“I won’t let you do this!” Mr. Okoro stood in Major Barrett’s way, surrounded on all sides by tense-looking Tactical Ops commandos.

  “Fine, then shoot me!” Barrett replied dismissively, handing him his gun.

  The agent took the weapon, staring at it for a second as he weighed it in his palm. Slowly and reluctantly, he began raising it toward Barrett, his hand trembling softly, his face grimacing with uncertainty.

  “Well?” Barrett goaded him, unimpressed. “You always take the shot. I’ve never known you to hesitate when you know you’re right. Are you?”

  Okoro lowered the weapon, his arm now hanging limp by his side, and stepped out of Barrett’s way. Trembling with anticipation, Jack followed Barrett and his commandos wordlessly into a tiny room, with Eve right behind him, giving him an encouraging look.

  The walls were lined with canisters covered in warning labels, all joined by a tube that disappeared into the wall. A narrow, semi-opaque window running the length of the room revealed that they were sitting above the main hangar on Deck 20. Within moments, Jack realized what Barrett’s plan was: he intended to flood the hangar below with whatever was inside those canisters, killing every living thing there.

  “Start pumping in the dramine!” Barrett barked at one of his commandos, who began turning a nozzle connected to the barrels.

  “Stop!” Jack yelled, unsure of what he was going to do next.

  “Stop, or what?” Barrett laughed as he turned to face him. “That’s your play? That’s it?”

  Suddenly, one of the commandos next to Eve yelled out in pain and fell to his knees. Before anyone could react, Eve had his sidearm in her hands, finger on the trigger, pointed at Barrett. Every eye in the room was on her, and so were most of the guns, but no one dared to move or speak. Jack noticed a screwdriver sticking out of the kneeling commando’s thigh and realized what had happened, though he had no clue what Eve was planning.

  “What—”

  “Shut up, shithead!” Eve interrupted Barrett, loudly, still aiming the gun at his face. “Tell your man to turn off that nozzle, right now!”

  Letting out an exasperated sigh, Barrett gestured to the commando to do as she instructed.

  “So, what’s your plan here, exactly?” the Major chastised her, still calm and collected. “If you shoot inside this room, chances are, you’ll hit one of the pressurized canisters and blow us all up. You aren’t going to actually kill me—you or one of your friends would have already done it if you had the guts. So, what, we just wait?”

  “That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Eve replied, unmoved.

  “Until when?” Barrett inquired, barely stifling his laughter.

  “Until the processing centers are fully restored, and either the ship kills all of us or we can jump to the nearest Commonwealth base.”

  “I can simply not give the order to jump,” Barrett laughed dismissively.

  “You can simply order your man to release the nozzle again and see what happens,” Eve shot back, also laughing.

  “Are you expecting me to believe that you’re going to blow us all up? Over one goddamn alien and some eggs?” Barrett’s tone suddenly turned serious as he began walking toward her.

  “You’ve read Okoro’s reports. You’ve read my file! Would I? Are you willing to take that chance?” Eve growled, refusing to step back.

  “I suppose not,” Barrett conceded, after some reflection, and everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Order all your men out of the room. The three of us are just going to stay put for a while.” Eve sounded as authoritative and in charge as anyone Jack had ever seen. It was like she had done this a million times.

  Barrett’s commandos exited the room quietly as the three of them slowly sat down on the ground, each choosing a different corner. Eve let her gun down as soon as the door closed but kept it firmly in hand. For a few moments, all was silent. Jack took the opportunity to sneak a glance through the window into the hangar below.

  The eggs, resembling dark, porous rocks, littered the room in clusters of a few dozen, each group held together by a semi-solid sludge that seemed to breathe and bubble. This sludge was connected by a chaotic web of tubes, all feeding into a central figure looming in the middle of the room: the Clan-mother. She was a truly monstrous sight, barely recognizable as Kharlath. Hunched and seemingly in a vegetative state, she was enormous—close to twelve meters tall, by Jack’s estimate. Most strikingly, her face bore an uncanny resemblance to Twice-Born-Demon, with the same piercing purple eyes and the smooth plates on her forehead. Was this some family resemblance, or something else entirely? Jack found himself even more intrigued by the mysterious warrior.

  “So, what do you think they’ll do with them, once we’re back in Commonwealth territory?” Barrett finally spoke, noticing Jack’s fascination with the hangar below.

  “That’s not really our concern,” Eve replied dismissively.

  “Oh, come on!” the Major protested with exaggerated outrage. “You’re telling me you went through all this trouble, threw away your careers—probably your lives as well—and you don’t even care about what’s going to happen? Once it’s out of your hands, that’s it?”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Well, what about you?” Jack countered. “What are you going to do if they decide to simply return them to the Kharlath fleet?”

  “Absolutely nothing. Because they won’t.”

  “So, you hijacked the ship and stranded us here for months, for no reason?” Jack continued, puzzled.

  “You still don’t understand, do you?” Barrett’s voice took on a chilling clarity. “Killing the Clan-mother and destroying the eggs was the only logical choice. It’s the same decision our leadership would have arrived at eventually. But it would have torn them apart. Ended political careers. Created public unrest, once the truth inevitably leaked. A rogue operative taking matters into his own hands? That’s cleaner. It’s the reason people like me are allowed to exist in the first place. Why we’re trained to know exactly how to obey orders—and exactly how and when to disobey them, as well.”

  “Bullshit,” Eve snapped, barely glancing in Barrett’s direction. “Don’t bother with the whole ‘greater good’ routine. We can see right through it. You’re doing this to satisfy your own thirst for blood—nothing more, nothing less.”

  “Believe what you will,” the Major replied smugly. “I know it’s easier for you, for your peace of mind, to make me the villain rather than entertain the possibility that I’m right. But it doesn’t matter at this point.”

  “So, what now?” Jack asked, the question directed at no one in particular.

  “What now, indeed,” Barrett echoed, his tone half-hearted.

  As if on cue, Jack’s wristpad buzzed. A message from Mr. Okoro appeared, requesting to be let into the room. Jack hesitated, wondering if he should keep the message to himself. He didn’t fully trust the spy, even after everything they’d been through but deep down, he knew Mr. Okoro was likely the only person on the ship capable of resolving the situation. After a moment’s deliberation, he sighed and made his decision.

  “Tell your men to let him in,” Eve growled, scowling at Barrett. Her gun remained lowered, though her finger hovered just above the trigger.

  With a nod, Barrett shouted the order. Moments later, the door hissed open, revealing Mr. Okoro. For once, the usually composed operative looked visibly rattled. His shirt was rumpled, his face unshaven, and he held a stack of crumpled papers tightly to his chest, as though they were the most precious thing in the world.

  “So?” Barrett turned sharply to Mr. Okoro, who barely glanced in his direction.

  “Paragraph 37, subsection C of the UECIF Code of Conduct,” Okoro recited from his wristpad, his voice imbued with a mock gravitas usually reserved for grand inspirational speeches. “An officer, once placed in temporary command of a mission via unforeseen changes to the chain of command, may be relieved of duty, while not under fire or in imminent danger, by the unanimous vote of the next three highest-ranking officers. In the absence of such officers, one or more of the votes may be substituted with those of the senior-most enlisted personnel.”

  “That’s your solution?” Barrett growled, his voice dripping with contempt. “Legitimize the mutiny?”

  “Lieutenant Ballinger is incapacitated, as is Sergeant Mendel,” Okoro continued calmly. “Doctor Singh is currently operating on Mendel and is also out of reach. That accounts for both of the Interstellar Fleet officers left on the ship, as well as the enlisted crewmember with the most seniority.” His tone grew steadier and more assured with each word. “However, I have here two reports, signed by you, Major Barrett, two weeks ago, attesting to the field promotions of Senior Specialist Tier 3 Evelyn Nakayama and Senior Specialist Tier 2 Jack Nereus. Along with Corporal āwhina, they are now officially the senior-most active Interstellar Fleet personnel aboard this vessel.”

  Barrett’s face twisted into fury. “I authorized no such promotions! That is not my signature on those reports!”

  Without a word, and with a faintly smug smile, Okoro pressed a button on his wristpad. An audio recording began to play, unmistakably Barrett’s voice, though noticeably slurred: “I don’t give a shit! Do whatever you want. Forge my signature if you have to—just stop bothering me with goddamn paperwork!”

  Jack blinked in disbelief, turning to Okoro. “Will it work? Will it hold up, I mean, legally, once we’re back on Earth?”

  “The admiralty will be on your side, Jack,” Okoro replied, his composure unshakable. “They’ll know stopping Barrett was the right call. All they need is the flimsiest legal justification to let you off the hook, and this will be more than enough.”

  Jack exhaled, a mix of relief and apprehension washing over him. “So then,” he asked, his voice trembling, “what happens now?”

  “Major Barrett will be formally stripped of his duties and placed under arrest. Then you, Ms. Nakayama, and Corporal āwhina will hold a vote to decide which of you takes command until we return home.” Okoro paused deliberately, his eyes locking onto Jack’s. “It’s going to be you, Jack. It has to be you.”

  “What do you mean, it has to be me?” Jack asked, stunned. “Is this because of the Othiri? Because of what they said?”

  Okoro tilted his head slightly, with an unreadable expression. “The Othiri have their reasons for everything they say or do. Whether they foresaw this eventuality or manipulated events to make it happen, it’s clear this is what they want—or what they think is best. Ignoring them would be unwise.”

  Eve cut in, with a hint of skepticism. “Are you saying the Othiri are... psychic? That they can see the future?”

  Barrett let out an audible scoff from his corner of the room.

  “Of course not,” Okoro replied smoothly, his tone almost amused. “They’d like us to believe that, but as far as we can tell, genuine precognition is impossible. What they are is extraordinarily adept at predicting outcomes based on available information.”

  “Very good at making their predictions happen, you mean?” Barrett growled, his voice dripping with contempt. “You realize they orchestrated this entire situation, don’t you?”

  “And were they wrong, Barrett?” Okoro shot back, unwavering. “This outcome was inevitable. All they did was make it less messy.”

  As soon as they finished speaking, the agent set in motion the takeover of the ship. Barrett’s men were stripped of their weapons and combat armor, then confined to their quarters and a few common areas of the ship. The Major himself was locked up, surprisingly with very little resistance. Mere hours later, most of the ship’s personnel gathered to witness Jack being sworn in as their new temporary leader. He was the ship’s captain! Acting captain, sure, and likely only for the next 24 hours or so, but nevertheless, it was going to look good on his résumé.

  The strange part was that he didn’t feel much different. He wasn’t sure if it was because the change was too big for him to process or because it wasn’t much of a change at all. He’d felt as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders ever since the Othiri had first spoken to him—since he was tasked with the responsibility of handling Barrett. And even before that moment, so many things had happened that he couldn’t fully process them. Jack simply wasn’t used to life moving this fast. As he retreated to the same old dingy chamber that was now technically the captain’s quarters, he didn’t even dare to breathe a sigh of relief.

  Moments later, his fear was justified. Barely after he’d taken off his boots, his wristpad buzzed, delivering a succinct message from Dr. Liu: “We have a situation. Come to the med bay.” There was no rest for the Mothership’s new captain.