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She wondered how the Behe the Behe Clarissa Mao and not Melba Koh Would the ship feel the nobility of its sacrifice? Lost forever in the abyss, but with everyone else redeeful, but itcombination of fear and uncertainty that made it seee, Ashford stabbed at the control console again, waited a few seconds, and punched the console hard enough that the blow pushed him back into his couch The sound of the violence startled Cortez awake and stopped the nored theertips sounded like hailstones striking rock

The light fro?” Ashford snapped

“Last I saw her, she was checking the backup power supply for the reactor bottle, sir Should I find her?”

“Who’s acting as her second?”

“Anamarie Ruiz”

“Get Sam and Anauard, that’s fine”

“Yes, sir”

Ashford closed the connection and pushed away fros

“Is there a problem, Captain?” Cortez asked His voice was thick and a little bleary

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Ashford replied

It was almost another hour before Clarissa heard the doors from the external elevator shaft open New voices caabble of conversation tried to hide soed at his uniform

Tomen floated in the roorease-streaked red hair pulled back in a bun It made her think of Anna The second was thin, even for a Belter, with skin the color of dry soil and brown eyes so dark they were black Three ,” Ashford said

“Sir,” the red-haired woman said She didn’t sound like Anna

“We are on our fourth last-minute delay now The ue ele et to take a second shot at, though We need to be thorough”

“Two hours ago, you said we’d be ready to fire in two hours Are we ready to fire now?”

“No, sir,” she said “I looked up the specs, and the reactor’s safeties won’t allow an output the size we need I’ some new breakers that won’t screw us up And then we have to replace so will that take?” Ashford asked His voice was dry Clarissa thought she heard danger in it, but the engineer didn’t react to it

“Six hours, six and a half hours,” she said “The fab printers only go so fast”

Ashford nodded and turned to the second woree with that assess, I don’t,” Ruiz said “I don’t see e can’t use conductive foa would that take?”

“Two hours,” Ruiz said