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“After a blast like that?” Garret said.

“He took the fire Dani used on him pretty well,” Myrell argued.

“Maybe. But there were a lot of those bugs. If he didn’t get them all, they might have swarmed him.”

The pit in her stomach grew. Instinctively she reached for the pocket with the datachip and felt it inside. “He got out,” she said softly.

She’d gone to another end of the room after that and curled up against the wall, telling them she wanted to take a nap. She could hear them whispering every so often, but she closed them off.

It was hard to sleep, but she’d tried. Her thoughts kept rewinding over and over to the look Kryxis had given her right before he faced the horde.

He had to have gotten out.

Eventually sleep did come, and she was plagued by bad dreams of being hunted by something in the dark. She ran and ran but couldn’t get away. The only relief she had was when she was shaken awake and found Myrelle looking down at her.

“Storm is letting up.”

She’d gathered her things, trying to get her focus back on returning to the ship. She made up her mind while doing so that she would take the datachip directly to the heads herself and expose Marityne for the shitty company that they were.

Myrell took a drink from her canteen before sliding her helmet back on. “All right, storm’s died down enough. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Garret unlatched his helmet from his belt, putting it on before leading the way.

Outside, the wind was still strong, but the dust had mostly disappeared. Above, light was beginning to break over the buildings, showing a greenish-blue sky. Morning had finally come.

Myrell put an arm around Dani to help her walk a little faster. They treaded carefully between buildings, Garret keeping an eye out for any movement. Everything was silent at first, until a small black orb came flying by. A security drone.

It watched them for a moment then followed. Passing another set of buildings, they heard the sounds of people shouting. The four-armed statue appeared as they came upon the courtyard, and Dani nearly froze as she saw their ship just a few yards away. Right beside it was another ship of the same size.

There were several new armed security moving across the landing dock. One immediately approached them. She recognized it was Saul.

“I worried you were all goners,” he said as he took off his helmet. He saw her being supported by Myrell and snapped to one of the men, “Get a medikit.”

“It’s fine,” Dani said. “I’ve got it wrapped.”

“You called for backup?” Garret asked.

“Yes. When you and the team didn’t return after a time, I knew something had gone wrong. Me and Tristan agreed and made the call. It didn’t get out right away since the ship was still down, and we had to use an emergency system that had shaky interference because of the storm. But once the message was out, the heads sent the response team down as soon as they could.”

“The ship still down?” Myrell asked.

“Unfortunately, yes. The storm slowed things a bit. But Morse is still working on it now with a couple others from the response team.”

“How long ago did you send out the drones?” Dani asked.

“Not long. With the storm, we could only get them out less than an hour ago.”

“Have them start checking the Research Sector. I want them searching for bodies.” Her voice was thankfully steady as she said it, despite how shaken she felt.

“Will do.” Saul glanced at Garret. “And Ryatt?”

Garret shook his head.

“I’ll call it in.” He looked back at Dani. “I’m sorry about your team. Did it happen all at once?”

“On the bridge.” Myrell spoke first. “We were attacked. There are dangerous things all over this godforsaken place. Should have had a larger security team from the start.”

“We’ll start a search. For now, you should take shelter in the ship.”