The visuals on the other end were blank. A voice said sharply, “Identify—” There was an intake of breath. “Sen Tennalhin.”

The connection cut off. Tennal didn’t even have a chance to reply.

“Who was that?” Basavi said.

“No clue.”

“They knew you.”

“Lots of people do,” Tennal said, but that wasn’t actually true. If you didn’t have Surit’s absurd memory, you probably wouldn’t recognize him from the tiny handful of times he’d appeared in pictures with the legislator.

The hatch light turned green as Basavi approached, and they suited up. She didn’t even have to request entry. The ship just docked smoothly, and the airlock opened, and cold atmosphere flooded into their pod.

As they unstrapped themselves and emerged into the docking corridor, Basavi tried to open a connection to the station alert channel again. There was no response.

“Friendly,” Tennal said. It didn’t make either of them feel better.

The docking corridor was dark. Low green emergency lighting ran in glowing wells at the edges of the floor. It made an eerie path stretching in front of them. For Tennal, who was born and raised planetside, the only place he’d seen this kind of scene was disaster documentaries.

Basavi didn’t seem as deeply unsettled, or if she was, she hid it better. She opened comms back to Istara. “We have atmosphere and some light,” she said. “Where are the people?”

“I can’t tell,” Istara said, through Basavi’s wristband. “I think the energy the scanner picked up was just the basic life systems.”

“All right,” Basavi said. “Halkana, proceed.”

She’d fallen into a position beside him, hand on her capper, that Tennal recognized from Surit: they must drill it into them in the army. She was protecting his right side and expecting him to protect her left.

Tennal glanced sideways at Basavi’s complete lack of expression. This was a terrible idea, but it was his terrible idea. “Look, maybe you should go back,” he said. “I’m aware just walking in here is probably a bad idea.”

Basavi gave him a look like he’d suggested jumping out the airlock. “No,” she said. “You’re in my unit.”

It was a bit like finding you hadn’t just put your foot down on the next step but somewhere else entirely. Tennal could have pointed out he’d never volunteered to be in her unit. He could point out Surit had brought him in and Tennal had ended up syncing Surit and losing him. He didn’t. He fell into step with Basavi instead.