It took some time to retrace her steps out of the near-maze that was the Scroll-Hive. By the time Mira was walking through the garden in the mess hall, the chime sounded again over the ship intercom, announcing that they had arrived in orbit around the second moon.

  Breathless, Mira had raced to the bridge, but even as she was going to pull up the initial scan screen she could see a glowing green indicator that another radiation profile had been found, this time on the far side of the planetoid.

  “How did we possibly detect-” she started to say in confusion, before the swarm began filling the space on the bridge.

  “Our apologies for not notifying you earlier, caretaker. We took the liberty of calibrating the sensors to the specific radiation profile detected in the debris The Apiary detected on the first moon. We knew this would result in a more-restricted search, but also allows for a much broader and rapid scan, with the added benefit of being able to detect the radiation profile through anything not blocking the emission source. Fortunately, these moons appear quite porous, so the scan was able to detect the faint match almost as soon as we reached orbit.”

  Mira pivoted the console over to her chair, keying in a series of commands as she placed a navigation marker on the detected point. However, as she reached to key in the autopilot commands, she paused as the queen landed on the back of her hand.

  “Caretaker, please remember that the circumstances here suggest the wreck of the Korindax may not have been accidental. It is not unheard of for raiders and pirates of all backgrounds to lure ships and passersbys with appearances of helplessness and others in need.”

  She could feel her throat starting to tighten at the thought of this all being for nothing and just another dead end, or worse. Setting her jaw, Mira tried to avoid letting herself lash out at Queen and Kin as she knew they were trying to look out for what was best for her safety, even if it felt like another barrier was being thrown in front of her and her hopes of reuniting with her missing parents.

  Mira winced, realizing she had been twisting a finger into a lock of her hair so hard that it threatened to pull at the roots, and she felt the buzz as the queen began speaking personally.

  ”Caretaker, that this is not to say we cannot investigate, only that we exercise caution in doing so. Let's perform a flyover from orbit and capture additional data before we descend. If your parents are still surviving there, another few hours after a decade apart will make little difference.”

  She wanted to race down there more than anything, but a part of Mira knew that the swarm was right. Turning back to the console, she deleted the landing instructions and instead began programming in the flyover pass grid, this time a much tighter pattern that would only take a quarter hour or so to complete.

  Sitting in the mess hall, Mira did her best to avoid dwelling on the scan as she grabbed a quick bite to eat. Her stomach had protested loudly as she initially thought she could just sit and wait on the bridge itself, and she had been in the tangle of the Scroll-Hive for more hours than she realized.

  Although she would never have admitted it to Queen and Kin with the way they were trying to overprotect her, she could feel a deep, bone-weary ache as she was now approaching almost a full twenty-four hours without sleep, adrenaline having provided the energy she needed at first but now demanding compensation in spades. Stifling a yawn, Mira could still feel it escaping through clenched teeth when she tried to avoid giving any visible sign of her tiredness away.

  Nevertheless, she could feel as if she was going slightly cross-eyed, with food resting unchewed in her mouth, when the alert chime sounded throughout the ship. It surprised her, and Mira had to do an awkward half-cough to avoid inhaling the dried apple crisps she was eating, clearing her throat repeatedly as she stumbled her way onto the bridge.

  “Caretaker, are you quite all right?”

  The swarm has already pulled up the scan data and Mira waved away their concerns dismissively as her attention focused on the readout display.

  “Yes yes, I'm fine. Although when this is all over, I'm going to nap for a week in that stasis pod.”

  “Well, to the best of our knowledge the stasis pod does not actually result in a restful REM sleep, but rather creates a simultaneous full-body preservation in suspension, so we're not sure it's exactly-”

  “Right, yeah, whatever,” she said, all of her attention focusing on the scan results as she felt the tiredness partially bleed away, although bone-deep ache of impending exhaustion was still there.

  “We monitored as the results came in, and want to ensure you are prepared, caretaker.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Mira was still only half listening as she could feel a complex churn of emotions in the pit of her stomach. The readout showed the distinct profile outline of an escape pod, intact as opposed to scattered wreckage that would have surely meant they were killed on impact, but also with no signs otherwise of life whatsoever. Giving the perimeter of the scan a quick look through, Mira punched in the landing sequence for the autopilot, shooting a sideways glance at the nearest cluster of Queen and Kin as she did so.

  “I don't see any signs of pirates, raiders, or other attempts at ambush. Hell, I'm not even sure there is anything on this planetoid smart enough to string two words together, so I don't want to delay any longer.”

  “Very well, caretaker, but if we may offer you some words of advice-”

  “I know, I know: Keep an eye out for any signs of trouble anyways, just in case.”

  This time Mira could almost hear a smile in the tone of the swarm.

  “While prudent, that is not what we wished to say. Instead, we feel the need to point out that the lack of any kind of visible evidence of farming or other long-term sustainable food sourcing would likely mean little to no attempts at long-term survival were made. While the Wandering Empire’s proximity and involvement is still a possible factor, the likely outcomes for this are either that your escape pod is empty, or that it is not.”

  It took a moment for Mira to realize what the hive was saying, and she could feel tears spring to the corner of her eyes that she blinked away, gritting her teeth and doing her best to take a calm breath as she said “I understand, but either way I have to know.”

  As the ship rumbled and groaned on its landing vector, Mira's mind was turning over the possibilities in her head. She was trying her best to be optimistic about it, but every piece of evidence she could point to said that her parents had not scraped out an existence on this barren moon like she had desperately and naively hoped. She wasn't sure what she had expected to see: Maybe farmlands stretching across and away from their crashed escape pod site, a building built from stones or trees despite the landscape lacking much beyond scrubby grass-like plants and gravel-sized chunks of rock.

  As they landed, Queen and Kin spoke as she suited up.

  “The atmosphere here is more conducive to extended existence than the other moon, so for you or other humans it would be as if you were simply atop a large mountain, with air thin but breathable. Unfortunately, we will have to refrain from accompanying you as we would require our vacuum suit again, and we have other preparations to make before heading off wherever our next journey takes us.”

  Mira knew that the swarm would have come with her in a heartbeat if she'd asked, but she appreciated that they had put on the appearance of being preoccupied so as to avoid her having asked them to stay behind. The planetoid was too small and sparse to support any kind of dangerous larger predators, and the all the scans turned up negative for any other signs of a trap or ambush.

  Mira felt no concern for herself, at least in the physical sense, as she stepped out and onto the moon. A light breeze blew past here, and she could feel as her lungs couldn't quite capture as much air as they would prefer if she could do a deep breath, but she much preferred to be panting slightly rather than have a ventilator to deal with.

  She strode to the pod, a few hundred yards away and on the same flat plane. This time there was no hill or ridges to obscure it; Instead, she tried steadily towards the silent and unmoving shape, easy to see from almost anywhere this side of the horizon thanks to how relatively featureless this moon was.

  There were a few grassy indents here and there were meteoroids had shattered and punched holes in that the scrubby brush underfoot had grown back into fill. At one point, Mira stumbled and nearly felt her ankle twist in one such hole. Cursing under her breath, she climbed out of the depression and continued walking towards the pod.

  Finally she was close enough that throwing a rock underhand could have hit it easily, but remembering the Queen and Kin’s warning, she paused and did a slow circle around. The view window was darkened from reentry, cracked with a few broken panels here and there but too dark and it too steep of an angle to make out anything inside. The exterior was similarly scorched but free of any clear signs of laser fire or other weaponry.

  Stepping closer, she reached out to touch the pod, almost flinching as if she expected it to shake or react. Instead it was mostly-cool, warm on the highest points that were catching direct sunlight but the rest of the metal still almost icy to the touch.

  She could feel her throat clench even as she forced it to obey, calling out “Hello? Is there anybody there?”

  Walking up to the side and the entry doorway, she can see the doorway hung open slightly, It was bent along the edge, but not in a way that made it clear if this was damage sustained on impact, or after the fact. She rapped on it with her suited knuckles, the sharp sound echoing both within the pod and across the barren landscape.

  Still hearing no response, Mira gently pushed the door open and stepped inside. Immediately, she noticed there was a musty odor within, and signs of some sort of struggle. Almost every drawer and storage container had been opened and upended, and there were several clear scuff and scrape marks along the floor near the door, as if someone had been digging in desperately with a tool or implement while another force is moving them away.

  As her eyes lifted up to the quartet of seats, she saw that while three of them hung empty with buckles dangling in the still and dusty air, she could see a desiccated and half-rotted hand sitting on the other.

  Every instinct in her was telling her to run to turn away, to leave and never return, but Mira instead forced herself to take a step forward, and then another towards the front of the pod.

  The rotted arm led up into a pockmarked uniform, the insignia matching that of the members aboard the Glyph of Korindax. Against her wishes and hopes, Mira gritted her teeth and bit back tears at what she was about to see as she looked up to stare the corpse in the face.

  If you want to read more, the novel is now available on Amazon!

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