“That’s possible?” she muttered. She couldn’t see how anyone would willingly choose to listen, in public, to a wall of synthesizers screeching at random intervals. The “song” had opened with five minutes of nonsense poetry, followed by the lead singer making an odd groaning sound, which was allegedly the real name of the group. Insufferable stuff.

Rosalyn turned away from the stack of equipment crates she had been unpacking in the main bay of the ship. A red, curly head stuck out from the arched door leading to the cockpit, and Walters smiled at her. Or sneered. Then he winked.

“How do you feel about Station Bangers?” he said, and beamed, citing yet another improvisational techno-synth experiment.

“Fucking. Kill. Someone.” She shook her head, then mouthed, “You.”

“Geez,” Walters said, clucking his tongue and appearing fully in the doorway. He tapped the VIT monitor on his wrist with his forefinger. “Your heart rate is elevated, Devar. You should really relax. Not good to get riled up before a mission.”

“Can we call a truce?” she asked, popping the lid off of a tester crate. She would need to use the individually wrapped testing nodes for taking samples of any biological material on the Brigantine. It was easier to load up with a few before boarding instead of making multiple trips back and forth between ships. “You must like the Late Nodes?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! Maybe I like your style after all.”

“What a relief,” she muttered. “Can that be our truce? Just please change it before I turn homicidal.”

Walters picked their latest cover album and Rosalyn’s teeth unclenched. Working in close quarters like this was difficult and often tense—a good partnership could make an otherwise deeply unpleasant job tolerable, and on lucky days, half-enjoyable. She and Alexia had gotten on like a house on fire right from the jump. Alexia was calm and professional, with just enough of a sarcastic streak to keep the missions amusing. As much as Rosalyn disliked Walters, he was right about one thing—it did take a kind of dark humor to survive salvaging. Alexia had that macabre side; it just didn’t come with an unhealthy devotion to synth improv.

It will all be over soon.

Could be worse, of course; she could be stuck with Walters for a lot longer than their projected mission time of a week. Sometimes ships went dark in deep, deep space, and just getting to the wreck took weeks. Those missions required larger salvaging vessels, ones equipped with exercise facilities and more-comfortable sleeping quarters. Little hops like the one to the Brigantine were undertaken on smaller craft with less homey accommodations. A week of roughing it was deemed acceptable, but an already stressful task coupled with cramped quarters for weeks? Even more employees would lose their minds.