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I creep into the hangar bay and see the Reaver in the middle of the room. No one’s going near it, like it’s poisonous. The back of it is opened for cargo, and I see four black cubes. They are made of dull, metallic material, and they emanate danger. I know they are explosives instantly.

A suicide mission. My triad is taking a Reaver that’s been turned into a missile into the Aurelian Empire, to let fire consume them.

But it’s also my chance. My heart pounds. If I can get on that Reaver, then they’ll let my triad out of the atmosphere. They’d never blow it with me on board.

I’ve got to find a way down there.

I remember back when I was skulking around Paulus' mansion and I needed to get back to my room after an excursion into the garden. There were two guards who shouldn’t have been there. I threw a branch, and they went after the sound.

Now I look around the top level of the bay. Everything is neat, but there’s a wrench lying out. I grab it, and throw it as hard as I can. It clangs and clatters, and I risk everything, ducking as I run down the stairs. Aurelian voices argue as I get to the Reaver and rush into the open back, not touching the gleaming black squares that have tubes all around them.

Where to go?

I don’t like being near the huge black boxes. I walk to the door. Shit. Of course it will be locked. Out of desperation, I wave my hand to the scanner.

To my shock, the door hisses open, and I walk into the sterile white hallway.

How?

Then, hard alien voices, from further up the ship at the side doors. My smartwatch translates, displaying the words on the face, scrolling quickly.

“Check every last nook and cranny of this place. We’re going to hinge the entire population of a planet on that crazed triad. I don’t know what Ra’al’s thinking.”

There’s a thud on the door ahead of me down the hall. “Use your keycard, idiot. The Reaver is no longer linked to us.”

The doors hiss open, and I quickly wave my hand, opening a door at random and slipping in.

I’m in the small med-bay of the Reaver. It’s got a stool, a little desk, and a large metal slab of a table. From the ceiling, an arm with needles and nozzles is waiting for a patient.

The footsteps come closer. Fuck! I think of hiding behind the slab, under it somehow, but there’s nowhere. There’s another door, deeper in the room, and I rush to it, waving my hand and slipping in just as the door to the med-bay opens.

“What’s that smell?”

“Smells like human. Was any working on this Reaver?”

“All Reavers were used as flying hospitals when we saved this hopeless planet. The stink of one of them must have stayed.”

“Smells good to me. I hope she survived. Med-bay is clear.”

I’m in a dark, thin room with three tall cylinder tubes. They are completely opaque. The middle one splits open as I near it, and I slide inside. It closes just as the Aurelian enters the room, so I get a glimpse of him through the crack, a thin fellow in brown work clothes.

“Clear,” he says, and they leave. I reach forward to open the glass door when there’s a hiss.

Gas fills the cylinder. My hands wave helplessly.

In my haste to hide, I went into a sleeping cell for long distance trips.

I try to hold my breath, but it’s too late. My head spins, and I fall back, the cylinder molding around my body, cool material encompassing me in my tomb.

The triad will never find me.

They’ll pilot the Reaver into whatever suicide mission they volunteered for, and detonate it without ever knowing I am here.

I open my mouth in a soundless scream as darkness takes me.

Forever.

I’m going to die in here, and they will never know I was here. Panic, yes, but deep sorrow fills me as my eyes close, my heartbeat slowing, and all I can think is that I cannot accept this, that this can’t be real, before everything goes black.