“We’ve been invited to visit with Trid at his home.” Luther’s voice was quiet.
I sensed something was bothering Luther. “You’re acting like that’s a bad thing.”
He glanced over his shoulders. “It’s not that. These people are… different. And I swear the Stin are watching through R11. I’m not a big fan of robots on a good day, but R11 was the best of them. He seems off lately, and I haven’t heard a bad joke in hours.”
Jade peered over my shoulder with a grin. “I’ll check him when we’re back. How long do we have until we meet with Trid? I was hoping for some dinner.”
My stomach growled at the thought of food. It had been half a day since I’d eaten a protein bar on the Racer.
“Swing by soon. Zonrial said she’ll bring us over,” Luther said.
“Done. See you soon.” I shoved the Tab into my pocket. “Where were we?”
Jade started walking back in the direction we’d come from. The residence lights were on, and I could spot our rooms a few blocks ahead.
“We were discussing Holland. He must be so scared,” Jade said. “He’s just a kid.”
We passed what I assumed was a young Darlor couple, and they stared, speaking quietly to one another.
“Holland may be young, but he’s been through a lot. I know what it’s like to lose someone you care about, but he lost his mother when he was a baby. I can’t imagine how difficult that was on him.” I remembered hearing that Obelisk had gone missing, the entire crew presumed dead. A part of me had died that day.
“He seemed well-acclimated. Holland has a good head on his shoulders,” Jade said.
“But he’d just learned his mother was alive. He’s smart, but he’s also emotional and impulsive like his father. You should have seen Bryson during that last meeting. He’s not going to stop until he has Catarina in his arms.” Seventeen years. We’d witnessed the locked room Bryson Kelley had in the underwater SeaTech facility. It was a shrine in her honor.
“Then let’s hope Holland is alive when we reach the Outpost.” Jade peered toward the sky as we strolled the grounds, taking our time to return to the residence hall.
“He will be.” I was sure of it. Because if I let myself think he might be dead, I’d lose focus. Holland was too young to die. I couldn’t give up on him.
“I still struggle to believe that the Velibar manipulated Preston Lewis as well as Commander Garret Breaker. Those guys were heroes. My parents told me stories about Garret. He was soft-spoken, with a quiet intelligence about him. He was even in the running to captain the mission until Preston asked to go.”
I hadn’t heard that before. “Really? Don’t forget about the message we received from Preston.” The words rang though my mind as I thought about them. I am sorry. Arlo, forgive me. There was no choice. Do not trust…
Who was I not supposed to trust?
One of the tall green Kvan men was stationed at the doors, and he opened them as we arrived.
“Thank you,” I told him, but didn’t get a response.
Varn, Aster, and Jinx emerged the moment we entered the building, and Jinx rushed over. “What a day, Arlo. Can you believe this place? Refuge. I always dreamed of a city like this, but even in my most altered states, I never pictured it to be so… wild.” The conspiracy theorist was obviously enjoying this. Jinx’s beard was growing back, and his eyes retained some of their jumpiness.
Aster looked anything but pleased. “I still don’t like it, Hawk,” she told me. “They didn’t return my gun yet.”
“I’ll ask tonight.”
“Aster, you need to chill out a bit,” Varn told her. I cringed as she spun on him, shoving her forearm over his throat.
“You hired me to be the muscle on your Racer. Fire at will, defend you. How am I going to be effective if our own allies keep us from carrying weapons?” She let him go, and Varn rubbed his neck.
“You call that protecting me? I’d be better off teaming up with one of those green insect things.” He pointed to the exit.
Zonrial and Luther stepped out of the stairwell, and my trusted crewmate made eye contact. He looked concerned.
“Do you mind if we have a minute?” I asked the blue-skinned woman. She didn’t reply as she stepped into the night air.
“What’s the issue, Luther?”
“It’s R11. He tried to contact home base like you asked, but no response.” Luther leaned closer and whispered, “It’s like there’s no receiver on the other end.”
“Where’s R11 now?” Jade asked.
“On Pilgrim. He attempted to send a communication remotely, and when it failed, he went to the source. We tested it with the Refuge link, and everything checked out fine.” Luther didn’t get nervous often, and it was a bad look on him. “I don’t have a great feeling about this.”
Jade went for the exit. “I’ll go check on R11.”
“Aster,” I said, “go with Jade. Contact me as soon as you find something.”
“You don’t think the Stin are blocking us from talking with home, do you?” Jinx asked.
“Maybe. They claim to trust us, but once we let them into R11, we may have given up more than we thought. They’re by far more advanced than our AI.” Jade was near the door, ready to bolt. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Good luck,” I said.
Aster seemed glad to have another goal, instead of heading over to Trid’s. I was so exhausted, I would have preferred to hang out at the Racer with them, then have a nap once we determined the problem. My stomach growled making it worse.
They left in a hurry, rushing for the Racer.
We’d been under constant communication with home, even sending computer-generated reports twice a day. Bryson had kept
