He started shrugging out of his heavy coat. “I put one in your pack. Outside pocket.”
“Thanks.” I dug around, found the small device, and flicked it on. The white beam of light that came from it soothed me instantly.
“What’s our situation?” he asked, seemingly more to himself than to me, as he asked it while running his flashlight over the control panels and consoles that lined one curved wall.
I was hungry, I had to pee, and I felt like there was sand in every orifice of my body, but I cleared my throat and forced myself to focus. “From what I can see, the basic life support systems are functional, but everything else looks like it’s been deteriorating for years.”
The chamber we were in appeared to be some kind of control room. Banks of dark screens lined the walls, and there were several workstations arranged in a rough circle around the center of the space. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and grime, but the underlying technology looked sophisticated.
“No sign of food or water supplies that I can see,” Icontinued, doing a more thorough visual sweep. “But there might be storage areas elsewhere in the tower.”
Torven nodded and moved toward what looked like a transport shaft on one side of the room. “Lift?” he asked, pressing a few buttons on the control panel.
Nothing happened.
“Dead,” he confirmed. “But there’s a staircase.”
I followed his gaze to where a metal stairway spiraled upward into darkness along the tower’s inner wall. The steps looked sturdy enough, but the thought of climbing into that black void made my stomach clench with unease.
“Maybe we should focus on getting this level functional first,” I suggested. “If we can restore power, we might be able to access the tower’s data systems. Find out what happened here.”
“Agreed. Any ideas on the power situation?”
I moved to one of the workstations and started examining the control panels. Most of the displays were dark, but a few showed faint readings that suggested some kind of backup power was still functioning.
“There,” I said, pointing to a readout that showed fluctuating energy levels. “Wind power. The whole tower must have been designed to harvest energy from the atmospheric turbulence.”
“Makes sense,” Torven said, moving to stand beside me. “With storms like the one we just survived, there’d be plenty of kinetic energy to tap into.”
I was acutely aware of his proximity as we worked together to trace the power systems. He smelled like leather and metal and something indefinably masculine that mademy pulse quicken. It was not an appropriate time for such feelings.
Focus, Zara.You can admire the scenery later, if you both survive long enough for there to be a later.
“If we can reroute some of the backup power reserves,” I said, studying the schematics that were slowly appearing on one of the functional displays, “we might be able to bring the main lighting online.”
He squinted at the words that accompanied the diagrams. “Can you read that?”
The characters were in a language completely foreign to me, and I was fluent in six languages, including Destran—withoutusing my implanted translation device. Which gave me headaches. But that wasn’t the point. “Nope, but I don’t need the words with the images. Schematic diagrams are clear and precise, and Icanunderstandthem.”
“Well, I can’t.” He glared at the schematics. “They look nothing like anything I’ve seen before.”
“I’m guessing you’re used to the style of schematics in our quadrant.” I nodded and moved through the images, one by one, getting a feel for the power setup of this tower. “This isn’t my specialty, either, but I’ve worked with equipment from so many corners of the galaxy, I’m used to different presentations.” I looked up at him. “Will you help me with this?”
“Tell me what you need me to do.”
For the next hour, we worked together to restore basic functionality to the control room. And I meanbasic. Torven proved to be surprisingly adept with technical systems,following my instructions without commentary. As a transport ship captain, he’d done emergency repair work before.
“Try it now,” I said, after we’d finished rewiring the main power distribution hub.
Torven activated the lighting controls, and suddenly the chamber had light. It wasn’t bright enough to read by, but it was infinitely better than relying on our portable lights.
“Not bad for a couple of amateurs,” I said, feeling genuinely pleased with our accomplishment.
“Speak for yourself,” Torven replied, but there was something that might have been amusement in his voice. “I’ve had to repair more systems than I care to count. Just not…alien systems.”
I was about to ask him about that when I noticed another set of controls near the main window. The window itself was completely covered by metal plating, blocking any view of the outside.
“Think we can get that open?” I asked, pointing to the covered window.
