“Everything looks good, and the connection is fine. This patch of space is calm, shouldn’t be in any danger of debris colliding with the tunnel,” he responded, this time in a voice that didn’t make her want to leap out of her suit. And then, in an even tinier voice: “You’re still sure about this?”

“My first mission out I opened the target door and a dead botanist fell on me,” she said flatly. “Things go wrong.”

“Yikes. You didn’t quit on the spot?”

“Our day can only get better from there, right?”

She heard Walters chuckle darkly on the other end. “That takes balls. I like it.”

“No more chitchat, thank you very much, keep the talk to a minimum. I need to concentrate.” Rosalyn hefted her work case, swinging toward the door. She pressed her palm slowly against the air lock release mechanism teamed to the Brigantine’s door and waited for it to respond.

“All right,” she said shakily. “Going in.”

Right on cue, the Brigantine opened to her, revealing a small, tidy room and another, smaller door. She sealed herself in, gravity in the antechamber stabilizing before she pressed through to the second door and into the ship itself. The temperature remained constant, regulated by her suit and the small oxygen canisters hidden in the flaps on her shoulder blades. The material was dense enough to keep her warm, dry and safe, a combination biosafety and space suit. There was no telling what smells or bacteria she would encounter on these missions, and the filtration system and heavy-duty gloves were meant to protect her from it all.

She let the security of that knowledge enfold her like a blanket as she switched comms to a general channel, allowing her to interface with both Walters and the Brigantine’s onboard AI.

The door led into a galley not unlike the one on Salvager 6, apparently used for minor storage and for traveling from one area of the ship to the next. Lights flickered overhead, nothing but emergency panels giving the ship a low, green glow. Her eyes adjusted slowly, tricked now and then by the strobing lights. To her left lay the sealed door to the cockpit, and to her right, another closed passage that would lead deeper into the Brigantine. It was a much, much larger vessel than theirs, equipped with more lodging for the crew, as well as several laboratories and sophisticated, atmosphere-controlled closets for storing research materials. She had memorized the schematic before launch, but seeing it in person was something quite different—for one, it was dark, and for another, it was bigger than she had visualized.