Hope flickered in her chest. At least someone was on her side.
"A point well taken," another official said, this one older, with deep lines bracketing his mouth. "However, the circumstances that brought Ms. Sawyer to this station remain problematic. Contract breach. Failure to report for scheduled pickup. The public incident involving the flyer vehicle." He looked at her with something close to distaste. "One act of heroism does not erase a pattern of poor judgment."
The hope died as quickly as it had sparked.
"Pattern of poor judgment?" The words escaped before she could stop them. "I was trying to?—"
Kirr's hand closed over her knee under the table. A warning squeeze.
She bit down on the rest of the sentence and swallowed it.
"The flight risk designation remains a concern," the older official continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Her file notes that Ms. Sawyer has required from the moment of her arrival."
"Which I addressed," Kirr spoke up, calm and measured. His voice cut through the murmur of agreement from some of the other officials. "She has been under my direct supervision since I found her on the surface. There have been no incidents."
"Until today," Kaarigan observed. "When she accessed core station systems without authorization."
Kirr cut him a hard look. "Not without authorization. She did that under my orders, during an emergency. An emergency that you have already noted, and, as I might add, almost brought the station to its knees. The lack of communications backups meant that I had to take command during the emergency rather than the station command staff."
"Nonetheless." Kaarigan set down his dataflex and steepled his fingers. "Her access was logged. Her flight risk status remains active. These factors don't disappear because she happened to prove useful."
She wanted to scream. She'd saved the station, she'd kept them all alive, and they were debating whether her heroism outweighed her mistakes like it was some kind of accounting problem.
Kaarigan's gaze shifted, scanning the room. "Where is the other one? There were two females mentioned in the file."
The dismissive phrasing hit her like a slap.
"The other one?" She didn't bother keeping the edge out of her voice. "You mean my cousin? Her name is Delilah, and she's fighting for her life in your medical bay."
Some of the Lathar behind the table exchanged glances. Kirr's hand tightened on her knee again, but she didn't care.
"She's in a coma. She nearly died in the crash, but I'm sure that's in your files somewhere." She met Kaarigan's gaze. He obviously didn’t like women, so why the hell was he in charge of the mate program?
"So maybe you could refer to her as something other than 'the other one' while you're deciding whether to throw us both back to Earth to starve."
Silence filled the room so completely that it practically pulled up a chair at the table to watch proceedings.
Kaarigan's expression didn't change, but there was a flicker in his eyes. It was gone before she could work out what it was. Anger probably.
"The cousin's condition complicates our review," he said. "The candidates are linked. They broke contract together. Their cases cannot be separated."
"So what happens to her affects me," she said. "And what happens to me affects her."
"That is correct. We need to confer."
Fantastic. She couldn't even fail on her own terms. She had to drag Delilah down with her as well.
The panel members sat back as the Duke pressed something on the dataflex in front of him. A shimmer filled the air in front of the table. Privacy screen.
Kirr's thumb traced a small circle against her knee. Grounding her. The warmth in his golden eyes made her relax a little. Only a fraction.
“It will be fine,” he mouthed. “I promise.”
"The panel will deliberate," Kaarigan announced when he dropped the screen. "Our determination will be delivered within the standard review period. Until that time, Ms. Sawyer remains under War-Commander M'Aab's supervision."
"And her matching status?" one of the younger officials asked.
"Her details have not been entered into the matching program database." Kaarigan's tone was flat. "Given the potential for deportation, entering her into the matching process would be a waste of resources. If the panel decides in her favor, she will be processed then."
