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The clank of metal on bone was one of the most satisfying sounds I’d ever heard. I was on the guard a second later, counting on the others to be too shocked to respond immediately. A part of me envied the relaxing lives they led, where even on guard duty they were distracted enough that they could be taken by surprise.My life—full of explosions, sudden attacks, and dread—served me better that day.

As a few of them got their first shots off, spraying weapons fire erratically through the hallway, I knelt with the fallen guard’s stun gun and laid into the remaining four. A barrage of tightly focused fire dropped them all in a single sweep. Even Veska, my firing range sergeant, wouldn’t have complained about my form and precision.

Then I knelt there, heart pounding, holding my weapon and waiting for the inevitable alarm to sound. Surely a guard was watching remotely somewhere. They wouldn’t solely rely on soldiers at the door, would they?

Silence.

Scud, what was happening? I couldn’t trust this, could I? It was far too convenient.

But what else was I supposed to do? Sit in my bunk? Maybe the slugs had somehow managed to get me this key. I couldn’t stew and worry it was a trap.

Move, dummy!

I grabbed the first guard—the one I’d hit in the face with the metal door—and hauled them up by their jacket. They were a dione, with blue skin and face tattoos, one of which had been split right down the middle by the edge of the door.

They were dazed, but coming to. So I pulled their face up close to mine and growled, “Hangar bay. Starfighters.”

Their eyes widened and they smiled, an expression that on a dione did not mean amusement. They were terrified. Good.

“I’m not a patient woman,” I hissed at them. “Tell me where the fighter bays are, or I’ll have to get creative. How many pieces can a dione lose before they go into shock? Any ideas?”

“I…Please,” the dione whispered.

“Hangar bay,” I hissed. “Starfighters.”

“Delm fourteen!”

Delm was one of their letters. Good enough. I shot the dione with the stun gun, then whipped the jacket off one of the smaller guards. I threw it on and strung my stun rifle across it by the strap in a guard carry. Maybe I wouldn’t strike as suspicious a silhouette this way. I identified the NCO of the fallen group by their uniform, then stole their ID—it looked a lot like the key my phantom helper had sent me.

I took off at an even stride, and after a few turns through the empty hallways I found a monitor on the wall that seemed like it was there to help with navigation. After all this time, I still didn’t know much about the Superiority alphabets, but I managed—using the access key I’d stolen—to get “delm 14” typed in. To my relief, a map appeared, showing me the way.

I’d thought I was in some kind of space station, not a ground facility, and that was proven correct when a few turns later I found some portholes looking out at the silent expanse of space.

I continued down hallway after hallway, and fortunately didn’t run into many people. The ones I spotted were at a distance, and my makeshift disguise seemed to work. I got the feeling that it was the station’s main sleep cycle, which certainly made it easier to sneak around.

I was more thanhalfwayto my destination before the alarm sounded. Those five guards who had left their shift early were likely going to have averybad day.

I ran, praying I’d gotten the location correct—and came upon a tenasi, a female carrying a tray of food and humming to herself. I stunned her and she fell to the ground, then I leaped over the splattered mess of her meal, ran the final distance, and slammed my stolen guard’s key to the pad beside a metal door. But it didn’t open immediately. Scud, I hoped they hadn’t already locked me out. I stood there in a panic, red lights flashing in the hallway and a distant alarm sounding.

At last the door opened. I leaped through to find a large hangar bay, Superiority-standard starships of a variety of designs sitting in a row. Despite the flashing lights and sounds of alarm, there was nobody in here. Wouldn’t a hangar lockdown be one of their first moves after a security breach?

I hesitated, again worried this was a trap. As I did, I heard a click to the side.

Scud. I turned and raised my rifle, realizing I’d failed to check my corners after entering the room. Veska would have had something to complain about after all.

Brade lounged at an operator’s seat by the wall just to my right, her booted feet up on a desk, stopwatch raised.

My stomach sank and I was hit by a wave of anger at seeing Brade with that scudding stopwatch yet again.

So I tried to shoot her. My weapon fire hit a shield that, until intercepting something, was invisible. It flashed blue before fading again.

“Protective feature,” she said. “Shielded ops station as a safety protocol during weapons checks. The Superiority is big on safety protocols.” She peered at the stopwatch. “Wow. Did you really defeat ten guards and run all the way here in under five minutes?”

I fired again. And again. Just to see if I could bring the shield down. When it didn’t work, I sighed. “I only had to beat five guards,” I admitted. “I waited for a shift change, and there’s a group of them that tends to leave early.”

Brade sighed loudly. “You’re kidding me. Look, I promise wehavesomecompetent soldiers. They just don’t usually get assigned to guard duty, even on important installations.” She sounded like she thought I’d beoffendedby lazy guards.

Then again, I had no idea how to read Brade. She seemed to swap personalities like FM changed shoes. I kept my rifle up.