For the first week of travel the crew kept to their usual routines. Bee and Truly stuck to the basics of moving around in the nullroom. Truly put a lot of emphasis on daily improvement, constantly pushing her to beat her lap times during drills. She even grazed his heel once in a game of tag. All those hours were starting to pay off.

In the time she had off from the nullroom Bee shadowed Ferro on the bridge to learn about the ship's controls and how pilots navigated the space between planets. She also got the most face time with Captain Anson there. They hadn't spoken at all about what Bee learned from Myra-he never mentioned it and Bee couldn't summon the courage to bring it up.

Even Silver was getting more comfortable with her. He took her on a full tour of Wanderlust and explained how the ship was built, answering any questions she had along the way. The stocky Quartermaster actually seemed to enjoy her curiosity. He took particular pleasure in showing her the ship's mass-driving gravity cannons, their most effective offensive measure-and the most spectacular by far.

"The standard no-nonsense shells are wrapped with nullsteel except for the nose," Silver had said as Myra projected him a model of the slug to illustrate his point. "The gravity cannons need something to pull on to launch them so they're not covered completely. The wrapping reduces the weight of the payload upon firing, requires less energy. But when it hits it's all there."

Bee had begged him to demonstrate, but out in the belt Wanderlust had nothing to target. They were still thousands of miles from anything.

A few days later, though, Myra woke Bee in the middle of the night and told her to meet Silver on the bridge. When Bee showed up Ferro was there too, looking cranky.

"I can't believe we're taking a detour for this," Ferro snapped at Silver. "Costing us time out here."

"It would be nice to know we're fully operational," he said. "I'd hate to find out we've got equipment troubles when we suddenly find the need to defend ourselves. Besides, it's barely out of our way and it's always best to fire on a live target."

"Whole damn trip's out of my way," she grumbled, but relented with her complaints when Bee entered. "You're just in time to see the show."

"What show?" Bee asked.

"There," Silver said, pointing to two display windows above the holographic map of Styx. Wanderlust was on one-the feed came from a recon drone alongside the ship. The other window displayed an oblong soot-gray asteroid. "You see that rock? It's a meteoroid about thirty feet across. We were going to pass within a couple hundred miles of it on the way to our first stop. I asked the Captain to nudge our course a bit, get us into firing range. To test our targeting systems," he quickly explained.

Bee hid her smile from the Quartermaster. "Very responsible of you."

"Myra, you got a bead on it?" Silver asked.

"Oh, I've got it. Permission to fire."

"Fire when ready." Quartermaster Silver gave the order with a growl, grinning and clenching his metal hand into a fist.

"Ten seconds. I'll have to lead it by quite a bit, Bill. You want to make a bet?"

"Yeah, you're hot shit, aren't you? I made that mistake once already."

"Come on, I've missed before. Can't win if you don't play," Myra taunted. "Five seconds. Ferro?"

Ferro shook her head. "This ship, these guns, on a steady target-Myra, if you miss I'll die of shock."

"Two, one-firing," Myra finished.

The window displaying Wanderlust zoomed in as one cannon revealed itself from beneath a retracting panel on the hull. The cannon flashed green as the shell launched, but Bee didn't even see it go. She didn't feel any vibrations or anything. The panel snapped back into place and the ship looked just as it did before firing the shot.

In the other window, the meteorite continued to hang motionless in space. Bee held her breath as her anticipation grew, the seconds dragging on until she was sure Myra must have missed. Just when she was about to say something snarky a flash of light consumed the screen as the shell tore into its target. Silver crowed and Ferro pumped a fist in the air.

"Good hit!" the Quartermaster shouted. He ribbed Bee with an elbow. "Maybe we save the next one for Starhawk, huh?"

Bee watched fragments of the pulverized meteoroid as they tumbled through a cloud of dust and vapor onscreen. The thing had probably been rolling along for thousands of years and then just like that-ended in an instant. That wasn't what she promised.

Bee clenched her jaw. "Too quick for him. He needs to suffer."

Ferro went quiet and made herself busy in the pilot's chair. Silver stepped away from her and straightened, putting his Quartermaster's face back on. He cleared his throat with a cough.

"Good hit," he repeated. "Targeting systems are green. Testing cannon two, fire when ready."

"Thanks," Bee mumbled to Silver as she left. She didn't want to watch the rest.

#

Victor finished dressing himself in a hurry. "You made me late. I was supposed to be on the bridge already."

"Is smashing rocks more exciting than I am?" Myra asked, arching an eyebrow. She rose from the bed, clothing materializing on her nude form as she stood, and followed Victor as he left his quarters.

"There's not a thing in the 'verse excites me more than you, my dear," Victor said, turning his head to wink at her.

He started up the short ramp to the bridge and almost plowed into Bee on her way out the door. She turned her shoulders and squeezed by both him and Myra without a word, heading for her room.

Victor shook his head and called after her. "Yeah, no need to salute or anything, I'm only Captain here."

Bee ignored him and kept her head down as she rounded the corner.

"I'll check on her," Myra said, waving Victor on. "Go ahead, I'll be on the bridge too-I can do both. Just like to only have one body."

He shrugged and continued on his way. Inside, Silver and Ferro shared a palpably awkward silence together, exchanging glances with each other as the Captain entered.

"What was that all about?" Victor asked. "She okay?"

Silver pursed his lips. "Thought she might like to see the guns in action. Guess it got her thinking about... you know."

Victor grunted. "Alright. Well how'd the testing go?"

"All green," Silver said.

"That's what I like to hear. Myra, howbout those recon drones we sent ahead? We got visual yet?"

"Spectral imaging from the drones confirms mostly silicates," Myra said from above. "That rock is definitely not from around here. Another few hours and we'll be able see if there's anything interesting on the surface."

"Any ships nearby?" Victor asked.

"Nothing they can see. Only short range scanners, though."

"We'll keep moving in. How long would you guess it'll take them to do a thorough check of the whole rock? If there's anything at all it'll be well hidden."

"By the size of it I'd say no more than sixty hours."

Victor winced. "Is that all."

"If you want thorough. We don't know where one of these stashes might be, assuming we're even looking in the right place. My guesses are only as good as the information I was given, so don't blame me when we end up gallivanting around the belt for no reason just because your map gave me bad locations."

"We are going to find something out here," Victor said. "Slack Dog was right there with them when they divvied up Dreadstar's stockpile on all his ships. He saved a copy of that map for all these years to cash in one day. Kept his mouth shut. Kept it to himself. What happened when he finally broke that silence? He got killed for it. That means his map led to something worth going after."

"I believe it," said Silver. "Starhawk wanted it bad."

"Still does. He's out there somewhere."

#

Bee paced back and forth in her room while Myra sat cross-legged on the bed. The door was open so that Myra could project inside, but Bee was tempted to shut the door. It annoyed her that the AI insisted on keeping up the illusion. She felt the urge to lash out with something nasty but kept her silence instead, leaving the poison stewing inside.

"If I'm bothering you I can leave," Myra said.

Bee glanced up at the projection and shrugged but continued pacing the room. "It's not you."

"Then what?"

It took a moment for her to say anything. "Starhawk."

"You don't think we'll find him? You'll get your chance if things keep up this way. As long as we're out here he'll be after us. And the longer we're here the more likely it is he'll find us. Starhawk didn't have the Families on his side before. Now he could have eyes all over the place looking for us."

"Yeah, and if they find us what then?"

"Either we kill them or they kill us."

"That's just it," Bee said. "I don't just want to kill him from way out without him even knowing everything. I promised Mother-"

"I know. You whisper about it in your sleep."

"My whole life that's all I've thought of. Every moment I've lived since that day has been spent in pursuit of one goal. He can't just end. You can't just snuff him out. I need to make him feel what I've felt. What my mother felt."

"You can't," said Myra.

Bee glared. "You think I can't."

The AI held Bee's stare. "I've watched every second of your progress up to this point. You couldn't hold a candle to any one of Starhawk's grubs, let alone the man himself."

"What-" Bee sputtered.

"Not without me, anyway."

Confused and angry, all she could manage was to repeat herself. "What?"

"Come with me," Myra said as she stood and left the room.

Bee followed Myra's projection as it led her through the ship to the nullroom. She burned to ask more questions but held her tongue along the way. Myra stood in front of the door for Bee to open it, and she did so. Truly was waiting for her just inside the entrance to the cavernous area, leaning against the lockers in full suit except for the helmet at his feet.

"It's your lucky day," Truly said with a smile. "Ready for an upgrade?"

Bee couldn't help but smile back. "I'm not sure."

"Open your locker," he said. "I just hope it all fits."

#

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