CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The afternoon seemed to drag on. Maren managed to get the steel panel off the wall and replace the insulation inside. It was worse than her diagnostic tools had shown; she would need to request a proper maintenance team to help her go through the whole building and check for faults. Because of the station’s precarious position near the wormholes, it had to be maintained impeccably. If part of the wall buckled or split from the heat, anyone within searing distance would be cooked where they stood.

Maren had just finished fixing the plate back into place when she noticed a shadow over her tools. She turned to face the bear-like man standing half a dozen paces behind her. “Saul! How long have you been there?”

A hint of a smile flickered over his mouth before it settled back into neutral. “There’s a meeting in the communications room. Urgent.”

“Right.” Maren dropped the welder she’d been using to fix a tear in the metal sheet and jogged to catch up with Saul. He slowed his pace slightly so that she could keep up with him.

Maren wished he were easier to read. Being a defence technician, he would understand better than any of them how bad the situation might be. Central prided itself on its fast response time to threats, but if the other communication stations across the network had received as many assistance requests as Station 334 had, Central’s resources would be thin. If there was a shortage of emergency response teams, then defence technicians like Saul would be the first to get called up for service. She wasn’t sure she liked that idea. Saul was the quietest out of them, and he easily blended into the background, but Maren hated the idea of seeing him leave. The station wouldn’t feel right without the tall, patient man standing in the shadows. Unless…

I could go with him.

Saul pushed open the door to the communications centre. Gin was kneeling on the ground beside her chair, hands fluttering over cables she’d pulled out of the belly of her communication system, her eyes huge and frightened. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Jeeze,” Maren hissed, running to her friend. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Gin’s shoulders. She could feel the woman shaking. “Gin, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“The system’s down,” a voice said.

Maren looked up to see Suriya pacing the length of the room, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“The whole damn system. And our communications specialist can’t fix it.”

Gin glanced between the two women and swallowed. Sweat stood out on her forehead, and a red dampness rimmed her eyes as she started talking so quickly, it was almost unintelligible. “I—I’ve tried everything. I thought it was just a black spot—you know how the system doesn’t always come on immediately after a flare?—so I waited for an hour, but it didn’t pick up the signal. I’ve rebooted it and checked the connections. It should be working. It should—”