Lio sat in numb silence as Ravi finished speaking. It was worse than he'd thought possible. Far worse. He'd lost his lightship, and now he was losing his crew. And his com.

The lounge was deathly silent, in spite of the fact that the entire crew was gathered there. For what was apparently one of the last days they would be together.

Aziri's hand crept into the air. "It's...it has to be so...fast?"

"Yeah." Ravi's voice was dull with pain. "Assigning a permanent crew to the lightship keeps it in Suzerain Aureli's territory. And assigning a new crew means getting rid of us first." He wasn't attempting to soften the blow in the slightest.

Lio twitched, his heart pounding. It couldn't be happening this way. He should've come up with something already.

"So." Ravi took an unsteady breath. "This is fucked up. But we need to make sure you all end up in places where your talents will be seen. Jossen and I are going to take tonight and tomorrow morning to work out a schedule for the next few days, and then I'll meet with everyone to talk through individual options. I'll do my fucking best to get you where you want to be."

No one said anything.

Lio wanted to be here. Or, not here in this horrible camp exactly, but with these people. With his friends who believed in him and in each other no matter what anyone else thought. With Ravi, close enough to touch. This couldn't be happening. He sent up a bewildered prayer to the First Goddess. And then one to the other sister goddesses, even the Wrath Goddess.

In a haze, he watched Jossen and Ravi leave the lounge. Going off to prepare for the end of everything. The crew stayed together, staring at their feet or the ceiling or at nothing. Anything but each other.

Onfenka broke the silence. Her face was blank, but her voice was fragile as cracked glass. "I do not want to leave this crew." She took a slow, deep breath, and her brother shuffled closer to her. "I do not want to go somewhere else and be strange again."

"Same," Teres said. "This is the only place where I haven't been treated like a total fuck-up."

Lio launched himself up from a stupid plastic chair, prowling around the lounge. They were right, and he knew they wouldn't all end up with units that respected them, no matter how much effort Ravi put into the placements. "This isn't acceptable." He didn't realize he growled it aloud, until he saw the others looking at him. "We found the lightship. We're meant to be its crew. I know it."

"I don't think the Archcom will be convinced by that," Aziri said.

Ah, but he had never been one to let little considerations like that stop him.

"Then we convince her." He pressed his palms together and crossed to one of the new imager boards installed in the lounge. When he found an application for a notepad and swiped it open, its blank white surface reflected the crew's dubious expressions back to him. He spun to face them. "We've already found something no one else believed could be found. And now they can't figure out how it works, because it's not meant for them. It's meant for us."

Rosareen combed her hands through her hair, coiling a strand around her fingers. "We don't know enough to—"

"We know more than they do. We'll set it all out." He scrawled on the notepad with one finger, speaking as his adrenaline-spiked handwriting webbed over the virtual page. "We know the layout of the ship. We know that the Mastali used rock, likely taken from the mountain and the Amphitheater, to conceal it. We know the exterior wall failed Tarik's heat test for some reason. We know they're furnishing the ship—"

"How do we know that?" Yorune interrupted.

Lio glanced guiltily back at her. "I...may have gone onboard. When Tarik was questioning everyone, I ended up being able to access the ship. Walked right into a bunch of Enlightenment recruits drilling a table into the muster room, which was awkward."

"You asshole, I knew that was a suspiciously long bathroom break," Teres growled. "I thought you'd fallen into the toilet."

"Well, thank you for not bothering to rescue me—" The sarcasm came so naturally it took him a beat to realize that he was going to lose this too. Teres must've been thinking something similar, because her expression softened, and her eyes went too shiny.

"Tarik said they couldn't even put a scratch in the Mastali alloy." Yorune dragged his attention back. "How were they drilling anything into it?"

While he was sifting through his memory for some explanation, Onfenka uncrossed her arms and slowly leaned forward. "That is not exactly what the inspector said. They could not make any mark on the outer wall. If they are drilling into the material inside the ship..." She spun her fidget in her hands. "Is it possible that the exterior Mastali alloy is not the same as the interior of the ship?"

"Yes," Rosareen breathed. "You've got to be right. Lio said the exterior wall failed Tarik's test, even though the material of the nav consoles didn't."

He wanted to shout at them in triumph, although whatever they were talking out might mean nothing. They were already doing it. Solving the puzzle in the way only this team could.

Yorune lay flat across two of the chairs, staring at the ceiling. "We should start at the beginning." There was a long silence, until Yorune spoke again. "Lio," she began. "Why were the Mastali in the Fennec region?"

There was no clear answer for that in anything he'd read. He chewed the inside of his lip. "I don't know a precise reason. They traveled everywhere. But the fact that this is where the most texts about them originate, and the most artifacts are found, suggests that the Fennec region was their base while they were here."

"Okay. So what makes the Fennec region different. What does it have that no other region does?" She tilted her head expectantly at the group.

"Uh, not a lot to do," Duhar answered, from where he was curled tightly in a too-small chair.

"Sand that gets in your hair and all over your clothes," Rosareen added.

Aziri straightened and glared at them. "We have excellent food, beautiful mountains and deserts, people come from all over to hike the slot canyons—"

Lio had to bite back a smile at the groans that answered the mention of slot canyons. He had rather fond memories of his near-death experience there. Ravi had started confiding in him again.

"Oh, shut up!" Aziri was stung. "We have lots of wonderful things!"

Orvaska, slouched beside his twin, rolled his eyes. "Yes. Flash flooding. Bad weather."

"Well, if you can't handle it, you should—" Whatever foul insult he planned to lob at Orvaska evaporated as his voice died. Instead, Aziri was staring at the Vashyan with something like wonderment.

Lio knew that look. A code-breaking look. His friend was on to something. "What?" he prodded, slipping a step closer.

"Cloud chasers," Aziri murmured. "Rain trackers." A smile gleamed on his face.

The words from the text that described the Mastali. Air froze in Lio's lungs. But Orvaska beat him to it, shooting forward in his seat and hissing, "Storm harvesters."

"Y'know, I never understood the name of that game," Duhar said. "Definitely sounded cool but, like, you don't actually get any power from the storms, which is what you'd think would happen with a name like that."

Genuis. Lio forgot to write on the board he was so busy staring in delight at Duhar, who blinked back at him and shrugged. "Sorry, didn't mean to get off topic. Just a weird—"

"It's not off topic." Lio beamed. "Yorune...can storms power a ship?"

Rosareen's eyes were so huge she looked like she'd set some ridiculous permanent imager filter over her face. "Goddess, remember how our tech always broke down when the weather was bad at Opalina? The ship could've been interfering."

"But it couldn't get to fully powered beneath the rock." Yorune leapt up. "Lio, you said the exterior wall didn't heat up at all when Tarik tested it. If they can't test the alloy's properties, they don't really know what its capable of. Maybe...maybe that's because...it's built to withstand something much, much hotter."

"Lightships," Aziri yelled. "It's been right there the whole time, in the language—"

Teres waved her hands. "Wait, somebody explain what the fuck you're—"

Lio's heart was too far up his throat to speak. He leaned against the wall for balance.

"Lightning." Yorune said. "The exterior shell can harness lightning for power."

"Not possible," Onfenka said swiftly. "There are far too many complications to draw energy from a lightning strike."

Yorune grinned. "For us, that's true. But we're talking about the Mastali. Who knows what their materials can do? It would explain why they were associated with storms. And why Tarik's crews can't find any core or tank powering the ship. The charged shell powers the entire thing."

"Woah. They should totally put that in the sim game," Duhar whispered.

Lio let out a cackle. He couldn't keep still, so he resumed pacing, sailing around the room on a wave of energy. Like an electrified Mastali lightship.

The rest of the crew all started babbling at once. Rosareen clapped her hands for attention and shouted over them. "This is what we take to Tarik! If we can present this to him, maybe it'll make him see that we're the best crew for the ship! Assuming the theory is right, of course."

"No." Lio whirled back to her, and strode into their circle of chairs. They weren't giving anything else up to that inspector. And he had an idea. The sort of idea that unfolded so perfectly, it felt destined. "We can't just tell the Enlightenment teams, or the Archcom, or anyone. We need to prove it."

Aziri arched an eyebrow. "How do we make sure something is hit by lightning?"

"Ask the goddesses nicely?" Teres offered, with a weak laugh.

A wolfish grin overtook his face, and he did nothing to temper its hunger. "Yes. One particular goddess, actually." He slid his gaze back to Yorune.

"Wrath's Mirror," Yorune said. "Of course."

Lio's bones were rattling. The way forward continued to reveal itself like an illuminating path. He spoke over the murmuring crew. "And once it's powered up, we fly it. To the Great Mastali Course."

Teres' jaw flapped open. "We can't fly it, Lio! We don't know how!"

"Duhar does." He glanced at Duhar, who looked back as if he was going to dive under his chair. Pity the chair was translucent. "It's the same nav console as your sim, Duhar."

"Um, it's a bit trickier than that. And I've only ever used a third of it. And it's a simulation!"

"You took first place at Bonanza in the Sky Battle. You can do it," Lio urged.

Teres put a hand over her eyes. "Oh goddess, you're seriously talking about stealing a lightship. There are Enforcers guarding it, Lio, we can't just drag it off to Wrath's Mirror."

There had to be a goddess touching his shoulder, because he knew it would work. It would all work. "They'll scan our rings and let us by. It's how I accessed the ship before. And by the time we're driving the treads, it'll be too late for them to do anything."

"And if they don't let us through?" Onfenka asked.

He held out open hands and shrugged. "Then I supposed we'll have to return here and figure something else out." He looked around at all of them, taking in expressions that ranged from incredulous to terrified. "Come on. This is our chance. If we don't prove we're the only crew for Opalina, then we'll be split up in a matter of days! We have to try."

None of them spoke. They looked at him, and at each other, and back to him.

He needed them. There was no way to accomplish it without them. But more than that, he wanted them there. It surprised him a little, how deeply he needed them to share the triumph. They were the truest friends he'd ever had, and he was nothing without them.

Orvaska broke the silence. "So," he said, tapping his knee in time to his words, "you want to sneak up the mountain, trick Enforcers into letting us access the treads, drive the only known lightship in the All-Territories into a lake, get hit by lightning, and fly across the territory to test Duhar's skill against a course that has never been successfully completed?"

Lio swallowed. "Essentially," he rasped.

Orvaska nodded slowly. "We should leave tomorrow evening. When Jossen releases us to free hours."

"Half the Great Mastali Course is virtual, isn't it? I'll need to hack in to kickstart it," Aziri mused. His glinting eyes narrowed, his smile unfurling wider. "Better bring your slate, Lio."

"I really don't want to get brigged," Teres groaned. "But if we're going this, we're doing it together."

Duhar uncurled from the chair and slithered onto the floor. "Somebody needs to bring a puke bag. Like, maybe a lot of puke bags."