I glare at him. “That is not what I was—”
“Shut up, Voller,” Kane says at the same time. “I’m the designated medical—”
“Who wants to get into her crazy pants?” Voller offers.
In shock, I go still.
“Watch your mouth,” Kane says sharply.
“Why are you always defending her?” Voller demands. “We’re not a real team. We all just got stuck with a shitty assignment for the last go.” He shoots me a disgusted look. Clearly, I am part of said shittiness. “Who the fuck requests permanent assignment out here?”
Voller is not wrong. Under normal circumstances, this is an eighteen-month gig or more, with no breaks, no close-by colonies to visit or the chance to sleep in your own bed. No one everwantsto be assigned to the most distant section of the commweb, L52 through K147.
No one, of course, except me.
I asked for this section when I made team lead eight years ago, and Verux couldn’t wait to unload it. Which I guess gained me a bit of a reputation. But there’s more freedom out here where no one is watching and usually a new team with each go-round, which I prefer. Even with the bonuses, it’s rare for people to volunteer for the L–K run.
This time, especially. Because it’s the last time, the rotation is even longer than usual. Twenty-six months and counting, as we do final checks and minute tweaks, the final human hands to touch the beacons before the machines take over.
Kane took the assignment only because he needed the extra money. Voller ended up out here by default, all the better sectors taken by pilots who don’t have a permanent smirk and possible personality disorder. Lourdes is still green, just out of training, and forced to go wherever the company sends her. And Nysus, well, Nysus is Nysus. He doesn’t care what section we’re in as long as he has access to the Forum.
“Show some respect,” Kane says, pushing past me to stand over Voller’s chair. “You’re not in charge here.”
“Maybe I should be,” Voller says defiantly, his gaze moving to me, daring me to say something.
I should interject, shut this down before it gets physical. Kane is right; I am the one in charge, theoretically. At least for a little while longer. But I can’t seem to make myself speak up. It’s as if leaving that tether in place took the last of my energy and I’ve got nothing left to give now. Besides, what’s the point?
“Hey!” Lourdes shouts, catching all of our attention. “I said, I think I’ve got something.”
After a moment, Kane steps back to stand next to me, but his cheeks are still flushed with anger. When Kane is involved, cooler heads—his—will usually prevail. Usually.
Tensions always run high at the end of a rotation in my experience, but the two of them have been at each other’s throats from almost the moment they walked on board at the start of their assignment with me. Kane might be in charge of the engine and the function of LINA, but Voller is the one who controls her. They are perpetually locked in conflict, one in charge of the body, the other in charge of the brain.
“Oh, good,” Voller says to Lourdes, smoothing a hand over his wrinkled T-shirt. Today’s shirt saysFUCK MEwith a smiley face sticking its tongue out. I can’t tell if it’s meant as an invitation or an expletive. Knowing Voller, probably both. “You can do your job. Can we get out of here now?”
Lourdes ignores him. “It’s an automated distress signal. I think,” she says. “One of those R-5 repeating beacons.”
My interest flickers vaguely to life, surprising me. “Out here?” I ask. There’s nothing out here. Verux’s exploratory vessels should all be well out of range, even with the upgraded network. Unless one of them came back early.
“But it’s weird. No ship name, no personalized message, no other data. Just coordinates and the preprogrammed SOS. And it’s not transmitting on the emergency channel.” Lourdes pauses. “At least not on the emergency channel we use now.” Her forehead wrinkledin thought, she swivels in her chair and picks up her tablet, fingers flying across the surface in a query.
“It’s just an echo. Old data. The new hardware probably has something to do with it,” Voller says, sounding bored.
“Nysus?” I ask the air. “Are you listening?” It only took me a couple days on this tour to realize that my brilliant but introverted tech had wired the internal comm channels on the bridge and common areas to stay open, permanently. He could always hear what was happening, even if he chose not to respond.
“It’s… possible,” Nysus says after a moment. As always, he sounds distant, distracted. Like he’s on an entirely different ship than the rest of us and we caught him at a bad time. “The upgrade allows the network to pick up weaker signals. It could be that we have an overlap, fuzz.”
“See? Told you. Ghost signal.” Voller swivels in his chair, tapping in coordinates, and the engine pulls itself from idle with a rumble that I feel through the decking. “Let’s go. Bigger and better things ahead. Even for you, Kane.”
Kane, leaning against the bulkhead, flips him the finger.
“Or it could be that we’re picking up a signal from a ship at a greater distance than expected. The new hardware is one hundred and twenty percent more efficient,” Nysus says.
Voller groans.
Unreasonable hope sparks bright desperation in me. “If it’s an emergency, we’re obligated to try and render aid,” I say, after a moment, trying to sound normal, as if this were not the stay of execution that I’d given up waiting for.
“No, no, you don’t.” Voller turns in his chair and stabs a finger in my direction. “I know what you’re thinking. If we miss the rendezvous with theGinsburg,we’re stuck out here another month. With no extra pay. Just because you have nowhere to go, rejected for transport and stuck at a desk job for the rest of your life, some has-been wannabe captain, doesn’t mean that’s true for the rest of us.”
