Chapter 8 #2
Er'dox was scanning the shelter's systems. "Life support is failing. Power reserves are nearly depleted. Whoever lived here had maybe another week before critical systems went offline."
"Had? Past tense?" I turned to face him. "Er'dox, where is he?"
"Unknown. But the logs are three days old. He was alive seventy-two hours ago."
I pulled up more recent data, searching for any indication of what happened. The logs ended abruptly. No final message, no indication of departure or evacuation. Just... stopped.
"Vaxon," I called through the comm. "Can your team do a wider area scan? This survivor was here three days ago, but there's no indication of where he went."
"Already scanning. Nothing within a hundred-meter radius. But there are environmental suits missing from the storage. He might have gone for supplies or equipment."
Or he might have finally given up. Walked out into the marginal atmosphere and the ice-rock landscape and decided it was enough.
I shoved that thought down before it could take root.
"Dana, look at this," Er'dox said from the workstation. He'd pulled up a different file, this one showing technical schematics. "He's been reverse-engineering Zandovian technology."
The designs were crude but recognizable with power systems, communication protocols, propulsion theory. Someone had studied whatever salvage they'd found and was teaching themselves alien engineering from first principles.
"He was trying to build a ship," I realized. "Or at least improve his communication capabilities enough to reach someone. That's what the power modulation signal was, the first successful test of adapted Zandovian technology."
"Impressive for someone working alone with limited resources." Er'dox saved the schematics. "Captain Tor'van will want to see this."
I kept searching the logs, looking for anything that might indicate where the survivor had gone. And then I found it, a final entry, not in the official logs but buried in a maintenance file.
"Found something," I said. "Secondary shelter location. Coordinates are thirty kilometers east. Notes say the primary shelter's life support was failing faster than expected, so he established a backup position with salvaged equipment."
"Thirty kilometers in this environment is a significant journey," Vaxon observed. "He might not have made it."
"He made it for such a long drawn out time. I'm betting on him making it another thirty kilometers." I pulled the coordinates. "Can we reach that location?"
"Landing craft can cover that distance in ten minutes. But Dana, we need to consider the possibility—"
"I know what we need to consider," I interrupted. "That he's dead. That we're chasing ghosts. That this is a waste of resources better spent on confirmed survivors." I met Vaxon's intense gaze. "But if there's even a chance someone from Liberty is still alive out there, I have to try."
Silence fell across the comm channel. I could feel the team's calculations of risk versus reward, time versus resources, certainty versus possibility.
Then Er'dox's voice, quiet but firm: "We continue to the secondary location. Dana's right. If there's a survivor, we find them."
"You're authorizing a mission extension based on possibility?" Vaxon asked.
"I'm authorizing a mission extension based on the same instinct that had Dana catch sabotage my entire department missed. Sometimes you trust the engineer who sees what others don't."
I wanted to hug him for that. Wanted to thank him for the trust, for the support, for believing that my gut feeling was worth following. Instead, I just nodded and started compiling data for transport.
We evacuated the shelter, sealed it back up—preserving evidence, Vaxon said, though evidence of what I wasn't entirely sure—and loaded back into the landing craft. The pilot plugged in the new coordinates, and we lifted off with barely a tremor.
Thirty kilometers took exactly nine minutes and forty-three seconds. I counted every one of them.
The secondary shelter was even more improvised than the first, barely more than a survival tent reinforced with salvaged plating, powered by equipment that looked like it was held together with hope and desperation engineering.
The kind of setup you built when you were out of better options and running out of time.
"Life signs detected," the pilot announced. "One contact, weak but stable."
My heart jumped into my throat.
"Land us," Vaxon ordered. "Security formation alpha. Er'dox, Dana, with me."
This time I didn't wait for the ramp to fully extend before moving. I hit the ice-rock surface at something close to a run, my lower gravity making each step cover more distance than expected, heading for the tent shelter with single-minded focus.
"Dana, slow down!" Er'dox called behind me, but I was already at the entrance, already pulling the emergency release, already—
The interior was dark except for failing emergency lights. And in the center, wrapped in thermal blankets on a makeshift medical bed, was a human.
Alive. Barely. But alive.
I dropped to my knees beside him, pulling medical scanners from my kit even though I barely knew how to use them. The readings were bad, severe hypothermia, dehydration, multiple system failures from extended malnutrition.
"Medic!" I shouted into my comm. "I need medical support now!"
The man's eyes opened, barely, just slits showing brown irises that struggled to focus. He looked at me, and I saw the moment recognition hit. Another human. After more than four hundred days alone, another human face.
"Real?" His voice was barely a whisper.
"Real. I'm Dana. From Liberty. We got your signal. We came to find you." I was babbling, and couldn't stop myself. "You're not alone anymore. We're going to get you out of here."
"Others?"
"Sixteen of us survived the wormhole. We were rescued by a ship called Mothership. You're going to be seventeen."
A sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. "Seventeen. Thought I was the last."
"You're not the last. You're found."
The medical team pushed past me with professional efficiency, scanners and emergency equipment appearing from nowhere. I backed away to give them space, watching them work with the kind of controlled urgency that meant the situation was critical but not hopeless.
Er'dox appeared at my shoulder, his massive hand settling gently on my upper arm. "You found him."
"We found him. Because you trusted me enough to extend the mission."
"You gave me reason to trust you. That's different."
Vaxon was coordinating with the medical team, his tactical precision applied to evacuation protocols. "We need to move him now. Life support in this shelter will fail completely within an hour. And Dana? Good call pushing for the search."
High praise from the security chief who'd objected to my presence on the mission. I'd take it.
The transport back to the landing craft was careful and controlled.
The survivor, I'd need to learn his name, add him to the mental roster of people I was responsible for, drifted in and out of consciousness, but the medical team kept him stable.
And when we loaded into the craft, heading back toward Mothership, I finally let myself believe we'd succeeded.
One more survivor. One more life saved from the disaster that had scattered us across galaxies.
Er'dox sat beside me during the return flight, and I realized I was shaking. Adrenaline crash, probably, mixed with relief and exhaustion and about sixteen different emotions I didn't have names for.
"First field mission," he observed quietly.
"Complete with human survivor and zero shooting. I'd call that success."
"I'd call that exceptional performance under pressure. You decoded the signal, traced the coordinates, and insisted on searching when it would have been easier to give up." He paused. "Captain Tor'van will want a full report. You'll need to present your findings."
"Me? You're the senior officer. You should—"
"You found him, Dana. You earned the right to tell his story." Er'dox's amber eyes were steady on mine. "And you earned the right to stop doubting whether you belong here. Two weeks aboard and you've already proven yourself invaluable. Accept it."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to deflect and minimize and maintain the protective uncertainty that kept expectations manageable. But he was right. I'd found sophisticated sabotage, decoded impossible signals, and insisted on following instinct when logic said stop.
I'd earned this.
"Okay," I said finally. "I'll present the report. But you're backing me up if I forget technical terminology because my brain is currently running on fumes and stubbornness."
"Deal."
The rest of the flight passed in comfortable silence. I watched the survivor's medical readings stay stable, watched my team move through post-mission routines, watched the stars stream past the viewscreen as we accelerated back toward Mothership.
Many, many days alone. And now he'd wake up surrounded by other humans, by aliens who'd chosen to rescue him, by a found family that kept growing despite cosmic disasters.
We'd saved him. Together.
And that was worth every terrifying moment of this mission.
Er'dox's hand found mine in the darkness of the transport, his massive fingers curling around my smaller ones with unexpected gentleness.
I didn't pull away.
Behind us, Vaxon's voice was low on the comm: "Captain, we're detecting unusual power fluctuations in the secured bay. Might be nothing, but..."
Er'dox's grip tightened slightly.
"Investigate," the Captain ordered. "Quietly."
Our moment shattered, replaced by the cold reality that on Mothership, trouble was never far away.