“We can access the panel to deliver food and such, Captain,” Lieutenant Hammersmith said. “But Vela has locked all other commands to the containment field.”

I stared at the little hole that had emerged in Camille’s cell in the brig and frowned.

“She’s in there until Vela says otherwise,” Hammersmith advised.

My eyes connected with Camille’s through the blue glow of the field.

“Ça va, Chief?” I asked.

“Oui, ça va, Capitaine,” she replied, smirking.

“What do you need?”

“What can I have?”

“All that is mine is yours,” I said, smirking.

Hammersmith cleared her throat from beside me. I arched my brow and looked toward my security chief.

“Perhaps a datapad to start with, Lieutenant,” I suggested.

“Yes, sir.” Hammersmith unlocked her own datapad and handed it through the slot to Camille.

“Thank you,” Camille said, gripping the datapad as if it were a lifeline.

“That’ll be all for now, Lieutenant,” I advised. “I’d like a private word with the commander.”

“Of course, Captain. There are guards outside the brig, but no one will disturb you.”

I nodded my head but didn’t watch the lieutenant leave. Camille stared back at me, waiting.

“A fine pickle, eh?” I said once the brig doors were closed.

“You English and your strange sayings.”

I smiled. “You love my strange sayings, Chief. Where would you be without them? Nothing to exclaim extravagantly over, then, eh?”

“You really wish for me to answer that?”

I shook my head, laughing, then pulled a chair over from Hammersmith’s desk and took a seat outside Camille’s cell.

“Is it wise to be here, sir?” Camille asked. She couldn’t sit. Vela hadn’t provided her with a chair or even a bed to perch upon. He was still very much in a snit with the chief and her isolated channel.

I waved my hand in the air like a Frenchman. “The bridge is in good hands.”

“That’s not the point, and you know it. Vela might lock you out.”

“From the sounds of it, he could simply swallow me whole even on the bridge, so there’s really not much point in restricting my movements to the flight deck.”

Camille looked worried but didn’t argue. Besides, I think she knew I couldn’t keep away. Not when I’d found out what had happened to her. It hadn’t been security who had beaten Camille up. It had been Vela. The idea that the AI had used the gel floor to torment her and take her datapad away had sent chills down my spine. I’d had to see her. I’d had to be here. In the brig with her. And nowhere else.

Neither of us said anything for a long time. And the silence wasn’t strained or unnatural; it was almost a comfort. I didn’t have to fill the void with Camille. I didn’t have to constantly be Captain of the Chariot. I could sometimes be a man who was very scared and needed to see the woman he was in love with.

“What are we going to do, Noah?” she finally asked.

“Will you sit with me, Camille?” I replied instead of answering. “I know it’s only the floor, but it upsets me seeing you standing when I’m sitting. And to tell you the truth, I’m exhausted.”

Her face softened, and she nodded her head, sinking to the floor in a graceful movement. I smiled to myself and then got off the chair, pushed it away, and sank to the floor as well. Camille shook her head, but I could see the laughter in her eyes. And the appreciation.

“So, what are we going to do?” I said. “I guess we wait. Vela holds all the cards. We just have to hope the lease is as good as we think it is. It certainly took many months to finalise back on Earth.”

“It’s as good as it can be,” Camille said. “But it’s the people, the last of humanity, that need to reach Vela. We need to reach Vela. We are more than words in a data file. Humanity is not something that can be summed up so easily.”

“No, it can’t. Just the fact that the world pulled together when faced with imminent annihilation proves how extraordinary humans are.”

“Survival is a strong motivator,” she agreed.

“Who did you leave behind?” The question shocked me as much as it did Camille. For some reason, we’d all subconsciously decided not to ask those types of questions. But I felt an undeniable desire to know everything about Camille Rey.

Had she left a lover? A husband? A, God forbid, child?

“My parents,” she said. “They are - were - in their seventies. Still very much full of life.” She stopped then because the words were too painful. Then she sucked in a breath and looked into the distance, eyes unfocused. “Cousins and the like. Friends. Good friends.”

Possibly a lover, then.

I grimaced.

“And you, Noah? Who did you leave behind?”

“A sister.” My throat constricted and I couldn’t say another word to save my life.

Camille looked at me and offered an understanding smile. It was our past. One we wouldn’t forget. But one we had to leave behind.

“What happens now?” she whispered.

I couldn’t look away from her. I couldn’t stop trying to absorb every little detail I could find. Her face; so beautiful, so finely made as if by the divine. Her hair; coming loose from her clip and begging to be touched, to be stroked, to be tucked behind her ear while I basked in her light. Her eyes; so full of emotion and fire and life.

Good God, I wanted this woman. Damn Vela and his paranoia. Damn the cell containment field. Damn the universe right now.

“We keep fighting,” I said. “We keep trying to convince Vela that Pavo is no threat and we need to stick together. Two AIs to calculate the jump points have to better than one, don’t they?”

“If you say so,” Camille said with a small smile.

“If only we knew what Pavo was whispering, then maybe we could offer Vela an alternate perspective. He’s blinded by his directive; a directive he isn’t certain is originating code. For all we know, it’s the bastardisation of an Anderson Universal command, brought about by the solar flare that took out his vessel.”

“I’d say that’s highly likely. I can see no other explanation from an engineering point of view.”

And I’d take Camille Rey’s engineering hypotheses over Vela’s wild guesses any day.

“He’s malfunctioning,” I said. “But so is Pavo. And as far as I’m aware, Jameson is working with his onboard AI. Despite the malfunction, they must have come to some agreement. One Jameson trusts.”

That scared and thrilled me because it meant there was hope. Even if right now, sitting on the gel floor outside Camille’s cell, hope seemed a distant fantasy.

“Would Jameson have foregone the lease agreement?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I doubt it, but even if he had, he’s an honourable man. Extremely so. I can’t imagine that he’d run a lawless ship. So, if he’s working with Pavo, he’d be working with him within certain Anderson Universal protocol requirements.”

“And Pavo is clearly fine with this.”

“I assume so. But how can we tell? We can’t communicate with Pavo or Jameson.”

I thumped my hand down on the gel floor in frustration. Only to have the gel floor warp and reshape itself, so my hand didn’t hurt with the effort expended. I stared down at the floor, which had reconfigured itself, and then looked up sharply at Camille. She was sitting forward, eyes on my still clenched fist.

Slowly, she raised her eyes to look directly at me.

I arched a brow and said, “It all boils down to whether Vela can accept our help and acknowledge his limitations.”

“And realise,” Camille added, “that we’re all in this together and we all want the same thing. Humanity’s survival.”

I held my breath. Camille was breathing quickly.

Then the containment field fell, and the walls and floor and ceiling in the brig pulsed green.

Green meant good.

Vela was back, and he’d given Camille a pardon.