Their transport wasn’t a typical long-body ferry or a cargo skimr dressed up for civilians. It was circular, almost like a floating ring with a hollow center, the kind of design built for stability in rough water and cheap docking in ports that didn’t ask too many questions.
The outer rim carried the passenger decks, narrow corridors wrapped around the curve, while the middle held the service core: engines, ballast systems, water recyclers, and the maintenance tunnels that crew used to move without being seen.
From above, it probably looked like a coin sliding across black water.
From inside, it felt like being trapped inside a rotating habit. Sa turns. Sa doors. Sa faces passing again and again. Easy to learn. Easy to get watched in.
Requiem had booked one room.
Not because he wanted to cram them together, but because they didn’t have the luxury of spreading out. Funds were thin and every extra room ant another na in another system, another chance for soone to rember them later.
Requiem and Viola still had universal accounts, at least on paper. The problem was using them. Any serious transaction would light up tracking protocols like a flare. Even if the credits were clean, the behavior wouldn’t be. Corporate cities noticed patterns. So did the rcenaries and the Mandate watchers.
They survived on physical money now.
Cash earned from hauling scrap on the edge of a refinery zone, fixing broken loaders for dock crews who didn’t want paperwork, selling small salvage pieces that weren’t worth enough to register but were worth enough to eat. They moved like shadows, doing what they had to do without leaving digital footprints behind.
It was past midnight as the ship sailed through the ocean.
Lyra slept on the bed with Iria beside her, both curled toward the center like the narrow mattress was the only safe zone left in the universe. The ship’s vibration passed through the walls in a constant pulse, the sound of water cutting along the hull coming in and out like distant breathing.
Viola, Requiem, and Reva stayed awake.
There were only two chairs, and neither of them looked built for anything except short-term suffering. Reva sat on one, Viola took the other, and Requiem made do with a makeshift perch near the wall, half slumped, head dipping forward every few seconds before he caught himself.
Reva’s attention stayed locked on her device.
It was old. Scratched. Beat down. The kind of thing you bought from a scrapyard because it wasn’t linked to anyone and couldn’t report to anything even if it wanted to. The screen flickered whenever she tilted it wrong, and the battery percentage was a joke that kept getting worse, but it still worked enough to read text and pull basic signals when the ship drifted close to service towers.
Her fingers moved carefully, tapping through cached maps and stolen route guides, cross-checking them against what little live data she could grab without pinging anything expensive.
Across from her, Viola sat still but alert, eyes shifting between a route overlay and a news feed that kept cycling the sa bounty bulletins with new faces attached to them. Her jaw stayed tight, her expression controlled, but her gaze carried the pressure of soone who hadn’t slept properly in days.
Requiem’s head dipped again.
Viola glanced at him, then back to the screen. "If you fall asleep, at least fall asleep quietly."
Requiem mumbled sothing under his breath, not fully awake. "I am quiet."
"You snore," Viola replied.
"I don’t snore," he said, and even half asleep he sounded offended.
Reva didn’t look up, but her mouth shifted slightly like the closest thing she had to a smile right now. "You do."
Requiem’s head lifted a fraction, eyes barely open. "Traitors."
Viola’s fingers paused over the screen. "What I don’t get is how the net is this wide and still useless. Kylus has half the planet crawling for us."
The ship rocked slightly as it cut through a deeper swell, the room shifting with it, the tal walls giving a quiet creak that sounded like the vessel was tired too.
Viola’s eyes drifted toward the bed.
Lyra’s face was turned toward the wall, hair spread across the pillow. Even asleep she looked tense, like her body couldn’t fully accept rest anymore. Iria lay close, one arm tucked near her chest, breathing steady.
Reva kept working.
Tap, flicker, tap again.
Her device froze once, the screen whitening for a mont as if it had died completely. Reva held it still, waited, then tapped the side of it twice, the way you treated broken tech when you couldn’t afford to replace it.
It ca back.
Viola exhaled quietly, then checked the route again. "If we make it to Helior Pri, we disappear."
Reva’s eyes stayed on the screen. "Emphasis on the ’if’."
"At this pace, it’ll take seven days to reach Helior Pri," she said, eyes still on the route overlay. "Assuming nothing forces a detour."
Reva glanced up from her device, fingers pausing mid-tap. "We could’ve taken land routes and shaved off ti," she said. "We could’ve stopped wherever we wanted, hidden when needed, changed direction if soone got close. On land, you always have sowhere to disappear into."
She shifted in her chair, gaze flicking briefly toward the curved wall. "Out here, if soone spots us or recognizes us in the ship, there’s only water on every side. No alleys to hide into. No crowds to rge into. No exits to escape."
Viola didn’t answer.
She didn’t argue either. The silence made it clear enough that the decision hadn’t been hers.
Requiem lifted his head, eyes heavy but focused now. "I picked the sea route because it’s harder to follow," he said. "Traffic on land leaves patterns. Convoys, rentals, refuel points, checkpoints. Oceans blur everything together."
He leaned back against the wall, rubbing one hand over his face. "No one stops a passenger ship like this without reason. And even if soone tried, it’s big enough that sweeping every room, every corridor, every storage section would take half a day."
He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. "Ports rotate crews constantly. Passenger manifests are ssy. Physical cash still passes through here. It’s harder to isolate targets without tipping everyone else off."
Viola finally looked at him. "I get the logic," she said. "But ti still matters. Every extra day is another chance for soone to line things up correctly. Speed carries risk, but delay multiplies exposure."
Requiem nodded once. "That’s why we’re getting off early."
Reva looked up again. "Early aning when."
"Next stop," Requiem said. "We switch routes there. Land or air, depending on what we can get without lighting anything up."
Viola checked the navigation panel again, fingers moving fast. Her expression didn’t change when she looked back up. "Next stop is two days out."
The room settled into that number.
Lyra shifted in her sleep, murmuring sothing soft and unintelligible, Iria adjusting instinctively to stay close.
Reva’s device flickered again, and she tapped it back into obedience.
Two days closer.
Five more after that.
Plenty of ti for the sea to keep its secrets, and plenty of ti for the hunt to tighten sowhere beyond the horizon.
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