As she rolled up the kit, Kira said, “Ando, damage report.”

“There are electrical shorts in the lighting circuitry, lines two-twenty-three-n and lines one-five-one-n are compromised. Also—”

“Skip the itemized report. Is the Valkyrie spaceworthy?”

“Yes, Ms. Navárez.”

“Were any critical systems hit?”

“No, Ms. Navárez.”

“What about the fusion drive? Wasn’t the nozzle pointing back at the explosion?”

“No, Ms. Navárez, our course put us on a bias with regard to the Extenuating Circumstances. The explosion struck us at an angle.”

“Did you program the course?”

“No, Ms. Navárez, ship mind Bishop did.”

Only then did Kira begin to relax. Only then did she allow herself to think that maybe, just maybe, she was really going to survive.

The mask rippled and peeled off her face. Kira yelped. She couldn’t help it; the process felt like a giant sticky bandage being removed.

Within seconds, her face was clear.

Kira tentatively ran her fingers over her mouth and nose, around the edges of her eyes, touching and exploring. To her surprise, she seemed to have kept her eyebrows and eyelashes.

“What are you?” she whispered, tracing the neckline of the suit. “What were you made for?”

No answers were forthcoming.

She looked over the inside of the shuttle: at the consoles, the rows of seats, the storage lockers, and—next to her—four empty cryo tubes. Tubes that she couldn’t use.

At the sight, sudden despair filled her. It didn’t matter that she’d escaped. Without the ability to enter cryo, she was effectively stranded.

CHAPTER IX

CHOICES

1.

Kira pulled herself along the walls to the front of the Valkyrie and strapped herself into the pilot’s seat. She checked the display: the Extenuating Circumstances was gone. So too was the alien ship, destroyed by the explosion of the UMC cruiser. “Ando, are there any other ships in the system?”

“Negative.”

That was one piece of good news. “Ando, does the Valkyrie have a Markov Drive?”

“Affirmative.”

Another piece of good news. The shuttle was capable of FTL. Even so, the lack of cryo might still kill her. It depended on the speed of the drive. “Ando, how long will it take the Valkyrie to reach Sixty-One Cygni if the shuttle makes an emergency burn to the Markov Limit?”

“Seventy-eight and a half days.”

Kira swore. The Fidanza had only taken about twenty-six days. She supposed the shuttle’s slowness shouldn’t be a surprise. The ship was intended for short-range hops and not much more.

Don’t panic. She wasn’t completely out of luck. The next question would be the determining one.

“Ando, how many ration packs does the Valkyrie carry?”

“The Valkyrie carries one hundred and seven ration packs.”

Kira had the pseudo-intelligence do the math for her. Not having her overlays was frustrating; she couldn’t solve even basic calculations on her own.

Adding in the days needed to decelerate at 61 Cygni resulted in a total travel time of 81.74 days. At half rations, the food would only last Kira eight weeks, which would leave her without food for another 25.5 days. Water wasn’t a problem; the reclamation equipment on the shuttle would keep her from dying of dehydration. The lack of food, on the other hand …