There was nothing to do but keep going. I took another step, and something caught my eye down below. A truck was loading containers with a hazardous logo on them into a ship. I turned to ask Ahiga, but he was still standing at the entrance to the catwalk looking down at the ground. Little beads of sweat pearled on his forehead. His mouth was moving, but it was way too loud in the hangar to hear what he was saying from ten feet away.

I quickly strode back to him. “Ahiga?”

“Fucking ships. Goddamned catwalks.” His gaze stayed frozen on the workers down below us as he mumbled. He wasn’t talking loud enough to be talking to me, but I could make out his words well enough.

To be fair, we really were high up, but the catwalk was pretty steady and had railings. If one of them gave way, sure, we’d be a mushy pancake when we hit the ground, but I doubted that would happen. The walkway didn’t even sway as I walked on it. Still, this probably wasn’t the most pleasant way to board a ship, especially for someone with a fear of falling.

A bead of sweat trickled down the side of Ahiga’s face, and he swiped it away with a shaking hand. “I’ve done this before. Just…need a second.”

He was SpaceTech IAF. I was sure that he was fully able to do this himself, and it would’ve been easy to let him sweat it out, especially after the interrogation and how he put that chip in me without any warning… But I hated to see someone suffer when I could do something about it.

The guy was pathetic. “Come on.” I grabbed his hand and gave it a little tug. “We’ll get there faster this way.” I took a step back, onto the catwalk, but he jerked me to a stop. “Just look at me.”

“You’re walking backward.” His words were a little garbled.

The fact that he was scared for me told me that helping him was the right choice. “I’ll be fine. Just start walking.” I gave him a sharper tug, and he stumbled forward one step. And then another. And another.

Slowly but surely, we made it across the first of ten catwalks.

The more we walked, the more I studied him. Who was this guy? Could I really trust him? I wasn’t getting that gut feeling, but he said that Declan assigned him personally to me. Which meant I should trust him.