The patrol ship passed the hab block at dawn, and Tim pressed his baby sister against his chest so her cry would not reach the window. In three days he had to smuggle her off Juniperfall. The colony's conscription sweep took every child it logged, and his sister was not yet logged. That was the only reason she was still here. He had no ship, no money, and no place to hide her while he found both. He counted the daily sweeps on his fingers. One at dawn. One at midday. One after the shift horn. Each time, drones scanned the pods and marked the children inside. His pod would be scanned by noon. He could not stay. Tim wrapped his sister in a gray blanket and carried her down the service stairs. The lower corridors were empty. He had one idea left, and it stood two levels down: the daycare. The building was shaped like a cartoon rocket, white and cheerful, with round windows and painted stars along its hull. It took children too young to be logged. The sweep drones ignored it, because the colony counted those children later. For three more days, his sister would be invisible inside it. He reached the painted doors and found two kids blocking them. Riley and Max Henderson. They lived one pod over. Riley stood with arms crossed, the older one, always watching the corridor like something was coming. Max held a stuffed toy shaped like a shaggy forest giant. "You can't go in," Riley said. "They're checking names at the door now. Since this morning." Tim's chest went tight. "Checking names." "A worker with a scanner," Max said. "We got sent out. They're logging the little ones early. The sweep changed." The safe place was no longer safe. The one gap in the system had just closed, hours before he needed it. He looked at the two kids. They were out here because the daycare had turned them away too. "Where are you going?" he asked. Riley shrugged, but the shrug was stiff. "Nowhere yet. Our parents already got taken for questions." Tim understood then. These two were running from the same thing he was. They knew the corridors, the blind spots, the timing of the drones better than he did. He needed that. And they needed someone bigger. "Come with me," he said. "I'm getting her off the colony. All of us, if we move." Riley studied him a long moment. Then Max slipped a hand into Tim's free one, toy and all. "Okay," Riley said. "But not through the main ring. They scan it every hour." The worker's scanner beeped inside the daycare. A voice called out names. Tim turned from the painted doors and followed Riley down a dark maintenance hall, his sister warm against him, two more children now depending on a plan he did not have.

The maintenance hall ended at a fork. Three dark passages split off, none of them marked. Tim stopped, his sister heavy against his chest. He had no map. One wrong turn would drop them at a checkpoint, and the checkpoint would log every child who walked into it. "Which way?" he asked Riley. Riley stared at the three mouths of pipe and shadow. The confidence from the daycare doors was gone. "I don't know this part. We only went as far as the playground vents." Max tugged Tim's sleeve. "The slides," the younger child said. "We played under the slides. There's a grate that goes down." Tim crouched to Max's level. "The playground? The one with the two slides, the green and the orange?" Max nodded hard, hugging the shaggy toy. "We dropped marbles in the grate. They rolled down and came out by the water pipe. Way down there." Max pointed at the left passage. Riley frowned. "That's a kid thing. That's not a map." "It's better than guessing," Tim said. But he needed proof before he led two children and a baby into the dark. He pulled a bolt from his pocket and dropped it into the left passage. It bounced, then rolled, picking up speed on a downward slope. The sound faded away from them, not back toward the main ring. "Downhill," Tim said. "Away from the checkpoints. The checkpoints are up near the hab block." He looked at Max. "Your marbles went down. Down is good." He chose the left passage. The floor tilted under his boots. Riley walked ahead now, one hand on the wall, counting junctions under their breath. Max named each turn by memory. "The marble turned here. It went straight here." Twice the child was sure, and twice Tim followed. Then the passage opened into a low chamber. A thick water pipe ran across the ceiling, sweating in the cold. On the floor lay three old marbles, dusty, exactly where a child had said they would be. "Max was right," Riley breathed. Tim's chest loosened. They were under the playground now, far from any scanner. No checkpoint waited here. But the chamber had only one exit, a narrow hatch sealed with a wheel lock. Tim set his sister down on his folded jacket and gripped the wheel. It would not turn. He braced his feet and pulled. Rust cracked. The wheel gave an inch, then stopped hard against something jammed inside the mechanism. Riley crouched and peered through the gap. Their face went tight. "There's a light on the other side," they whispered. "A worker light. Somebody's been through here. Recently." Tim stared at the jammed hatch. He had found the safe path. It led straight to a door he could not open, with someone waiting on the far side.

The jammed hatch mocked Tim. Even if he forced it, nothing waited past it but open ground and a sweep closing in. His sister slept on his folded jacket. She had no ship, no passage, no way off this world. Tim had spent two weeks building a crate to hide her as cargo. A crate meant nothing without a ship to carry it. He pressed his eye to the gap. The worker light did not move. Beyond it he saw a wide dock, and on that dock sat a starcraft. Its hull gleamed under the lamps, engines clustered at the rear, docking rings ready. A loading bay stood open. Pallets waited to be carried aboard. "That's a ship," Riley whispered. "A real one." Tim's pulse jumped. If he reached that bay, he could still list his sister as cargo. The crate plan could work. But the hatch held. He gripped the wheel and threw his weight down. Rust cracked. The jam stayed. Max pushed close and pointed low. A thin seam ran along the hatch base, where a small panel had been bolted shut. "The marbles went under," Max said. "Small things fit under." Tim knelt and pried the panel. Four bolts. He had his tool. He worked fast, sweat stinging his eyes, while Riley watched the light for any shadow. The last bolt dropped. The panel swung free. The gap was low and tight, wide enough for a child to crawl through. "Max, Riley, go first," Tim said. "Stay against the wall. Get behind the pallets." Riley hesitated. "What about you? You won't fit." "I'll push her through, then follow the wheel. Go." Max slid through on his belly, hugging the shaggy toy. Riley followed. Tim lifted his sister and eased her into Riley's reaching arms. Then he set both boots on the wheel and hauled. With the panel gone, the jam shifted. The wheel turned one notch. Two. The hatch groaned open a foot. Tim squeezed through into cold dock air. The starcraft towered over them. The loading ramp stood ten steps away. A worker stepped out from behind a pallet. Not a guard. A tired man in a stained jacket, a scanner clipped to his belt. He saw three children and a baby, and his hand went to the scanner. Tim raised both palms. "Please. The sweep took their parents this morning. She's not logged. Scan her and she's gone." The worker looked at the baby. He looked at the open loading bay. For a long moment he said nothing. Then he unclipped the scanner and set it face-down on a crate. "Cargo manifest closes in an hour," the worker said. "I didn't see you. Get in the hold and stay quiet." Tim had a ship. The window was an hour, not three days. He carried his sister up the ramp into the dark hold, the children at his heels.

The worker set his scanner face-down and gave Tim one hour. But when Tim reached the loading ramp, the man stepped in front of it. "Not yet," he said. "Three kids running loose near my ship. One of them panics during the sweep, points a finger, and I'm logged in their place. Prove they'll stay quiet. Then you get near the hold." Tim's stomach dropped. The hour was already running. He looked at Riley and Max pressed against a pallet, eyes wide, the baby asleep on his shoulder. He had no proof to give. He had three scared children and a worker ready to change his mind. "Tim." A voice came from behind the pallets. His older brother Jake stepped out, red flannel sleeves shoved to his elbows, a duffel over one shoulder. Tim's chest clenched. Jake was supposed to meet them off-world, not here, not now. Jake had argued against this plan from the start. "I followed the corridors," Jake said. "Figured you'd need hands." Tim wanted to be angry. Instead his shoulders loosened. Jake knelt in front of Riley and Max and spoke low. "You two listen to me. There's a small building by the far wall. A changing station. Clean, quiet, a door that locks. You wait inside with the baby while we load. Nobody sees you, nobody hears you." The worker frowned. "And if they bolt?" Jake stood. "They won't. Because they'll be locked in from the outside, and I keep the key." He turned to the children. "That's not a cage. That's cover. You trust me?" Max hugged the shaggy toy tighter. "The marbles," he whispered. "We hid before. We can hide again." Riley nodded. Tim held his breath. The worker studied Jake, then the small shelter near the wall. He weighed the risk the way Tim had watched men weigh cargo. "The baby's small," the worker said. "She cries, we're all logged." "She sleeps through engine noise," Tim said. "I've tested it in the crate for two weeks. She won't wake." Jake led Riley and Max to the changing station. He eased them inside, handed Max the toy, and turned the latch. Then he walked back and dropped the key into the worker's palm. "Now you hold it. We can't open that door without you. That's your proof." The worker closed his fist around the key. Something in his face settled. He stepped aside from the ramp. "You've got the hour," he said. "Load fast." Tim climbed the ramp with his sister. The hold was dark and cold, stacked with crates like his own. He set her in a hollow between two pallets and tucked his jacket around her. For the first time in two weeks, the plan was real. Then Jake's hand gripped his arm. "Tim," he said quietly. "Count the crates. The manifest already lists this hold as full. There's no slot left for her."

Tim stared at the manifest screen bolted to the hold wall. Jake was right. Every slot showed as filled. His sister lay tucked between two pallets, breathing slow, while the numbers told the ship she wasn't there. If the manifest closed like this, the scanners would flag the extra weight and open the hold. Tim had maybe ten minutes before the filing window shut. He found an empty line and tried to edit it. The screen flashed red. "Credentials required," it said. Tim's hands shook. He couldn't close the manifest. He couldn't even change it. The system wanted the dock worker's login, and the worker was down the ramp, holding a key and a scanner, watching the clock just like Tim. "We need him," Tim said. Jake shook his head. "He let us this far to save his own neck. Ask him to log false cargo, he's tied to a smuggled kid. He'll walk." Tim went down the ramp anyway. The worker stood near the pallets, arms crossed. Tim told him the truth. The hold read full. The manifest wouldn't close around his sister without the worker's credentials. The man's jaw tightened. "No. My name on a false line, I'm finished." Jake came down behind Tim. He didn't argue. He held up the changing station key and let it catch the light. "You gave me three scared kids to keep quiet," Jake said. "I did. They're locked up tight because I turned that latch. You trusted me with their silence. Now trust me with your name." He stepped closer. "If the hold opens during the sweep, they find all of us. Her, them, you. One edited line is the only thing between you and that." The worker looked at the small shelter by the wall, then at the ramp. Tim watched him weigh it, the same way he weighed cargo. Risk against risk. "One line," the worker said. "Then I never saw you." He climbed the ramp and leaned over the screen. His fingers moved fast. The red flash turned green. A new slot opened, and the hold count ticked down by one. He typed his code. The manifest showed a single open line, waiting. Tim lifted his sister and set her into the hollow the new line now covered. He pulled his jacket snug around her. The worker hit confirm. The screen locked. "Manifest closed," it read. The window had shut with her inside it, legal cargo now, logged as a crate that didn't exist an hour ago. Tim breathed out. Then the worker's scanner buzzed on his belt. He read it and went pale. "The sweep moved up," he said. "They're logging the changing stations by the wall. Every locked building. They'll open that door in minutes." Jake's hand went to the key. Riley, Max, and the baby's hiding place was no longer a secret. It was the next thing the authorities would unlock.

The worker's scanner still glowed red on his belt. Tim ran for the little changing building by the wall. Jake came right behind him, the key already in his hand. The sweep would pop that lock in minutes. His sister was inside with Riley and Max, and once the door swung open, every scanner in the bay would find them. Tim reached the door first. The latch was a simple government model, set into blue painted wood. Jake jammed the key in and turned it. Nothing clicked. "They locked it from the system," he said. "My key's dead now. The sweep owns it." He pressed his hand flat against the door. From inside came three small knocks. Riley, asking if it was safe. Tim's eyes moved across the floor. Near a stack of pallets lay a chunk of scrap, a hunk of twisted metal filed down to a point. He grabbed it. The edge bit his palm. He drove the point into the gap between the door and its frame, right where the bolt slid home. "The system's about to throw that bolt," Tim said. "If I wedge it, the bolt can't move. Door stays shut. Scanner reads it locked and skips it." He leaned his weight into the metal. It ground deeper. His arms shook. Something inside the lock buzzed. The bolt tried to slide. It hit the wedge and stopped dead. The buzzing climbed, then cut out. A red light above the door blinked twice and went dark. Jake stared at the dead light. "It logged it as jammed," he said. "Broken, not hidden. They'll send someone to fix a broken lock." Tim's stomach dropped. He had bought time, not safety. He pressed his mouth to the gap in the door. "It's Tim. The lock's stuck. You can't come out this door. Is there another way?" A hand slid under the door. Max's hand, signing fast against the floor where Tim could see. A flat palm, then two fingers walking. Then a point upward. Jake read it. "There's a vent. In the roof." He looked up at the slanted wood above the little building. "Max says it's loose. They can climb the shelf and push through." Tim's heart kicked. A vent meant out. But out meant three kids on the roof of the bay, in the open, while a repair crew walked toward a lock that would not open. "Then get them up," Tim said. "Fast. Before the crew comes." He pressed his back against the jammed door and felt the baby's weight shift inside, safe for one more minute. The wedge held. The children started to climb. And somewhere down the bay, boots were already turning toward the broken lock.

The wedge held, but Tim's arms shook. Inside the little changing building, feet scraped against the shelf. Riley and Max were climbing for the roof vent, his baby sister pressed between them. Down the bay, boots grew louder. The repair crew was coming for the broken lock, and Tim could not hold it forever. Jake crouched beside him, both hands on the scrap metal. "When they get here, they'll scan us too," he said. "We can't be standing at this door." "Then make them look somewhere else," Tim said. His mind raced. The sweep hunted children. If children ran, the crew would chase. "Go. Take the far path. Let them see you and run. Lead them away from the building." Jake's jaw tightened. He hated the plan. Tim saw it. But Jake was his brother, and he had carried them this far. He squeezed Tim's shoulder once, then bolted across the open bay, loud and clumsy on purpose. A shout went up. Boots turned. The repair crew broke into a run after Jake, past the pallets, toward the cold playground equipment near the wall. Tim watched a worker nearly trip over a green slide, cursing. They were following. The door was forgotten. Above the little building, the roof vent screeched. A flat panel bent upward. Max's face appeared in the gap, then an arm reaching down. Riley lifted the baby. Tim's breath caught. For one moment his sister hung in the open air, high above the shelf, small and quiet. "Easy," Tim whispered, though no one could hear. "Easy." Max took her weight. Riley climbed through next. Then Max pulled the baby up and out, onto the slanted roof and gone from the scanner's reach. The wedge slipped. Tim felt the bolt grind forward against the metal. The door shuddered. But it did not matter now. The building was empty. Let the crew fix a lock on an empty room. Tim let go. He ran low along the wall, following the roofline, toward the place where the children had climbed down the far side. He found them crouched behind a crate, Max holding the baby, Riley watching the chase. Across the bay, Jake doubled back through the swings. A worker caught his sleeve. Jake twisted free and pointed at nothing, shouting about a runner near the ship. The crew scattered to look. In the noise, Jake slipped sideways and vanished between the pallets. He reached them a minute later, breathing hard, scraped at one elbow. "They bought it," he said. "But not for long. They'll scan the whole bay next." Tim took his sister from Max. She was warm and awake and safe, out of the locked room, off the scanner logs. The door was behind them now. But they were four children and a baby, in the open, between the crew and the ship. And the cargo ramp was still a long way across the floor.

Jake was gone again. He had slipped between the pallets to keep the crew guessing, and now Tim could not see him anywhere. The baby slept against Tim's chest. Riley and Max crouched beside him. Across the bay, the repair crew spread out, sweeping lights over the floor. If they cornered Jake, the group lost its only lookout. And Tim had no way to tell his brother where they were or when to run. "We need to wave him over," Riley whispered. "But if we stand up, they scan us." Tim scanned the crate stacks. He spotted a toppled supply unit near the changing station wall. Baby clothes spilled from its shelves, tiny shirts and bright socks scattered on the floor. His plan formed fast. A signal did not have to be a shout. It could be a thing his brother would know. He pulled a yellow baby shirt from the pile. Jake had packed clothes like it for his sister, weeks ago. Tim tied it to the end of a long handling pole. He raised it just above the crate, quick, then down. A small flash of color in the gray bay. Only someone looking for them would catch it. Nothing. Tim's heart sank. He lifted it again. Then a worker shouted. Boots pounded. A small figure darted across the open floor between the crew and the ship. A little girl, no older than three, in a shirt and a diaper, laughing as she chased a toy that spun through the air. She had wandered in from somewhere beyond the bay, free and loud and wrong for this place. "Runner!" a worker called. "Secured area!" The whole crew turned. They ran after the girl, arms wide, trying to herd her. She squealed and dodged, thinking it a game. Every light swung away from Tim's crates. In the chaos, Jake's head rose above a pallet two rows over. He had seen the shirt. His eyes found Tim's pole, then Tim's face. Tim waved him in, hard. Jake nodded and moved, low and fast, while the crew chased the wandering child the other way. He reached them, breathing hard. "Smart," he said, touching the yellow shirt. "I almost missed it." "Where were you?" Tim asked. "Drawing them off. But that little one just did my job better." Jake glanced back at the crew, still grabbing for the laughing girl. "They'll have her logged in a minute. Poor kid." Tim looked at the child. He could do nothing for her now, and he knew it. The crew closed around her. Her laugh cut off. But Jake was back. The group was whole, lookout and all. Tim pointed across the floor. The cargo ramp stood open, unguarded now, every worker turned the wrong way. "Go," Tim said. "While they're busy. We won't get this again."

The ramp stood open and empty. Every worker chased the laughing child the other way. Tim held his sister tight and ran for it, Jake beside him, Riley and Max at their heels. The floor stretched wide and bare between the crates and the ship. No cover. If one worker turned, they would see five figures crossing open ground. Halfway across, a shout cut the air. Not from behind. From the ramp. A small girl stood at the top, where the ramp met the ship. She wore a shirt and a diaper, her brown hair tied in two tails. She had slipped loose from the crew and climbed the ramp to find her lost toy. Now she stared down at Tim's group with huge, curious eyes. She was the runner. The one who had saved them. And she was blocking the only way in. "That's her," Jake breathed. "The one who drew them off." Tim stopped at the base of the ramp. If she screamed, the crew would come. If she climbed down, they would spot her and follow her straight to the ship. He could not push past her. He could not leave her. The girl pointed at the baby on Tim's chest. "Baby," she said, loud and pleased. "Shh." Tim crouched on the ramp. He kept his voice soft, the way he spoke to his sister at night. "Yes. A baby. You want to see?" She nodded hard. Behind him, Tim heard the crew still calling for her across the bay. Their lights would turn soon. He held out his free hand. "Come here, then. Come see the baby. Quiet, okay? It's a game." The girl liked games. She padded down two steps and took his fingers. Tim scooped her up with his other arm and pressed her face gently toward his shoulder, hiding her bright shirt against his jacket. Now he carried two children up the ramp. "What are you doing?" Riley hissed. "She can't stay here," Tim said. "And she can't go back to them." They reached the top. The hold yawned dark and cool. Tim set the girl down behind a stack of crates and crouched to her level. "Stay. Hide. I'll bring the baby back." She giggled, thinking it hide-and-seek, and tucked herself small. Tim turned to find Jake watching him, jaw tight. "Tim. The manifest's closed. There's no room logged for her." Tim looked at the toddler folded behind the crates, then at his sleeping sister. The ramp was behind them now. The crew's lights swept the empty floor where the group had been. They were inside. But the ship held one more child than the records allowed, and the scanners would weigh every kilo before the hatch sealed.

The hatch lights blinked yellow along the rim. A soft voice from the ship announced the weight check in two minutes. Tim knew what that meant. The scanners would measure every kilo against the closed manifest. His sister was logged as a fake crate. The toddler was logged as nothing. One extra child, and the discrepancy would freeze the hatch and bring the crew running. "Two minutes," Jake said. He crouched beside the crates where the little girl hid. She clutched a flying toy to her chest, a bright thing with spinning wings. She beamed up at them like this was still a game. Tim's stomach turned. She trusted him. She had saved them all without knowing it. "The scanners check loose bodies against the floor," Jake said. "Four of us can't just stand here. We weigh too much." Tim looked at the hold. A rack of empty crates lined one wall, the kind marked already scanned and filed. Their weight was counted before the manifest closed. He grabbed Jake's arm. "Those. They're logged full. If we climb inside, the scanner reads the crate, not us." Riley signed fast, hands sharp. Max read it and nodded. We fit. We did it in the tunnels. They moved. Tim pried the lid off the nearest crate. It was packed with foam padding, light and loose. He dug it out in handfuls and stuffed it behind the rack. Jake did the same to a second crate. Riley and Max worked a third, small enough that both squeezed in together. "One minute," the ship said. Tim lifted the toddler. She giggled and reached for his collar. "New game," he whispered. "Hide in the box. Stay quiet for the baby, okay?" He set her in the crate beside his sister's hidden spot and tucked the flying toy into her arms. She curled small. Tim fit the lid down, leaving a gap for air. Jake climbed into his crate. Tim pulled his own lid over his head and held it. Through the gap he saw the hold go dark. A thin blue line swept the floor. It passed the rack slowly. Tim held his breath. The light touched his crate, measured it, moved on. The ship's voice came again, flat and calm. "Manifest confirmed. Hatch sealing." The ramp lifted. Metal groaned and clamped shut. The hold shook as the engines woke beneath them. Tim pushed his lid open and gulped the cool air. In the next crate, the toddler laughed, pleased she had won. They were sealed in. The scanners had passed them. But through a small port in the hull, Tim saw the loading bay shrink away, and past it, rising over Juniperfall, a huge grey warship swung into view. Its guns pointed down at the colony they were leaving. The ship they hid in was flying straight toward it.

Tim pressed his face to the small port. The grey warship filled the view now. Its guns swung toward the cargo ship's path. Inside his sealed crate, blind to everything, he could only wait. If the ship stopped, the crew would search the hold. If the warship fired, no plan mattered. He pushed his lid up and climbed out. He had to see what was happening, or they would all die inside these boxes. Jake's lid banged open beside him. "Stay down," Jake hissed. "We can't be found." "We can't be dead either," Tim said. He crossed the hold to the port. A voice crackled through the ship's speakers, sharp and official. It came from a third vessel, smaller, swinging between them and the warship. Painted bright, trimmed with metal and old symbols, it looked more like a floating shrine than a fighting ship. It moved straight into the warship's line of fire. "This is the harbor guard," the voice said. "You will not pursue the cargo vessel. Stand down your guns." Tim held his breath. The warship's guns did not move for a long moment. Then the voice spoke again, slower now. "My daughters are aboard that ship. A baby girl and her older sister. I have been searching three sweeps for them. You will let them pass." Tim turned toward the two crates near the wall. His sister lay hidden in one. In the other, the toddler who had followed them up the ramp. The little girl pushed her lid open and sat up, her flying toy clutched to her chest. She blinked at the light, pigtails crooked, her shirt rumpled. She had no idea the man on the speaker was asking the whole fleet to spare her. The toddler held up the toy and grinned at Tim. "Fly," she said. Tim knelt by her crate. His hands shook. He had grabbed her as a trick to fix the weight count. He had not known she had a father out there, hunting ship by ship. He had not known she had a sister asleep three feet away, both of them lost in the sweeps before Tim ever opened a crate. On the speaker, the warship answered at last. "Guns stowed. The cargo vessel may pass." The grey hull began to turn. Its guns lifted away from the ship and from Juniperfall below. Tim let his breath out and gripped the crate's edge. Jake came up beside him and stared at the toddler, then at the hidden baby. "Her father," Jake said quietly. "That's who he came for." Tim looked down at the little girl waving her toy. He had carried two strangers' daughters onto this ship. Now their father owned the sky around them, and he would want them back. The warship was gone. But the harbor guard was still out there, and it was coming closer.