Chapter 8 · Ghosts Along the Vector

The fuel warning began as a yellow line beneath the command deck displays.

Then it turned red.

“Reserve tanks are dropping below emergency threshold,” Oren Cade’s voice crackled through the fleet channel. Behind him came the shriek of metal, the cough of a plasma torch, and someone swearing with impressive creativity. “We have thirty-eight minutes before the haulers start losing drive power. Forty-two if nobody fires a weapon, breathes too hard, or asks me to perform another miracle.”

Sera Vale stood beneath the central holo-map with one hand pressed against her ribs. The bridge lights painted her face in cold blue, but they could not hide the gray beneath her eyes. A dark stain had spread beneath the edge of her uniform where the wound had reopened.

Evan noticed it.

She noticed him noticing.

“Don’t,” she said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was about to suggest you sit down.”

“And I was about to suggest you stop bleeding on my deck.”

Evan glanced at his shoulder. The makeshift seal had peeled away during the council hearing.