After mess that day, I claimed to have a stomachache and begged off watching a fencing match. Sujin looked disappointed, but only said, “I hope you feel better soon. Are you sure it’s not because you’re still hungry?”
“Leave him be,” Haneul said. “And don’t give him shrimp crackers—they never help stomachaches. He’s probably suffering from one of the ‘experiments’ you conducted while on KP duty.”
While they argued over that, I slipped away.
I headed toward Deck 3. I wanted to examine the damaged meridian for myself. I didn’t have much experience with energy flows, and I was curious to feel one up close.
According to the old lore, energy flows could bring whole civilizations to ruin or grant good fortune. Just like you could have flows of good or bad luck in a room, depending on how furniture and ornaments were arranged, there could be flows of good or bad luck across star systems and beyond. The Thousand Worlds hadn’t yet gotten to the point where we could rearrange the stars for our own benefit, but I’d heard that some of the more ambitious dragon masters dreamed of making that happen.
I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I took a wrong turn and had to retrace my steps. Don’t walk too quickly, I reminded myself. Act like you belong here.
I passed several soldiers and technicians on the way. By now, I had perfected the worried, borderline sullen look of someone trying to get his job done before having three more assigned to him. I no longer minded getting extra chores, though. When people gave you work to do, you stopped being a person and became a part of the scenery. Sometimes that was convenient.
A guard stood watch at either end of the corridor that contained the damaged meridian. The nearest sentry started to frown at me. I pushed some Charm in his direction to convince him I belonged here. He blinked watery eyes, then muttered to himself and looked away. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and hurried past. I threw Charm at the guard on the far end, too, to make him too drowsy to notice me.
In class, Lieutenant Hyosu had shown us a diagram depicting meridians as glowing lines flowing through the ship. In reality, meridians didn’t glow. But as soon as I entered the corridor, I felt a prickling on my skin, and I saw a flickering in the air, like the shimmer of a heat haze. That much was normal. What wasn’t normal was the way my eyes stung, or the way the air chilled my skin. A healthy meridian shouldn’t cause pain, or feel like a ghost-wind.
One of the floor tiles was warped. I tripped on it and went sprawling. Despite all the drilling exercises I’d done with the other cadets over these past few weeks, I still hadn’t gotten used to my higher center of mass, or my heavier body. I yelped as I rolled to soften my fall. I ended up bruising my elbows and hip anyway.
Oh. Of course. The fall wasn’t due only to my newfound clumsiness. The flow of bad luck had affected me. I started to appreciate why fixing meridians was so important, and why the repairs required a delicate touch.
Unfortunately, this also meant the bad luck would persist as long as Jang’s ghost did. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Would our luck worsen over time if his ghost wasn’t laid to rest? How would it impact the ship’s mission, or my own?
Helpfully, the repair crew wasn’t around; they must have been on break. The restricted area had been marked off with red tape—red for good fortune, even though the color looked like the bright splash of new blood. I approached slowly, being careful of how I placed my feet. Despite my best efforts, my ankle twisted and I fell across the tape.
I shut my eyes, panting. This close to the broken meridian, I could feel the energy flow like a knot in the pit of my stomach. Now I really did have a bellyache.
I heard footsteps approaching from behind. Getting caught here wouldn’t do me any favors. Wincing in pain, I levered myself up, then glanced around. I saw a supply closet door and didn’t have to think twice. I palmed it open and found emergency suits hanging inside. I shoved myself in among them, trying not to gag at the overwhelming stench of metal and chemicals. Besides the footsteps, I now detected voices, one male and one female. Frantically, I yanked the door shut, grimacing at the noise it made. Had they noticed?
No one burst in on me, and the conversation continued.
“. . . don’t like it.” The female voice belonged to Lieutenant Commander Ji-Eun, the executive officer. “The engineers can’t figure out what’s causing the damage here.”
The male voice had a hint of a growl in it: Captain Hwan. “I know what’s going on,” he said. “The ship has a ghost.”
My stomach pain flared. He was onto me and Jang.
“I was hoping it was something else,” Lieutenant Commander Ji-Eun said wearily. “Don’t tell me we’re being haunted by some of those accursed mercenaries. . . .”
The mercenaries’ ghosts?
I’d assumed the captain was talking about Jang, but I supposed I couldn’t rule out the possibility of additional spirits on board. Just because I’d only seen Jang’s ghost didn’t mean there weren’t more around. Could apparitions detect each other? I’d have to ask Jang the next time we spoke.
I leaned closer to the door to hear better, flinching when one of the suits creaked. My thoughts were racing. If ghosts were causing ill fortune, how much of it could a battle cruiser endure? Sure, the Pale Lightning had a lot of firepower, but all the weapons in the world can’t save you if your luck is bad.
Drat. I’d missed some of their conversation. I needed to focus.
“None of the pirates died on this ship,” the XO said. “Besides, even if they came to the Pale Lightning, the shamans’ chants should have laid them to rest. What I’m more worried about is the fact that we can’t seem to fix this meridian.”
“You’re sure no one tampered with it as a prank?” There was just a hint of tension in Hwan’s voice. I wondered if the XO could detect it.
“Of course not!” she said, indignant. “I’ve had guards on watch twenty-four-seven. If they’d seen anything, I would have notified you immediately. Besides, even the unruliest of the cadets wouldn’t dare.”
I almost squawked in surprise at the captain’s laugh. “I don’t know about that. Cadets are notorious for playing pranks.”
“Not when it comes to something this serious,” the XO said. “They’re terrified of you, anyway. Convinced you’d court-martial them if they sneezed in your presence.”
Captain Hwan huffed. “I’m not that unreasonable. Cadet silliness is one thing. The deserters, on the other hand . . .” I held my breath, silently begging him to drop a clue as to where my brother had gone. “Too bad we haven’t been able to retrieve them. It would be the galaxy’s fastest court-martial if we did.”
I gulped. An entire section of the code of conduct was devoted to courts-martial. The most severe penalty for a military infraction was execution. Jun would have known this even better than I did. Whatever had caused him and his comrades to leave the ship had been serious enough for them to risk death.
The two lapsed into silence for a while. I had an itch between my shoulder blades, but I couldn’t try to scratch it, because I might make too much noise.
“All right,” Hwan said at last, “you’d best go check on the bridge. I want to examine this meridian a little longer. Who knows, maybe one of the pirates’ ghosts will come by and say boo.”
“As you wish, sir,” the XO said in a subdued voice.
I held my breath, partly because the emergency suits’ reek was still making me gag, partly so I could hear the retreating footsteps more clearly. Only one pair. I wished the captain would leave, too, so I could. . . .
“All right, Cadet,” Hwan said. “You can come out now.”
Oh no. He’d known I was here all along! I couldn’t shape-shift to escape his notice, because, as a predator, he would sniff out any surge in my magic. And my cowering in the closet wouldn’t impress him, so I shoved the door open. I tumbled out and offered a clumsy salute.
The captain looked even taller and more imposing than before as he loomed over me. “At ease,” he said. “What are you doing here? You must know this area is off-limits. The meridian has been compromised. Hasn’t Lieutenant Hyosu told you its ‘bad luck’ can hurt you?”
Bad luck was right. It couldn’t be mere coincidence that I’d stopped there just when the captain and his executive officer had decided to inspect the damage.
I bowed my head and blurted, “I was just curious about it, sir.”
Maybe it was a mistake to say anything at all. The captain’s amber eyes darkened, and I flinched at the smell of his sudden anger.
“Tell me, Cadet Jang, how did you manage to get by the guards?”
Yikes. I couldn’t tell him about using Charm, and I couldn’t try it on him, either. I had to tell the truth.
“I . . . I distracted one of them, sir, and then snuck past. I hid in the closet when I heard someone coming.” It wasn’t a lie, just not the complete truth.
He regarded me coolly, testing, waiting. I started to sweat.
“I don’t sense that you’re lying,” he said finally.