1,782 DAYS.

Wraith leaned her head back against the cool plasteel wall of her cell. She had now officially spent longer in this dim three-by-three-meter room than anywhere else in her life; longer than any home, longer than with her team, longer than in the arms of anyone who mattered.

Hell of a thing.

A clunk, and the slot in the wall opened.

“I wonder what’s on the menu today, boys and girls,” she said aloud, standing. “Oh look, it’s a nutri-cube and tepid water. How delightful.”

Her voice bounced off the walls and back to her.

She snatched the cube and ate it slowly. There had been a period, oh, three or four months into her imprisonment where the very sight of one made her gag. The taste, even more so.

But calories were calories, and when it was the only thing they fed you, well, you learned to adjust.

Some days she wished she had it in her to kill herself. Just end this purgatory of the body, mind, and soul.

But it turned out she was too fucking spiteful to die.

So, day after day after day she existed. The world she had built in her head kept her sane.

Or perhaps the opposite was true.

But either way, she was here.

She drank the water, savoring the sensation of the liquid running down her throat as she swallowed.

Finally, she put the cup back in the slot, which closed with a snick. She’d learned the hard way: you give the cup back or you don’t get any fluids.

Nutrition complete, she leaned backwards until her hands touched the floor and pushed herself into a handstand. Balanced.

Lifted one hand. Balanced.

Put it down. Lifted the other. Balanced.

The routine was meditative, driven completely by muscle memory.

There was a click in the distance.

That was new.

Her feet touched the ground, and she stood back, leaning on the wall. Listening.

Her heart hammered as, for the first time in her memory, the door of her cell slid open.

---

A man stood there, exactly 180cm tall; she knew because by the time he’d taken a step forward she’d already calculated how to break his knees.

Broad shoulders. Dress uniform. Medals she’d once worn herself. Probably mid-thirties unless he’d been hitting the anti-aging treatments, which put him around the same age as her.

Behind him she could see two guards in full battle armor, one holding a Pinpoint bow, the other a SlugGel pistol. The bow’s magnetic coil whined at half-charge; the SG pistol’s safety was off. Spaceship-friendly, but people-deadly.

She stilled. Her heart rate evened out.

They would have a ship. One that could take her anywhere. There were only three of them; she could take them out. She just had to be patient.

The man took a step forward, the stripes on his shoulders evidencing him as a Major.

His bulk blocked the door. A foolish move, but she’d see how it played out.

He had the kind of face that inspired trust. Calm brown eyes the color of swamp water at sunset. A small scar at the corner of his mouth, which turned upwards into a smile as he looked at her.

“Congratulations, Captain. You’re a patriot again.”

What the—?

His voice was warm. It was the first human voice she’d heard beside her own in nearly five years. And he spoke like he was greeting an old friend rather than a branded traitor.

“It’s been a while since I’ve held any rank,” she drawled.

Her fingers twitched. Three seconds to snap his neck. Another two to disarm the bow. But if she moved now, the SlugGel would liquefy her ribs before she finished.

Just a half step closer, Major. Then we can play.

“Well, you’ve just been re-enlisted. And paroled.”

He turned, already walking. No fear. No hesitation. Like she wasn’t a threat.

His mistake.

“Are you coming?”

She paused. She could see the guards’ knuckles whiten on their weapons. They, at least, knew enough to be cautious. Not that it would do them much good.

With a shrug, she stepped out of the room and into the corridor. Blinked at the sudden brightness.

She’d follow. For now.

---

The space between Kael’s shoulder blades crawled, waiting for a strike. He couldn’t hear her behind him, only the guards’ boots. That was worse.

He’d read her file; he knew exactly what she was capable of. Knew that this could go south at any Void-damned moment. If SID hadn’t buried her, she’d be the most infamous person in the Confederation.

But they needed her.

And if he had any hope of getting off this barren, floating rock alive, with the only accessible Inbetween Navigator who’d seen active duty and was still hopefully sane, she was going to have to respect him.

Which meant that he could not show any weakness. Any fear.

Even though she scared the hell out of him.

Unlike many of his colleagues, he didn’t shy away from fear. Fear kept you sharp. Fear kept you alive. And he was a man who believed in using every tool in his arsenal.

He stepped into a small room with only two chairs and a table between them. Made from indestructible Duralex and attached to the floor. Nothing that could be used as a weapon.

Except her body.

He’d watched the vid of her close-quarters sparring. Not the best he’d ever seen, but close. And one of the most creative.

It was educational.

After five years of starvation, he knew the odds were with him if push came to shove. But she’d have the motivation and nothing to lose; he couldn’t let it come to that.

He turned to her—she was a scant foot away—and indicated a chair, his heart pounding.

“Please.”

She sat nonchalantly, leaning back like she was sunning herself on a damn starliner.

But her eyes were ice.

He pulled the folder out from under his arm, opened it and spread the prints on the table. He’d been shocked to learn there were no vid screens here, but then again it was a fully automated facility. It didn’t need them.

The prints stank of cheap dye. They showed burnt out hulls, debris, and floating corpses. The detritus of battle.

Except those ships had been civilian. They hadn’t stood a chance.

“War’s coming, Captain. Again. Ready to get back in the saddle?”

For a long moment she looked at the pictures, making no move to touch them. Then she looked up at him.

“Who the fuck are you?”

---

“Major Kael Veyne, Captain. Call sign Helios. Your new CO.”

She barked out a laugh arising from too many years of isolation. She’d never have been that careless before… before.

“And dare I even ask what the Strategic Intelligence Division might want with little old me?”

A muscle twitched in the man’s jaw, there and gone in an instant. But she’d seen it. He hadn’t expected her to clock him as SID. As if the eyes didn’t give him away.

She let her gaze linger a beat on his temple, where the faint shimmer of MI-grade ocular implants always sat just beneath the skin. Raised an eyebrow.

“As I said, Captain Raine. The war is starting up again. And you have a very specific set of skills.”

“Killing people?”

The look he gave her was… chiding. That particular blend of pity and disapproval officers reserved for enlisted soldiers who weren’t living up to potential.

Too bad for him, that hadn’t worked when she was a raw recruit. It sure as hell wasn’t going to work now.

“Tunneling Inbetween, Captain.”

Of course.

It had been going Inbetween that had got her into this cell. Now, it seemed, it was going to get her out.

The Inbetween was exactly what it sounded like: the space between space, the antithesis of reality. A place where physics held its breath and time bled at the edges.

Not many people could survive it. Fewer still could navigate it.

But if you could, you could cross the vast distances of space in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take.

Faster even than hyperdrives, and without the pesky cool-down time.

There were one or two teensy, tiny side effects, though. Psychosis being just one of them.

She leaned forward, just enough to make the guards tense.

“Couldn’t find anyone else still sane enough to join your little crusade?”

---

Kael raised his hand slightly and the guard stood back. He leaned back as if this wasn’t the most important mission he’d ever been on. Studied the woman in front of him.

She looked carved from the bones of whatever gods still lingered. Corded muscle, pale hair like fallout frost, and eyes that had barely blinked since she entered the room.

In her file photo, her hair had been short. Back then, she had been beautiful—not the in-your-face pageant queen beautiful, but compelling. The type of woman you couldn’t keep your eyes away from.

The echoes of it were still there, but sunken eyes and now-razor-sharp cheekbones made her look almost like one of the Others.

It was disconcerting.

“Just you, Captain,” he told her honestly.

“Will you stop calling me that?” she snapped, and he smiled.

Finally, a crack.

Just enough to show that there was still some human left in her.

“No, Captain, I can’t. Because you only have one way to walk off this rock alive. And that is with me. With this mission.”

Her eyes gleamed at him in amusement, and he felt his blood freeze. This was what it must be like to spend time Inbetween. Knowing death was a step away.

“Are you sure about that? Major?”

He had seconds.

“Very sure, Captain. Because I’m also your Tether.”

---

She blinked as numbness spread.

Of course he was.