The deck vanished from under Luca's feet.

  Everything not bolted down began to float. Pixel yowled, her paws scrambling for purchase on nothing as she tumbled upward. Tools from the equipment cart drifted away in slow, deadly arcs.

  Shit. I need to get to the infirmary. The cure's still here, but Chris needs to come out of that pod. The kitten had managed to catch herself on a floating wrench, claws extended, her purple markings pulsing frantic patterns.

  "Got you," he breathed, pulling her against his chest. She dug her claws into his shirt and held on.

  Around them, the hangar had transformed into a three-dimensional maze. Every shadow was now a potential hiding spot above, below, beside. Equipment floated at eye level, blocking sight lines. And somewhere in this chaos, Zoe moved with the advantages of enhanced abilities and weightless mobility.

  She planned this. The gravity cut-off. She knew exactly how it would change the battlefield.

  But Luca had one advantage: he knew this ship. And he knew where the gravity controls were.

  He pushed off from the bulkhead, drifting toward the staircase that led to the engineering deck. In zero gravity, he didn't need to climb down. He could drift directly through the center of the stairwell.

  The engineering deck felt different in weightlessness. Massive equipment that usually sat heavy on the deck now floated with gentle momentum. Cables drifted like seaweed. But the gravity control panel was right where it should be, built into the main power distribution console.

  Luca anchored himself with one hand and accessed the controls.

  GRAVITY SYSTEM - STATUS: MANUAL OVERRIDE ENGAGED ACCESS DENIED - ADMINISTRATIVE LOCK ACTIVE

  "Son of a bitch."

  She'd locked him out. She had turned off the gravity, then secured the controls so he couldn't easily restore it.

  Fine. Two can play that game.

  He activated [Neural Sync Uplink], feeling the ability surge through his enhanced neural interface. He didn't need his hacking pad this time. His father had built this ship, and Luca knew every backdoor and vulnerability Athan had coded into the architecture. The system's defenses shattered as his overclocked consciousness slammed into the administrative protocols.

  But something slammed back.

  Another presence in the system. Active counterhacking routines that felt almost... alive. Active counterhacking routines felt almost alive, fighting him for control in real-time and parrying his digital attacks with impossible speed and precision.

  She's in the system. Right now. Fighting me.

  For thirty seconds, they dueled. He broke a firewall; she rebuilt it. He seized a command protocol; she ripped it from his grasp. It was his enhanced abilities against the infection's impossible speed, and he was losing ground.

  Then he spotted an opening: a backdoor in the power routing that she'd overlooked. He drove straight through.

  GRAVITY SYSTEM - ADMINISTRATIVE LOCK REMOVED RESTORING STANDARD GRAVITY IN 5... 4... 3...

  The counter-presence vanished from the system like smoke.

  Gravity returned with a jarring lurch. Luca's feet hit the deck hard enough to rattle his teeth. Around the engineering bay, floating equipment crashed down with a deafening clang of metal. Pixel yowled and dug her claws deeper into his shirt.

  Got you, Zoe. First point to me.

  Darkness slammed into the engineering bay as the main lighting cut out.

  "Fuck that shit," Luca muttered as emergency battery-powered lighting flickered on, casting everything in dim red shadows. "I don't need lights."

  But even as he said it, a chime echoed through the ship's comm system.

  MEDICAL POD CYCLE COMPLETE - PATIENT: CHRIS VALTZ

  Shit. Emily. I need to get Emily into that pod.

  Luca ran.

  The corridors felt alien after floating through weightless chaos. His boots struck deck plates that had been ceiling, walls, irrelevant surfaces moments ago. Pixel rode his shoulder, her purple markings still pulsing anxious patterns.

  The infirmary doors slid open to reveal Chris still lying down in the medical pod, unconscious but alive. The cycle was complete, but he'd need help getting out.

  Luca opened the pod canopy and carefully helped Chris sit up. His friend was groggy, disoriented, but the green tendrils were gone. The anti-invasive cytobiotic had worked.

  "Chris!" Luca said, steadying him as he climbed out of the pod. "Thank god. How do you feel?"

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Like I got hit by a shuttle," Chris mumbled, but he was standing, looking around the room with clearing eyes. "What's happening? Where's Zoe?"

  "Missing. Enhanced. Invisible. And armed with her plasma dagger." Luca was already moving toward Emily's bed, where she lay unconscious, her face flushed with fever.

  Emily.

  Her forehead was burning hot to the touch, beads of sweat standing out on her skin. The headaches that had been pounding behind her eyes earlier had left her face drawn with pain even in unconsciousness. And there, at the corner of her mouth, was the faintest trace of black on her lips.

  No. Not Emily. Please, not her.

  "I need your help," Luca said, forcing the words past the lump of panic in his throat. "Emily goes in the pod next, but I can't move her alone."

  Chris nodded, still unsteady but functional. Together, they lifted Emily's unconscious form and carefully maneuvered her into the medical pod. Luca grabbed one of the precious cartridges and inserted it into the injection port, sealing the canopy.

  A red mist began spreading through the medical pod, enveloping Emily's body.

  Please work.

  "Thirty minutes," Luca said. "Can you monitor the pods from in here?"

  "Yeah." Chris was already looking at the control panels. "What about Zoe?"

  "I'm going to contain her." Luca handed Chris a radio. "Lock this door after I leave. Don't open it for anyone except me. Got it?"

  "Got it." Chris was already moving to secure the room, then stopped. "Luca, don't kill her."

  The words struck him. Kill Zoe? The thought hadn't even crossed his mind.

  "I'm not planning to—"

  "Just... remember she's our friend, okay? Whatever's happened to her."

  I'm starting to figure that out.

  Luca left Chris to secure the infirmary and headed for the bridge. If he couldn't hunt Zoe directly, he'd force her into a smaller and smaller area until he had no choice but to find her.

  The command deck felt eerily normal after the chaos of zero gravity. Luca settled into the captain's chair and pulled up the ship's schematic. The image of the Triumph of Darron filled his display, each deck and section outlined in clean blue lines.

  He initiated a sequential lockdown.

  Starting from the outer sections and working inward, he sealed bulkheads one by one. Emergency protocols engaged, heavy fireproof doors sliding shut and locking with electromagnetic seals. On his schematic, green "open" indicators turned red as each section became isolated.

  Deck 1, Sections A through F - sealed. Deck 2, Sections A and B - sealed. Deck 2, Section C - sealed.

  The schematic showed a successful containment. Wherever Zoe was, she'd be trapped in one of the remaining open sections. He could systematically search each one, using Pixel to detect her invisible presence.

  Good. That should contain her.

  He pulled up the security feeds, cycling through camera views of the sealed sections. Empty corridors. Dim emergency lighting. No movement.

  Then a motion alert flashed on his console.

  DECK 2, SECTION B - BULKHEAD OVERRIDE DETECTED

  "What the—?"

  The camera feed showed the heavy bulkhead door sliding open, then closing again. The corridor appeared empty, but the override indicator showed green. Local access. Someone had opened it from the inside.

  Zoe. She's in Section B.

  That made sense. She could have been trapped there when the lockdown engaged. But as he watched the feeds, another alert flashed.

  DECK 2, SECTION D - BULKHEAD OVERRIDE DETECTED

  The alert originated from Section D, two full sections away from where she had just been.

  Impossible.

  There was a crawlspace connecting those sections, but it would take at least ten minutes to crawl through. The alerts had come thirty seconds apart.

  But even as he thought it, another alert.

  DECK 1, SECTION C - BULKHEAD OVERRIDE DETECTED

  Different deck. She was just on Deck 2. How did she manage that?

  Luca zoomed in on the camera feeds, watching helplessly as override indicators flashed across his screen. Each one required local access, meaning someone had to be physically present at the control panel. But Zoe was appearing in locations she had no way of reaching.

  It's impossible. She was here... and now she's there. She didn't open the doors between. She didn't use the vents. She just... phased through?

  The lockdown was a catastrophic failure. He hadn't contained her; he was playing a game where she could ignore all the rules.

  Luca stood, fists clenched, staring at the monitor as override alerts lit up the monitor, a map of his failures. He couldn't contain her. He couldn't track her. He couldn't even understand how she was moving.

  There has to be something. Some clue about what she's planning.

  He focused on Zoe's navigation station, and that's when he saw it. The [Encrypted Coordinates Key] from the Varnathi site sat beside her keyboard. It hadn't been there before.

  Luca approached the station and picked up the key. The navigation display had been updated, showing their altered course with full detail.

  ENCRYPTED COORDINATES KEY - DECRYPTION COMPLETE DESTINATION: ASTEROID DESIGNATION TK-739 ESTIMATED ARRIVAL: 10 DAYS, 14 HOURS

  Ten days. There's still time.

  The implications sent a chill down his spine. Zoe had been infected less than twelve hours ago, and she was already demonstrating abilities far beyond her normal skill level. Unlimited invisibility: her [Ghost Protocol] normally lasted minutes, not hours. Phasing through solid matter: her [Silent Step] had never allowed that before. Advanced hacking: she'd counter-attacked his neural interface with impossible speed.

  Whatever she's been infected with was doing more than enhancing her abilities. It was unlocking levels she didn't have.

  The infection was somehow interfacing with the System itself, pushing her capabilities beyond normal human limits. Making her into something more than an enhanced infiltrator.

  She was more than a ghost.

  Luca stared at the coordinates, his mind racing through the implications. Ten days to an unknown asteroid. Whatever had infected Zoe was purposeful. It had turned her into a delivery system.

  But delivery for what? And why that specific location?

  She possessed phasing capabilities, unlimited invisibility, and system intrusion skills that matched his own. The infection was giving her abilities she'd never possessed.

  It's rewriting her. Making her into something else. I have to find her.

  Luca headed for the infirmary, Pixel walking beside him with her back arched, hissing at shadows in the darkened corridors. Every corner could hide Zoe.

  His radio unit crackled as he walked down the darkened corridor.

  "Luca?" Chris sounded stronger. "Emily's treatment is progressing normally. And there's good news about Danny. His reconstruction timeline has accelerated from three months to two weeks. The cure is working better than we hoped."

  A pause as Chris must have checked the displays. "Bad news, though. We've been running on auxiliary power since she cut the lights. The backup wasn't designed to run two medical pods continuously. Maybe twenty minutes before the pods lose power completely."

  Twenty minutes.

  Luca's mind raced. Emily and Danny would die if the pods lost power. But hunting for an invisible, enhanced Zoe in twenty minutes was impossible unless...

  He needed his scout suit, the Centauri Phantom Light Armor that possessed its own [Ghost Protocol] capability. If he could get to it and gear up, he'd have a fighting chance of tracking her invisibly. But that would cost precious minutes. Time Emily and Danny didn't have.

  Find Zoe now with no advantages, or gear up and hope twenty minutes is enough.

  In the dim emergency lighting, Pixel's purple markings pulsed faster, and she hissed at a shadow that felt far too close.