Nan shrugged. Her long ponytail fell over one shoulder, framing her round face as though the shadows that surrounded them had draped themselves over her. She’d carried the blue streaks in her hair through to the ends. “It’s okay. My parents died well. They did their duty.”

Had they been military? Reath decided the subject was too sensitive to pry for more information.

“That was about two years ago,” she continued. “Hague was already a family friend. He may only be in charge of a small ship these days, but once he was a brilliant commander. When he offered to foster me, I thought, great. This way I’ll get to learn from the best.”

“Your parents probably would’ve liked that part,” Reath offered. “Right?”

“Yeah. They would’ve loved that part. My dad always said Hague was as good a strategist as he’d ever known.”

Definitely military, Reath decided. He wondered whether their home planet was a strongly militaristic one, or whether Nan and Hague were part of a smaller subculture. The sociological ramifications would be ripe for study…if that were the kind of thing he still got to do. Which it wasn’t.

Another turn in the tunnel brought their glow rods to bear on a second door, this one far larger than the first. No slits or windows, just black, forbidding metal. They exchanged glances, then hurried forward to investigate.

“Control panel,” he murmured as he checked it out. Patterns of interlocking circles suggested functions, which let him hazard a guess. “Unfamiliar configuration, but this looks more like it’s for maintenance, rather than primary programming.”

“I agree,” Nan said. “It’s not what you’d call user-friendly.”

While Reath couldn’t read the unusual symbols etched on the panel, the lack of colorful sections or a larger screen definitely suggested that it wasn’t for general use. It was a place for service workers to double-check settings, that kind of thing. This indicated that people wouldn’t normally travel through the tunnels on foot.

What drew his attention next was the thick plating around the edges of the door. “Does that look like an airlock to you?”

“One hundred percent.” Nan took a deep breath. “On the other side of that door is the void. You can feel the chill in the air.”

It was true. Reath had already begun shivering. “To me this looks like it was once a launching station for smaller transit pods. The rings probably powered the pods to leave the station. Their own engines would kick in once they’d cleared the airlocks.”

Nan hugged herself. “And Dez got in without a starship—but the tunnels launched him anyway.”