Ferro backs away from the scanner, pupils swelling like two oil slicks. When he finally finds his voice, it’s hoarse with fear.

“They’re lying!” His head jerks toward Astrid. “I don’t have a chip! Don’t you see what’s happening? They’re trying to turn you against me!”

She just stands there frozen, gaze fixed on the blinking red scanner in Cael’s hand. When Ferro grabs her arm, she doesn’t try to pull away. Doesn’t try to comfort him. It’s her total lack of reaction that seems to push him over the edge. He starts to hyperventilate, his words coming out in frantic gasps.

“I – I swear they – they’re lying! You’ve got to believe me!”

His plea finally breaks her trance. “Please, Ferr,” she whispers, blinking away tears. “Just tell me the truth. Are you working for Gant?”

“How—” He gulps in a breath. “How could you even ask me that?”

Dax steps in to answer. “’Cause scanners don’t lie, Peacock. And that one says you messed with your collar.”

Before Ferro can reply, I catch movement behind him. Three of Kobari’s men, entering the cabin. The sight sends an unexpected ripple of fear through me. Why should I care what happens to Fahrenheit? If the situation were reversed, he’d be fixing a noose to hang me right about now.

Kobari’s men creep forward with lightning sticks drawn, like Fahrenheit’s about to make a run for it. Don’t they realize we’re in a fragging subnaut? I’m about to say something sarcastic to that effect when Astrid lunges in front of the approaching rebels. They hesitate, looking to Cael.

“Stand down,” he orders. “He’ll come without a fight.”

“Like hellfire I will!” Ferro shouts, regaining some of his bluster now that he’s standing behind Astrid. “It’s your bloody collar that failed! I’m innocent!”

“If that’s true…” Cael sidesteps Astrid to take his arm. “Then you’ll understand what we have to do next.”

*

Ferro didn’t know. The nagging suspicion won’t leave me. That’s why I felt the sudden urge to defend him: because when the scanner flashed red, I saw more than the fear of discovery in his eyes. I saw panic and… confusion.

Cael and Lily took him to the medical bay half an hour ago to deactivate his chip. The rest of us are back in the crew’s quarters, seated or lying on our bunks. All we can do now is wait for their report.

“Could the collar have malfunctioned?” Astrid asks, echoing my thoughts.

Thea looks up from her bunk, frowning as she considers the question. “Anything’s possible, but it’s highly unlikely. Cael inspected each device before we left York. He wouldn’t have missed any technical glitch.”

“But how would Ferro even know how to disable this thing?” I ask, touching my collar. The surface feels smooth and seamless, certainly not easy to penetrate.  “It’s not like there’s a wire to cut.”

Thea nods to let me know it’s a good question. Something just doesn’t feel right. Would Ferro betray me and the Aletheians? In a heartbeat. But would he turn on Astrid? Guess we’ll have our answer soon enough.

Fortunately, Cael doesn’t keep us waiting long. As soon as he enters the cabin, Astrid jumps up to demand an update.

“Your friend is fine,” he reassures her, ducking and leaning against Thea’s bunk to avoid the low ceiling. “Sedated but comfortable. The chip extraction went smoothly.”

“And his collar?” Thea asks.

“Dead. Someone fried it in all the right places. We found pinpoint thermal damage in both the primary and auxiliary power coils. There’s no way that could’ve happened by accident.”

Thea blinks slowly, like she’s trying to absorb this bad news before moving on. “How do you think he did it?”

“The collar shows no outside markings, so my guess would be a pulsed microwave disruptor. Sophisticated units come as small as a thumbnail.” Cael’s eyes roam the cabin before settling on Astrid.  “Easy enough to conceal.”

She arches her brows to challenge him. “And you found one on Ferro?”

“Not yet.”

“Then how do you know he’s responsible?”

“You tell me. I checked the collars before we left York, so the damage must have been done somewhere…” – He scans the cabin again – “…down here. It’s hard to imagine someone sneaking up on your friend to disable his collar without him knowing. Unless you have a better theory.”

Astrid opens her mouth to protest but then checks herself. Even she must realize there’s no good rebuttal. All the evidence points to the same conclusion. Ferro has been spying for Gant. No big shocker there, but how could he betray Astrid? And what must she be feeling now?

If she’s hurt, her expression gives away nothing. It’s as if she just slipped on a mask. Even her eyes look different – dark and unfathomable, like the ocean before a storm. When she asks to see Ferro’s chip, her voice sounds hollow. Stripped of emotion.

Cael holds out his hand, palm opening to reveal the implant. It’s so tiny we must crowd around to see it.

“Looks like a first gen,” Thea notes after inspecting the black speck.

“Upgraded, but yes. They used a simple subfascial insertion site.” Cael taps the back of his neck to show us where he found the chip. “Made for an easy extraction.”

Thea raises a brow. “And that’s all you found? No cortical implant?”

When Cael shakes his head, worry lines radiate from the corners of her eyes. “But that makes no sense. Why just tag him for location?”

Cael shrugs. “Maybe they didn’t have time to do an auditory interface.”

“Excuse me,” Astrid cuts in sharply, “but could you speak English for the rest of us? What in flames are you talking about?”

Cael faces her with a grin, like he’s impressed by her attitude. Guess that makes sense given his relationship with Lily. “Your friend’s chip only gave away our location. It didn’t have an audio feed.”

The news sounds too good to be true. “Then Gant doesn’t know we’re about to hit Scilla,” I point out, trying to contain my excitement. “That means we can still go ahead with our plan!”

Thea answers me with a soft sigh. “We went through this already, Wil. You and your friends aren’t soldiers.”

“I know, but –”

She holds up a hand. “This is not open to debate. I know it’s hard, but you need to trust us. We’re taking you somewhere safe.”

“Um, that might be a problem.”

The familiar voice belongs to Dax, who just strolled into the cabin with Lily trailing a few steps behind. One look at her clenched jaw and I know they’re bringing bad news.

When Thea asks what’s wrong, Lily just shakes her head.

“You’d better come with us,” Dax says. “The Captain wants to show you something.”

*

The control room bustles with activity. When Kobari sees our group approaching, he motions for us to join him. He and a crewmate are hunched over a glowing vid screen, their faces bathed in blue light.

On closer inspection of the screen, I notice at least four shades of blue, fanning out like the bands of a monochromatic rainbow: navy to the west, transitioning to cobalt, aquamarine and then turquoise to the far east. This must be a navigation display, with a color-coded contour map showing water depths. When Kobari scrolls upward to reveal a solid brown border, Astrid draws in a sharp breath behind me. She must recognize it too. We’re looking at the curved coastline of the Eastern Territory. We’ve already crossed the Great Sea.

“What’s our position?” Thea asks, eyes glued to the screen.

Kobari taps a lone yellow dot in the upper left corner, still in deep water.

“And these are all enemy ships?” Cael asks, pointing to a constellation of white blips to our south.

Kobari nods. “Destroyers.”

Now that they’ve drawn my attention to the pattern of dots, I notice they’re forming two parallel lines.

“Standard search and destroy formation,” Kobari notes with a grunt. “Here’s the vanguard...” He traces the closest line of ships, then drops his finger to a second line that’s further to our south. “And here’s the blockade. They can’t see us now, but they’re reacting to our last known position.”

“Blocking our path to the south.” Thea purses her lips and turns to Cael. “They know where we’re going.”

“Right,” Kobari confirms, “but it’s worse than that. Watch the vanguard.”

We watch in tense silence as the screen blinks. The change is barely perceptible, but a few of the blips in the vanguard formation shift north. Moving closer.

Thea sucks in a deep breath. “Like a net closing in on us.”

“More like a hook,” Cael says, leaning over the screen. He taps the right edge of the enemy formation, which ends abruptly. “What’s to stop us from cutting hard to the northeast and outflanking them here?” He points to a narrow channel of water that cuts between a peninsula and a large island to the south. “This is the Charybdian Strait, right?”

The Captain nods.

“Then if we loop around through the Medrean Sea…” He traces a path with his index finger that threads though the channel, then dips south. “We can still make landfall close to the rendez-vous site.”

Kobari shakes his head. “The Charybdian Strait is a war zone. You’ve got Sinovoss fighters in Charybdis to the north…” – He touches the boot-shaped peninsula, then drags his finger across the channel to the island – “and Scilla to the south. They’re in spitting distance, guns pounding each other night and day.”

“But can we make it through the channel?” Thea asks.

“Not a chance. It’s deep enough, but heavily mined.” Kobari touches the southern tip of Scilla. “Our best option is to land here and wait for evacuation.”

Someone whistles behind me and I turn to find Dax, wearing a bemused grin. “How about that?” he says, nudging my shoulder like we’ve just shared an inside joke. “Scilla Rock. Looks like you’re gonna need that combat training after all.”

***

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