Black, dreamless sleep kept Jorry from recognizing the sound of Zephyr’s alarm. She wasn’t certain how long it had been going off but after consciously hearing it for the third time she shot upright in bed. Blinking twice to gain her bearings, Jorry recognized the alarm as an internal A.I. intruder, which meant someone was trying to hack into Zephyr’s mainframe. The lights in her room flicked on and she turned to get out of bed.

“Zephyr, security feed. Now.”

Her west wall lit up with eight security camera boxes. Seach was in the pilot’s nest, lounging in the chair and eating something. He hadn’t gotten the alarm yet, which was weird. Devon and Kenzie were playing a game of virtual Ping-Pong on the central chamber’s table. Paul was on the elliptical machine. That left Zoe, the little girl, who sat before a computer console in her room, hastily tapping away at the screen.

“Zephyr, tell me what the girl is trying to access.”

“She has input an algorithm and is attempting to gain clearance into my mainframe, Captain.”

“Really?” Jorry said with surprise. “How’s she doing?”

“She will gain access in seven minutes, Captain.”

“Not bad for a twelve year old,” Jorry said, half impressed and completely infuriated. “Shut down power to her room. Seal the door to anyone but me and patch me through to Seach.”

The communication line blipped open.

“Seach.”

“Yeah, Jo?”

“We have a security breach. Refresh all systems and consoles in the mainframe and generate new passwords.”

“We have a what?” Seach said, shocked.

“Little Zoe Torda was just trying to get into Zephyr’s mainframe.”

“The kid?” Seach leaned forward, his lunch forgotten as he began searching his console. “How did I not know?”

“Well, if I had to guess I’d say she deliberately bypassed the pilot’s nest mainframe,” Jorry said, grabbing her jacket and gloves.

“All right, so what are we going to do about it?”

Shrugging into her jacket, Jorry grinned up at the camera and winked. Seach’s expression went from annoyed to wary and he frowned.

“I’m going to scare the truth out of her,” Jorry said. “I think it’s time we learned what they’re running from, don’t you?”

“Just … try not to hurt anyone in the process,” Seach said. He still looked worried but she could see he was in agreement.

“First you want them gone, now you’re worried about them,” she said as she zipped her jacket and put on her gloves. “Which is it?”

“She’s just a kid, Jo.”

“And I’m just a veteran trying to make her way in the hauling business.”

Her door opened when she got close enough and she walked out of her room, turning down the corridor and toward the central chamber. She passed the escape vessels built into the walls and tried to ignore a new sense of danger growling in her mind. Young hackers were nothing new, there had been talented young people breaking through code since the invention of the computer, but Zephyr was different.

Zephyr was hers. Jorry had spent a lifetime creating renewable interfaces, evolving intelligence, and she would be damned if a twelve-year-old was going to break in.

Devon spotted her first as she emerged from the corridor but his smile fled at whatever he read in her face.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

“We have a security breach,” Jorry said, glaring over at Kenzie.

The girl looked startled by the announcement, standing stock still and terrified next to the table. Jorry saw Devon look at Kenzie but didn’t pause for discussion, just kept walking, briskly turning for the corridor leading to the passenger rooms. Kenzie was genuinely surprised by the announcement but her secondary reaction, the light that dawned in her eyes, told Jorry that she knew who had conducted the breach.

“How is that possible?” Devon asked, jogging to catch up to her.

“Ask your girlfriend,” Jorry said.

“Wait!” Kenzie called, hurrying behind them.

“Kenzie has been with me for the last hour,” Devon said.

Jorry waited for Kenzie to catch up before speaking. “Well, they don’t look like your average pirates, I’ll give them that. I actually believed that little story about the Grey Men and everything.”

“Grey Men?” Kenzie gasped and glared at Devon. “You told her?”

“No, of course not!” Devon said. “Why would I tell her such a crazy thing?”

“It’s not crazy, Devon! They’re real!” Kenzie said as they reached the sealed door.

“Hold on a moment,” Devon said and looked at Jorry. “How did you know about the Grey Men story?”

“Security feeds,” Jorry said and took the asp out of her cargo pocket, flicking it open.

Kenzie’s eyes widened in shock. Asps were such an underrated weapon; collapsible and easily portable, but when opened to their full twenty-four inches it was hard not to see the threat.

“Mom,” Devon said, trying to placate her, “Maybe we should just breathe and talk about all this.”

“I’m done talking,” Jorry said. “A minute or so longer and that little girl could have taken over my ship. I don’t take kindly to that.”

“That wasn’t what she was trying to do,” Kenzie said.

“Then what was she trying to do?”

“Yeah,” Devon said with a frown, “What was she trying to do?”

“Look,” Kenzie pushed her way to the door and held out her hands to block them. “Zoe is just bored, all right?”

“Not good enough,” Jorry said. “Bored twelve-year-olds smear shaving cream on mirrors or try to bounce a coin through the docking bay in zero gravity. They do not create algorithms meant to break into a computer mainframe.”

“Zoe is a little different,” Kenzie said.

“No kidding.” Jorry gripped the asp tighter and waited for the explanation.

“She likes numbers. I can’t explain it, but she just … she knows computers and coding better than most adults. Her teachers said she should be in an advanced school but Mom and Dad wanted her to stay with kids her own age.”

Kenzie was telling the truth, she could see it in her eyes. Jorry lowered the asp and pinched the bridge of her nose, holding back a groan as the final piece to their story clicked into place. Religious offenders were scorned and hated across the universe, but most managed to live peaceably in their respective systems. Grey Men would only be called in for military matters; matters like a girl who could break into the Consulate mainframe without effort.

“Did someone come to your home trying to get Zoe into a special military school?” Jorry asked, already dreading the answer.

Kenzie nodded slowly. “About a week before ...”

Jorry snapped her asp closed and cursed.

“What is it?” Devon asked, sounding confused.

“Grey Men don’t come for Offenders, Kenzie. Your parents were set up. The Consulate wants your sister in military intelligence. It’s the only scenario that makes any sense.”

“But she’s only twelve.” Kenzie’s expression morphed from wary to horror and she backed into the door as though protecting it.

“And imagine what she could do if properly trained over the next few years,” Jorry said. “Trust me, I know the Consulate very well.”

Too well, Jorry thought, her father’s face jumping into her memory. What had he said about harnessing the talents of the youth? It was something about the unrecognized potential in young people and the need for proper grooming. God only knew what the Consulate had made of that quote.

“Wait a minute,” Devon said, holding out his hand. “You mean to tell me that Grey Men actually exist?”

“Oh yes,” Jorry said. “Grey Men exist.”

“But you said they were just stories.”

“I said most of them were just stories. Not all of them. There’s a difference.”

“Oh, yeah,” Devon said sarcastically. “I can see that now.”

“Look, Devon, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they will be coming for our new friends.”

She held his gaze, saw a flicker of understanding in his face and almost held her breath. He knew about the taps. He knew how bad this was, or at least he thought he did. He wouldn’t know the extent of the situation until he learned where Grey Men came from. Jorry clenched her fists and thought about telling him everything.

She almost did, too. It was right there on the tip of her tongue, an ache in her heart to be done with pretenses and give him the truth, but Kenzie opened the door to her room and Jorry stopped herself. She heard Zoe’s voice sobbing an apology, but didn’t turn around, just walked past Devon and headed back through the corridor. Anxiety gnawed at her gut as she ducked under the low curve of the starboard ionic pulse drive and continued toward the central chamber.

Grey Men were coming.

Thirty years under the radar and now Grey Men were actually coming for them.

In the central chamber she intercepted Paul, presumably on his way back from his exercise. He was red-faced and sweat-soaked, but she stopped him anyway, hoping his discomfort would help her read him a little better. To her relief the little glow that she’d noticed on first meeting him was gone and she was able to concentrate on their problems.

“Did you know?” She asked Paul sharply.

Paul blinked at her. “Um … know what?”

“About Zoe. Did you know the Consulate was after her, yes or no.”

He cringed, his weathered face crinkling in pain. “Yes,” he said. “I knew.”

Jorry made a valiant effort not to snap the man in half. She tightened her grip on the asp but somehow managed not to open it again. The Consulate knew about Zoe, wanted Zoe, but they couldn’t know about Seach or herself. Not all was lost.

“I thought it best that you not know,” Paul said awkwardly. “It was an effort to keep you safe.”

“Mr. Kelly,” Jorry said through her teeth. “Of all the people on this ship, I am the last person you need to protect.”

“I am sorry,” he said.

Jorry shook her head and left. If she stood there any longer she might actually hit the man, so she jogged down to the pilot’s nest, her mind a mess of worst-case scenarios and variables that threatened to overwhelm her. They couldn’t turn Paul and his charges in, that would bring Movax and all the power of the black market down on them. And even if they did, Jorry wouldn’t be able to look at herself in the mirror again. No, they had to get everyone out of Consulate space immediately.

She stopped just inside the nest and shut the door behind her. Seach was pacing, frowning at the security feed with a look of such deep concern that her chest went tight with grief.

I’ll get you out of this, she thought. I promise. I’ll get us all out of this.

“Grey Men?” Seach asked, nodding to the feed so sharply that Jorry flinched.

“I should have told you …”

“Damn right you should have told me!”

“… but there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t find out until we were already under way.”

“You still should have told me,” he said.

“I know, I’m sorry. I really, really am. Now can we please focus on getting out of this mess?”

He glared at her for a long moment, his shoulders tense and his jaw tight with control. He looked so intensely unhappy that she almost apologized again. But then he turned away, rubbing the back of his head with both hands before speaking.

“How bad is the damage?” He asked.

“We should assume my Captain’s papers are dead in the water. We know the Consulate has a close eye on Movax and all the people who visit him.”

“And the Zephyr?”

“Relatively safe. We always dock her under an assumed name.”

“They’ll have her dimensions, though,” Seach said. “They’ll at least know what size of ship to look for.”

“That narrows their search down to about a thousand ships. That’s not as great as twenty-thousand, but it’ll do for long enough to get us out of Consulate space,” Jorry said.

“Captain,” Zephyr interrupted them. “Master Devon is outside and demands to be let in.”

Jorry met Seach’s eyes. Her first instinct was to lock Devon out, to keep him safely on the other side of the door, he already knew too much. She felt defeated, like the harder she tried to keep things the same the more they seemed to change.

“He’ll only resent us if we don’t include him on the plans,” Seach said.

She swallowed and nodded. “Let him in, Zephyr.”

The door opened and Devon, looking a little surprised, walked into the pilot’s nest. Jorry ordered the door sealed again and paced to the edge of the viewport, getting as far away from him as possible. She couldn’t concentrate if she was worried about him learning something and she desperately needed to concentrate today.

“I didn’t think you’d actually let me in,” Devon said.

“You’re almost of age,” Seach said. “And you’re normally involved in our planning.”

Bless the man for sounding normal, she thought.

“It’s just that our planning isn’t normally illegal,” Jorry said, trying for a dry tone.

Devon snorted a nervous laugh.

“We can assume that the Consulate will be waiting for us to deliver our load at Neptune Station,” Seach said.

Their cargo hold was full of food supplies meant for the station’s restaurant, which could be a stroke of luck. While she didn’t like stealing, at least they wouldn’t starve if they were on the run for a long period of time.

What they would need, however, was fuel.

“So,” Devon said slowly, “we just don’t deliver it.”

“We’ll still have to dock for fuel,” Seach said, echoing her thoughts.

“Could we dock somewhere else? Maybe on a moon or something?” Devon asked.

“We’d be more noticeable on a moon than on a station,” Jorry said, shaking her head. “Satellites are mostly full of small mining settlements and military outposts. We’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

“So what do we do?” Devon asked.

Jorry exhaled through her teeth and rubbed the back of her neck. There was only one thing they could do, she just didn’t like it. “We dock like normal, fuel up and pray we get out of there before they realize who we are.”

“But won’t the docking procedure tell them who we are?” Devon asked.

“Zephyr will give them a false name,” she said carefully.

“Right,” Devon said and locked eyes with her. “Because every hauler knows how to trick a computer into believing they’re a different ship.”

Jorry tensed but couldn’t look away from him. She silently pleaded for him to stop, to let it go. Not yet, she thought. Please, don’t ask me yet.

All he had to do was mention the Tapped and it would all be over. They would have to tell him the truth, all of it, because he deserved to know and he’d already figured most of it out. But he didn’t. Instead, Devon hissed through his teeth and turned away from her. Shaking his head, he walked out of the nest without another word.

Jorry watched him go, watched the rigid line of his shoulders as he stalked away. Jorry closed her eyes and swallowed the tight knot in her throat. She heard Seach move, felt him draw close, and was relieved when his arms went around her. She relaxed into him, buried her face in the crook of his shoulder and held on tight.

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