I managed to start the transmission at last, and glanced back at Indigo and Tamara to confirm it was working. Tamara listened to her radio then flashed me a thumb’s up; Indigo nodded his confirmation.

Beneath my hands, the computer buzzed and flashed an error.

My heart stopped, then pounded back again when I read the Ameng: Connection weak, the message warned. Continue?

Continue, I instructed, and the transmission resumed.

A few minutes later, the error popped up again.

Tamara crouched down next to me just as I clicked continue. “What’s wrong?”

“I think the program freezes every time the connection to one of the three ships goes below a certain threshold,” I said. “It starts up again no problem, but it’s slow and it needs babysitting.”

“Probably a safeguard to prevent the data from being scrambled,” Tamara observed. “I bet there’ll be gaps in the data transmitted. It’s a good thing we’re sending it to three different places; we might need the three copies to compare and figure out the gaps and errors.”

“That sounds like you’re expecting cooperation, lieutenant,” I said.

“Your optimism is catching.” She looked a little pinched, but she smiled at me.

I lowered my voice to say, “Your gun was empty, right? You used your last bullet on One. You were bluffing with Indigo.”

The smile vanished. “Sean,” Tamara said, patiently, “I was just with the Republic. I got more ammunition from them. My gun is definitely not empty.”

She really could’ve shot Indigo. “Oh.”

“But I chose not to use it,” she said, pointedly.

“Oh,” I said again, and she gave me a tired look and walked away.

The transmission proceeded with agonizing slowness, glitching out every few minutes and requiring confirmation from me to continue on. I started to wonder, a little worriedly, exactly how much longer this was going to take.

Indigo came up to stand behind me, silent warmth at my shoulder. “It’s taking too long,” he said.

“What’s our exit plan?” Tamara asked.

“You return to the Republic,” Indigo told her. “Sean and I will manage from here.”

My unsteady heart jolted sideways in my chest. I didn’t want Lantern-Eyes to leave. But Indigo was right; the Republic didn’t know exactly what she’d done, so she still had a way out. She’d spent years here alone; she’d suffered enough.

“And spend the rest of my career covering up a lie?” Tamara said. “I’m not interested. The Republic will figure out what I’ve done soon anyway, if they haven’t caught on already. I don’t do things halfway, Indigo. I thought through the consequences and I’m here anyway. So what’s our exit plan?”

The transmission had paused out again at some point during Tamara’s speech and I hadn’t noticed. I pressed Continue again. The transmission resumed. “The Viper is our escape plan,” I said.

“It’s docked near the Minister ship,” Indigo explained. “I trust you know where that is.”

“Yeah, it’s close but not exactly next door,” Tamara said. “If we’re going to get out of here before the ship starts peeling apart, we need to leave soon.”