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  We’d just turned down a narrow alley when the clamor of odd, howling sirens chimed behind us. The authorities had reached the pawnshop, by the sounds of it, and it wouldn’t be long until they started chasing us. Ronad had warned us that port-planets really didn’t take kindly to thieves, but I’d been desperate. Even so, I felt bad for stealing the compass and hurting the pawnbroker like that. It had been impulsive and cold, and I wished I could’ve done it differently. I didn’t want to become a person who relied on violence.

  Keeping to as many of the shadowed alleyways as possible, Navan and I sprinted back to the shipyard where we’d parked the Coeptis. It was the same ship in which Navan had left Northern Vysanthe to come and rescue me after receiving Brisha’s blessing, but the poor old girl had definitely seen better days. The hull was riddled with holes that had been patched up in deep space, using ancient spacesuits and even older repair kits, and most of the systems were temperamental at best. The engine was ravaged after the pirates had given it a kicking, the weapons systems were more likely to blow us up than any enemy, and the gravity simulator was barely hanging on. The only thing that still seemed to function was the life support system, which was one comfort we could take out of all this—at least we wouldn’t asphyxiate in our sleep.

  Stopping at every corner, we made sure there were no authorities trying to intercept us. I could still hear the sirens blaring, but they were far behind us now. Somehow, despite the risk I’d taken, it looked like we were going to get away with it. I touched the compass in my pocket for reassurance, a nervous grin spreading across my face.

  “We’re not out of the woods yet,” Navan said, smiling.

  “Killjoy,” I muttered.

  The shipyard itself looked like an enormous dock, with ships tethered to electrical posts, though there was no water nearby. Pulsyde was a desert-like planet that had sprung up in the middle of a trade route through the universe, meeting the needs of passing ships and cargo vessels.

  Engineers and mechanics were toiling away at the engines of many of the docked ships, the sound of clanking and hammering filling the air, but we hadn’t been able to afford one. The guy who’d knocked on our hatch—a wiry creature with lurid pink skin—had more or less spat on us when he found out we had pretty much no credits to pay for any repairs, before sauntering away to the next vessel that had touched down. I guessed the workers here had no interest in time-wasters like us. To them, we were just taking up valuable space.

  Instead of passing by the sentry towers that stood at the entrance of each shipyard, we ducked through a gap in the fence. We’d seen countless people do the same, coming in and out of the dock. In fact, it was how we’d entered the commercial district in the first place—to go in search of a pawnshop—after finding out that a fee had to be paid to even leave the shipyard. We didn’t have that kind of money to waste on a return trip.

  Making sure nobody had seen us slip through the gap, we hurried across the yard toward the Coeptis. Ronad and Bashrik were working away on the hull as we approached, patching up the last of the exterior holes.

  “Get inside!” I hissed. “We need to get going!”

  They exchanged a worried glance. “What did I tell you, Ronad? I said Navan would get in some kind of trouble and we’d have to leave this place with our tails between our legs!” Bashrik muttered, following us up the gangway.

  Navan shook his head. “It wasn’t me, this time.”

  The two guys looked at me in shock, but there was no time to explain; they could have all the gory details later, once we were safely out of Pulsyde airspace. I had no idea how quickly the planet’s outer security could be alerted to a breach on the ground, and I really didn’t want to find out.

  “Come on, let’s get this thing in the air!” I barked, running into the cockpit, where Mort was lounging at the controls. Navan followed straight after, shoving the startled shifter out of the pilot’s chair.

  “Hey, I was—”

  Navan flashed him a warning look. “Do you want to spend the rest of your miserable days in a Pulsyde brig?”

  The shifter shook his head.

  “Good, then keep quiet and let me fly us out of here.”

  Mort did just that, looking concerned as Navan broke us free of the electrical post that held us to the ground. The clamps released a moment later, and the ship rose into the air, the screen bleeping to say we were low on gas and our guns were out of action. Navan slammed his fist into one of the buttons, turning the warning signals off. We were going to have to resolve the issues pretty soon, but it would have to wait until we could stop somewhere safe. First, we needed to lose the authorities, who would probably be tailing us before we knew it.

  Wanting to see if anyone was following us, I moved out of the cockpit and walked to the back of the ship, skirting past a sullen Angie. She didn’t pay me much attention, which suited me just fine. The loss of Lauren was taking its toll on both of us, though we weren’t exactly dealing with it in the same way. Lately, it had been easier to avoid each other, since every conversation ended up in an argument. We just couldn’t agree on how to go about finding Lauren. Every suggestion I made was met with disapproval and comments about being too reckless about things. I supposed I’d proven her right by stealing the compass, but I wasn’t about to admit it.

  Reaching the far end, I opened the hatch to one of the defunct gun-pods and clambered inside. The Coeptis was lifting higher and higher, until the ship’s nose tilted up and the roar of the throttle shivered through the metal bones, sending it soaring through the atmosphere of Pulsyde and back out into the brutality of space.

  Catching my breath, I watched the landscape recede. It was a peculiar planet, with great swathes of black desert covering most of the surface, while the sprawling cities seemingly rose out of nowhere, offering rest and refreshment to weary travelers from all over the universe. I could only begin to imagine the wealth of different species that came and went from day to day.

  I’d barely known the port-planet of Pulsyde, but I was grateful for what it had given me. Fishing the compass from my pocket, I gazed down at the strange glass face set in an oval of bluish gray metal. With this, we would find Lauren and the notebook. We just had to.

  Chapter Two

  As soon as we’d pushed through the stratosphere of the planet, without a single ship giving chase, I breathed out a sigh of relief. Soon enough, we’d be back in the vast anonymity of space, with Pulsyde becoming only a light in the distance, a barely remembered stop on an unfortunate stretch of our journey to find Stone.

  I crept out of the gun-pod with my stolen goods and paused beside the spot where Angie was standing, her gaze turned out toward the window. She was watching the horizon for any ships that might be approaching, just as I’d done, though her view wasn’t as good from the small, reinforced glass panels that lined the main body of the Coeptis.

  “So, what happened down there?” she asked as I approached. She looked anxious, her brow furrowed.

  “I stole something from the pawnbroker. It was too expensive to buy, and we didn’t have the credits to waste,” I explained, showing her the compass.

  “You stole it?” Angie didn’t sound too impressed. “Are there police after us?”

  “Nobody seems to be following us,” I said defensively, knowing I’d done it for the right reasons.

  “Well, I hope it was worth it. We really can’t afford to be taking risks like that, getting ourselves noticed,” she replied with a tense sigh. “What is it, anyway?”

  “The description said it was a species locator. I figure it’s some kind of compass that reveals the locations of different species across the universe.”

  She squinted at it curiously. “How does it work?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It didn’t exactly come with an instruction manual, and we didn’t really have time to ask the pawnbroker as we were snatching it from her store.”

  “I was only asking. It’s a valid question.”

  �
�I know… Sorry, I’m just a little stressed after stealing it. Alarm bells and port authorities will do that.” I forced a smile onto my face, silently telling myself to calm down. “Anyway, I’m not sure how it works yet.”

  “Let me take a look at it. I might be able to figure it out,” Angie said.

  “No, no, it’s fine,” I replied, peering closer at the device. The mechanism inside was a system of miniature cogs and even smaller pulleys. If I could just figure out where the cogs led, I knew I’d be able to get them moving. I examined it for several minutes, with Angie fidgeting across from me.

  “Honestly, let me take a look. I’m good at this kind of thing,” she said, suddenly wrapping her hand around the top of the compass. I wanted to mention the fact that I’d been about to head off and get an engineering degree back home, but I bit my tongue. I could see she just wanted to help, but too many cooks were spoiling the proverbial broth right now.

  “Seriously, I think I almost have it! And I can’t see the mechanisms if you hold it like that.” I was trying to rein in my annoyance, but a few prickles emerged regardless.

  “Wouldn’t hurt to get a second opinion, right?” Angie tried to turn the compass toward her.

  “Please, just give me another minute with it, will you?”

  Just then, Ronad stepped out of the cockpit, a worried look on his face. He moved slowly toward us, as though we were wild animals that needed to be approached with caution.

  “Is everything all right out here? We heard raised voices,” he said quietly.

  “Have you seen one of these before?” I asked, freeing the compass from Angie’s grasp.

  He peered at the device in my hands and shook his head. “Don’t think I have. What did the shop say it was?”

  “She didn’t have time to ask as she was running away,” Angie chipped in sourly.

  I ignored her, keeping my focus on Ronad. “The description said something about inserting a blood sample, but that’s all the information I could get.”

  Remembering the words, I looked at the compass more closely. Through the glass face, I could see a dial of small canisters, with a metal bar running down the middle, and a network of clockwork-like engineering holding it together. But there was nothing that looked like a button or a latch that could open it up. I’d already tried to pry the glass face off while I was in the gun-pod, but that hadn’t worked either. I didn’t want to try with any more force, in case I broke the whole thing.

  My eyes settled on something in the bluish gray metal. There, discreetly indented into either side of the oval object’s top curve, were two shallow grooves. I wasn’t sure if my inkling was correct, but there was only one way to find out. Pressing both my thumbs into the indentations, I squeezed as hard as I could, prompting a sharp needle to peek out the top of the locator. It glinted in the low light of the ship.

  “What did you do?” Ronad asked, getting closer.

  I grinned. “I pushed the sides and it released a needle!”

  “What are you supposed to do with the needle?” Angie wondered nervously.

  “I guess I’m supposed to prick my skin, or that of the species I’m trying to find—which, in our case, is the same thing,” I replied, tentatively bringing the pad of my index finger to the sharp point. The metal bit into my flesh with a sudden sting, and my blood rose to the surface. A second later, a globule of crimson was somehow sucked back through the hollow center of the needle, where it came to rest in the waiting canister. Like the chambers in a gun, the canister then moved around, disappearing beneath a disc of the same bluish gray metal.

  I staggered back, startled, as a holographic image shot out of the compass face, revealing a celestial map similar to the one that Ginji had shown us on Zai. The sight of it reminded me of the young Draconian. I hadn’t thought about him in a while, with everything else that was going on, but I hoped he was okay, whatever he was up to.

  Turning my focus to the map, I noticed two green dots in the center, flashing steadily. I presumed they belonged to Angie and me, since we were the only humans on board the Coeptis.

  “I don’t see a third dot,” Angie said, peering at the map. “I don’t see Lauren’s dot!”

  Ronad looked over my shoulder at the holograph. “Perhaps she’s out of range. Can you widen the map at all?”

  I searched all across the compass for anything that might be a button, pressing every indentation and groove I came across, but nothing widened the range of what we could see. There was one indentation that turned the holograph off and on, and another that moved the dial of canisters around, but nothing made the map bigger. If there was a way to do it, it was beyond the realm of my human skills, especially without an instruction manual.

  “May I?” Ronad asked.

  I handed the compass to him, hopeful that he could see something I couldn’t. He lifted it and turned it over in his palms. The holograph danced off the floor and the walls with every curious inspection he made, but nothing he did made any difference. The celestial map continued to bear only two green dots, and a few faint silver dots that revealed the closest planets and stars. I bit my tongue as he handed it to Angie to take a look, knowing she had as much right to examine it as anyone.

  You’re just stressed, Riley. It’s the adrenaline from the escape, that’s all it is. Calm down, I told myself.

  “This is just stupid! We already know there are two humans on the ship. If we can’t expand the map, what’s the point of it?” Angie yelled. “All we’ve done is draw more attention to ourselves, and we’re no closer to finding Lauren! This is hopeless!” Tears glittering in her eyes, she threw the compass across the room. It hit the wall with a crack, and the celestial holograph disappeared with a wobbly blink.

  “Angie!” I yelped, rushing over to retrieve the compass. When I pressed the indentation that seemed to be the on/off switch, the holograph reappeared. A relieved sigh left my throat. I turned back to my friend with a cold stare. “What did you do that for? Just because we can’t figure something out doesn’t mean it’s a hopeless case!”

  “Face it, Riley—you stole a useless piece of junk, and now there are probably authorities on our tail, wanting to throw us all in prison!” she fired back.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “It isn’t useless. We just need more time with it.”

  Ronad stepped between us, physically putting himself in the line of fire. “My guess is the compass tracks people a reasonable distance, but it can’t have an unlimited range. No device is powerful enough for that, unless you have a fixed point or a specific beacon to search for.”

  “We have a specific beacon: Lauren!” Angie retorted.

  “Yes, but in terms of the device, you’re looking for a vague human needle in a haystack of our universe’s infinite vastness.”

  “So, you agree with me, then. The compass is useless!”

  I shook my head vigorously. “It isn’t useless! If Lauren were here, she’d try to—”

  “Well, Lauren isn’t here, is she? She’s lost out there, on her own, and now we might never find her because you…” She trailed off, but I knew what she was going to say. She was going to say I’d gotten them into more trouble by stealing the compass. Even though I was beginning to have my own doubts, the unspoken echo of it in my head made my heart clench.

  “Because I what, Angie?” I pressed sadly.

  She dipped her head, refusing to look at me. “Because we lost her,” she said, after a pause. “There’s nothing we can do about it now that the trail has gone cold. We just have to keep searching and hope something comes up soon.”

  The lie was written across her face as she met my gaze again. She’d wanted to blame me; I could see it in her eyes. Our stare broke as we heard shouting from the cockpit. It sounded urgent.

  “Bash?” Angie called out. We raced toward the cockpit.

  “A Fed ship is trailing us!” he yelled as we entered. “It just put on its warning lights.” A string of expletives followed, though I didn’t recogni
ze all of them.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, moving over to the copilot’s chair to lean over Navan’s shoulder. The monitor on the control panel was going haywire, red lights flashing everywhere.

  “It means we’re going to get pulled over!” Bashrik barked, flashing me a perplexed look. “What did you have to go and steal something for? We needed credits, not wishful freaking thinking!”

  “They might fly past. Maybe they won’t bother us,” I replied defensively, feeling a little ganged up on after the awkward encounter I’d just had with Angie.

  Mort snorted from his seat on the far side of the room. “Yeah, and maybe I’ll dress in drag and give you all a warbling rendition of ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody,’ à la Angie.”

  “Wow, so you think they’re going to fly past us, too?” she shot back, grinning. The pair of them had become alarmingly good friends since leaving Vysanthe.

  He had just started singing the first lines of the song when the loudspeakers crackled to life. A message was coming through, sidelining the main comms system. It appeared they didn’t need us to reply—they only needed us to listen and obey.

  “Please pull into the nearest port-planet, where your vessel will be boarded, and you will be scanned. I am picking up six lifeforms, so please do not try to run or hide,” a clipped voice announced. “Your ship has been registered as stolen from the planet of Vysanthe, and you are to be apprehended under Section 2341-C of the Universal Federal Code of Peacekeeping Law.”

  “Couldn’t they think of something snappier?” Mort murmured, laughing to himself. I supposed he thought he could pretend to be someone else and run away while the rest of us suffered the consequences of what I’d done.

  “Shut up!” Bashrik hissed, silencing the smug shifter.

  Navan glanced at Ronad. “I thought you took out all the cameras and trackers.”

  He shrugged anxiously. “I thought I did, too!”

  “Maybe they’ve put out alerts at every port-planet, to check for Vysanthean ships and ship-codes,” Navan reasoned. “With Brisha more or less taken out of the game, and the Titans having destroyed a lot of the North, I’m guessing her military must be keeping tabs on deserters. They’ll want to retain every ship they can. Otherwise, they’ll have nothing left to retaliate with.” We’d heard snippets about the state of the coldblood planet during our search for Lauren and the notebook, piecing together whatever we could from the news that came in. It seemed Gianne still held the upper hand after the Titan onslaught, though Brisha was hanging on, determined to fight to the bitter end.