trip."

I train my glare at the re-unlaced boots and relent, frustration rising through my limbs. "Thank you, Coodi. I'll be down shortly." I don't need her to say out loud what I've already been fearing. It's these vagrants with the yellow film on their lips who've drawn a line in the sand—who've made early enemies when my single desire was to cruise peacefully to our destination. This anxiousness is familiar. This toxicity circulates through enclosed spaces like poison through my veins. It reminds me so much of those last days in the United Regions of Earth when I'd sit on the synthetic flour stacks by the baker's tent and observe the putrid dissent. I'd watch it curdle under the civilians' skin and I'd marvel at my own impotence. Now I'm not so powerless. I can stop it before it spreads.

When we arrive at the brig, it's as fetid as it was when I left it six hours ago. Nothing has changed besides a different VIPER guarding the cells. Bars cut the strange, lumpy wall making cells in a variety of cramped shapes. The pungent aroma of unwashed human armpits and groins smacks me the instant I enter. My eyes sting. Their waterless soap remains untouched on the floor. One man in a back cell gnaws his bar with his front teeth. In the largest cell, the new loopy resident leans heavily on the bars. He sucks drool between his teeth, making a high whistling sound. It's not Freyer. I breathe a little easier.

Levi McCroy, the VIPER on guard, keeps his gray eyes forward, his usually mopish brown hair slicked back and tucked behind his ears. He's intent in his duty—the only way I know he hasn't been turned to stone is when his eyes track my movement cutting the room. Normally, McCroy is my floppy end. He's the silent kid, but also the one who breaks lines, cries, laughs, and wears his heart on his sleeve. I don't know what happened to him during our escape from Earth, but I can read this new tin man as well as an O-Plan. He doesn't trust any of the crust. Neither do I.

"Look who it is. Her Majesty Janika fuckin' Lorn out from her throne behind the Kitchen Sink. Your Grace, how kind of you to enchant us with your presence." The prisoner's eyes are fully dilated, his black pupils overtaking the brown of his irises that I know he's had at some point in his life. Murry O'Deea was a regular. Every Tuesday and Thursday at the bar like marching orders.

"Murry," I acknowledge, stopping just out of reach before the bars. "It's been a while, old friend." I sniff the air. "You still stink like piss."

He flicks me off casually. "Power looks good on you, babe."

To business. I still need to sleep at least a little tonight. "What did you take?"

"I didn't steal nothing."

"Did you eat or drink anything strange tonight? Something that you couldn't find in the URE on a regular basis? Something I wouldn't have served at The Sink?"

"Nah. Just some star particles and miracles." He grins and moves his hand to his crotch to adjust himself. "Speaking of miracles . . . I heard you're off the hook—a free-agent, they say."

"What's that stuff on your lip?"

"Come get a taste and find out."

McCroy smacks the iron bars with his baton, startling everyone within it.

Murry backs up. "I pissed off your puppy."

"Why did you call me down here, Murry?"

"I did?"

I glare at him through lowered lids.

Murry returns to his position at the bars, pulling his arms through the openings and slumping into them. "Yeah, I think I remember now, Princess." He drops his grizzly jaw so I can watch him pick his molars with his tongue. "I wanted you to get me the fuck outta here."

"Can't do that, old friend."

"There's gold in it for you."

I roll my eyes. "I don't accept bribes in gold. Now if you've got a faster ship in there you're not telling me about. . . "

"Gold. I've got gold teeth." He opens his mouth wide, his fat tongue twisting, wrestling something in the back of his row of browned teeth. I'm close enough to flinch as his rancid breath hits my nose with his mouth wide open, strings of saliva clutching the peeling skin covering his lips. His jaw snaps shut. His tongue sloshes around. He opens his palm and spits out a metallic tooth into a dirty hand and holds it up for us to admire.

Coodi gags behind me.

"I'll knock 'em all out if you let me go."

"Talk to me, Murry." I cross my arms over my chest. "Tell me where you got the Crust and maybe we'll discuss your release."

He screws his face up to dig around his mouth, spitting out a second tooth soaked in blood, the red string of saliva webbing his tooth to his lip. The glint of gold sparkles under the gritty maroon puddle.

"If you're not going to talk, that's fine. We have a cozy spot for you here and eighteen-hundred days to wait for you to say something. See you in the morning, Murry." I pivot around and exit, nodding to McCroy as I depart. There's nothing to do tonight. I know they'll crack — if not this sack of shit, then one of the Crust will eventually. My creds are on the kids. The original ten. Ground Zero.

"We checked him." Coodi follows me. We fall into an easy rhythm together. "Nothing. I still think they're ingesting it—whatever it is."

"How did you find Murry?"

"McCroy and Umpire did. Murry O'Deea was wandering the passageways and didn't see McCroy standing right behind him. When McCroy told him to move along, it startled him and he attacked. He's said nothing but your name since we dragged him in."

"Keep me updated," I instruct.

"Aye-aye, Reaper." She escapes through the adjacent hall, leaving me to walk the rest of the way on my own. Her march is as sharp as her mind. While snappy and bright, I've respected Coodi for her unflinching ability to follow orders. It's the one skill I don't think I've ever truly mastered.

Not that I need to be following orders. The only person who could be dishing them seems to have vanished without a trace. I peer into a dark corridor just in case Hayomo, her shadow, or her ghost appear tonight. Maybe she's been lurking in the darkest corners of ARC10 and I haven't seen her because I wasn't searching hard enough. I slow, hone my sights in, but find nothing. There is no noise here. There is no stoic woman who offered me a chance to be the person I always assumed I could be, but then ditched me the second we hit the air. How is it that I've become closer partners with Coodi than Hayomo? While I haven't seen the woman since the day we launched, her presence surrounds us.

The passengers still whisper her words like lucky incantations.