Page 59 of Command

“Assuming they listen…” Alina said.

“I guess we’ll see.”

Alina walked around to stand behind Isabelle and look at the screen.

“CSColossalattacked. App outer sector 02A. Defensive aid req. High severity, high impact. Danger to humanity. Do not transmit back. EMPH: DO NOT TRANSMIT BACK.”

Of course, that last part made sense. If the company replied to their message via comms, the uhyre would know a communication had been sent out. Threxin would know.

“Set it to ping once every twenty-four hours for one week,” the dockmaster said, and Isabelle nodded. “That monster will probably be too busy stabilizing parts of the ship post-jump to notice. This one will slip through. After that, we’ll need to find a new window or it might get suspicious.”

“Peter would’ve known all this shit,” Isabelle complained as she looked for the appropriate keys.

“Peter was involved?” Alina swallowed.

“He was the one who found this comms link,” Isabelle said as she stashed the keyboard away. “And then disappeared.”

“Might be back,” the dockmaster chimed in.

“I doubt it,” Alina muttered under her breath.

Isabelle looked up to the dockmaster, shaking her head slightly. “Yeah, wouldn’t bet on it. He was already unstable. Probably holed himself up on the CRD somewhere.”

“Do you need me for anything else?” Alina asked quickly.

“No. Get back to Kaia. Tell her it’s done.”

“But did it work?”

“No way to tell until someone comes to our rescue.”

By the time it was done and they had made their way out of the utility closet, Alina could feel herself crashing. She was just so damn exhausted, wanting nothing more than to curl up in bed with a quilt and forget about the day. Unfortunately, she’d have no such luck. Kaia would surely be waiting for her to report back, so Alina stumbled through the still-flickering halls to return to the command center, the pain in her leg and hand intensifying with each step.

CHAPTER 28

THREXIN

All the vid feeds were down. Threxin had spent too many ticks trying to find any trace of Alina Argoud on the compromised transmissions and finally gave up. Her cabin had been empty when he barged inside. It looked like an explosion, all her silly trinkets and blankets strewn about. But no human.

He checked the medbay next, and though it was brimming his search amounted to nothing. The canteen she had frequented bore no results. Threxin clamped a palm to the spikes at his neck and headed for the rear dock through the empty halls. Everyone was still either at work after the jump or isolating in their locations, and for good reason—occasional tremors still rocked hisColossal.

One thing he knew: she had disappeared soon after the jump. How long she’d been gone by the time he noticed her seat empty at the observation pit, he wasn’t sure. But he knew it was before the ship stabilized, and that was bad enough.

He saw her before she saw him, considering she was staring at the floor as she dragged her leg behind her along the wall. She held her other hand to her chest, hovering it there as though she wanted to cradle it but dared not.

She didn’t notice him until he was atop her, dragging herinside a blood passage. He shoved her into the wall, slamming a hand on either side of her to bracket her in beneath him.

“Threxin,” she yelped. “What are you?—”

“Why are you so stupid?” He rounded on her when the passage door snapped shut, fighting to ignore the immediate thrum of his limiter.

Alina recoiled in the darkness. White rimmed her eyes, pupils darting all over his face as though searching for something.

“What… what’s wrong?” she asked.

“What is wrong?” Threxin snarled, then shoved his palm against his forehead as the limiter choked him back in line. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook out his spikes, staying like that for several long ticks as he regained himself.

“Threxin, look, it’s not what you think?—”

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