She was so tired and so strung out that she felt like she couldn’t trust anything anymore, not even her own eyes. The lights of the ship brightened overhead before they streaked with red. Norah knew it was the internal scanning systems.
Her ears twitched as the lasers turned on afterward with a zip.
Her empty hand reached forward and gripped the back of Stryker’s too-small suit. A moment later the lasers ran over their bodies and decontamination went wide for the whole ship.
“Is this necessary?”Of course, it is.“Never mind, don’t answer that.”
“Can’t be too careful.”
Norah kept thinking back to everything that had happened to her and the crew over the past six months, especially everything that had happened to her over the last week and a half.
She tried to pinpoint the one moment in time where everything went wrong. Not just when the sirens blared, but the calm before the storm.Figuratively and literally.She took a deep breath of the cold, clean air of the ship.
She wanted the pure air to last. If she never breathed in water again, it would be too soon.
Stryker reached back and pulled her under his arm; she didn’t let go of him. They waited in silence as the quarantine procedures finished. Norah buried her head against him, and when the last of the lasers ran over them without incident she realized how frightened she was that her health was in jeopardy. Her very human existence.
He squeezed her shoulder and let her go. It was their way.
The wall opened up next to them, a closet full of space-suits, breathers, and tools. Norah took a mask and placed it over her mouth. She wasn’t going to take any more chances. The door to the hatch opened up and they made their way through the passageway that connected their ships.
When the EonMed’s ship closed behind her, she felt a bit safer.
And she didn’t know why.
The door to Stryker’s ship opened up to another quarantine receptacle. They went through the decontamination process again. She rubbed the goosebumps from her arms. When it ended, she grabbed the pistol again; her fingers slid across the cool metal but it didn’t make her feel better. Norah had never thought that her life would come to this.
Disasters, murders, and outbreaks all happened on the Network, places that were far away from her. It had always seemed natural to watch the tragedies with indifference. She leaned back into the Cyborg for comfort while he stood frozen before a panel to the side.
Norah breathed in the warmth that Stryker always had around him. It soothed her. That was until the sound of metal breaking and bending thundered behind the door.
Stryker spoke into an auditory feed that blipped on from the console.
“Matt, what the fuck have you done?” A visual feed opened up as Stryker typed in the code. A blueprint of his ship flickered.
The noise on the other side had stopped.
“Stryker...what’s on your ship?”
He glanced at her before returning to his work, his eyes filled with code, while his hand remained connected. “Acquisitions.”
“What acquisitions?”Fuck this.Norah backed up a step until her back hit the closed hatch.
He didn’t answer her but yelled into the comm. “Matt, I know you’re on the bridge. Get off your ass and answer me.” A minute went by. “Power on the mainframe and swipe the goddamned screen where it’s flashing a message notification.” Stryker’s voice boomed from under his mask. “Goddamned idiot,” he muttered.
“Your co-pilot?” she asked.
“My alcoholic.”
Okay.
An unknown voice filled the space.Matt,she assumed. “Hey, man, you save the girl?”
“I’m only going to ask this once, so you better listen up. What the fuck did you do to my ship?” Stryker asked in a deadened voice. Norah chose to stay quiet.
The audio feed crackled. “I don’t know what you mean, I’ve done nothing to your ship. Our Wieraptor, on the other hand, has been trying to get into the bridge since you left,” Matt said, unfazed.
“Fuck,” Stryker said under his breath.
