But no one comes. There’s no annoyed response from the guard on the other side of the door, no stomping of irritated footsteps.
For a moment, my imagination shows me theAresabandoned, the security squads, Reed and Max, all somehow vanished. Empty seats, bowls of rehydrated food slowly turning to dust, autopilot simply following the preestablished course.
But I shove that ridiculous and paranoid thought down. I saw a member of the security team just this morning—last night?—when she brought me my food and the requisite pills, which I stored in a desk drawer with all the others. And someone has to be piloting the ship through the course change.
Which means, they’ve elected to—or been ordered to, by Max—leave me in here for now.
The idea of remaining in here for hours while theAurorais right there, visible and on-screen with whatever clues an outside view may hold, sends a flare of fury and panic through me. I need to see it. I need to know. I don’t even know which of the two options I’m hoping to be true anymore—if my crew is dead, all hope is lost, but if they’re alive, then I left them—but the uncertainty is a fire burning in my gut. I cannot stand it.
I pound on the door and shout for the better part of half an hour.I’ve just resorted to kicking, which is equally ineffective, when someone calls out on the other side.
“All right, all right, calm down, Kovalik.” It’s Reed Darrow. “Step back.”
“Okay,” I say without moving.
When the door opens outward, he jumps in surprise to find me so close. “Jesus!” I haven’t seen him in I don’t know how many days, and he looks like shit. His once-pristine suit now holds several days’ or a week’s worth of wrinkles. The collar on his shirt has a blotch of some kind of food. No dry cleaners in space. His chin is covered in patchy stubble and the purple circles beneath his eyes from lack of sleep are so dark they make him look like he’s been headbutted. An honor I would have gladly volunteered for.
I’m guessing this is his first extended period in space. The first tour is always hard. It fucks with your circadian rhythms, the lack of sunlight and fresh air. And the jumpsuits aren’t just Verux pushing protocol down our throats; they’re practical.
I shove past him into the corridor, angry at him for inexplicable reasons. For suddenly seeming human and fallible, for finally getting a taste of the life he was so dismissive of in our conversations in the Tower and clearly not being able to handle it. Maybe I should find it funny, but I don’t. I want to shake him instead. “Not exactly the luxury cruise you were expecting?” I call over my shoulder.
He doesn’t try to stop me, but he takes long strides to catch up. Which is good because I don’t know where the bridge is on this ship.
“No, but the last luxury cruise didn’t work out too well, either,” he points out.
Point to Mr. Darrow.“What’s our status?” I ask, following him around a corner to another long corridor.
Reed doesn’t respond right away, and I slow down to stare at him, fury bubbling over into words. “Are you serious right now? How the hell am I supposed to guide anyone if I don’t know—”
He gives me a long-suffering sigh, as if he is the one being imposed upon. “They’re attempting to make contact, but you should—”
I break into a jog, counting on him to catch up and prevent me from going the wrong way.
But as it turns out, I don’t need him. Once I’m close enough to the bridge, I hear the soft murmur of restrained voices and follow the sound.
TheAurorahangs outside the wide windows on the bridge, centered in black space, lit up by theAres’s searchlights, like a painting on display on a museum wall. Max and the others are gathered around, facing the windows, like patrons of said museum, studying some archaic and formerly lost work.Aresis much larger than the LINA but is still dwarfed by the luxury liner. Then again,Areswas built for speed and, most likely, destruction. Not fine dining and swimming in space.
I stop, my breath caught at the sight of theAuroraagain.We’re going to be rich, baby!Voller’s voice echoes in my memory, and it’s like pressing against a bone-deep bruise. I miss them, all of them. I didn’t appreciate them when I had them—the makeshift family we became against my will—and now look where we are… where I am. I’d give anything to hear Voller’s snark again. Even his snoring.
Staring out at theAurorais familiar in a way I never imagined, like looking just ahead to see home. But only if your home is also the scene of a horrific crime. It is both known and unknown at the same time, foreign disguised as familiar.
Max is the only one on the bridge who acknowledges my presence. “Portside cameras,” he says in greeting, turning toward me.
I nod slowly, moving closer. The gathered security personnel step back out of my way as I approach, as if I’m a disease vector for some highly contagious outbreak.
This is the view I’m familiar with. The starboard side of theAurora.It’s what we first saw when we found her.
But something is different.
My gaze traces the lines of theAurorain front of me in a mental game of compare and contrast with the version of theAurorain my head.
The pool, I realize after a moment. It’s no longer a giant frozen bubble with bodies and body parts dotting the smooth, clear ice like seeds for a horrific crop to come.
“Can you zoom in on the bow?” I ask someone, anyone.
Water, murky and dark, laps against the edges of the pool. Like an invitation to come relax at the mouth of Hell.
I shudder, all too aware of what is beneath the surface. “The environmentals are on,” I say faintly. That at least partially explains how I got out, if not at all why. I must have—or someone must have—repressurized the rest of the ship so the bulkhead doors on the Platinum Level could be opened. I have no memory of that, of course, but what’s more bothersome is that, as far as I know, I don’t even knowhowto do that. The ship’s computer could have walked me through the process, I suppose.
