Page 109 of Command

ALINA

Alina took a step back from the Ariel, scanning its sparkling surface.

Clucking her tongue, she turned back to the cart and grabbed the degreasing powder hose, jerking the valve open to full power. Lowering her mask and goggles back over her face, she got into position.

“You’ve gone over that thing twice now. It looks goddamn new, Argoud. Go home already.”

Alina ignored the voice of the other scrubber on shift, Caleb, who had just finished his own craft. Her response was proceeding to blast the Ariel with another full coat of degreaser.

An hour later, once the layer of degreaser had been given extra time to absorb, she was going at it with the rotating bristle brush, elbow hurting from the abuse of going at this for five hours after the end of her shift. She was halfway done when Isabelle entered the dock and headed straight for her.

“What are you doing?” she asked, hands on hips.

“Huh? Working.”

“Yeah, I hear you’ve been working on this same ship for nearly ten fucking hours. What’s wrong?”

Alina bit back a pang of irritation. “I’m just doing my job.”

Doing my job while definitely not thinking about having fucked an uhyre who then abandoned me in my cabin and hasn’t spoken to me in weeks.

At least he kept his promise to restart the Uploads. Part of her worried after he ran out on her that he’d scrap the whole plan. But he didn’t… Three people had been sent to the holding database already, all of them CRD registrants and one of them being Julie’s grandmother.

Isabelle leaned forward. “Is this about the plan?” she hissed. “Is it wearing on you? Because I’m sending another ping tonight and I can’t have an obsessive scrubber acting suspicious in this dock when I do. You never know who’s watching.”

“Oh, I think I do,” she muttered under her breath, jerking her head to the side to swipe her overgrown bangs from her face.

“Do you?”

“Yeah, Isabelle.” Alina sighed and turned toward her for the first time. “I’m on this ship surrounded by aliens just like you, remember?”

Alina knew she shouldn’t be so hard on her. Isabelle hadn’t done anything wrong here. If anything, she was doing more than most to try and get them out of this mess, even if itwasa horrible mistake.

Alina sighed, softening. “Do you think it’s wise to ping now? With Bretton…”

“Bretton seems to have been removed without any concrete suspicion,” Isabelle said. “If he’d been questioned and cracked—and hewouldhave cracked—we’d all be dead by now.”

Not if Alina could help it.

“Come on.” Isabelle motioned to the supply closet. “I need help finding a lubricant for the sim rig.”

Alina sighed, turned off the scrubber, and pulled off hergrease-stained gloves before following Isabelle to watch her broadcast the ping.

By the time she was done helping Isabelle it was 0100 and the dock was empty save for an uhyre guard with orange apertures napping against the wall on the far side of the dock near the door. The thought of having to slink past him—if that was even possible—and then traverse eerie dark halls past the glowing aliens on patrol in the middle of the night unnerved her.

Instead, Alina piled a few thermal blankets in the opposite corner and curled up in her makeshift bed. The dock was entirely unlit except for the emergency lights, and for a long time she lay there and stared at the faint orange glow of the alien on the other side. She was certain sleep would be impossible in such creepy company.

Yet when she next opened her eyes, Alina sensed that it was not just on another blink. Time had passed, and her head was groggy with sleep.

The dock was still dark. And something was coming.

Alina squinted into the darkness, some part of her instinctively hoping for a flash of familiar blue.

Crimson streaks flashed in her eyes instead. Renza loomed over her, apertures burning bright.

“Renza, I—” She shuffled upright and to her knees, thermal blankets crinkling too loudly in the dead silence. “What are you doing here?”

“We are jumping in two ship weeks, Alina Argoud,” Renza said, crossing massive arms across his chest above her.

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