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“At a guess? Crushed pelvis,out a little,” he said with a grin “But I’ency speed, and there’s work So hop to”

She pushed off Her throat was tight, and she could feel herto shut down Overstie and wreckage to the storage bay where the toolboxes from the Cerisier were Her card unlocked the in the air, green ceraold wire Ren was there, his coffin toolbox shifted in place despite the electronetic clamps For a moment, the dreaht still be sleeping, the wave of death just part of the same blackness in her own brain She put her hand on Ren’s box, half expecting to feel hih her, and the sense that she and the ship were falling, that it would land on her Crush her All the blood and all the terror, every dead person held in place to keep the corpses froan here Every sin she’d committed, backward and forward in time, had its center in the bones beneath her hand

“Stop,” she said “Just stop”

She took her tool chest, the real one, and sped back to engineering and the shattered air processing controller Nikos had found two other people, a man in civilian dress and an older worab his legs”

Melba set her toolbox against the deck and activated the nets, then pushed over to the hole in the atmosphere processor Thethe body a little hs, wadding the cloth of his trousers in her fists She braced herself against theof the unit

“Ready?” the man asked

“Ready”

The wo ht the corpse wouldn’t co tore, the vibrations of it transferring through to her hands The body slid free

“Score one for the good guys,” Nikos said froray tone Like he was dying She wished he would go to the medical bays, but they were probably swa for an open bay “Clear hi back”

Melba nodded, took a firrip, and pushed off on a trajectory that would land them on the far bulkhead The back of the corpse’s head had been crushed almost flat, but death had come so swiftly, there was very little blood At the wall, she secured him with a spray of foam and held him for a moment while it set The dead man’s face was close to hers She could see the whiskers he’d missed when he’d shaved The brown of his ee to kiss hiusted

From his uniform, he’d been an officer Lieutenant, maybe The white identity card on the lanyard around his neck had a picture of hiers Not lieutenant Lieutenant commander Lieutenant Coh the Ring if it weren’t for her Who wouldn’t have died here She tried to feel guilt, but there wasn’t room for him inside of her She had tooout to tuck his card back in place when the set an EVA pack with this Melba blinked Her mind seemed to click back into focus, and she looked around her, the last wisps of drea her mind She had access to the equipment she needed The ship was in chaos This was it This was the opportunity she’d been waiting for She plucked the card off its lanyard and slipped it in her pocket, then looked around nervously