I briefly wondered if I should remind them about the probability of our encountering angry ghosts there, but I decided against it. I needed my friends’ help if I wanted to save Jun. I just hoped my Charm would be enough to get us by.
“I was thinking of just hiding there until we could signal another ship to come rescue us,” Sujin said. “Are you saying you know where the Pearl is?”
I nodded without going into detail. I still remembered the landing coordinates and site’s location from the captain’s private log.
“Then there’s really no reason to stay here,” Haneul said. “Er, Jang”—she faltered, then nodded at me—“Min, whatever you call yourself, you’d better program in the landing coordinates and then we’ll launch.”
Luckily, there was a control panel within reach. Sujin input the map they’d smuggled out. Then it was my turn. The pod’s system plotted an arcing trajectory that would skirt the mines and take us down to the Fourth Colony’s surface, near one of the ancient settlements, a city named Jeonbok. The communities had been spread out over the planet’s largest continent, but the location I wanted was near a forest. I hoped the trees wouldn’t prove too much of an obstacle when it came to landing.
I double-checked the coordinates, wishing I had the captain’s logbook in front of me. Using the wrong numbers could send us into an expanse of ocean, or half a continent away from where the Dragon Pearl was supposedly hidden.
“Everyone strapped in?” Haneul asked.
“It’s now or never,” I said, and hit the commands to start the launch sequence. The doors to the escape pod’s launch chute slid closed. Then the lights blinked red three times and a bell-like tone sounded.
Meanwhile, gel cushions came out of the walls. As the cushions inflated, surrounding every part of us except our faces, I fought the panicky desire to claw at them. I knew that in a few moments I’d be grateful for the padding.
The lights flashed again, and the launch indicator lit up. For a second I thought there had been a malfunction, and my heart sank. Then the escape pod rocketed out the chute and I was slammed back against the couch.
Something nagged at me. Didn’t we need to get clearance from the ship before launching? Or had Haneul and Sujin somehow overridden the system before springing me? As tears streamed from my eyes, due to the sudden acceleration, it was difficult to think clearly. I couldn’t reach up to wipe my face because of the cushions, but that didn’t matter. At this speed, I wouldn’t have been able to move my arms anyway. I closed my eyes against the unpleasant pressure and lost consciousness.
“Min! Min, wake up!”
I groaned and started to thrash, but I was trapped. There was something important I had to figure out, but I resisted opening my eyes and facing it. Just give me a few more moments of rest. . . .
“Come on, Min, you need to be awake for this.”
Eventually I recognized Sujin’s voice. I peeled my eyes open. The goblin was unstrapped from the crash couch and their hair floated around their face like they’d been zapped by Haneul’s lightning. Belatedly, I realized this meant we weren’t accelerating anymore—we were back in free fall.
“What’s going on?” I asked, hating how weak my voice sounded. “How’s Haneul?”
“I’m right here,” she called from the next couch.
“If we’re alive,” I said, “that means Captain Hwan hasn’t shot us down yet. So what’s the bad news?”
“The bad news is down there,” Sujin said. “Haneul, show her.”
Haneul brought up the scan display. Or rather, failed to. The scanner was blank, refusing to tell us anything about the Fourth Colony. We couldn’t even determine whether we were headed toward the correct coordinates.
If we landed planetside, I could probably find some way to survive. The Fourth Colony had been settled at one point, so it should have a breathable atmosphere and, with any luck, edible plants and/or wildlife. If we missed the planet entirely and floated out into space, however, we would be at the mercy of whoever found us—if anyone came to rescue us at all.
“How long was I out?” I said.
“A couple of hours, I think,” Haneul said. The air around her was moist, and it crackled with suppressed lightning, a sign of how miserable she was. “I didn’t think the ghosts would be able to influence our systems this far out.”
So the spirits were already making their presence known. “Well, if the ghosts are affecting us, maybe they’re affecting the Pale Lightning as well,” I said. “I thought it would have caught up to us by now.”
“I might have done a little extra sabotage on the way out,” Haneul said. The air around her grew even more crackly. “It was you who blasted the wires on Deck Three, wasn’t it, just before you escaped with the mercenaries? That’s where I got the idea.”
Clearly, I hadn’t been a very good influence on these two. “Help me get out of this couch,” I said.
“What are you going to do?” Sujin said.
“See if I can fix the system,” I said, “before we swing past the planet and into outer space”—Sujin turned green—“or crash-land in some ocean.” I was pretty sure I could deal with the problem, given my knack for repairing machines, but I had to get free of those cushions first.
“Well, ocean wouldn’t be horrible,” Haneul said, “although I’m not sure how much control I would have over waters on a planet ruled by ghosts.” As she spoke, she came over to unstrap me. I suppressed a yelp when she touched my shoulder and static electricity sparked at the contact. I knew she hadn’t meant to hurt me.
The acceleration hadn’t helped my battered body recover, but I had no choice but to get moving. I clomped over to the interface and began digging through the menus. It became clear pretty quickly that the problem wasn’t in the scan software, though, but somewhere in the hardware.
Sujin wordlessly handed me the repair kit. I unscrewed a panel and took a look. A little quick testing confirmed my worst fears. Some of the computer systems had shorted out.
Still, not everything was lost. The computer contained survey data for the Fourth Colony, which it would have been updated with when the Pale Lightning Gated nearby. I hastily looked over the maps for what remained of the city of Jeonbok and committed them to memory.
“There’s a slate with local scan capability in the supply kit,” Sujin said. “Won’t help us out in space, but once we get on the surface, maybe we can use it to gather some information.”
“You don’t think this pod somehow got sabotaged, too, do you?” I asked.
“Well,” Haneul said slowly, “when I sabotaged the Pale Lightning, the escape pods were technically part of the ship . . .” Her voice trailed off unhappily. “Given the way luck works, it might have backfired on us.”
I continued poking at the systems. I might not be able to repair it entirely, but I could restore the most basic navigation functions and guide us toward our original destination. “Since we have time before we land,” I said as I worked, frowning at the delicate wires, “tell me why you turned coat.”
Haneul winced, but Sujin said steadily, “Because some things are right and some things are wrong. We had to do what was right.”
“The captain has lost it,” Haneul said. Her voice was subdued. “I know Jun—he’s a loyal cadet—and what happened to him is horrible. Hwan is holding him hostage who knows where. When the captain threatened us as well, I figured all bets were off.”
“You have some explaining to do, too,” Sujin said to me. “You went around pretending to be Jang. After you left, the captain told us that he’d died. Is that . . . is that true?”
“Yes,” I said with a sigh. “It happened right after the boarding mission on the Red Azalea. His injuries were too severe. I . . . His ghost allowed me to use his body.” I hoped that Jang was having better luck back on the Pale Lightning than I was here.
The others looked shocked.
“I guess you can never tell who to trust,” Sujin said. I wondered if the goblin was making a dig at me.
I flinched. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the truth,” I said to them. “I was trying to find out what happened to my brother, Jun. I didn’t mean for you two to get dragged into this mess. I really do consider you my friends.”
“Yeah, nothing creates a bond like a common enemy,” Haneul said with a grimace. Still, the air around her stopped crackling. “Besides,” she added, “I’m worried about Jun and the other ‘deserters.’ If there’s any chance that we can help rescue them, we have to take it.”
The navigational system came back online. “One moment,” I said. I bent to the task of correcting our course.
Sujin and Haneul fell quiet, not wanting to distract me. I was grateful for a respite from the conversation.
“It’s done,” I said after I’d triple-checked the coordinates, only to be embarrassed when my stomach growled loudly.
Haneul smiled at the sound. “We should eat while we have a chance,” she said. “Sujin?”