“Brace for recovery!” Istara said in his ear. Surit choked, the air nearly knocked out of him, as Istara pulled fiercely on his tether. The remnant shard slipped out of his hand and floated into the darkness. Without gravity, the force of the tether yanked him backward, through the doorframe he’d entered, and down the corridor.

Surit fought to right himself. He kicked off the wall as he was pulled backward and grabbed at fixtures to control his momentum. Lights, Istara was right. You didn’t stay in an enclosed wreck during a ship crash.

He grasped the edge of the airlock and pulled himself out.

The world spun around him. Surit stumbled and knelt on the hull, clamping himself to the metal below with magnets in his gloves and boots. They were spinning. He and Istara clung to the external hull of Marit’s old ship, their tugs anchored beside them, while the whole ship tumbled nose over tail from the collision.

“Snapped out of it?” Istara craned their neck, scanning the space above them. Their expression through their faceplate was desperate. “Because this is a really bad time for you to go silent!”

“I’m okay,” Surit said over comms. “Thank you for pulling me back.” It had been wildly irresponsible to pick up a remnant with his own hands, even in a suit. It was hard to think straight. He followed Istara’s gaze. “What hit us?”

“That scanning ship,” Istara said tersely. They detached the end of Surit’s tether from the hull. “What in the Lights’ gaze does it think it’s doing? It fucking rammed us!”

The hull under their feet completed another revolution. Surit could see the other ship now, rising into view like the sun, bristling with lights and sensors and long antennae. There were gaps in the lights on its reinforced hull where it had just collided with them. Now it curved toward the edge of their oasis of clear space.

It was one of their fleet’s own ships. Surit had watched it arrive at the rendezvous. He had seen the officer who captained it in the canteen.

“It’s coming back!”

“Withdraw!” Surit said. He pulled himself hand over hand into his tug. Istara was already vaulting into theirs.

The looming bulk of the scanning ship glittered against the dim, churning wall of chaos behind it. As it looped back around, its antennae churned up disturbance behind it, like a plow crossing a field. That wasn’t odd. The scanning ships were Resolution tech and had that capability. What was unusual were the reckless sweeps it was making, roiling the clear space into something dangerous.

“Ship,” Surit said, trying to open comms with it as he and Istara floated their pods off the hull. It wasn’t answering pings. “Ship, please respond. Please respond, you are making conditions untenable for—”