“Give me a minute.” Walters jogged back toward the cockpit, leaning over his display and sighing. She watched him key into the comm system, calling up MSC headquarters. The Servitor responded to their hail immediately.

“This is Salvager 6, yeah we’re out here and we’ve made contact with the Brigantine. We just received some kind of alert about a crew redirect. Could we get confirmation and further orders?”

“Crew redirect,” was the Servitor’s response, as if it were the most obvious command in the world. She heard Walters snort. “Stand by. Stand by. Stand by . . .”

“This is ridiculous,” Rosalyn hissed. “We’re ready to go. Just tell them we can take another job after this one is finished, or have them send a probe. Can you confirm that the Brigantine is code blue?” she called out loudly enough for the comm to detect her voice.

“Affirmative,” the Servitor responded. It then returned to repeating its standby message.

“And you can confirm that there are dead bodies aboard?”

“Affirmative. Stand by, stand by . . .”

Rosalyn turned back to the air lock. This was the third crew to go dark recently, and it needed to be handled. She didn’t just need to prove herself, she needed to give the deceased and their families some closure. “I don’t like wasting time. We’re already here, Walters. Let’s just wrap it up and get on to the next assignment.”

“I don’t know,” Walters called out. He spun away from the console, taking a few slow steps toward her. Then he pivoted and pointed at the comm. “Maybe we should wait.”

The Servitor suddenly came out of standby. “Redirect assignment confirmed—please proceed to the following coordinates for a refuel request. Repeat, redirect and refuel.”

She could see Walters examining the coordinates and data streaming to his VIT. And she could also see the moment his face went white and slack. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” He glanced over at her. “It’s some senator on a feel-good see-the-stars tour. His vessel overshot their window and now he’s stuck. Idiot.”

“A refuel?” Rosalyn wouldn’t budge. “Talk about non–mission critical. His life support won’t run out for days; they can send a fuel probe instead. There are people in there, Walters. I saw their little memorial stones. The senator can wait.”

“No, Devar, come on. We’ll get in deep shit for this.” He closed the distance between them, joining her at the air lock. She fought the urge to shrink away from him. “You heard mission control.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I did. And Josh Girdy specifically asked me to look into the deaths on this ship, so this is me ignoring mission control. They can take it up with him if there’s a problem. Who signed off on this redirect?”