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“Fine,” he replied with a twitch of a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes as he rubbed the flesh beneath one of his safety straps.

My gaze shifted to the front of the cockpit where Ariana slumped in the pilot's seat, her head lolled to one side. My heart lurched as I scrambled to free myself from the restraints, fingers fumbling with the clasps before I was able to unhook and stand.

"Ariana!" I called, stumbling forward on the angled deck.

Vyk reached her first, his massive frame blocking my view as he checked her vitals. "She's breathing," he announced, relief evident in his voice. “No doubt stunned by the impact."

As if on cue, Ariana shifted, a muttered curse escaping her lips as she lifted her head. "Fuck me. Did anyone get the registration number of that asteroid?"

I released a grateful sigh as her hands instinctively moved to the control panel and cursed again. She sounded like her old self.

The ship, however, hadn’t been so lucky. The console before her was a mess of blinking warning lights and cracked displays, but remarkably, some systems still functioned. Ariana's fingersmoved sluggishly across the working panels, pulling up atmospheric readings and damage reports.

"Atmosphere is thin but breathable," she announced, squinting at the readout. "Gravity slightly higher than Drexian standard. Outside temperature is cold. Really cold."

"Communications?" Vyk’s voice was tight.

Ariana tapped a sequence on the panel, watching the response with bated breath. After a moment, she nodded. "The SOS went through before we hit. They know our position."

A collective exhale of relief swept through the cockpit. Help would come, eventually. The question was whether we could afford to wait for it.

My gaze drifted to the cockpit glass. At least, what remained of it. Spider-web cracks obscured much of the view, but I could make out enough to confirm we'd landed in the desolate landscape I'd glimpsed during our descent. The sky was slate gray, and the horizon was distorted by what appeared to be clouds swirling in lazy eddies. The ground itself seemed to be covered in murky fog.

"Weapons check," Vyk ordered, already moving toward the storage lockers. "We need to establish a defensive perimeter."

Torq followed, his expression grim. "And then?"

The question hung in the air, unaddressed as Vyk and Torq began distributing weapons. I accepted a blaster, checking the charge automatically as my mind calculated odds and outcomes. We'd come to rescue Sasha and Tivek's brother. We couldn’t abandon that mission now, even if the odds had changed.

I made my way to Ariana, who remained fixated on the control panel, her brow furrowed in concentration. "What's our status?" I asked quietly.

"Bad," she replied without looking up. "Primary systems are fried. Life support is running on auxiliary power. If help doesn't arrive within three days, we'll be breathing vacuum."

I peered through the cracked viewport again, trying to get a better sense of our surroundings. The landscape stretched out before us, bleak and forbidding. Were we near the craggy mountains we'd glimpsed during descent or on the edge of a toxic, bubbling swamp? Between the shattered glass and the fog hugging the ground, it was hard to tell.

"Something's wrong," Ariana whispered suddenly, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she pulled up new readings. "This can't be right."

"What readings?" I asked, a knot of dread forming in my stomach.

Ariana turned to me, her eyes wide with disbelief and the first real fear I'd seen in them since we'd begun this mission.

"The readings that tell me our ship is sinking."

Chapter

Seven

Tivek

Relief flooded through me as I watched the others move about the cabin. We were alive, which was a minor miracle considering our plummet through the atmosphere. My gaze drifted to Morgan as she made her way toward Ariana. She seemed steady and calm, betraying no lingering discomfort from the way I'd thrown myself over her during the crash. Had I been too protective? Too possessive? If so, she gave no indication.

Maybe she didn’t remember. Was it wrong to hope that the woman had short-term amnesia?

I wished I could send a secure transmission to my handler, but the ship's systems were damaged, and even if they weren't, using Shadow channels this close to a Kronock facility would be violating every protocol that had been drilled into me. I'd have to trust that Admiral Zoran would receive Ariana's SOS and contact the Shadows.

Zoran. A smile tugged at my lips despite our dire circumstances. To the rest of the academy, we were the imposing Admiral and his quiet adjunct. Only in private did those masks slip away, and we could be two colleagues and two friends, working as equals to protect the academy and, by extension, the Drexian Empire.

How many nights had we spent in his private study, the fire crackling in the stone hearth as we poured over intelligence reports and debated strategy? The warmth of that space, with its leather chairs and shelves of ancient texts, seemed impossibly distant now. I could almost smell the Noovian whiskey he favored and taste the bitter spice of it on my tongue.