Jackin opened the scanners, and a single blip twenty kilometers away sent a sharp spike of adrenaline through Adequin’s veins.
“Light,” she ordered.
Jackin engaged the ion engines and flew the ship forward, slowing after a time to swing their spotlight across the void. It tugged back as it hit the edge of a hull, dragging along a plain expanse of gray aerasteel until it came to a rest at the numerical call sign along the port aft. SCS-4146–02.
Adequin fled the cockpit and took the steps down to the main deck two at a time.
“Rake, wait!” Jackin called after her. He scrambled to follow, fumbling his helmet on, calling out rushed orders for someone to lock down the helm and keep the engines warm.
Jackin, Warner, and Erandus barely made it inside the small auxiliary air lock before Adequin sealed the door. “Helmets on?”
“On,” Warner called through the suit comms, strapping a plasma rifle to his back.
“On,” Erandus confirmed.
“Go for it, boss,” Jackin said.
Adequin pressed the air-lock controls and with a hiss, the room depressurized. Her feet lifted and the hatch door opened.
She reminded herself not to rush, to stay calm—no sudden movements—then swung out and released the retractable tether from outside the hull. She pressed away from the Synthesis and launched herself toward the hatch of the Tempus.
* * *
Inside, the Tempus’s halls sat silent and dark. Thin strips of red emergency lights lined the entrance corridor.
Jackin’s fingers danced across his suit’s nexus. “Life systems are online,” he confirmed. “It’s in standby.”
With a hiss of air he released his helmet, and Adequin did the same. Warner and Erandus set their helmets aside and took up their rifles in both hands.
Adequin raised her pistol and started down the hall. Jackin hovered to her right, Warner and Erandus off her left shoulder. They cleared the entrance corridor quickly and silently, room by room, seeing no signs of life or struggle.
Down a deck, the cargo hold and life systems were similarly quiet. At the aft of the ship, Adequin led them up a ladder to the engine-access deck. She didn’t know whether to be anxious or relieved by the piles of Drudger corpses they found littering the corridor.
She signaled the others to keep an eye on the hall, then knelt beside a cluster of bodies. They wore the same jumpsuits and carried similar weaponry to the Drudgers she’d killed aboard the Synthesis. This had to be the rest of the missing crew.
Adequin turned a few of the bodies over and examined the wounds. Though a handful of poorly aimed laser shots had singed their uniforms and left char marks on their gray skin, most had been cleanly executed by a mixture of perfectly accurate plasma bolts and precise knife slices.
“They put up a fight,” Jackin noted, standing over her, gun raised as he kept a wary eye on the corridor ahead.
“Looks like it. But where are they?”
Jackin only shook his head.
Adequin left Erandus to keep watch on the corridor, then motioned for Jackin and Warner to take the left side of the hallway, while she went for the first door on the right.
Inside the small common room, some of the lockers along the far wall sat ajar. Their contents lay strewn across the floor: clothing, playing cards, tablets, and drink bottles, all collected along one wall. It didn’t seem to be the result of uncleanliness, but rather some kind of turbulence.
Adequin chewed on the inside of her lip as several scenarios ran through her head. Had they pulled away from the Divide, then the Drudgers happened to find them? Or had the Drudgers also been riding the Divide, then shot them down somehow? The Tempus hadn’t appeared to have any hull damage, but she hadn’t really waited for the full report before running to the air lock.