“I’m almost done, and it’s only three days,” he protests, his hands hovering over the board, reluctant to leave as the lifeboat diagnostics run, as if his absence might change the outcome. “I can get by.”
“Try again,” Kane says, from where he and Nysus are working. “There’s no way Verux is going to let us wander through the ship and back into LINA once they get a team out here. We’re going to be escorted off, at the very least.”In restraints,is what he’s not saying but likely thinking.
And I can’t argue. With sending out a message to everyone on the commweb instead of Verux directly, the court of public opinion will eventually save us—the heroes who brought theAurorahome, as Voller said—but it’s probably not wise to count on that right away. Verux will be pissed.
For the first time, a squiggle of doubt worms through me. Verux has provided me a home and employment for the better part of my life. Perhaps it was only out of selfish concern and fear of legal reprisals, but still. How much do I owe them for that?
Enough to let them discard you when they’re done with you?
No. Definitely not.
I shove my fears down as Voller pushes himself away from the diagnostics with a disgruntled sound. “Don’t touch anything,” he mutters. To me or Kane, it’s impossible to tell, but equally insulting either way. And exactly what I’d expect.
“You should go, too,” I say to Kane.
I expect an argument, another moment of heated debate about leaving me here, essentially on my own. Nysus is here, but in anotherworld, utterly transfixed by whatever he’s looking at behind the panel Kane removed.
But instead, Kane nods. “Roger, TL.”
He doesn’t even linger, simply pushes off the captain’s chair toward the door. He’s no longer even trying to talk to me alone, to explain. And while I’d have rather thrown myself out of an open airlock than have that conversation, it still feels like a loss somehow.
Fuck. I’ve really messed up.
Or maybe not. Maybe this is just the way it should be. It’s hard not to fidget or punch out at something in frustration, both bad ideas in zero grav.
Voller returns in record time, with a bag that I suspect contains mostly alcohol and maybe a change of underwear and a fresh T-shirt, if we are lucky.
Kane returns not long after with his own bag, but even through his faceplate, I can see his expression tight with tension.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Fine,” he says, avoiding my gaze and tying his bag down to the arm of the first officer’s chair.
“Kane,” I begin.
“You need to get your stuff,” he says to me, meeting my eyes briefly before pulling himself over to Nysus. Kane looks exhausted, pinched lines of worry more prominent on his forehead. “It won’t be long now.”
Okay. If that’s how he wants to play it.
“Lourdes, I’m on my way,” I say, my tone sharper than it needs to be. “You can start heading out.”
But when I reach the LINA, she’s still waiting inside, near the airlock. Her enviro suit is on, but her helmet is still on the storage bench.
I wrest my own helmet free, my hands clumsy and heavy in the renewed gravity.
“I thought I’d wait for you,” she says. “In case you want to create a message, too.”
“Message?” I ask.
She cocks her head to the side. “Kane didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Never mind.” She steps back, gesturing to the crate next to her. “I packed the food supplies and added in as much water as we can carry. Just in case.”
“Lourdes,” I ask, an anticipatory feeling of dread growing in my stomach. “What message?”
“He recorded a message for his daughter. I made one for my mom. We can’t transmit anymore, not with what we took for theAurora,but it’s attached to the ship’s log. It’ll play whenever that’s pulled, even if we’re not on board.” She hesitates. “I guess he’s worried that even if everything goes right, Verux might not let us go right away?”
