The long-range sensor array opened before me like a flower, its full capabilities suddenly at my fingertips. I immediately directed it toward the coordinates I'd been tracking, cranking the resolution up to maximum, filtering out background radiation and debris signatures to focus on that single, stubborn power reading.
The enhanced scan ran for thirty-seven minutes. I spent every second of it convinced that someone would notice, that Security would come bursting through my door, that Vaxon would materialize like some kind of protective ghost to demand what the hell I thought I was doing.
No one came.
The scan completed, and my breath caught in my throat.
There. Right there in the data, clear as crystal: a Libertyescape pod cluster, heavily damaged but structurally intact in at least three sections. And the power signatures?—
"Oh my god," I breathed.
Active life support. Not just emergency backups, but fully functional life support systems drawing power from jury-rigged connections that would've made any engineer weep with admiration. Someone had managed to keep those systems running for months, cannibalizing other pods to maintain critical functions.
Someone was alive.
Or had been alive recently enough that the systems were still running.
My hands shook as I pulled up more detailed scans, zooming in on the pod cluster, analyzing every bit of data the sensors could provide. Three compartments with active power. Fifteen other pods showing no signs of function. A makeshift power distribution network that spoke to desperate ingenuity.
And a data transmission beacon, cycling through a distress call on frequencies I recognized.
Liberty frequencies. Section Seven frequencies.
Will's frequencies.
The sob came out before I could stop it, sharp and painful and relieved all at once. I pressed my hand over my mouth, forcing myself to stay quiet even though my quarters were empty, even though no one could hear me fall apart.
He'd made it. He'd survived the wormhole disaster. He'd kept himself and possibly others alive for months while I'd been, what? Making friends? Learning alien technology? Laughingat Dana's terrible jokes and letting Jalina drag me to bonding ceremonies?
Living my life like the past didn't matter.
The guilt crashed over me fresh and sharp, followed immediately by a surge of determination so fierce it made my teeth ache. I had the data now. I had proof. Not just sensor echoes or maybes, concrete evidence that Liberty survivors were drifting in that debris field, that someone had survived long enough to build a distress beacon and pray someone would find them.
I would find them. I would bring them home.
But first, I had to convince Captain Tor'van to authorize a rescue mission into the Dead Zone.
The report took me three hours to compile. I pulled together every scrap of data, organized it into a coherent presentation, anticipated every possible objection and prepared counterarguments. By the time I finished, it was 0600 hours and I hadn't slept, but the document was solid.
Undeniable.
I submitted my request for a formal meeting with Captain Tor'van through official channels, attached the report, and waited.
The response came back in forty-seven minutes: Meeting authorized for 1400 hours, senior staff attendance required.
Senior staff. Which meant Vaxon would be there.
My stomach twisted again, this time with something that felt suspiciously like anticipation underneath the anxiety. I told myself it was just nervousness about presenting my findings to Mothership's command structure. Told myself it hadnothing to do with seeing him again, with facing those intense cobalt eyes across a conference table, with knowing he'd question every detail of my analysis because that's what he did.
The lie tasted even more bitter than the first one.
I used the intervening hours to shower, change into clean clothes, and obsessively review my presentation until I could recite it backwards. My fingers drummed against my thigh, nervous habit I'd never managed to break, as I made my way through Mothership's corridors toward the command conference room.
The ship hummed around me, a living city in space. I'd grown used to it over the past six months, the way the walls vibrated with barely perceptible energy, the play of light across Zandovian architecture, the sheer scale of everything that made humans look like children wandering through a world built for giants.
Dana met me outside the conference room, materializing from a side corridor with the kind of timing that suggested she'd been waiting. Her green eyes swept over me, assessing.
"You look like hell," she observed.
