Read Chapter 6: The Gala Intrusion

The gala glittered like a lie.

Kaelen had expected grandeur—Deck 2 was where the noble houses paraded their wealth in crystal towers and artificial gardens—but the sheer excess of it turned his stomach. Chandeliers of spun light hung from a ceiling painted to look like the sky of Old Earth, a sky no one alive had ever seen. Servers in white gloves drifted between clusters of silken gowns and tailored coats, offering flutes of something that fizzled gold.

He’d stolen the maintenance ID from a drunk engineer in Deck 5's barracks an hour earlier, swapping his grime-caked jumpsuit for a stolen steward's jacket that hung too loose on his shoulders. The ID cleared him at the service entrance. No one looked twice at a man carrying a tray of empty glasses toward the kitchen.

But he wasn't here for the wine.

Lyra had spoken of Deck 2 once, in the halcyon days before her disappearance. She'd called it “the mask” —a pretty face over a rotting skull. She’d been assigned to cater a gala like this in her final month, and she’d come home with a strange, haunted look. *You wouldn't believe what they wear,* she'd said. *They pin their histories to their chests like trophies.*

Kaelen scanned the crowd from behind a marble column. Nobles clustered in constellations of power—the Cassels, the Veyras, the House of Ormond with their crimson sashes. Men with jeweled canes and women with feathered headpieces that brushed the low-hanging lights. He didn't know what he was looking for, not exactly. Only that Lyra had been here, and she'd seen something that made her cry and smile in the same breath.

Then he saw it.

A flash of green and gold on the chest of a portly man across the atrium—an old man with silver muttonchops and a medal pinned over his heart. The medal was a stylized sunburst, carved from jade and inlaid with gold filigree, its center stone a deep, impossible blue.

Kaelen's breath stopped.

He knew that medal. He'd given it to Lyra on her sixteenth birthday, saved three months of labor credits to buy it from a Deck 8 pawnbroker who swore it was a relic from the First Families of the voyage. It had been his mother's, passed down through generations of Vosses who never rose above the maintenance decks. A symbol of their small, stubborn legacy.

Lyra had worn it everywhere. She'd been wearing it the last time he saw her.

Kaelen's tray clattered to the floor. Glasses shattered. Heads turned.

He was moving before he could stop himself, crossing the marble floor with a purpose that scattered the gaping nobility like startled birds. The old man looked up, eyes widening as Kaelen closed the distance.

“Where did you get that?” Kaelen's voice came out raw, ragged—the voice of a man who'd spent five years wondering if his sister was alive or dead.

The noble blinked, more confused than alarmed. “I beg your pardon?”

“That medal.” Kaelen jabbed a finger at the sunburst, close enough now to see the tiny scratch on the jade—the one Lyra had gotten when she fell from a ladder in the crawlspaces, the one she'd refused to have repaired because *it tells the story of who I am*. “It belonged to my sister. Lyra Voss. Where did you get it?”

A ripple of whispers ran through the crowd. The old man's face shifted from confusion to affront, his jowls quivering. “I have no idea who you are, young man, but this medal has been in my family for—” He stopped. Something flickered behind his eyes. A recognition, quickly suppressed.

“You're lying.” Kaelen's hands curled into fists. “I gave that to her. I know every mark on it. I know the weight of it in my palm. You took it from her. You took her.”

The noble's composure cracked. “Guards!” He raised a hand, but Kaelen was already lunging.

He grabbed the man by his embroidered lapels, dragging him forward until their faces were inches apart. The crowd gasped. Someone screamed. The old man's breath smelled of wine and fear.

“What did you do to her?” Kaelen's voice broke. “She was crying, but she was *smiling*. What did you promise her? What did you take from her?”

“I don't—” the noble stammered, but his eyes darted left, toward a door marked *PRIVATE*, and Kaelen knew—knew with a certainty that burned through his chest—that this man knew exactly what had happened to Lyra.

“Tell me!” Kaelen shook him. The medal swung on its chain, catching the light, mocking him with its familiar gleam.

Hands seized him from behind. Hard, armored hands. The Captain's Guard had arrived, dragging him off the noble with brutal efficiency. Kaelen fought—kicked, twisted, snarled—but there were four of them, maybe five, and they wrenched his arms behind his back with practiced cruelty.

“This man is a thief,” the noble announced, smoothing his ruined lapels, his voice steadier now that the guards stood between them. “He attacked me unprovoked. Take him to the cells.”

“You know something!” Kaelen shouted as they hauled him toward the exit. “You know what happened to her! Ask him about the Bridge Command! Ask him about the course drift! Ask him what they're so afraid of!”

The crowd parted for them. The last thing Kaelen saw before the doors slammed shut was the old man's face—pale, rattled, and absolutely terrified.

Not of the accusation.

Of the truth behind it.

---

The cell was cold and small and smelled of recycled air and old fear. Kaelen sat on the bare bench, wrists raw from the restraints they'd removed an hour ago, and stared at the blank wall.

He'd lost the medal. He'd lost his chance at discretion. He'd probably lost any hope of ever seeing Jena's data chip, locked up as he was on Deck 2 with no way to reach the cargo splice point.

But he'd also confirmed something that no amount of censored records could have told him.

Whoever had taken Lyra had been part of the inner circle. And the inner circle was afraid. Afraid enough to have a noble's face go pale at the mention of a course drift. Afraid enough to have had Lyra taken to Bridge Command with tears on her cheeks and a smile on her lips.

Kaelen closed his eyes and saw her face again. The way she'd looked at him that last morning—like she was saying goodbye and *thank you* and *I'm sorry* all at once.

*The stars are real,* she'd said.

He didn't know what that meant. But he was going to find out.

Even if it killed him.