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18:40
“Commander?”
Kate Daniels looked up from the datapad in her hand to fix dark eyes on the navigation officer. “Yes, Lt. Pope?”
“I’ve scanned Primos as you requested.”
When the lieutenant trailed off, licking his already cracked lips, she waved a hand. “And?” Her forceful tone must have spurred him to find his voice.
“There aren’t any life signs, Commander.”
She rose from her seat, taking a step toward the Nav station without thought. “What?”
Dillon shook his head, stirring his overly long brown hair. “I’m detecting some movement on the surface of the planet, but there aren’t any measurable human life signs.”
Upon realizing she had been charging to the Nav station, Kate froze. She struggled to maintain a calm exterior. “According to GeneTech’s representative, there should be more than two hundred workers and their families down there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” His eyes slipped to the datapad by his terminal, as if unconsciously reminding her he had been fully briefed, like all the crew of the Remmick.
Her cool façade cracked enough to let her voice betray a trace of anger. “Get Beck Randall to the bridge PDQ, Lt. Pope. GeneTech’s company rep has some explaining to do.”
As Dillon reached for the intercom button, a roaring sound filled the ship, followed by a vibration that shook Kate off her feet. She grasped the base of her chair as the ship continued to shudder. “Preston, what’s happening?”
The pilot was frantically trying to control the ship’s movements. She didn’t look up when replying. “Our main engine is overheating.”
“Shut it down.”
“Yes, ma—”
Before Trina could complete her sentence, a loud boom announced the engine had overheated beyond its endurance. The sound reverberated through the ship, enclosed in the titanium walls separating them from the cold silence of space.
The intercom beeped, followed by the engineer’s voice. “Commander, the main engine has exceeded heat limits and blown the exhaust ports. I had to shut down the reactor to prevent a meltdown.”
Kate finally gained her feet and walked over to her chair, depressing the intercom button. “Imari, I need to know what’s happening back there.”
“I don’t know. The engine hit a critical point before sensors detected a problem. I didn’t have time to cool it down.”
“Goddammit.” Kate ran a hand through her long hair, worn in a braid as her Nez Perce ancestors had done. “Do you think it was sabotage?”
Imari hesitated, and her silence offered her answer, despite her more diplomatic words. “It’s too soon to say, Commander.”
“What is the ship capable of without the main engine?”
“The auxiliary engines will give us steering control, but are malfunctioning too. Without power, the Remmick will assume a decaying orbit until we hit Primos’s atmosphere. We have to set down while we still can, before the auxiliary engines go as well.”
Kate swore again, though under her breath this time. The mission’s protocol called for observation from a distance, to see what the GeneTech people were really up to, before landing on the planet and announcing their presence. Well, the best laid plans, and all that. “See what you can do to preserve the auxiliary engines.”
“Yes, ma’am.” A brief crackle of static was the only indication the engineer had signed off.
Kate gestured to the pilot. “Preston, prepare to land on the surface.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
With what she hoped was more composure than she felt, Kate returned to her chair, sitting erect. “And get Randall up here. I want to know what to expect.”
They were on the dark side of the planet, so the screen offered nothing but an endless vista of space, broken only by one side of a darkened planet, with two shadowy rings, and no moons. Unconsciously, Kate clenched her hands around the arms of her chair, betraying anxiety at their landing. She had expected to find things not as GeneTech presented them on Primos, but her gut told her the situation was even worse than she had anticipated. Something didn’t add up, and the only man with the answer was Beck Randall. Since GeneTech paid his salary, she didn’t trust him at all.