She turned around to find Walters standing in the doorway to the cockpit, staring at her. That was a funny look. He lifted both brows, tilting his head to the side.

“I mean, it ain’t the Ritz . . .”

“Just haven’t been on a ship this small in a while,” Rosalyn covered smoothly. She even gave a chummy little laugh. “Sardines come to mind.”

“It’s real peaceful,” he said. “I get my deepest sleep in those things.”

“Good to know,” Rosalyn replied, closing the door to the living area and crossing back to the table. Her helmet rested there and she lifted it, lowering it over her head before giving a practiced twist to lock it into place on her flight suit.

“We’re all cozied up,” Walters told her with a thumbs-up. “You want to do the honors?”

“If you insist,” she said, cringing at his choice of words. Soon she would be immersed in her work, totally lost to the dark ghosts that threatened from the back of her mind. On a salvage, she gave herself over to the details. She took refuge in the minutiae. Find, collect, record. Find, collect, record . . .

Rosalyn took up her kit again and walked with Walters to the air lock door. He had retrieved his helmet as well, since there was no telling what might go wrong during a sync up, or what the atmosphere would be like aboard the Brigantine. She tapped out the float sequence on her VIT monitor and waited.

She had always liked that term—float. It was like floating an idea, like giving the other ship a little wave to see if they were interested in saying hello. The float signal would hail every system on the Brigantine until something responded. It was as if they could coax one last word out of a lifeless body.

It only took about fifteen seconds before a green light flashed above the air lock door. Then came the familiar metal shift and thunk of the air locks recognizing each other and locking into place. Afterward, a quiet hiss beyond the door indicated the equalization of pressure and the presence of gravity stabilization. That was good. She didn’t feel like bouncing around in zero g while she did her collection.

A series of quick, sharp beeps came from the pilot’s VIT, and Rosalyn glanced over at Walters to see him frowning in confusion. He squinted at the tiny screen on his wrist and tapped it a few times.

“That’s weird,” he muttered.

“What is?” she asked. This was not a good time. She needed to keep a clear head.

“Have you ever seen this?” Walters asked. He held up his wrist, showing her a flashing alert. Red text began filtering across, and she hurried to read it aloud for both of them.

“‘Crew redirect, stand by for instructions,’” Rosalyn read. “‘Brigantine reclassified as non–mission critical.’ Crew redirect? What the hell does that mean?”