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you Tadeo just needed the right girl.”
    Era dragged her hands down her face. She’d just committed a serious crime—and for what? She pressed her lips together and picked up the handheld she and Zephyr had been working on. “We need to finish these.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with Tadeo. I don’t know why you—”
    “I’m not—come on.” Era’s voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “Let’s get this done.”
    Zephyr frowned but sat down and picked up her eyepiece.
    Era activated the handheld, and they stared at the frozen infinity symbol hovering in the air.
    “I remember this from the last time you showed me,” Zephyr said softly as she gestured and brought up the code.
    Era’s eyes filled as Zephyr worked. When the riot leaders were airlocked, Zephyr said the president and board were just trying to pin the uprising on someone, make an example of them. Era had brushed off Zephyr’s theory.
    Those rioters had been guilty. The president and board had no choice but to airlock them for the safety of the fleet.
    This thing with Dritan, the personnel records—it wasn’t like that . The president was just doing an investigation into the hull breach. But still. Why had Dritan hidden the truth?
    Zephyr re-booted the handheld, and the infinity symbol rotated in the air and faded into the mantra of the fleet.
    A Better World Awaits.
    But will we ever get there?
    ∞ ∞
    Era stepped into the loud din of the galley and followed Zephyr to the mess line. The scent of hot quin grain turned her stomach. She’d thrown it up more times than she could count in the early weeks of her pregnancy. It might never smell good to her again.
    She scanned the end of the galley, where the sublevel workers sat. Dritan leaned over a table, hands on the shoulders of two of his crewmates. He broke into a wide grin at something one of them said, and Era’s heart grew heavy. Why had he kept the truth from her?
    The line moved, and Era took her metal plate and water cup from the galley worker.
    “Reduced rations. Again,” Zephyr said, through gritted teeth.
    Era looked down at the small pile of sticky brown quin grain on her plate. A few anemic greens poked out from it. Her stomach flipped.
    This was how it had all started a year ago. The riots. The Meso had lost some of its crop to the rot, and the shortage seemed to break something in the fleet. Was it happening again?
    Era looked back at Zephyr, but her somber expression was gone.
    “I’m getting really sick of plain quin, anyway,” Zephyr said. “How can the lower levels eat this every single day?
    Era shrugged. Command level life on the London did have its benefits, not the least of which was a more varied menu. And quin liquor. She and Zephyr had gotten drunk on it while the ship rioted. Era pushed the memory down.
    Dritan caught sight of them and pointed to an empty table in their usual spot in the middle of the galley.
    Zephyr and Era had tried to sit with his crew once, but the table had fallen silent when they showed up, and a few of his crew members had even shot Zephyr dirty looks. Never again. They stuck to the tech tables now.
    They walked to the table Dritan had picked for them, and Era dropped down next to him.
    Zephyr slid onto the bench across from them and dug her fork into the small pile of grain. “How do they expect us to survive on these rations? The Meso ’s sure been doing a kak job lately.”
    Dritan tilted his head to the side and squinted at her. “Yeah, I guess that’s what happens when ya send ten sublevel crews down to Soren and only two come back.”
    Zephyr pursed her lips and folded her hands on the table. “If the Meso needs to recruit, they should put out a notice to the other dekas. That’s the proper procedure.”
    Era usually mediated this sort of thing between them, but not today. She kept her eyes on Dritan, stomach churning. How could he lie to her?
    “You volunteering to transfer to the Meso ?” Dritan took a swig of his