After an hour, her face was drenched with sweat and she felt nearly as exhausted as Sparrow looked. “How’d I do?” she asked, getting up from the deck.

“Don’t go watch a scary movie. That’s all I have to say,” said Sparrow.

“Ah.”

“What? You want cookies and compliments? You didn’t give up. Keep not-giving-up and you might impress me someday.” Sparrow lay back on the bench and closed her eyes. “It’s on you, now. You know what you need to do while we’re corpsicles.”

“I have to keep practicing.”

“And you can’t make it easy on yourself.”

“I won’t.”

Sparrow cracked open an eye. She smiled. “You know what, Navárez? I believe you.”

The hours that followed were a frenzy of preparation. Kira helped Vishal sedate the ship pets, and then both Runcible and Mr. Fuzzypants were placed inside a cryo tube just big enough to hold the both of them.

Shortly thereafter, the thrust alert sounded and the Wallfish cut its engines so it could cool down as much as possible before hitting the Markov Limit. Nearby, the Darmstadt did the same, the cruiser’s diamond radiators glittering in the dim light from the system’s star.

One by one, the Wallfish’s systems were shut down, and the inside of the ship became progressively cooler and darker.

The four Marines in the port hold were the first to enter cryo. They gave their notice, and then their systems vanished from the ship intranet as they lapsed into deathlike stasis.

Next were the Entropists. Their cryo tubes were in their cabin. “We are off to lay ourselves—”

“—in our hibernacula. Travel safely, Prisoners,” they said before sequestering themselves.

Kira and the crew of the Wallfish gathered in the ship’s storm shelter, right near the center of the ship, just below Control and adjacent to the sealed room that contained the armored sarcophagus Gregorovich called home.

Kira hung by the door of the shelter, feeling helpless as Sparrow, Hwa-jung, Trig, Vishal, and Nielsen stripped to their underwear and got into their tubes. The lids closed, and within seconds, the interiors fogged over.

Falconi waited until the last. “You going to be okay on your own?” he asked, pulling his shirt over his head.

Kira averted her gaze. “I think so.”

“Once Gregorovich goes under, our pseudo-intelligence, Morven, will be in charge of navigation and life support, but if something goes wrong, don’t hesitate to wake any of us up.”

“Okay.”

He unlaced his boots, stuck them in a locker. “Seriously. Even if you just need to talk with another person. We’re going to have to drop out of FTL a few times anyway.”

“If I need to, I promise I will.” She glanced over to see Falconi in just his skivvies. He was more heavily built than she’d realized: thick chest, thick arms, thick back. Sparrow and Hwa-jung obviously weren’t the only ones who used the weights in the hold.

“Good.” Then he pulled himself along the wall and floated over to her. Up close, Kira could smell the sweat on him, a clean, healthy musk. A mat of thick, black hair covered his chest, and for a moment—just a moment—she imagined running her fingers through it.