“It’s me all right,” I said. “I have a headache, but otherwise I’m fine.” The headache might help excuse any gaffes I made. Cautiously, I nudged both of them with Charm. If they detected that I was a fox and ratted me out, I’d be toast. My powers should keep them from realizing I was another supernatural, but I would have to be careful. I’d never had the opportunity to test Charm on a goblin or dragon before.
My stomach chose that moment to growl. I hadn’t eaten in a long time, and using Charm so much was making me hungrier than usual.
“I’m so glad you’re not as badly hurt as we thought,” Sujin said.
“Yeah, I was knocked out for a while there,” I said. “I only just woke up. You’re the first people I’ve spoken to.”
“Where were you going?” Haneul asked with a frown. “Shouldn’t you report in to Lieutenant Ju-Won?”
Of course. I couldn’t just wander anywhere I liked, not if I was supposed to be a cadet. Perhaps talking to the lieutenant would give me a better idea of how to fit in while I figured out how to continue my investigations.
“Sorry,” I said, feeling stupid—as well as a little faint. While the doctor had declared me fit for duty, I could tell I wasn’t at full health. “I forgot.”
Sujin looked alarmed at that. “You must really be out of it! Haneul, let’s take him to the lieutenant.”
Haneul studied my face, and her stern expression softened. “Yes,” she said. “You don’t need any more bad luck after what you went through on the Red Azalea. Everyone said it was going to be a routine rescue mission, safe enough even for cadets.”
“Come on,” said Sujin, turning me around. “If we keep the lieutenant waiting, she’ll put us all on report.”
I followed them, trying not to gape at the surroundings. One of the passageways featured a grand engraving of a white tiger with a lightning bolt in its mouth. Along the right-hand side, fine calligraphy declared the ship to be the Space Forces battle cruiser Pale Lightning.
Jun must have passed this way many times. Had he, too, stared in wonder at the engraving? Did he stop noticing it once he’d grown used to being on the ship? The thought made me miss him even more. I had to find his trail—and soon, before my ruse was uncovered.
We passed officers in dark blue uniforms bright with gold braid. I’d have to study the insignia so I’d be able to identify people’s rank on sight. I only knew the cadet emblem that Haneul, Sujin, and I were wearing. For now, I saluted smartly whenever the two of them did.
“There she is,” Sujin whispered as we approached a broad, worried-looking woman.
The lieutenant might have heard that Jang was badly injured. Time for more Charm. I was desperate to get away and scrounge for food—surely even military food couldn’t be worse than what I’d grown up eating—but I had to take care of this first.
Lieutenant Ju-Won was overseeing a group of enlisted spacers pulling bundles of wires from behind a large, dented panel. From time to time she consulted a slate and barked orders. I itched to join them, because I could already tell that one of them was damaging the internals with rough handling, but I bit my tongue just in time.
I peered curiously at the wires. The patterns they were in reminded me of the body’s meridians, which made sense. The ship wasn’t alive like a person or an animal, but like any object, it had an energy flow, or gi, of its own. For its systems to work properly, all its components needed to be placed in harmony with its gi. I’d learned that from repairing things back home.
“Cadet,” Ju-Won said. The worry lines between her brows deepened. “I thought you . . . Never mind.” Her eyes scanned me up and down. “Who let you out of the medical bay with your collar crooked like that?”
I should have checked it over earlier, but I’d been too disoriented by the whole situation. By this point I was about ready to fall over. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
Her worried expression changed to a glare. “What did you say, Cadet?”
Sujin mouthed, Say “ma’am”! Haneul shook her head ever so slightly at me.
“Sorry, ma’am!” I said hastily.
“Sloppy, Cadet,” Ju-Won said. “Are you sure you don’t need to go back to Medical?”
“I’m fine, ma’am,” I said. I didn’t want to get stuck in the sick bay.
“Very well,” she said. “Why don’t you report to level two and help them with inventory? Check in with me again if you don’t feel well, though.”
This time I had the presence of mind to salute and say, “Yes, ma’am!” I must have sounded too enthusiastic, because she frowned at me some more.
“Cadets Sujin and Haneul, I assume you know where you’re supposed to be? Good. Dismissed, the three of you.”
Once again, I had no idea where to go. Too bad foxes didn’t know divination magic. I saluted and picked a direction. I had a 50 percent chance of being right, after all.
“That way, Cadet!” Ju-Won said in exasperation, pointing down another corridor.
“Oh, of course, ma’am!” I lied. I saluted a third time for good measure and marched off in the correct direction this time.
Sujin and Haneul accompanied me, although the latter cast anxious glances back to Ju-Won to see if she was watching us.
“Hey,” Sujin said in an undertone, “you look terrible. Let me get a snack into you before I report to my station.”
That sounded wonderful. “Thank you,” I said, smiling at the goblin.
Sujin herded me into a side passage. Haneul shook her head and said, “We’re so dead if we’re caught shirking.”
“I can’t let Jang faint from hunger,” Sujin said reasonably. “Anyone coming?”
Haneul sighed, then peered around the corner. “No, you’re clear.”
Sujin pulled out a spork with a flourish.
Wait, a spork? Really? My nose tickled, and I suppressed a sneeze. That wasn’t any ordinary utensil. Dokkaebi were known for carrying magical clubs or wands. I’d never heard of one coming in the shape of a spork, though.
Sujin waved the spork, and a box of chocolate-dipped cookies magically appeared. I tamped down another sneeze. The goblin snatched it out of the air before it fell to the deck. “Eat these,” they said. “They’ll perk you up.”
Haneul shook her head disapprovingly at Sujin. “You’re not supposed to mess with the rationing system.”
“Are you going to tattle?”
“No,” Haneul said with a sigh.
I tore open the box and practically inhaled the cookies. Too late, I realized I should have been polite and offered some to my companions. Oh well. Maybe they were used to Jang being rude. I snuck a glance at the others. Indeed, Sujin and Haneul looked more worried than offended.
After I’d finished, I considered my options. I needed to find out whether Sujin and Haneul knew Jun—they were a likelier source of information than the lieutenant. But I didn’t want to ask outright, because it might make them suspicious. It would be better if I got to know them first—which would be tricky, since we were already supposed to be acquainted.
“Thank you,” I said to Sujin. “That’ll keep me going until dinner.”
Haneul frowned. “You already missed mess!”
Mess. I forgot that was what they called meals around here. Jun had used some military terms in his letters home, but I hadn’t absorbed them the way he would have as a cadet. Great, I was going to have to learn all the jargon, too. I wondered how long it had taken Jun to adjust to life in the Space Forces. Of course, he hadn’t been thrown in the deep end immediately like this. . . . Or had he?
Sujin ignored my slip. “I wasn’t thinking,” they said with chagrin. “I should have conjured up something more substantial for you. At this point, you’d probably be better off filching something from the galley, though. Snacks are the best I can manage.”
“Please,” Haneul said with a sniff. “You’d live on nothing but cookies and shrimp crackers if you could, Sujin. We have nutritional guidelines for a reason, you know!”
“I’ll take shrimp crackers,” I said, my mouth watering at the prospect.
I’d already figured out that, of the two of them, Haneul was the stickler for following the rules. That could work in my favor. At least she knew what the rules were, and I could lean on her until I got a chance to corral Jang’s ghost. In the meantime, I didn’t care how unhealthy shrimp crackers were—I just wanted something to fill my aching belly.
Sujin waved their spork and a box of the promised shrimp crackers materialized in thin air. This time my nose only tickled slightly, maybe because I was getting used to the goblin’s magic. “Giving him junk food’s better than letting him starve, right?”
It took me a few moments to react. I was going to have to get used to people referring to me as a him. “Right,” I said with a weak chuckle, opening the package. It didn’t look like I would be able to get rid of Haneul or Sujin anytime soon, so I figured I might as well eat while I had the opportunity.
Sorry, Jun, I thought. I’m on my way, I promise. I may not have found out much yet, but I had managed to reach his ship. New clues were sure to come to light if I kept my eyes and ears open. I gobbled down all the crackers, knowing I was going to need my strength for the days to come.