Chapter 110

Chapter One Hundred Ten

On the display, black snake-like things slithered over the corpses of men and women. Those had been the rotting bodies Connor had dragged out of the ship a few days before, bodies now buried beneath the moss.

They’d been technicians and crew, not mercenaries. When the bugs had gotten inside, the fighting had been desperate and lopsided.

The gore, the bullet wounds: It hadn’t been malicious but part of the chaos.

Guilt tore at Connor, now wearing a clean outfit over his fresh-scrubbed skin. He felt alive, rejuvenated by the sweet water Elise had put in the cup, and the people on the screen were dead.

This had been their ship, their home.

Already, the air was cooling as the recycler rumbled.

Bright light reflected off the tears Elise knuckled away. “We found the airlock open. After grabbing a few things, we made a run for the camp. From there, we ended up in the ruins.”

Connor stopped the video. “And that’s where the others died?”

She nodded. “When those giant bugs quit chasing us, I thought we were safe.”

“Did you hear us the first time we came into the ruins?”

“I was sleeping at first. Hiding. I thought it was a dream. The gunfire…”

“You should have called out.”

“I heard the wings beating. That buzzing…” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I figured you would all die.”

Like Rudy and Drew, Connor thought.

Elise had done the right thing, staying hidden.

He poked through the security logs for distraction. “The ship was the Hudijin?”

“I think that was Dr. Chong’s doing. He said it was a fictional Chinese queen of some importance. I never figured out what.”

“So, he knew about the fake transponder and this being a stolen ship?”

“Suspected seems more appropriate. When someone offers to fund your research into something so groundbreaking as an unexplored planet, you don’t ask questions.”

“Is that normal for scientists?”

“I told you—we’re human. This was an opportunity we had to seize.”

Another progress bar—this one yellow—showed on the display, sitting at sixty percent.

Before Connor could ask, Elise tapped on the bar. The display showed a label, and she nodded. “That’s from one of the older ships. It shouldn’t be long now.”

Connor finished the water off. “I’m going to have the Moons rotate through the bathroom.”

“Good idea.”

When he told the Moons to take turns cleaning up, relief spread across their faces. They conducted a quick round of rock-paper-scissors before Tom hurried out of the cargo bay, beaming.

Tim grumbled under his breath and went back to staring at the airlock. “He always wins.”

“You ever think of trying something other than scissors?”

“Thirty-three percent chance of winning.”

“But he always plays rock.”

“The second I switch to paper, he’ll go to scissors. He’s just like that.”

Connor smiled. “Our guests still out there?”

“I haven’t heard anything for a couple hours.” The clone rolled his neck. “You think they might give up and go back to the ruins?”

“I thought they had when we left the woods.”

“If they’re out there, what do we do?”

Connor picked up one of the improvised grenades. “Toss a few of these at them. They won’t stick around if they’re being torn apart and can’t get to us.”

The Moon brother nodded but didn’t seem convinced.

Why would he be? The scorpions weren’t like anything they were familiar with. Assuming human behavior and motivations for them was stupid.

When Connor returned to the engineering section, Elise was playing another video.

She paused it and turned to him, pinching her lip. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“What?”

“Let me take it back to the beginning.”

At the start of the video, she pointed to a burst of static. “Okay, here? That’s corrupted data. The system’s rebuilding it, but it’s going to take time. It uses inference technology—comparing data from before and after the corruption, filling in the gaps with known data, then spreading out from there.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Even with our processors, it can be slow.”

“Show me what you have.”

She winced. “Okay. It’s a lot like what we saw before.”

The video sped forward, through scenes of lights powering on dimly. People in armor moved through the ship passageways. Some of them had panels open and technical gear spread out.

Elise rewound to a point where a passageway camera caught someone disappearing through a hatchway. “That’s the engineering section. They’ve done like we just did: got the systems operational. That powered the systems online again.”

“So this is the most current video on the data cores?”

“You want to start with the oldest?”

“No.” He leaned in closer to the display. “This is what we need to see.”

The view switched to another camera, once again catching someone moving through the recorded field. This person was a woman, also with armor on.

Something about her—

Connor pointed at the display when she disappeared. “Rewind that, please.”

When Elise reached the point where the woman was almost out of view, Connor saw what he was looking for.

“Freeze that.” He looked to the archaeologist for approval, then zoomed in.

Unbelievable.

It was the same devil patch he’d seen on the leather jacket of the mercenary ship.

He exhaled. “Those were the mercenaries. The ones from that wrecked ship.”

Elise brought up an interface device on a clear section of the main console and typed. “This was from nearly nine years ago.”

Connor glanced at the date on the screen. He would’ve been fleeing from the Directorate bounty hunters then, still reeling from the wounds suffered in the days before Wentz’s rebellion collapsed.

He resumed playing the video.

Another man came into view, but this time it was someone Connor recognized.

He paused the video. “That’s Gu Li.”

“Who?” The archaeologist’s brow wrinkled, as if she were puzzled.

“He’s the first person who hired the Devils after I joined. We had to transport some sensitive cargo through Talon Sector space.”

“You know this guy?”

“Only through Selen. She knew him, said she’d worked for him—”

Something happened to the security video, so that it looked like the man shifted in shape—growing larger, his face being drawn and darkened by shadow that couldn’t have been there.

Then the man Connor knew as Gu Li looked up at the camera, and the distortion disappeared.

The man shrank in on himself, and the shadows disappeared.

And he smiled.