Elena put her gloved hand on Robin’s shoulder. “I have to save the rest of the crew.”

“I should be in there too.” Robin’s voice dripped misery.

“You need to get some food and fluids and rest, is what you need. You survived, captain. You did your part already.”

“Drake can bring the canoe back remotely,” Ashok said. “Shall, can you carry all three of us across to the station?”

“Easily.”

“Don’t die in there,” Robin said. “Bring everyone back if you can, but if you can’t, don’t join them.”

Elena squeezed Robin’s hand, glove through glove, and followed Ashok and Lantern up into the airlock.

Chapter Twenty-One

Callie watched as Shall pushed off from the canoe and began maneuvering through open space toward her. Lantern clung to his underside, and Elena and Ashok rode on his back. She thought of a nature immersive she’d once seen of a mother sloth on Earth plodding along with babies clinging to her back.

Elena had been so happy to find Robin, and the joy in her voice upon their reunion made Callie feel better about this whole mission. Even if they did nothing else, they’d saved one member of the Anjou’s crew. It was a good start. There was a shard of darkness hidden in that joy, though, because their reunion made Callie think about the friends she’d lost on Meditreme, and how there would be no miraculous salvation for them. There could only be justice, and she intended to see they received it.

When Shall was just three meters from the opening, Lantern flung herself outward at an oblique angle and came spinning into the gravity of the station. Callie had her sidearm out and pointed at the Liar before she even got her tentacles under her. “Please don’t aim a weapon at me.” Lantern oriented herself toward Callie, all those eyes gazing out from behind her faceplate. “I find it very distracting. It is also possible that firing a weapon here might trigger security protocols.”

“That’s convenient,” Callie said.

“You wouldn’t think so if you triggered them.”

“You know we brought a whole lot of guns in here, right?”

“I do. They should be considered a last resort. At the very least, we should not point them at each other.”

Shall hit the deck and crouched down. Ashok leapt nimbly to the deck and turned in a slow circle, taking in the hangar, then went to peer at the control panel with Lantern. Elena was more wobbly, her cheeks flushed with color behind her faceplate when she clutched at Callie. “I did an EVA! It was horrible! I never want to do that again!”

“It was only fourteen seconds.”

“Abject terror does strange things to your sense of time.” Elena looked around, and shivered. “It’s awful, being back in here. I don’t know how Robin stayed sane these past few days. And the others…”