Once she regained her composure, she made similar recordings for the rest of her dead teammates. She didn’t know their families—she didn’t even know if some of them had families—but Kira still felt it was necessary. She owed it to them. They’d been her friends … and she’d killed them.

The last recording was no easier than the first. Afterward, Kira had Ando send the messages, and then she closed her eyes, drained, exhausted. She could feel the suit’s presence in her mind—a subtle pressure that had appeared sometime during their escape from the Extenuating Circumstances—but she sensed no hint of thought or intent from it. Still, she had no doubt: the xeno was aware. And it was watching.

…

A burst of static sounded in the speakers.

Kira started and realized she must have nodded off. A voice was speaking: Orso. “—do you read? Over. Repeat, do you read, Navárez? Over.”

“I hear you,” she said. “Over.”

“We’re just refueling the drop shuttle. We’ll be blasting off this forsaken rock soon as our tanks are full. Rendezvous with the Valkyrie in fourteen minutes.”

“I’ll be ready,” she said.

“Roger that. Over.”

The time passed quickly. Kira watched through the shuttle’s rear-facing cameras as a shining dot rose from the surface of Adrasteia and arced toward the Valkyrie. As it neared, the familiar shape of the drop shuttle came into view.

“I can see them,” she reported. “No signs of trouble.”

“That’s good,” said Tschetter.

The drop shuttle came up alongside the Valkyrie, and the two vessels fired their RCS thrusters as they gently mated, airlock to airlock. A faint shudder passed through the Valkyrie’s frame.

“Docking maneuver successfully completed,” said Ando. He sounded entirely too cheery for Kira’s taste.

The airlocks popped open with a hiss of air. A hawk-nosed man with a buzz cut stuck his head through the opening. “Permission to come aboard, Navárez?”

“Permission granted,” said Kira. It was just a formality, but she appreciated it.

She stuck out a hand as the man floated over to her. After a moment’s hesitation, he accepted it. “Specialist Orso, I presume?” she said.

“You presume correctly.”

Behind Orso came Private Reisner (a short, wide-eyed woman who looked as if she’d signed up for the UMC right out of school), Petty Officer Samson (a red-haired beanpole of a man), and Ensign Yarrek (a heavyset man with a large bandage on his right arm).

“Welcome to the Valkyrie,” said Kira.

They all looked at her somewhat askance, and then Orso said, “Glad to be here.”

Yarrek grunted and said, “We owe you one, Navárez.”

“Yes,” said Reisner. “Thank you.”

Before sending the drop shuttle back to Adra, Orso went to a row of cabinets set flush to the hull at the back of the Valkyrie. Kira hadn’t even noticed them before. Orso entered a code, and the lockers popped open to reveal several racks of guns: blasters and firearms alike.

“Now we’re talking,” said Samson.

Orso picked out four guns, as well as a collection of battery packs, magazines, and grenades, and then carried them over to the drop shuttle. “For the major and the corporal,” he explained.