His markings flickered, rapid pulses of crystalline blue across silver-gray skin. The pattern I'd learned meant alarm. Concern.
"This signal," he said carefully. "It's definitely from your people?"
"The frequency." My voice came out hoarse. "Only Liberty crew would know it. It's our emergency protocol. Modified to bypass standard communication channels." I grabbed the pad back, stared at the coordinates like they might change if I looked away. "Someone's out there. Someone survived."
Someone who wasn't us. Who wasn't safe on Mothership with full bellies and warm quarters and the luxury of falling in?—
I cut that thought off. Couldn't think about it. Not now.
"I need to see Captain Tor'van," I said. "Right now."
Zor'go was already moving toward his desk comm. "I'll contact the bridge. But Jalina—" He paused, something complicated crossing his features. Something that looked like fear. "These coordinates. Sector 447-Theta is contested territory. Three different factions claim jurisdiction. It's not safe."
"I don't care if it's safe." The words came out sharper than intended. "Those are my people out there."
"Your people are here." His voice dropped lower, intense in a way that had nothing to do with architecture or spatial planning. "Seventeen humans aboard Mothership. Safe. Integrated. Building lives."
"Eighteen," I corrected automatically. "Kim." The Liberty engineer we'd found three weeks ago, brilliant and traumatized and currently in restricted quarters after her attempted sabotage. "And however many are sending that signal. We don't know how many survived. We don't?—"
My throat closed. Six months. It had been six months since the wormhole tore Liberty apart. Six months since I'd watched the colony ship fragment into a dozen pieces, watched escape pods scatter across impossible distances, watched everything we'd planned and built and dreamed dissolve into chaos and fire and vacuum.
We'd assumed everyone else was dead.
We had to assume it. Because the alternative, that people were out there, drifting, dying, calling for help we couldn't hear was unbearable.
But now someone was calling.
And we heard them.
Zor'go's comm chimed. Captain Tor'van's voice, clipped and professional: "Report to the bridge immediately. Both of you."
The bridge was controlled chaos when we arrived. Captain Tor'van stood at the central command station, his scarred features set in grim concentration. His cybernetic eye flickeredas it processed data streams. Around him, the bridge crew worked with urgent efficiency, Kex'tar at communications, Er'dox at tactical, Vaxon pacing near the weapons console like a caged predator.
Dana was there too, standing beside Er'dox with her engineer's pad in hand. Her green eyes found mine across the bridge, and something passed between us. Understanding. Recognition.
This was what we'd talked about during those long nights in our quarters. The fear that haunted every survivor's dreams: that we weren't the only ones. That somewhere out there, people were still fighting. Still hoping.
Still dying.
"Architect Chauncy." Captain Tor'van's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. "You've reviewed the signal data?"
"Yes, Captain." I stepped forward, trying to match his professional tone even though my insides felt like they were liquefying. "It's authentic. The frequency, the encryption, the recognition protocol, all Liberty standard. Someone who served aboard that ship sent this."
"Could it be a trap?" Vaxon asked. His purple skin rippled with tension. "A lure to draw Mothership into contested space?"
"No one outside Liberty would know our emergency protocols," Dana said before I could answer. "They're not in any standard database. You'd have to have served aboard the ship or have access to crew-level security codes."
"Which Kim had," Er'dox pointed out quietly. "And she maintained contact with external parties for months before we discovered her."
The implication hung in the air like poison. That this could be another trap. Another betrayal. Another brilliant Liberty engineer using our desperate hope against us.
"It's not Kim." The words came out harder than I intended. "She's in detention. And even if she had external contacts, they wouldn't know our emergency beacon protocols. Those are officer-level clearance only."
"You had officer clearance?" Captain Tor'van's good eye focused on me with uncomfortable intensity.
"I was senior architect for the colonial planning division. Required access to all emergency protocols in case we needed to coordinate planetary evacuation procedures." The old titles felt strange in my mouth now. Like speaking a language I'd half-forgotten. "Whoever sent this signal holds at least command-track credentials."
"Command track." Kex'tar pulled up personnel rosters from Liberty's fragmented database, the incomplete records we'd salvaged from Dana's engineering station. "Seventeen command-track officers were aboard Liberty when we found you. You're telling me more survived?"
