He wore a knit shirt under a vest with military-style webbing, and he had a well-worn blaster strapped to his right thigh. His hand, Kira noticed, never strayed far from the grip of the weapon.

There was an air of command about the man; the kid and the doctor straightened seemingly without noticing as he entered. Kira had known men like him before: hard, no-nonsense SOBs who wouldn’t settle for half-truths. Moreover, if she had to guess, he would sooner stab her in the back than allow anything bad to happen to his ship or crew.

That made him dangerous, but if he wasn’t a complete bastard, and if she dealt with him straight—straight as she could—he would probably treat her fairly.

“Something like that,” Kira said. She wasn’t particularly religious, but it was a convenient excuse.

He grunted. “Let her be, Doc. If the woman doesn’t want to be examined, the woman doesn’t have to be examined.”

“But—” Vishal started to say.

“You heard me, Doc.”

Vishal bobbed his head in agreement, but Kira could see him suppressing his anger.

Then the blue-eyed man said to her, “Captain Falconi at your service.”

“Ensign Kaminski.”

“You have a first name?”

Kira hesitated for a brief moment. “Ellen.” It was her mother’s.

“That’s a hell of a skinsuit you have there, Ellen,” said Falconi. “Not exactly standard-issue UMC gear.”

She tugged on the cuffs of her jumpsuit, pulling them farther down her arms. “It was a gift from my boyfriend, custom-made. I didn’t have time to get into anything else before leaving on the Valkyrie.”

“Uh-huh. And how do you, you know, remove it?” He motioned toward the side of his head.

Self-conscious, Kira touched her scalp, knowing he was looking at the fibers crisscrossing her skin. “It peels right off.” She mimed with her fingers, as if to pull up the edge of the xeno. But she didn’t because she couldn’t.

“Do you have a helmet too?” asked Trig.

Kira shook her head. “Not anymore. But I can use any standard skinsuit helmet.”

“Cool.”

Then Falconi said, “So here’s the deal, Ellen. We got your crewmates transferred to our ship. They’re fine, but we’re leaving them in cryo until we dock, as we’re already packed to the gills. I assume the UMC is eager to debrief you—and I assume you’re eager to report in—but it’ll have to wait. Our transmitter got damaged a few days ago, which means we can’t send data, only receive it.”

“Can’t you use the equipment on the Valkyrie?” Kira asked. She immediately regretted it. Dammit, don’t make their job any easier.

Falconi shook his head. “My machine boss says the damage to your shuttle caused the electrical system to short out when the fusion drive was reactivated. It fried the computer, shut down the reactor, et cetera, et cetera. Your companions are just lucky the power cells on the cryo tubes held.”

“So no one back at Command knows the five of us are alive?” Kira said.