That reminded her . . . She glanced up at her AR task bar. Eight hours had passed while she slept. As much as she needed that sleep, she worried about what might have transpired in the interim. She couldn’t imagine what Misato and Edison were thinking. They had lost two of their crew and probably JAX, too. Rosalyn had no idea what to feel. In the moment it had all felt right, necessary, but she would never forgive herself for not trying harder to boost Rayan up. Piero was a lost cause, a killer, but something in the younger man’s face told her there was still something in there to salvage. In the end, it looked to her like he had let go on purpose. She ached to think of him turning endless circles in space. Nobody deserved that. Maybe if she somehow survived this disaster, MSC could send out recovery probes. But no. Her heart sank. They couldn’t send out recovery probes, couldn’t risk bringing his remains back to the campus and contaminating the whole place. If his body was found, they would need to incinerate it.

Rosalyn leaned against the well of the chamber and pulled the protective mask over her mouth and nose, closing her eyes. The cool puffs of air drifted over her shoulders, and she shivered, clenching her gut to keep from crying. More and more, she knew survival was nothing to expect. Nothing to even hope for. They were on a suicide mission now, with a one-way trip to CDAS and nothing beyond. She hardly cared what they found there. What did it matter? Foxfire had to be eliminated. Merchantia and GATE had to be warned. Her only realistic goal was making sure nobody else went through this hell.

An image of Piero pulling himself along Misato’s knife floated across her mind and she retched, a thin stream of bile leaking out of her mouth and down the seam of the protective mask. She wasn’t sad to see him go. But was he really gone? Wasn’t his consciousness shared with Edison, with Misato? They had done so much to shield themselves from Foxfire and the others, maybe they could hold on a little longer.

The chamber beeped quietly, indicating the cycle was complete. Rosalyn dropped the mask and tiptoed out and around, into the shower, turning on the hot water with a giddy sound. One small pleasure. One small relief. She smoothed her hands over her shaved head and leaned into the water stream, letting it scour the mess from her face and neck.