Read Chapter 26: The Revolt of the Upper Decks

The engineering deck smelled of ozone and burnt composites, a battlefield stench that clung to the back of Kaelen's throat. He stood at the master console, wiping blood from a gash on his knuckles—a farewell gift from one of Cassian's loyalists who'd tried to scuttle the fusion core before the rebels overwhelmed them.

Around him, the captured deck hummed with victorious chaos. Rebels pried open maintenance hatches, rerouted power conduits, and cheered as the last of Cassian's officers were marched to the brig in restraints. The ship's heart belonged to them now.

Maris appeared at his side, her face smudged with grease and triumph. "Every sub-deck from here to the environmental stacks is ours. The navigation arrays are dark. Cassian's locked in his quarters with a skeleton guard. We've won."

Kaelen nodded, but the word felt wrong in his mouth. Won what? A ship that was never supposed to be a prison. A lie that had lasted generations. He pulled the data chip from his pocket—Bel's chip, still unread, still heavy with unknown secrets. Later. First, he needed to broadcast the truth to every deck, every ear, every doubting heart.

"Is the comm array ready?" he asked.

"Amplified and pointed planet-side. Your sister will hear us."

The door behind them hissed open. Kaelen turned, expecting a courier or a wounded fighter seeking aid. Instead, Jena walked in, flanked by a half-dozen guards Kaelen didn't recognize—hard-eyed men and women in clean uniforms, not the patched coveralls of the lower decks.

Something cold settled in Kaelen's gut.

"Jena," he said carefully. "The fusion core is secure. We have full control of—"

"No. You don't."

Her voice was calm, almost maternal, and that scared him more than any shout. She raised a hand, and her guards moved with mechanical precision, sealing the deck's blast doors and raising weapons trained on every rebel in the room.

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Hands reached for tools, for jury-rigged stunners. Maris stepped forward. "Jena, what the hell are you doing?"

"Completing my mission." Jena walked past them, running her fingers along the master console as if it were a treasured heirloom. "You didn't think I'd spent thirty years in the lower decks just because I believed in your little revolution, did you? Please. I was placed there. Cassian's own intelligence operative, watching for dissent."

Kaelen's blood went cold. "You led us here."

"Someone had to. You were too cautious. Too slow. What did you do, seventeen years of quiet sabotage and hidden meetings? Useless. The ship had to be taken, and it had to be taken completely, by someone who knew exactly which levers to pull." She smiled. "That was always me."

"Where is Cassian?" Maris demanded.

"Safe. Comfortable. In my custody, along with his wife and two children." Jena's smile didn't waver. "He's a hostage, like so many of you are about to become."

The deck erupted. Rebels shouted, surged forward, and were met with a wall of energy rifles. Kaelen held up his hands, forcing calm through his racing heart.

"What do you want, Jena?"

She turned to face him fully, and for the first time, Kaelen saw something beneath her practiced serenity—a deep, terrified conviction.

"Bel was a coward. He fled to the planet, to Tsoria, to wallow in guilt and hide from his duties. But his mission was never complete. The original mandate of this vessel was colonization. All of it." She tapped the console, and a star map bloomed across the central screen. A second world appeared, farther out in the system, marked with a pulsing amber icon. "There. Aurelia. A garden world, rich in resources, perfect for settlement. The original Navigator charted it as a secondary target if Tsoria proved unsuitable."

"Tsoria was suited," Kaelen said slowly. "It was always suited. That's the whole lie."

"Tsoria is suited for *survival*. Aurelia is suited for *dominion*." Jena's voice grew fervent. "The colonists on that planet are nothing—farmers, fishermen, squatters in the mud. But the resources of Aurelia would let us build something greater. A true civilization. We have a ship that can still fly, a crew that can still serve its original purpose. We just have to choose the right destination."

Around the room, the rebels had gone quiet. Kaelen could see them doing the math in their heads—the promise of a fresh world, untouched by the colonial settlements, versus the uncertain embrace of a planet that had already rejected them for three generations.

"You're insane," Maris said. "You want to take a ship full of people who just learned they were lied to, who just wanted to go home, and drag them halfway across the system to start over because you want a bigger kingdom?"

"I want what we were promised." Jena's eyes glittered. "And I have leverage. Cassian's family. The fusion core—did you really think I'd let you take it without my own safeguards? One signal from me, and it goes critical. We all die, or we all go to Aurelia. Choose."

Kaelen looked around the room. The victors of moments ago now stood in factions—a third of them glancing at the distant amber dot with hungry eyes, a third staring at Jena with open hatred, and a third, like Maris, looking to him for a way out.

The truth was not enough. He'd learned that. Lyra had learned that. The colonists on Tsoria had learned that generations ago.

"Jena," he said, keeping his voice level. "You said you wanted to be the navigator's heir. But you don't trust the stars, do you? You don't trust anything you haven't controlled yourself."

Her smile faltered for just a fraction of a second.

"Take your ship," he continued. "Take your kingdom of control-freaks and loyalists. But I won't let you take these people to a world that was never meant for them."

He pulled the Heartstone from his pocket—cold, depleted, but still faintly pulsing with the residue of its ancient programming—and held it up.

"There's another way to choose. And I'm going to find it."

Jena laughed, a brittle sound. "You don't even know what that thing is for."

"Neither do you." Kaelen turned and walked toward the master console, past her guards who parted uncertainly. "And that's what scares you, isn't it? Not that I'll fail. That I'll succeed at something you never understood."

He reached the console and felt the ship shudder beneath his feet—not from engines, but from the weight of choice pressing down on ten thousand souls.

The revolt had succeeded. And now it was tearing itself apart.