Moss paused. “Torian, I have a confession.”
Torian gnawed at her lip, still brainstorming. “What is it?”
“On Colony 4, I infiltrated Amelia’s starship to speak with her.”
“What?”
Moss sounded indignant. “You were uncomfortable with my consumption of public video recordings. I decided to take my questions straight to Amelia, since she is half of your not-romantic partnership.”
Torian felt both shaky and embarrassed. “Why is this importantnow, Moss?”
“I have access to theCharlatan’s speaker system at this proximity. Would you like me to communicate with Amelia directly?”
The radio only worked when power was active. Auxiliary systems might have kept it online. Torian checked that by pinging Amelia’s ship—and getting static in response. Either Amelia’s radio was offline, or she’d rerouted the power to help her crew.
No one else was coming. Without an SOS ping, Torian was the only person who might find her. That made Torian even more determined to fix this.
“Do it,” Torian said.
Moss went quiet, and a few seconds later, Amelia glanced at the ceiling. It must be working. Torian leaned forward, holding her breath, as Amelia turned from the window.
After a tense moment, Moss said, “The unidentified organics swarmed her starship hours ago. Amelia said that they rendered every system inoperable. There was not enough time to send an SOS.”
What kind of interference did those creatures have? Why didn’t it affect theDestitute, or Zen’s ship… or Vaesa, for that matter? Why did they only seem to disable thehumanvessels?
Questions for another time. Priority One was towing Amelia’s ship to safety.
“We can’t get inside her ship, so we have to bring them with us. Do we have a tug?”
“TheDestitutehas never needed to tow a ship.”
So, no. Torian clenched her hands into her long hair, groaning in frustration. In theCharlatan, Amelia had sunk back into the pilot’s chair. She seemed to be forcing herself to remain alert, tapping on the control panel, but it was completely dark.
Think.Think.
Amelia had a tug on her ship. If there was auxiliary power for basic life support, maybe they could siphon some of it to the tug. If Amelia could attach to theDestitute, just like they had before Colony 4, Torian could towthemto safety this time.
“Tell Amelia we’re going to need her tug, then. If she can attach to us, we’ll get her home.”
She almost expected Moss to say, “I am not your assistant” or something along those lines, but even the computer seemed to understand how dire this was. “One moment,” Moss said.
In retrospect, Mosswaslife support, talking with someone barely clinging to life. It would absolutely know this wasn’t the time to joke.
Torian tapped the armrest of her chair incessantly, waiting for Moss to tell Amelia.
It was obvious the moment Amelia comprehended their instructions. She waved and hauled herself out of the chair again. One of the blankets fell away from her shoulders, and she shuddered violently, but turned toward the flight deck’s exit. In a moment, she’d vanished into the depths of her ship.
“She is relocating to another area of the starship. My colony is limited; I cannot communicate over the rest of theCharlatan, so we will not know if she’s successful until she activates her tug.” Moss sounded tense.
It was all on Amelia, now.
Torian settled into her chair to wait, her foot bouncing. “How long do they have?”
“There is insufficient data; the colony on her starship is very, very small. My heat sensors can make an estimate based on presumed hull integrity, life support efficiency, and probable starting temperatures.” Moss paused. “The answer is that it is very, very cold. You likely don’t want to know more.”
Torian clenched her fingers together, sweat trickling down the back of her neck. Never before had she wished so strongly to sweep Amelia into her arms—and never before had there been such a barrier from doing just that.
After eight agonizing minutes, Moss intoned, “Heat is dropping in the crew room. We can presume a portion of the power has been diverted.”
