A fish tank lined the wall behind her, bathing the room in watery blue light. The spores had spread into the tank, and there didn’t seem to be a single fish inside swimming around, just floating turquoise threads along the surface.

“Hi.” Rosalyn didn’t know what else to say. There was a dull ringing in the back of her head, and her skull felt soft, like a bruised apple. She groaned and stretched, glancing around the room, her AR helpfully providing the schematic overlay and informing her that this was the medical bay and attached wet labs.

“Are you hungry?” Misato Iwasa asked conversationally.

“Wait . . .” Rosalyn’s memory was returning along with her vision. They were obviously still on the ship and obviously not dead. She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed. “It didn’t work, did it?”

“Your quaint little plan to blow us to hell? No, afraid not. Not a bad idea, but you ended up doing us a favor. Well, not us. Them.” She pointed to her eyeball and shrugged. Just like Edison, she seemed to wear the weight of their plight on her shoulders, sinking down toward the floor as she took a long sip from her mug.

“You’re . . . not angry.” Rosalyn squinted at her, her stomach twisting again with hungry anguish. Sitting up, she dangled her legs off the padded examination chair. “You’re not angry. Why are you not angry? I tried to kill you.”

Misato’s thin brows went up and she snorted above her cup. “Did you try to kill me, chickadee, or them?”

“Them,” Rosalyn admitted. “But them also means you.”

“And you.” Misato stood and crossed to the laboratory counters opposite where they were sitting. There were two small, refrigerated lockers, one with a taped label reading SPECIMENS, DO NOT EAT and the other labeled FOOD, DEFINITELY DO EAT.

She opened the latter and rummaged. Half watching her, Rosalyn reached for her VIT, inputting her personal code and checking the life on her oxygen canisters. If she wanted to stay alive and healthy, which she hadn’t decided on yet, then she would need to maintain enough juice in her suit and a reasonable oxygen level. Even if the oxygen had stabilized on the Brigantine, she didn’t trust the filtration system in her suit to deal with the Foxfire spores indefinitely. For the moment she retained plenty of oxygen, but the filters were another story. To keep her safe, they were dealing with a spore-choked environment. Eventually those filters would need to be replaced, especially after constantly processing such heavily contaminated air.

“Hungry?” Misato called. She returned from the lockers with a few ration pouches.

“How did you know?”

“Your stomach is growling something fierce. No way you thought to stop for a snack while sabotaging the ship.” It was a gentle accusation, given with a smile.