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Volten dropped into the seat beside me as Ariana led Sasha around the crowded ship, making introductions. "This is Fiona, my best friend and the most terrifying strategist you'll ever meet," she was saying. "And that's Britta, who can fix anything with circuitry, and Jess..."

The sound of their voices faded as I turned back to the console, my eyes scanning the readouts more carefully now. As happy as I was to be back, something felt off. I'd learned to trust mygut through years of missions that had gone sideways at the last moment.

Volten turned from the celebrating crew to me. “Everything okay?”

I frowned, unable to answer him. The consoles showed our approach vector, the academy's landing coordinates, and the status of our ship's systems. Then I realized what they didn’t show.

There was no other ship.

"Grek," I muttered, my fingers tapping the control as I checked and rechecked the sensors. "Tiv was right behind us."

I activated the comms system. "Drexian vessel, this is Deklyn. Do you copy?" I waited, the silence stretching painfully before trying again. "Tivek, Morgan, respond if you're receiving this."

Nothing but static answered me.

“The other ship didn’t make it?” Volten whispered so no one else could hear.

But someone else had. I turned as I felt someone behind us. Admiral Zoran’s expression was grave as he watched me.

“Is there a problem?” he asked quietly.

I ran another sensor sweep, hoping I'd somehow missed them. The results confirmed my worst fears.

"Admiral," I said, keeping my voice low enough that it wouldn't carry to the celebrating crew, "Tivek and Morgan's ship didn't make the jump."

Zoran's face remained impassive, but I saw something flash across his eyes. "Are you certain?"

I gestured to the readouts. "They were right behind us when we exited the nebula. They were jumping right after us.” I slammed my fist against the console. "Grek!”

“We can jump back for them,” Volten suggested.

“We only had the one jump,” I reminded him.

“Get us back to the academy, and we’ll send out a ship to find them,” Zoran said.

“I’ve got it,” Volten told me, taking over piloting us to the surface as I sat motionless in my seat.

After everything that had happened, I’d failed. I might have gotten Sasha back, but I’d failed Tiv. I’d failed my own brother. The brother who’d always been right behind me, until he wasn't.

Chapter

Thirty-Five

Morgan

"Ihope you don't think this is macabre," I said, arranging the last of the hydration packs into a neat row on the floor beside the ration pouches, "but I need to know exactly how long we can survive on what we have."

Tivek sat across from me on the hard floor behind the cockpit area and between the facing rows of jump seats, our emergency supplies spread between us like some bizarre picnic. His usually perfect posture had relaxed slightly, though his eyes remained sharp as they scanned our inventory.

"Not macabre," he replied. "Practical." He gestured rows. "We're fortunate this vessel was fully stocked."

I nodded, tallying the numbers in my head. "By my count, we have enough food for..." I did the quick calculation, "almost fifteen days, if we're careful with portions."

What I didn't say was that our oxygen recyclers would likely fail long before we ran out of food, or that the water reclamationsystem was designed for short missions, not prolonged survival situations. My mind was already running multiple scenarios, each grimmer than the last, but I forced those thoughts aside. No point in voicing every dark possibility.

"We'll be fine," I said with more conviction than I felt, arranging the ration packs by calorie content, which was another pointless task to keep my hands busy. "We just need to make the best of it until we figure out a way to contact the Academy or repair the jump drive."

Staying positive had always been my biggest challenge. At the Academy, the other Assassins often joked that I could find the fatal flaw in any plan, the weakness in any strategy. It had made me an excellent student, but I was finding it was not always the most comforting trait on missions.