“The stars,” Lizzie said in her most sarcastic tone. “The metagate, you moron.” She paused. “It’s the strangest thing to see colors like that in the middle of space.”

Jeth nodded, fixing his gaze on the nearest edge of the gate, still several thousand kilometers away. The thing was so large that you could only see one section of it when you were this close, but Jeth knew its shape was mostly conical, like a giant malformed doorway in space. Similar to the Montrose’s metadrive, the gate was mostly comprised of that same rough, colored material, with a metal frame surrounding the outer edge and inlaid with wires and conductors and other tech. This one was colored in varying shades of blue, and it glowed bright enough to illuminate all the blackness around it in an aurora display.

“Why do you suppose they come in different colors?” Lizzie asked.

Nobody replied. It was the kind of question people voiced out of habit. The most anybody knew about metatech was that the material that came to make up gates and drives had been invented by ancient First-Earth scientists more than five hundred years ago.

The dazzling light hurt Jeth’s eyes, and he looked away.

“Finally,” Lizzie said some time later as the nav system beeped, indicating an incoming request from the Cerulean Metagate’s Master Control. Jeth opened it, the message the usual payment prompt. He did a double take at the amount.

Lizzie whistled. “Damn, that’s high.”

Shady stood and walked over, taking in the fee as Jeth started to key in Hammer’s account number. “Ouch,” Shady said. “Sure that’s not the rate they charge Independents?”

“I’m sure,” Jeth said, finishing.

Shady scratched his head. “Why are we bothering with the gate at all? We should’ve just used the metadrive.”

“It was supposed to save us time.”

Shady grunted as he returned to his seat.

Jeth switched on the main comm line. “We’re getting ready to head through the gate, people.” He picked up the safety goggles from the dashboard and slipped them over his head as Lizzie and Shady did the same. Then he piloted them into the large, yawning mouth of the gate until the Master Control took over, propelling them through it.

The familiar dead—not dead feeling came over him, the state seeming to both last forever and no time at all, as if the seconds it took them to travel though metaspace were seconds stolen from a different timeline, a different existence.

They came through the other side a moment later, emerging into a vast expanse of empty space, with nothing but the Belgrave awaiting in the distance.

Chapter 08

NOT LONG AFTER THEY FINISHED THE JUMP, AVALON’S comm beeped with an incoming call from the Citation, which must have just completed its jump. Jeth switched on the video screen to find Dax once again grinning at him.

“There are no ships on the radar right now, so we might be in luck, but give me a ten minute head start to make sure. If I run into any ITA patrols, I’ll get their attention and lead them away from your path. But get in there as quick as you can. You should be undetectable once you pass through the border.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Jeth.

Dax killed the link between the two ships, and then piloted the Citation away from them. Ten minutes later, Jeth followed. It would’ve simplified things if they could’ve made a metaspace jump directly into the Belgrave, but it was impossible due to the unusual energy signature that marked the Belgrave’s border. A ship could jump within the quadrant but not into it.

Keeping an eye on the radar and proximity scans, Jeth set Avalon to autopilot. They arrived at the border without any sign of Dax or the ITA. A good omen, Jeth decided.

“We’re at the border,” he announced over the main comm.

Moments later, everybody congregated on the bridge for the crossing.

“It doesn’t look any different,” Celeste said from the copilot’s chair, which she had commandeered from Lizzie. Celeste seemed calm enough, but she sat unusually rigid for someone normally as languid as a cat.

Behind them at the nav station, Lizzie snorted. “What’d you expect? A big neon skull and bones?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Shady. “I thought it would look all weird and scary, but it’s just more space.”

“That’s because that’s all it is,” Jeth said. “Just another little bit of space.” It was more pep talk than denial. An odd mixture of excitement and dread churned in Jeth’s belly, all of it infused with the wanderlust vibrating harder than ever inside of him.

As they passed through the energy field, all the lights on the ship dimmed. A moment later, a burst of white noise crackled out of the comm speakers, making everybody jump. For a second Jeth thought he heard voices among the static.

Nobody said anything as the noise died away. Somehow the silence was even more unnerving, all the normal ship sounds louder and weirdly ominous.

Shady was the first to work up the courage to speak, but when he did, his voice was subdued. “So . . . what the hell was that?”

Nobody answered, not even Jeth.

After a moment Shady spoke again in a more normal voice. “Where do we head now, Captain?”

Jeth cringed a little, not thrilled with the new nickname. “Boss” was bad enough.

Lizzie answered for him. “The Donerail’s last known position was alpha-two-six-one, also known as the Specter Sea.”

“Of course it is,” said Flynn, his voice higher-pitched than usual. “Because that’s exactly what you want to a name a place everybody is afraid of. I mean, why couldn’t they have called it the Sea of Puppies or maybe the Sea of Fluffy Kittens?”