Hamish inspected the ship’s escape systems until the security team suggested that his attention was becoming excessive.
He replied that excessive attention was one of the few useful things a frightened person could contribute.
One investigator asked whether he had become afraid of skithra since the famous bite.
Hamish said he had always been afraid of them.
The only difference was that the rest of the galaxy had once mistaken his survival for courage.
Sepha heard him and did not interrupt.
The admission was more honest than any interview he had given after the first discovery.
When they reached the dust field, the navigation display became a cloud of scattered reflections.
Sensors struggled to distinguish large objects from mineral concentrations.
The rescue commander ordered the ship to reduce speed and follow a cautious search pattern.
Imani compared the signal interference with Nerin’s recording and detected a faint mechanical rhythm buried in the background noise.
The rhythm repeated every ninety seconds.
Sepha recognized it as the cycling period of the industrial air recycler identified by the analyst.
The commander adjusted the search pattern toward the strongest signal.
After an hour, a shape appeared through the dust.
It was a long research platform with one side dark and the other illuminated by emergency power.
Its identification lights were disabled.
A damaged antenna floated near the outer hull.
The platform broadcast no standard docking instructions.
Hamish suggested sending a simple audio message in Nerin’s language.
Sepha recorded it, identifying herself as a physician and stating that they had come to provide help.
For several minutes, there was no answer.
Then a faint voice replied through static.
We have patients.
We need clean air.
The rescue commander requested the number of people aboard.
The voice said there were twenty-eight, including four children and three patients who could not walk.
The commander asked whether any armed personnel were controlling the facility.
The reply came after a long pause.
Some of them still have weapons.
We have closed the doors between us.
Sepha requested permission to deploy emergency medical supplies through a sealed cargo connection.
The commander approved, provided the connection could be isolated from the rescue ship’s atmosphere.
Imani designed a temporary docking procedure that would allow supplies to pass without exposing either crew to unknown biological hazards.
It took nearly two hours to establish a safe transfer.
During that time, the research platform’s lights dimmed repeatedly.
The people aboard were running out of power.
