The comm screen stayed a fuzzy gray and white, the speakers hissing and spitting. A garbled, feminine, almost childlike voice came through, repeating the same plea for help, over and over. Whoever it was, she was in desperate trouble. The eerie, penetrating terror in the tone set my nerves on edge, making me shiver. Looking around, I could see my unease reflected in both Pandora and Bashrik’s expressions.

Navan, Angie, and Lauren came running in, their eyes wide with alarm, their faces turning up to the still-blank screen, as if that might offer some answers. So far, it was only serving to concern everyone further, with each repetition of the softly spoken, fearful “help.”

“What’s going on?” Navan strode up to the blinking monitors, standing over Bashrik’s shoulder.

“We need to find out where it’s coming from.” Pandora’s hands were dancing across the control panel, her eyes narrowed in concentration. To see her on edge made my own anxiety worse. “Speak to her—find out where she is! There’s something jamming the signal. I’m struggling to find her.”

Navan leaned against the comm panel. “Where are you?”

“I’m at—” the small voice replied, the distortion cutting her off before she could finish.

“You’re breaking up. Could you repeat that for us?” he pressed, his voice calm and steady.

“I can see… then… just black…” she tried again, the message dipping out every couple of seconds.

“You’re doing great. What can you see? Can you tell us again?” Bashrik chimed in. “We’re coming to help you. You just need to give us some idea of where you are.” The two brothers stared up at the empty screen, as though the person to whom the frightened voice belonged would appear any moment.

“There are big—” the voice tried again, but it was no good; the line wouldn’t hold.

“Go on, what can you see? What big things can you see?” Bashrik continued, his face a mask of determination.

“Crushing… all around… everything… couldn’t get away…” the voice replied.

I thought of the field of debris we’d just come through. “Do you think those chunks of space junk might have anything to do with this distress call?” I asked, wondering if this terrified person had been on a ship that hadn’t been so lucky in getting through the mess.

“Could be, yeah,” Pandora replied, her tone distracted.

Another thought came to me. “Depending what those chunks of metal were made from, they might be interfering with the message. If they’re particularly radioactive or conductive, then the signal might be bouncing around between them all,” I said, recalling what I’d learned in school. I moved up to the control panel where Pandora sat.

“Did you pinpoint the location of the distress call?” Angie asked, coming to stand beside me.

Pandora shook her head. “I’m trying, but I think Riley is right. There’s something blocking the signal. As long as that interference remains, I can’t find her with the ship’s sensors,” she muttered, palpably frustrated.

“Is it coming from Zai?” Lauren asked, peering over my other shoulder, until the three of us were crowding around Pandora.

“It’s hard to tell,” Pandora replied, her hands still moving at a rapid pace across the control panel. A flashing circle drifted across the screen, scanning for any sign of the distress call’s location, but no matter where it went, it didn’t stop. It couldn’t find her, just as Pandora had said. All signals were jammed.

And then, for a single, bittersweet moment, it hovered in one place, flashing green for half a second before resuming its red flash across the screen. Still, it was enough to give me hope, and I squinted at the place where it had gone green.

“Where is that?” I asked, pointing at the spot.

Pandora shrugged. “No idea. Why?”

“Didn’t you see that green flash?”

Pandora sighed irritably, glaring at the still-red circle. “With all this interference, there’s no way we can take any blips as a certainty.”

“You’re sure it’s not Zai?” Lauren cut in, her eyes fixed on the spot where my finger was pointing.

“It’s not. Zai is here.” Pandora pointed at another spot on the panel, where a very clear dot represented the Draconian planet. The place where I had seen the circle flash had no dots representing any planets, just a block of vacant black.

“Can you hear me?” Navan asked. The screen was flickering wildly. “Hello? Are you still reading me?” A moment later, the screen went black, the signal severed.

“I’ll get the connection back up,” Bashrik called, darting behind the control panel once more. Whoever the caller was, she was in trouble, and the more she’d told us, the worse my fear had become. We needed to get to her as soon as possible.

“Don’t bother,” Pandora announced, halting the scanner and returning the screen to the plotted course toward Zai. “It’s not part of our mission. Return to your tasks,” she instructed coldly.

I looked down at her, horrified by the words that had just come out of her mouth. I knew she was an efficient, frosty creature with a military mind, but she wasn’t heartless. She had proven that in what she’d said to me, barely fifteen minutes before, when she’d declared her desire to have a democratic planet, where everyone was equal. Then again, we had a job to do. What did one life matter to her when there was power at stake?

“That person needs our help, Pandora. We can’t just leave them out there,” I snapped.

“We stick to the mission. Return to your jobs,” Pandora said, her tone flat.

“That sounded like a child! You’re telling me you would leave a child to some horrible fate because you can’t be bothered to alter our course a tiny bit?” I shot back. “Can you really face having a child’s death on your conscience, knowing you could have done something about it? I know I can’t.”

Pandora shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said simply, apparently considering the discussion over.

“Well, I don’t care what you’ve had to do in the past, Pandora. We have to try again. Get the connection back!” I shouted, as Bashrik continued his work.

Pandora stood sharply. “Touch that control panel in any way that is not navigational, and I will throw you in the isolation chamber for insubordination,” she warned, and Bashrik’s hands froze instantly. “We don’t have time for any diversions. We are on a tight schedule as it is, and we must stick to our mission. Think of me as the bad guy if you must, but my word is final!”

“That person needs our help,” I pressed, softening my tone. “We don’t know what happened, but shouldn’t we at least find out?”

Pandora sighed. “There is no point, and we don’t have the luxury of time. We’ll get there, and it will already be too late—I know how these things work. Yes, it’s sad, but there is nothing we can do. We don’t even know where this child is. A momentary flash on a scanner means nothing, Riley. If you continue to stir up mutinous thoughts, I will put you in the isolation chamber as well,” she said icily.

With a reluctant slump in his shoulders, Bashrik closed the screen he’d been working on, returning it to the navigational program instead. I couldn’t believe we weren’t going to do any more to try to rescue the poor girl who’d begged for our help, but what say did I have? Pandora was the leader here, and any step against her would result in a long stay in deafening silence.

“And here I was, almost convinced you had a heart,” I hissed, turning to walk out of the cockpit. Pandora’s voice called me back, much to my irritation.

“Riley, get back here!”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “I thought we were supposed to get back to our tasks?” I challenged.

She smirked. “You are, but I’m not finished informing you of what I require between now and our landing, which includes your weaponry training,” she declared, though I was pretty sure she just wanted to stop my dramatic exit.

“What about us?” Angie interjected, waving a hand between herself and Lauren. “Shouldn’t we learn the ship’s weaponry, too, just in case?” Angie cast me a conspiratorial glance. She was trying to rescue me from suffering alone under Pandora’s teachings.

Pandora barked a laugh. “Riley here has military training. You do not. Teaching the two of you would require me to explain things at an elementary level, something we simply don’t have time for.”

Lauren crossed her arms, and Angie looked like she was about to retort, when Pandora spoke again.

“We’ll need to prepare for our arrival on Zai soon, and that involves rehearsing our negotiation strategies. We cannot go in there without knowing exactly what we’re going to say. Well, when I say ‘we,’ I really mean ‘you all.’”

“What?” Navan asked tersely, evidently displeased by her decision to cut the rescue attempt off, too.

“It has come to my attention that the Draconians may try to steal the Vanquish, given its origins as a Vysanthean warship. They are not exactly friendly toward us, and I can’t have this ship falling into their hands. And so, I have made the very difficult decision to stay aboard, in case that should arise,” she explained, prompting a sour laugh from Navan’s lips.

“You mean you’re staying on board to save your own ass from any potential plague still lingering on the planet’s surface,” he muttered, folding his arms across his chest.

Pandora smiled cruelly. “Am I really so transparent?”

My little bubble of hope exploded in a burst of stark reality. If Pandora was staying on the ship, out of harm’s way, then our plan to let the plague take care of her was thwarted. Plus, if she was so determined to stay aboard the Vanquish, that meant the threat had to be greater than we’d first anticipated. I thought back to what she’d said about the last mission to come to Zai. She’d mentioned they’d had suits with them but had never finished the story. Perhaps she knew something we didn’t, when it came to how much those suits could protect the wearer from the plague.

I turned to Navan, feeling desperately concerned for his welfare. If the hazmat suits couldn’t fully ward off the disease, then he and Bashrik were at a high risk of contracting the virus. I mean, I still wasn’t fully sure what the plague did to coldbloods, but I knew it wasn’t good. Besides, we couldn’t know, with absolute certainty, that humans were immune, either. What if we all went down to the planet and contracted this mystery disease? What if we all wound up dead, suit or no suit?

“Surely, the Draconians won’t speak to us unless we have someone of rank with us?” I said, trying to find a persuasive angle. I wasn’t certain what the Draconians knew of Vysanthean rank and power, but I was fairly confident they’d be able to spot a high-ranking officer.

“That’s why I will have to run through negotiation tactics with you all prior to landing. Never fear, you will all be expert diplomats by the time I’m finished with you,” she assured us, her eyes flashing me a warning stare.

I smiled sweetly. “I doubt the Draconians will try to steal our ship. They’re pacifists—they aren’t likely to do anything that might start a fight,” I reasoned, glancing at my friends for their support.

“That’s true. From what I’ve read about the Draconians, they’re a quiet and dignified race. I doubt they’d stoop as low as stealing an alien ship,” Lauren added.

“Why don’t you come with us for the first meeting? Test the waters, see how you feel about them after you’ve met them. We’re all in this together, after all,” Angie said in a wry tone, evidently still sour about Pandora’s earlier comments.

“My guarding of the ship is nonnegotiable,” Pandora reiterated. “We can go over specific negotiation strategies later. For now, return to your tasks—except for you, Riley. You and I are going to review the cannons, in case anything happens to our dear coldblood companions and you are forced to fight with me.”

I glowered, wishing I could take the blaster cannons and explode the smirk right off her smug face. What kind of monster left a scared child to die? A coldblood—that is what kind of monster did that. In typical coldblood fashion, she had proven to me that she only cared about her own selfish needs. Other species did not matter.

Now, I was beginning to think her earlier apology was nothing but a fluke. After all, Pandora was a woman with a mercenary spirit. She had no loyalty to anyone but herself.