Thanson could rarely recall being so glad to see a docking bay. The door had barely shut behind them when someone grabbed Kazra’s arm and yanked him aside. “Ferdow, thank the stars! Tell me you got a message out.”

Left with the full weight of the injured man, Thanson staggered a step and caught himself. The huge metal expanse of the bay served as an echo chamber, amplifying the sounds until it felt like they were beating against his brain. Between the miners and the station crew, the evacuation procedures should have been relatively well coordinated, but he couldn’t tell if anyone was running the show or not.

Thanson was only half-listening to Kazra’s terse explanation, but there was no mistaking the disappointment, bordering on fear, in the reply. “I’d hoped . . . well, it doesn’t matter. But we’re really fucked here if we don’t get help fast.” The station employee’s noticeably trembling hand indicated the room. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s a mess.”

“And not to add to it, but we’ve got a sick crew member here.” Thanson eased the man down until he was slumped against the wall, head lolling.

Kazra’s friend laughed, an ugly edge to the sound. “Nothing new there. Take a look around you.”

Thanson scanned the bay, turning slowly and pulling out the details he’d missed before. There were bodies scattered around the floor, but few showed signs of the trauma expected from an explosion. Some of them seemed to be restrained, arms looped behind them, legs tied together.

Kazra beat him to the question. “What the hell is going on here, Bannon? Do you really have people tied up? Were they saboteurs?”

“Nobody’s clear on what caused the explosion, but we don’t think they’re to blame.” Bannon’s face stretched into something that tried to look sarcastic but melted into terror, head jerking toward the man they’d brought in. “Might want to get him tied up, too. If he’s got what the rest of them have, he’ll be trying to rip your face off in a few minutes.”

Thanson felt a twinge of sympathy for Kazra, who did a slow assessment of the room, obviously at a loss for words. “What do they have?”

Bannon shrugged, the sheen on his upper lip more evident. “Fever of some sort. Whether it’s delirium making them violent or something else is anyone’s guess.”

“Isn’t there a station doctor here?” Thanson asked. Kazra and Bannon both turned to stare at him like the wall had suddenly decided to talk, and he shook his head, exasperated. “Someone with medical training?” It seemed a logical enough question.

“Doc Spila hasn’t reported in, but she was down in the storage bay doing an inventory of supplies when the power first went off.” Bannon had answered him, but stared at Kazra, whose expression drew tighter. “Don’t know if she was on her way here when the hull blew or not.”

“The storage bay is gone,” Kazra said. We’ll have to assume she isn’t going to make it here soon enough to oversee triage.”

Or at all, Thanson guessed, but that seemed to be the line neither Bannon nor Kazra was keen to cross. Kazra met his eyes for a second, before putting Bannon back on the hot seat. “What about station command?”

Bannon laughed, eyes wild. “You’re looking at it. Commander Sorjen hasn’t turned up, and Vice Commander Praiq . . .” Thanson followed Bannon’s guilty look to a far corner of the bay, where a pile of bodies were tossed like trash. “We started tying people up after the first round of patients went feral. Praiq tore someone’s eye—” The green tinge to Bannon’s face wasn’t helped by the pale yellow-ichor emergency lights, and though the rest of the sentence went unspoken, Thanson felt a little ill himself.

Kazra surveyed the chaos again, thumbnail resting against his teeth in a gesture Thanson had teased him unmercifully for in their youth. “Mother of stars, it’s barely been an hour since this started. Was there an outbreak in the infirmary?”

Bannon’s pallor didn’t fade, but the answer seemed stronger somehow. “Nothing. Not so much as a cold. The first people to show signs were coming in from near the passenger bays, and some of them were already feverish when they got here.” A slightly more frantic edge crept back in as he waved at the staircases climbing the full height of the cargo hold, each level filled with narrow escape pod doorways. “If you can’t guarantee someone is coming, loading everyone into the pods and abandoning the station isn’t going to do us a damn bit of good. We’ve got no idea how it’s spreading, and we could wind up trapping people in pods with the infected.”

A harsh, guttural scream erupted from one of the bound patients, and Thanson flinched. The three of them turned their heads to eye the door at the opposite end of the hold, far from the infected and bound. The main cargo bay was cavernous, given the size of Station 43, but Thanson had the feeling it was going to feel less roomy as more people fell to the infection. The rebreather he’d used earlier bumped against his hip, nestled in the pocket of the jacket. He wondered if keeping the filters on would have saved them from infection. No way of knowing now, without a proper quarantine, and with the air scrubbers running at low capacity.

“We’ll need two rooms. Healthy people in here, with access to the escape pods, and the infected moved to the next compartment.” Kazra’s low musing seemed lost on Bannon, and Thanson weighed the pallor, the sweat, and the wandering mind against the possibility of infection. The odds didn’t come down in Bannon’s favor.

Kazra knocked Bannon’s shoulder. “Bannon, get over your shock and fucking focus!”

Bannon’s response came like it was on a satellite delay. “Right. We should round up anyone who looks able and get them moved.”

“We should find suits for everyone, too,” Thanson said. “If the air gets too dirty, the rebreathers in a suit could help.” Despite Bannon’s narrow-eyed suspicion, Thanson pushed the issue. “And anything we can use for restraints.”

Bannon jerked his chin in Thanson’s direction. “Who the hell are you?”

He waited to see if Kazra would answer before extending his hand. “Thanson Nez. I’m nobody on this station. Being the son of a colonial sheriff, though, you pick up a few things about crisis management.”

Bannon gave no indication of returning the friendly gesture. “We’ve got the problem in hand, Mr. Nez.”

Thanson let his hand drop. “It’s less about the problems you’ve got, and more about the problems you’re going to have.” A commotion broke out to their left, illustrating Thanson’s point in gruesome detail when a shrill scream ended with the abrupt, unmistakable hum of a blast gun being fired.

“I did that to Praiq.” Bannon’s entire body shook with the confession, forcing Thanson to revise his opinion on infection and put another tick in the “shock” column.

Kazra grabbed Thanson by the elbow, turning him away from Bannon for a second. “We’re wasting time. You think he’s sick or gun-shy?”

“Maybe both, but definitely shocky. Throw him into a task and find someone else functional to help us.”

Kazra transferred his attention to Bannon. “Can you get your shit together long enough to deal with this, or do I have to find Kire?”

Bannon’s harsh laughter startled him—tense, but not hysterical. “Kire. Fuck you, Ferdow. Kire. We might as well take turns jumping out the airlock.” He took a deep breath and straightened up. “All right. Injured in here. Obviously we’ll have to monitor them, and if they turn the corner, we’ll bind them and pass them through into the quarantine room.”

Kazra responded in kind, speaking to Bannon like the stand-in head of the station rather than a friend. “Took a look at what little I could find in the way of damage reports, and it seems like there might be enough of the main system left to cobble something together. I’ll try to get another distress call out, maybe even get some power back to the environmental systems.”

Thanson wasn’t used to seeing Kazra offer help without pretending it would have a price. Back on Corve, he’d known a Kazra who wouldn’t risk offering anything for fear of being humiliated. Stars knew, the Ferdow clan had never missed an opportunity to belittle the hopes of their favorite son. The change was unexpected, but inspiring.

Bannon, either used to it or still in shock, nodded once before waving a hand at the room around them. “Best get this in hand, then, and we’ll take it from there.” Something behind Thanson caught his attention, and Thanson winced at the bellow that followed. “Kire, you land-bound idiot, what are you doing?” The sudden clatter and the ring of something hitting the metal deck was followed by a quick, guilty-sounding apology. Bannon’s raised eyebrows were directed at Kazra. “Fucking Kire. Come on, Ferdow, help me get everyone back in line.”

Thanson started to offer his help, but Kazra cut him off with the press of a hand against his solar plexus. “Don’t. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Everyone here except you is station crew or part of the mining team. Things get any worse, you know the jaundiced eye falls on a stranger. Tuck yourself away for a few minutes, and I’ll come find you.” Thanson didn’t expect the smile, genuine and full of a dark humor. “You’ve always been good at keeping yourself hidden.”

Kazra moved past him, joining Bannon and yelling orders Thanson was surprised to see people jumping at. Given that CommCorp was a civilian company, Kazra had no authority over anyone. Bannon didn’t seem to mark the distinction, and neither did anyone else. Thanson’s mouth twisted for a second before he did as he’d been told. He slipped into the shadow beside a stack of polycrates, trying to ignore the lingering warmth in his chest, suspiciously centered under the memory of Kazra’s simple touch.

Between himself and Bannon, they managed to force a little order on the situation, though it was every bit as bad as Kazra had feared, if not worse. The injured were laid out, getting what triage they could manage. Pragmatism told him that the able restraining the sick was the right choice, but he would have fought just as hard as they did if it had been him in the grip of a fever and about to be left in lockdown.

“I’m not an animal. You’re not shoving me in there, trussed up and unable to defend myself.” Riella shook with fatigue, only upright because she’d propped herself against a trash bin. Her short hair dripped sweat, and her tongue, as always, dripped acid. “How’s about you lend me a blast gun, and I’ll hold everyone back if they get loose.”

Kazra pointed at the tethered group of people, some of them straining, others slavering and growling like water-phobic dogs. “Everyone infected is going to be bound, Riella. We’ll watch to make sure you’re safe. Would you rather everyone was loose, so you can rip each other apart?”

“I’d rather you shut up.” Her eyes flashed as she pushed away from her support, turning her back on all of them and hunching her shoulders. “Give me a minute.” Her steps measured, she approached the group of bound fever victims.

They’d already restrained two more people, with more to come. Of the three-hundred-some people on board, maybe two hundred and fifty had made it to the checkpoint. Nearly a quarter of them were obviously sick, and a few, like Bannon, seemed to be hovering somewhere on the fringe.

Unable to follow the simplest of instructions, Thanson had stuck mostly to the edge of things, occasionally popping up to turn over more material for makeshift bindings. Kazra scanned the dark bay, seeking out the solid, unlikely shape of the man who’d lived under his skin long after they’d stopped dreaming of the same future.

Someone slammed into his back, and instinct propelled him to duck as he tried to roll his attacker off his shoulder.

“You’ve got no right!” Riella’s words clawed as sharply as her fingers, nails hooked into his neck. “You’re nothing, nothing.”

Kazra tried to shake her, and her teeth grazed his ear. Another try, back arching as he shoved up with his forearms, and she tipped, her balance precarious for a second before another person’s bulk rolled over both of them. The clean edge of panic struck like a knife, obliterating the present for a second as he grappled with the past. He fought harder to get away, to not be crushed, tasting the heart of Corve like a gritty flashback on his tongue. Before he could cry out for help, the weight was gone, and Riella’s scream was cut off by a heavy crash.

He scrambled to his feet, turning to find Thanson crouched over her, pinning her wrists together over her head. The blood smeared on Thanson’s forehead matched a similar streak on hers. “Mother of stars, someone get her restrained before she wakes up,” Thanson snapped.

That much, Kazra could manage. Knocked half-senseless, she barely struggled. He was thrown by the sense of familiarity when he saw the split at the edge of Thanson’s hairline leaking sluggish blood. He reached up to thumb it away without thinking, his touch as gentle as it had always been in similar circumstances. Thanson looked caught for a moment, before ducking away and brushing his hand aside.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to relive your days as my nursemaid.”

Bannon’s arrival with a twist of strap normally used for cargo lockdowns distracted them both, enough to let the moment pass whether they wanted it to or not. The adrenaline pounding through Kazra’s head hit him in the back of his teeth, a bite deep in his jaw. Now, with the eyes of prey, it was easier to see the things he hadn’t wanted to: how strained the cords around some of the bound were, how there was blood coating Vesif’s cheeks. How Riella’s angry howls had ignited the same from the sick who’d been quiet.

How, behind Bannon and Thans, the glitter-bright eyes of the people who’d been burned out by the fever seemed to catch his shift. How a few who’d been on the same ragged edge as Riella had crossed over. How a few people were melting into the shadows, like animals on the hunt.

Kazra caught Thanson’s wrist, gaze never leaving the milling threat too near them as he spoke quietly to Bannon. “We need to get everyone healthy out of here, now. I’m going for the main comm array, left. You and Thanson get everyone into the next sector, right side.”

Bannon nodded, glancing at the long expanse of docking bay between them and the right exit. Luck or fear had left most of the survivors huddled as far from the burnouts as possible. Kazra could only hope it would be enough of an advantage.

“If we look like the easier target, we might draw more attention.” Thanson crouched down, grabbing Riella under one arm and casting a glance toward the chamber they’d been moving the burnouts to. “We can’t leave her tied up in here with them, with no way to defend herself. I know there isn’t time to move everyone, but we can at least help her.”

“You should stay with—”

The stubborn jut of Thanson’s jaw seemed strange without a bruise to adorn it, though it was as annoying as it had ever been when they were teenagers. “I need to contact the Cohort. I’m coming with you.”

“None of us is getting out of here if we don’t do it now,” Bannon whispered, a sharp reprimand. “Go.”

They did, slow enough not to outpace Bannon as he returned to the huddled group of survivors. Slow enough to make the skin between Kazra’s shoulder blades crawl. “Can you get a hand under her knee? We need—”

It wasn’t Thanson who cut him off this time, but a feral growl and a flash of motion between the stacked crates. Riella’s head lolled in that direction, her eyes slitting open. Thanson waved him toward the door, scooping her up. “I’ve got her. Open it.”

They’d already disengaged the lock to move the burnouts into the next chamber, so all Kazra had to do was shoulder the hatch open. He held the door, letting Thanson and Riella squeeze past. The chamber beyond them was filled with the bound, but it didn’t appear that anyone had gotten loose. He was about to step through the door when he was grabbed from behind, hands closing around his ankles and waist so fast he barely had time to grab the edge of the hatch to keep himself from being yanked back into the docking bay.

Thanson heard his startled grunt and slid an arm around him. The awkward embrace turned almost painful as Kazra did his best to shake off the person holding his feet and Thanson tried to pull him through the doorway into the quarantine chamber. Thanson leaned around him, and seconds later the resistance was gone. Overbalanced by the lighter gravity, they fell forward into the chamber.

Kazra rolled, climbing back to his feet over Riella’s body as Thanson did the same, coming up from the deck with a Flickinger in hand. Another shot took down the miner trying to follow them through the door. Doing his best to keep out of Thanson’s line of fire, Kazra put his back into shifting the hatch door shut, hauling hard on the manual lock-out wheel, which probably hadn’t been used since the station was built.

“Are you okay?” Thanson’s touch passed over him like a ghost, haunting his skin and raising gooseflesh in its wake. A few rough patches in his uniform were the worst of it. They both ignored the tacky red fingerprints pressed into the gray fabric.

“I’m fine. You? Riella?” Kazra glanced in her direction, but the woman on the floor bore little resemblance to the sharp-tongued equipment engineer he’d played cards with a few times a month. Personality burned out by the fever that seemed to have broken, she tracked them both with hooded eyes, anger making her strain at the bindings.

Thanson stepped in behind her and tugged her close enough to lean against the wall, which had to be more comfortable than being tipped sideways on the metal grating. “Where do we go from here?” Thanson lifted his gaze to meet Kazra’s, slipping the Flickinger into a pocket.

“Keep heading through the segments until we get to the station core, and hope there’s some chance of rigging a signal strong enough to matter. I don’t know if I’ll be able to manually boot the comm system, or if any of my satellite relays will be within range if I can.” The oppressive noises of the people around them cast a hush over Kazra’s voice. “Come on, if you’re so determined to follow me.”

Maybe the intervening years had made them strangers, or maybe Thanson still knew him better than anyone. Either way, the silence stood between them, his guilt unchallenged. He should have pushed on the requisition for an orbiting beacon. He should have run more catastrophic failure simulations. Over three hundred people were going to die, and the only reason he’d decided to make a run toward the systems core was that he couldn’t face seeing it happen, knowing—

“It’s not your fault, Kazra. None of this is your fault.” The price of being known was being caught out, and he wasn’t in the mood.

“No. It’s yours.” Thanson’s family might have preferred fists, but Kazra’s had always fallen to words, and he’d learned the lesson well. Cut someone down, hurt them enough, and they’d draw back before they could undo him. Three words bought him a silence punctuated by the cries of the fevered and fallen, and a hesitance to the footsteps behind him as he turned away from those he couldn’t help. Three words bought him the chance to run, and Kazra took it, albeit with careful steps, further into the unknown.