Her pulse pounded in her ears, and then a high ringing started, growing louder by the second, bringing with it the kind of migraine-inducing pressure that made her want to drop her jaw and pop her eardrums before they exploded. It was worse this time, much worse, with her head throbbing for a drink.

“Woo!” she heard Walters scream through his helmet. He whooped and laughed, banging his fist on the seat rest. “Nothing like it, right?”

The FTL cut out as scheduled, and the Salvager 6 seemed to scream to a stop, though they drifted on and on, having been squeezed through that painful tube of light and sound and forced out the end, gliding into the neighboring star system, Proxima Centauri.

It was breathtakingly desolate. But there, not all that far away, hung a blob of silvery gray. The Brigantine. It was different from the field of stars around it. It drifted out there alone like a solitary mote of dust in a dusky sky.

I hate this shit.

Dead bodies. Five of them. She didn’t want to think about what state they would be in, and could only hope for the mundanity of a malfunctioning air lock. A shiver traveled from the base of her neck to her toes.

You chose this life, she reminded herself, sitting taller in her chair. Now do your job and bring them home.

6

Rosalyn didn’t fancy herself a music expert, but the Unpronounceable Sound barely qualified as music. So naturally, Dave Walters loved them and insisted that they be played on a loop.

“Do you have anything else loaded on your VIT? Please, this is fucking killing me, Walters.” The oxygen and temperature levels on the Salvager 6 had been stabilized, and while they finished their interception of the Brigantine and Rosalyn prepped for transfer, she liked to get some time out of the helmet. It also gave her the chance to lightly smack her forehead against the wall, a mean headache brewing at the base of her skull. Vodka would fix it, if she had any.

No. We’re done with all that.

There were five bodies to recover and a company (potentially) to exonerate; vodka certainly would not help with that.

“If I have to hear one more hour of this noise, I’m going to fucking kill someone, and just a gentle reminder that there’s only one other person on this ship.”

From the cockpit, where Walters was attempting to sync their systems with the Brigantine’s, she heard him give a childish moan. “You have no taste, Devar. Or maybe you just can’t appreciate TUS until you hear them live.”