Focus on what matters,I told myself, forcing my attention away from Zara’s sleeping form.Check on the crew. Figure out our next move.
I carefully extracted my arm from beneath her hand and checked the multi-scanner strapped to my wrist. The devicehad been running passive scans all night, searching for any sign of the escape pods’ emergency beacons.
Nothing.
I cycled through the different frequency ranges, hoping against hope that I’d missed something. The scanner’s display remained stubbornly empty. Either the pods’ beacons weren’t functioning, they were too far away for the scanner to detect, or…
I didn’t want to think about the third option. I muttered a curse, staring at the empty readings.
“What’s wrong?” Zara’s voice was thick with sleep, but alert. She pushed herself up on one elbow. Her brown eyes immediately focused on my face with concern.
“Still no signals from the crew,” I said, lowering the scanner. “The emergency beacons should have a range of at least fifty kilometers. If we’re not picking up anything…”
I didn’t finish the thought, but I could see in her expression that she understood the implications.
“How long do those beacons typically last?” she asked, sitting up fully and running her hands through her disheveled hair.
“Seventy-two hours on standard power cells. Longer, if they’re rationing the broadcasts.” I checked the time display on the scanner. “We’ve got maybe fifty-five or sixty hours left before they start shutting down to preserve power.”
Sixty hours to find them, or to find some way to contact the outside galaxy. The weight of that deadline settled on my shoulders like a physical burden.
“We’ll find them,” Zara said quietly, and there was something in her voice that made me look at her moreclosely. “Or they’ll find us. Cleo is not one to just wait around for someone to rescue her. Knowing her, she’s building her own transmission station and ordering your crew members around. She has impressive programming skills.” She arched her brows. “And mine are not too shabby.”
She was trying to reassure me, I realized. Despite being stranded on an alien planet with no guarantee of rescue, despite having no training for this kind of survival situation, she was trying to make me feel better.
It shouldn’t have mattered. Professional relationships didn’t include emotional support. But something warm unfurled in my chest at her words, and I found myself nodding.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.”
We started our day, such as it was. I divided out some small morsels from our remaining rations while Zara folded up the coats we’d used as blankets. The portions were smaller today—we needed to stretch our supplies as long as possible.
“How thirsty are you?” I asked as we sat cross-legged across from each other to eat. I studied her face as she spoke and didn’t like what I saw. Her lips were already showing signs of dehydration—dry and slightly cracked.
“Critically,” she said. “At my current rate of activity, I’ll be in trouble by the end of the day. Lucky for you Destrans that you’re not as dependent on water.” She nodded toward me. “You havelami.”
Ah, the liquid that our Solas produced was nourishing enough to the Destran body that it could replace all food and water. And its healing properties meant sickness was unheardof. What I wouldn’t give for a bucket of it right now. “If only I had some with me.”
She winked her nose. “Your supply didn’t make it through the crash?”
“If it had, I’d have shared some with you.”
She frowned. “That’s a nice thing to say.”
I shrugged. “It’s true.” Destrans could survive longer without water than humans, but lack of water orlamiwould eventually take a toll on me. “We need to search this tower systematically. If there was a research station here, they would have had water storage, recycling systems, something.”
“Agreed. Let’s hope we find evidence of them at the lower levels.” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “That looked like a lot of stairs and I’m not the most…athletic person, you know.”
“I’ll help you if you get tired.” I finished my ration and stood up, offering her my hand. “Ready for some climbing?”
The staircase that spiraled up the tower’s interior was in better condition than I’d expected. The metal steps were solid, and the handrails were secure, though everything was coated in the same layer of dust and grime that covered the rest of the facility.
We climbed in companionable silence, saving our energy for the physical exertion. The tower was taller than I’d realized from the outside—level after level stretched above us, each one revealing more abandoned rooms and corridors.
Level three held what looked like living quarters—small chambers with basic furniture, all of it covered in dust and showing signs of hasty abandonment. Personal belongingswere scattered across floors and tables, as if people had grabbed what they could carry and left everything else behind.
Level four was some kind of laboratory or research facility. Complex equipment lined the walls, much of it damaged or cannibalized for parts. Whatever experiments had been conducted here, they’d ended abruptly.
Level five contained more living spaces, these ones larger and better furnished. Probably quarters for senior researchers or facility administrators.
