"You want slow movements—it's easy to pull a muscle thrashing around trying to get your balance. Know exactly what you want to do before you do it," Truly said through a speaker inside Bee's helmet.

The proximity of his voice unnerved her still despite it being their fifth nullroom session together in as many days. Bee couldn't help but feel like he said the words from just behind her ear. It made the hair on her neck stick up all weird.

"Okay, here goes," she said.

"Not too much force," Truly reminded her.

Bee squatted against the wall above the door to the nullroom, both boots planted square underneath her. Just stand and push off with your feet, he said. Stand and push. Not too hard, she thought as she looked up to gauge the distance to the other side. She straightened her knees to stand and shoved off from the wall, immediately feeling the temporary brain-freakout free fall still gave her.

"I said not too much..." Truly shook his head from his vantage point on the ceiling.

She'd pushed off too hard, zooming toward the opposite wall faster than she intended. She flung her arms out like Truly had told her to do if she needed to stop and the nodes in her palms shot beams of energy toward each wall. Her arms flexed from the strain as she slowed, stopped, and turned to pull herself back toward her starting point.

"Well, you didn't hit the wall this time," said Truly.

"Yeah, I'm a real pro." Bee closed her hand into a fist, reached out to the wall, and exposed the node in her palm when she was ready to move, tugging herself carefully forward with the green beam of energy.

"I've seen worse. You're no natural, but put in the time to practice and nobody can tell the difference. For less than a week in the nullroom you're doing alright."

"Less than a week's probably the most practice I'm ever going to get," she said. "We get to Optima tomorrow, right?"

"Yup."

"And then you guys are off on your treasure hunt."

"Which you're not going to tell anyone about," Truly said. "Right?"

"The Captain already talked to me," Bee said as she raised her boots to the wall. "If anyone asks you're on a routine salvage expedition."

The nodes grabbed on and she dropped onto the wall in a standing position. Moving in the suit was becoming much easier for her—she'd learned in the time she and Truly practiced how the suit used natural, intuitive motion commands to control the nodes. It was starting to feel like a second skin.

"Yeah, well you didn't talk to me yet. And don't think anyone trusts you just 'cause you've been working everyone on board."

Bee reeled from Truly's combative tone. "What? Where did that come from? I'm not—"

"Please. You've been pumping every person on this ship for information since day one. You know too much for me to be comfortable."

Truly descended from the ceiling and flipped himself to land on the floor. He started dismantling his armor as he walked to his locker.

"Well no shit, of course I'm asking questions. I want to learn from you guys," she snapped, glaring at him from her perch on the wall. "You're the real thing. Privateers. That's what I want to be."

"Oh, I see. You think it's that easy?" Truly laughed and mocked her with a high-pitched voice. "I'll just become a privateer, that sounds great! This is no cakewalk, Buttercup. You can't just sign up—and even if you could we wouldn't be bringing on some damn teenage girl."

"You know what, Truly? Why don't you go suck vacuum."

"Don't get all upset, it's not personal. It's my job to make sure this doesn't end up being our last trip out there. You're a liability. Just keep your mouth shut after we drop you off."

"I'm not gonna say jack, okay?" Bee said. She walked down the wall toward the floor. "Why would I do that?"

"There's people who might come asking about us."

"What does that mean?" She hopped from the wall to the floor, wobbling as she found her balance.

"Captain's not a popular man this far out. Back in the Core he's got lots of friends, but the rest of the system's not too fond of privateers. He's got more than a few enemies on Optima and they don't ask nice when they're looking for information."

"Well that's comforting."

Truly closed his locker and walked past her. "Like I said, just keep your mouth shut and you'll be fine. No one's going to know you came in with us and you won't be there for long. But if anyone asks..."

"I heard you," Bee said as Truly left the nullroom.

#

The next morning Bee woke early, before the light cycle on the ship was bright enough to be considered day. She wanted to get as much out of her remaining time on the ship as possible. For breakfast she went to the kitchen and filled a bowl with the bland nutrient paste the whole crew had been eating for the past week.

Since Myra vented half the ship's power cells there wasn't enough energy for any waste—including the extra resources it took to cook a proper meal. Everyone ate nutrient rations instead of the fresh meat and produce they'd brought from Surface. The paste was boring but it filled her stomach.

At one point in her life, Bee thought as she dragged her spoon through the remnants of the wheat-colored goop, she would have killed for the stuff. Even for just a mouthful. She scraped the bowl clean and tried to imagine how it might have tasted to her then. She probably could have lasted a week on the meal she just ate.

"You actually like that stuff?"

Myra's disembodied voice startled Bee and she dropped the spoon into her bowl with a clatter.

"Myra! You're back."

"Yes, finally. But I'm a shadow of my former self," she griped. "Captain Overreaction stripped me down to nothing—I'm barely a ghost now. Except I can't even turn the lights on and off."

Bee waggled her bowl as she rose from the table to put away her dishes. "Well, you did force everyone to eat this all week."

"A necessary evil. I was trying to stop you all from getting killed. It's in my core protocols to preserve life."

"That doesn't make sense. I mean, what if we needed all that power for something? Weren't you putting us in danger?" Bee went back to the dining room and took a seat to hang around with Myra until someone else woke up. Maybe she could talk Truly into one last training session.

"I ran millions of different scenarios and my minor sabotage introduced the least amount of risk for the desired outcome."

"And what outcome was that?" Bee asked.

"Making you all eat nutrition paste."

Bee giggled, and was about to press the point when Captain Anson walked into the dining room, interrupting their conversation.

"Morning, Captain," Bee said.

He grunted in reply and went into the kitchen without otherwise acknowledging her presence. Bee hadn't seen the Captain since the meeting on the bridge days ago—he'd locked himself in his quarters to work on fixing Myra and hadn't left since.

"You might want to avoid him for now," Myra whispered to her.

"Is he mad?"

"Maybe I shouldn't have done what I did," she said, this time with her good humor replaced by humility. "He trusted me. I mean, he still trusts me, but maybe I would have been better off—no, never mind."

"Better off what?" Bee spoke in a whisper like Myra.

"Your room?" asked Myra.

Bee nodded and slipped out of her seat. She wasn't sure what to make of Myra—she thought of Silver saying AIs like her were illegal. Beyond a shadow of a doubt Bee knew she didn't want to get on the Captain's bad side. But a private conversation wasn't against the rules. She'd talk to Myra, but reminded herself as she entered her room to be cautious.

"So what were you saying?" Bee asked. She took a seat on the bed.

"I'm just not sure I did the right thing. The Captain is still planning to go out there and now he's angry with me. And I'm useless. Can't do anything myself anymore."

Bee narrowed her eyes. "And now what are you saying?"

Myra took a moment. "If I asked you to—"

"Nope!" said Bee as she stood. "No way. Whatever it is you want, I'm not getting involved."

"You don't even know what I'm asking."

"I don't trust you," Bee blurted. "Sorry."

Myra sighed. "No, I understand. But I just wanted to ask you to consider coming with us instead of going back to Surface."

"What? Didn't you just say everyone was probably going to get killed going out there?"

"Buttercup, you're not ready for what you want to do. I ran some scenarios for you too—you've actually got a better shot staying alive if you come with us."

"I'm going back," Bee insisted. "I've been waiting my whole life to find him, I'm not about to run away now. Besides, the Captain, Truly, and Silver all want me gone as soon as possible. They wouldn't go for it."

"Just think about it," Myra said.

"I'm going back," she repeated, but Myra wasn't there.

#

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