“Don’t bother them,” she said, scooting herself into the tunnel. She wouldn’t prove much of anything if her last chance on the job ended before it really even began. And this had happened to her before or, at least, to Griz. One of the few times he ever spoke to her and Owen was when he explained away the glitches they ran into docking with dark vessels. Power and temperature fluxes wreaked havoc on gear and crew alike. Servitors malfunctioned. Data was corrupted. Sometimes entire ships had to be completely refitted at HQ after an equipment problem. Or as Griz had so eloquently put it, “Surge and purge.”

The gravity in the tunnel had stabilized and she moved about as smoothly as she could in the flight suit. “Let me get eyes inside and some power into that Servitor, then we can make the call.”

Walters nodded slowly, and she watched him disappear into the cockpit before the circular door to their salvaging ship hissed shut. She was alone in the passage; her only communication with the pilot would come through the headset in her helmet. That was fine. She was eager to get this job over with—sure, she knew it was just some technical burnout causing the confusion, but that didn’t mean she was sweating any less over it. Recovering code blues was tough enough on a flawless run, and there was no denying the jumpy nervousness fluttering in her chest.

Girdy had implied there was a remote possibility that more was going on than just bad luck.

I cannot believe I’m hoping for bad luck.

The other option was foul play, and she had seen where that led on her run. A cargo hold flooded with human soup. Until she saw for herself what was inside the Brigantine, she wasn’t going to bother Merchantia HQ. After panicking and calling HQ too fast on her first assignment, she returned to her barracks room and found a baby bottle and a pacifier waiting on her pillow. She didn’t hail mission control much after that. And besides, they would be alerted to the fact that she was ignoring the redirect if they called in the anomaly now. Did Girdy know about the redirect? Leaving too soon wouldn’t get him or Rosalyn any closer to understanding why so many crews were going dark.

“This thing on?”

She flinched, Walters’s voice blasting through her helmet. His voice crackled on the speaker, blown out.

“Please stop yelling.” Rosalyn moved along the connective tunnel, pausing outside the door to the Brigantine. A tiny green-and-gold light flickered above the hatch, indicating it was unlocked and ready for boarding. She took a deep breath, feeling bruised on the inside from the force and speed of her heartbeat. Just a glitch, Devar, keep it together. “I’m at the door.”