My stomach bubbles again. I shut my eyes, listening to the familiar creaks and grumbles of the ship as it settles. Given the rough landing, Momma will probably check on the cargo before she barges in here, so I have a few minutes to relax. But a steady, insistent beep soon draws my attention. I raise my head and glance at a screen on my right. Bold letters blink at me: New Transmission Received. Receiving a transmission after landing usually means a client is contacting us now that we’re within range, but when I see the source, my stomach drops.

Titan. The message is from Titan. We haven’t visited that war-ravaged rock in three years, because the only goods worth smuggling to Titan are weapons, and not even Momma is cold enough to sell bombs into a war her own son is fighting in. There’s no reason for us to receive a transmission from Titan unless it involves Corvus.

A lump forms in my throat, making it hard to swallow. Corvus hasn’t contacted us once in the three years he’s been gone. He’s made it damn clear he’s done with us. But if he was killed in action, one of his superiors might pass the word to us as a favor to Momma. Taking a deep breath, I reach out, my hand hovering over the button to play the message. All transmissions are supposed to go straight to Momma—but if my brother is dead, I don’t want to hear it from her mouth. I hit the button.

The image is dim and pixelated, but the sight of Corvus’s face still knocks the air from my lungs. I lean forward, one hand reaching out to touch the screen, my eyes locked on his blurred image. His face is turned to the left rather than facing the camera head-on, and shadow falls across him. Between the lighting and the picture quality, his face is little more than a blotch of olive skin on my screen, but my memory fills in the details: his sharp features and distinctive nose, his kind eyes beneath thick brows. His dark hair, previously worn long and shaggy, is cropped short, and stubble shadows the lower half of his face. He’s thirty years old now, three years my senior, but he looks as though his time away has aged him double.

Corvus clears his throat, the sound fuzzy with static. I tear my eyes away from his face and search the area around him for clues about the nature of the message—is he injured? Is he in trouble? But there’s only a blank gray wall as a backdrop.