“Now I can carry you and we’ll be there in fifteen minutes instead of an hour.”
I considered pointing out that this was probably not the most dignified way to travel, but honestly, I was too grateful about avoiding the leg burn to care much about dignity. Plus, the view really was excellent.
“This is very practical,” I said approvingly. “I like practical solutions.”
I felt his laugh rumble through his rib cage. “I’ll remember that.”
By the time we reached the communications room, I was slightly dizzy from being upside down for so long, but my legs felt fresh and ready for whatever technical challenges awaited us. Torven set me down gently, his hands lingering on my waist for a moment longer than strictly necessary.
“Better than climbing?” he asked.
“Much better. Though I might need a moment for the blood to redistribute properly.”
While I waited for my head to stop spinning, Torven moved to the communication equipment and began syncing his wrist scanner with the alien technology. I watched him work, enjoying the chance to just observe him without him noticing.
“There,” he said after a few minutes of adjustment, and I shifted my gaze away. “The signal strength is much bettertoday. Whatever atmospheric interference we were dealing with yesterday has definitely decreased.”
He activated the scanner and we both held our breath as it cycled through frequencies. This time, instead of the faint, flickering signal we’d detected before, we got a clear, strong response almost immediately.
“This is Transport Captain Torven Korvath calling any Destran personnel,” he said into the communicator. “Please respond.”
There was a moment of static, then a familiar voice crackled through the speakers.
“Captain! Thank the stars, we’ve been trying to reach you for hours.” It was Henic, his chief navigator, sounding very much alive and extremely relieved.
“Henic,” Torven said, and I could hear the relief in his voice, too. “Status report. How many survivors?”
“Pod two landed intact. Three of us made it: myself, Benda, and Sibir. We’ve established contact with pod four as well—Jorug, Mesta, and Faro are all alive and well. They’re holed up in some kind of ancient building about fifty kilometers from our position.”
I felt a surge of hope. Six crew members alive and accounted for. That was better than I’d dared to hope.
“What about pod three?” I asked, leaning closer to the communicator. “Do you have any word on Dr. Vasquez and her pod mates?”
There was a pause that made my stomach drop.
“Negative,” Henic said finally. “We haven’t been able to raise them on any frequency. We don’t know if their communication system was damaged in the landing, or…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to. I felt like someone had punched me in the chest. Cleo could be dead. My best friend, the person who’d convinced me to take this assignment in the first place, might be lying broken in a crashed escape pod somewhere on this hostile planet.
“Keep trying to reach them,” Torven said firmly. “We’re not giving up on anyone.”
“Understood, Captain. What’s your situation?”
“Dr. Rivers and I are alive and well. We’ve taken shelter in what appears to be an alien weather tower. We’ve discovered some important information about this planet.”
Torven quickly summarized what we’d learned from Explorer Thex-Nol’s data pad—the Kythrans, the weather control system, the ongoing atmospheric instability. I added details about the tower’s power systems and the fact that we had access to water and minimal shelter.
“The atmospheric conditions are currently stabilized, but we suspect it’s only temporary,” I said into the communicator. “We haven’t found any way to shut down the weather control system. The technology is too advanced, and most of the control interfaces are in languages we can’t read.”
“What about your location?” Henic asked. “Are you safe to stay there long-term?”
“No,” Torven replied. “We have water and some shelter, but only emergency food rations from the ship. What’s your situation?”
“Better than expected, actually. The area where we landed has some native vegetation that’s safe for Destran consumption. There’s a freshwater source, and Jorug’s team have hunted some wild game that we’ve cooked and eaten. It’snot luxurious, but we can survive here for a while, if necessary.”
The news should have been entirely encouraging, but something was nagging at me. The fact that there were areas with intact ecosystems meant that either some of the weather towers had been disabled, or their effects weren’t planetwide, like we’d originally thought. Which raised questions about whether there were still inhabitants living on this planet.
“Henic,” I said, “when you sayancient building, how ancient are we talking? And are there signs of recent occupation?”
