Starsight

I was proud of him, particularly when I noticed he’d gone back to wearing his cadet’s pin—one that Cobb had specifically ordered to be enameled red for him, a new symbol of achievement reserved for outstanding members of the engineering or ground crews.

Rodge bounced over to us, speaking in a soft voice. “I’m so happy she found you. You’re going to want to see this.”

“What is it?” Jorgen asked, craning his neck to see the monitor.

“Last station records,” Rodge whispered. “The final video logs before this place was shut down. They were interrupted midrecording, and the encryption process didn’t finish as they were archived. It’s the first good chunk of data we’ve been able to recover.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Commander Ulan insisted we wait for Cobb before showing it, and I figured nobody would complain if the Hero of Alta Second wanted to watch.”

Indeed, my arrival had drawn some attention. A couple of the engineers nudged one another, nodding toward me.

“You know, Spin,” Kimmalyn noted from my side, “it can be rather convenient to be around you. Everyone pays so much attention to you, the rest of us can get away with whatever we want.”

“What would you want to get away with?” Jorgen asked. “Taking an extra sip of tea?”

Since he was still trying to get a glimpse of the monitor, he didn’t notice Kimmalyn giving him a shockingly rude gesture. I gaped at her, my jaw dropping. Had she really just done that?

Kimmalyn shot me a mischievous smile, which she then covered with her hand. This girl . . . I thought I had her figured out, then she did something like that, deliberately intended—I was sure—to shock me.

Further conversation was interrupted as the door opened and Cobb entered. He wore a short white beard and still walked with a limp from his old wound—but refused to use a cane except in the most formal of situations. He carried a steaming mug of coffee in one hand, and was wearing the crisp white uniform of the Defiant Defense Force Admiral of the Fleet—the right breast bedecked with ribbons of merit and rank.

He’d reluctantly stepped up to the position after Ironsides—with equal reluctance—had taken her retirement. By some metrics, Cobb was the most important living human being. And yet, he was still just . . . well, Cobb.

“What’s this about a log file?” he demanded. “What’s on the blasted thing?”

“Sir!” said Commander Ulan, a tall woman of Yeongian heritage. “We don’t know yet. We wanted to wait for you.”

“What?” Cobb said. “Don’t you know how slowly I walk? Damn station could rotate through three shifts in the time it takes for me to limp across the stupid thing.”

“Er. Sir. We thought . . . I mean, nobody believes your leg makes you slow . . . er . . . not too slow, I mean . . .”

“Don’t pander to me, Commander,” he snapped.

“We just wanted to be respectful.”

“Don’t respect me either,” he grumbled, then took a sip of his coffee. “Makes me feel old.”

Ulan forced a laugh, at which Cobb scowled, making Ulan look even more uncomfortable. I empathized with her. Learning how to deal with Cobb was as specialized a skill as performing a triple Ahlstrom loop with a reverse jumpback.

The techs made way for Cobb, so Kimmalyn and I took the opportunity to slip closer to the screen. Jorgen hung back, standing with his hands clasped behind him and letting higher-ranking officers take the closer positions. Sometimes that boy could be too dutiful. Almost made a girl feel bad for using her notoriety to get a good spot.

Cobb eyed me. “I hear you’re pulling stunts again, Lieutenant,” he said softly as one of the senior technicians fiddled with the files.

“Um . . . ,” I said.

“She sure is!” M-Bot’s voice at my wrist said. “She told Jorgen she was intentionally trying to—” I hit the mute. Then, just to be careful, I turned off his holographic projector too. I blushed, looking at Cobb.

The admiral sipped his coffee. “We’ll talk later. I don’t want to anger your grandmother by getting you killed. She made me a pie last week.”

“Um, yes, sir.”

The screen fuzzed and then the video opened, showing an image of this very room—only without the walls torn apart. A group of people sat busy before monitors, wearing unfamiliar uniforms. My breath caught. They were human.

We’d always known that would be the case. Though we’d found Detritus uninhabited, Old Earth languages decorated much of the machinery. Still, it was eerie to be looking back in time at these mysterious people. Millions upon millions—if not billions—of them must have inhabited the planet and these platforms. How had they all vanished?

They seemed to be talking—indeed, they seemed agitated, bustling around the room. On closer inspection, it looked like several were screaming, but the picture didn’t have sound. A man with blond hair scrambled into the seat in front of this monitor, his face filling our screen. He started talking.

“Sorry, sir!” said one of the techs near me. “We’re working on audio. Just a sec . . .”