The transport carried forty-six passengers. Eleven of them were human.
The Crimson Ledger hit them between jump points, in the dead corridor where comms didn't reach and nobody was scheduled to look. The boarding took nine minutes. November knew because she'd been watching the transit clock above the main cabin door when the first impact threw her out of her seat, and she was watching it again when the armed figures in dark tactical gear finished sorting the passengers into two groups: those with resale value and those without.
All eleven humans went into the first group. Earth-origin stock was apparently a growth market. She learned this from the slaver who catalogued them — he'd said it conversationally, the way someone might discuss commodity futures, while scanning their faces against a pricing index on his datapad.
They'd been moved to the ship's mid-section. Not the main cargo hold where the bulk captives were kept in rows, but a smaller block of cells — four units, barred on two sides, arranged around a central corridor that also served as a throughway for the ship's crew. November could see anyone who passed through. Most of the crew ignored them. Some didn't.
Of the eleven humans, three were sold at the first port. Two more at the second. One — a man named Gerald, mid-fifties, who'd spent most of the transit teaching November card games through the bars — was taken somewhere else on the ship and didn't come back. Three others were moved to the main hold when their mid-section cells were needed for new acquisitions.The new arrivals were not human. Korynn was one. Pael was another.
By the time the boarding team blew through the hull, November was the only human left in the mid-section. Six weeks. Four ports. She'd watched it all from a cell with a clear sightline to the central corridor.
And the central corridor, as it turned out, was where the ship's officers held their meetings.
"I'd like to speak with each of you individually about your specific observations," Sethan said. "But first — and this is the part that matters most — I need to show you someone and ask whether you recognize them."
She turned the datapad to face the table. A holographic image rose from the screen: a face, rotating slowly. Kleotrian. Male. Vivid orange skin, black stripes, deep amber eyes, and angular, well-structured features. A face that seemed designed for the front of currency.
November stopped breathing.
She'd seen him. Two weeks into her captivity — or what she'd estimated was two weeks; time measurement became approximate when you couldn't see the sky — the midsection had received a visitor. Not a buyer in the usual way. The guards had changed their posture when he arrived. The entire energy of the ship had shifted, the way a barn shifted when the ranch owner walked in versus a hired hand. This person was not staff. This person wasthe reason staff existed.
He'd walked through the corridor with two escorts and paused at the cells where the humans were kept. Three cells. Nine humans total, of which November was one. He'd examined them with the detached, evaluative attention of someone inspecting livestock at auction — not cruel, not interested, simply assessing value. He'd spoken to one of the guards. Hisvoice carried a tonal quality, almost musical, and what he'd said was:
These will do. The Council session ends in three cycles. Have them transported before then — I don't want them on the manifest when the delegation arrives.
And the guard had called him something. A title. November had filed it in the part of her brain that never stopped working.
"I remember him," November said.
Every eye in the room moved to her. Including the dark ones by the door.
"He came through the midsection. Looked at us," she said, gesturing at Pael and the female next to her. "We were all there, but there were more of us then. Others like me — other humans. He gave instructions about moving us before some kind of council session." She swallowed. "The guard addressed him by a title. I didn't know what it meant at the time. Something likevaelaren— does that translate to anything?"
Davn, in his corner, went absolutely still.
November caught it from the edge of her vision — the Kleotrian became a statue between one breath and the next. Then she realized: same species. Same people.Vaelaren.Whatever it meant, it meant something to Davn that had weight enough to freeze him where he stood. She looked at the holographic face again. Orange skin, black stripes. Kleotrian. Then back at Davn, pale and motionless in his corner. If someone had shown her a photograph of the President walking through a slave ship and inspecting cargo, she imagined she'd have gone pretty still too.
Sethan's face remained professional. "It translates, roughly, tofirst heir to the sovereign seat.In simpler terms — crown prince."
The room remained silent as they absorbed this.
"His name is Prince Dáinn," Sethan said. "Elder prince of the Kleotrian royal family. He has served as a Free Worlds Alliance diplomatic partner for the last eleven years. He has signed arms agreements, attended summits, presented himself as a voice for progressive Kleotrian reform. He is one of the most trusted political allies the Alliance has in this sector."
November looked at the rotating face. The amber eyes, the carefully structured smile. She remembered the way he'd looked at her through the bars — looked at all of them — with the benign indifference of someone counting heads of cattle.
"We believe he is also systematically selling Alliance intelligence to the Crimson Ledger in exchange for preferential pricing on human cargo. He has been doing so for at least five years. We have suspected it. We have not been able to prove it." She looked at November. "You saw his face. You heard his title. You can connect him, directly, to the operation of a slaver ship, in the presence of human captives, giving orders about their transport."
November's hands were flat on the table. She looked at them. Capable hands, slightly rough, close-kept nails. Hands that had spent two decades steadying frightened animals and were now, she realized, pressing against a metal surface so hard the knuckles had gone pale, because if she didn't press them down they were going to shake.
"You would make an exceptional witness, Ms. Lachlan," Sethan said. "If you agree to testify."
November didn't know whether to be flattered or terrified. Both feelings occupied the same square inch of her chest and neither was willing to move.
"The others in this room have corroborating observations," Sethan continued, her gaze sweeping the table. "The Crimson Ledger operates under the assumption that cargo doesn't talk.You are, collectively, cargo that can talk. And what you can say is enough to bring a formal charge before the High Council."
"And the prince?" Pael's thin voice again. "What happens when he learns we're talking?"
Sethan didn't hesitate. "That's what I need to discuss with you next. Prince Dáinn is one of the most powerful political figures in the quadrant. If even a rumor reaches him that witnesses exist — that someone saw his face on that ship and can identify him under oath — your lives are in immediate danger. This is not speculation. The Crimson Ledger has eliminated witnesses before. A prince with his resources can do it faster and quieter."
