Текст книги "The Best and the Brightest"

Prologue

Summer, 2371

WHEN SHE HEARD THE NEWS, Jayme Miranda was in exocellular biology class, part of an intensive summer course at Starfleet Academy. At first the rumors seemed unlikely, an exaggeration of a severe battle. But even that was frightening enough to send her running to the comm to try to reach her great‑aunt, Marley Miranda, an admiral at Starfleet Headquarters.

As Aunt Marley’s image appeared on the screen, Jayme could have been looking at herself in forty years–all the Mirandas had the same straight, dark hair and strong‑boned face. Jayme knew her family considered her to be the “excitable” one, so she didn’t bother concealing her fear as her aunt confirmed that the EnterpriseD had crashed on Veridian III. Even worse, a fatality had occurred during the battle with a Klingon bird‑of‑prey commanded by the Duras sisters. While they were talking, an official statement was released notifying the United Federation of Planets about the crash of Starfleet’s flagship.

“Who was killed?” Jayme asked her aunt. “Was it . . . Ensign Moll Enor?”

“The name hasn’t been released, pending notification of next of kin.” Before Jayme could insist, her great‑aunt added, “I don’t know, Jayme.”

“How long before you find out?” she asked, feeling frantic inside. “It’s been hours since the crash.”

“As soon as I hear, I’ll call you,” Marley assured her, looking concerned herself.

Jayme managed not to panic as her aunt signed off. Instead, she tried every trick she knew to get hold of Moll via the starship Farragutor one of the other starships assigned to the salvage and rescue of the Enterprisecrew. But over one thousand crewmembers had been on board the Enterprise, and Starfleet was requesting that only family members contact Veridian III.

Later that evening, another cadet poked her head into Jayme’s room, interrupting her efforts. Jayme glanced at the chrono, hardly able to believe that, this time yesterday, Moll and the Enterprisehad been perfectly all right.

“Did you hear?” the cadet asked her.

Jayme was nodding, but the cadet added in a hushed voice, “They’re saying that the crewmember who was killed was someone we know from the Academy.”

Jayme couldn’t even answer, choked with the same foreboding she’d had for weeks, ever since Moll had told her about Jadzia Dax. Dax, an old friend of Moll’s from the Initiate Institute, had been forced to return to the Trill homeworld because of a serious symbiont malady. Jayme had been studying Trill physiology ever since she met Moll, fascinated by the joint humanoid and symbiont species, yet fearful of the many things that could go wrong with the delicate balance.

But this–Moll killed during a battle with Klingons! It was unbelievable. Why, barely four weeks ago they were vacationing in Rahm‑Izad. Jayme kept trembling with suppressed agony and rage, afraid that it would be true, that Moll was . . .

Jayme got on the comm again, determined not to quit until she spoke to someone who could officially confirm that Moll Enor was alive.

Bobbie Ray Jefferson had been on an airboat trip for a few days with friends, cruising down the Canadian River, when he returned to his parents’ environmental bubble‑spread in the Texas panhandle. The bubble‑spread overlooked the vivid blue waters of gorgeous Lake Meredith, reflecting the endless sky overhead. As he tried to find his parents among the crowd, he overheard guests talking about James T. Kirk, killed on Veridian III at the same time the Enterprisehad crashed.

It was easy to pick out his mother, the only Rex among a group of humans seated near the fireplace. Her fine, golden brown fur was covered with a hooded cloak, and she towered head and shoulders above her friends as she gracefully held court.

“Darling,” his mother called, gesturing him closer. This bubble was having a gentle snowstorm, but for once she didn’t seem bothered by the way his dirty shorts and tank top clashed with the decor. “You know people on that starship, don’t you?”

“Sure,” he agreed, knowing his mother loved having ac direct connection to things. “Three members of my first Quad‑”

“That must be a record!” she exclaimed, looking at the others as she made her point. Her long fingernails were painted bronze, complementing the dark fur around her face. “ Threemembers.”

“Sure, Moll Enor, Nev Reoh, and Hammon Titus.”

One of the guests, a young Kostolain who had been trying to catch his eye, asked, “Aren’t you worried about your friends?”

“On the Enterprise?”Bobbie Ray countered, laughing at the idea. “What’s to worry about?”

“But it crashed,” she insisted, smiling now that she had his attention.

“It’s still the Enterprise,”he reminded her. “It’s built like a brick . . .” His mother’s disapproving eyes made him think better of finishing the sentence. “Look, Mom,” he continued, more decorously. “The only thing that’ll happen is that Titus, my old roommate, will bore everyone sick with his stories. I would have been on the Enterprise, too, if I had gotten that field assignment–”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” his mother assured him, shuddering.

“They’ll probably build another Enterprise,”Bobbie Ray told the Kostolain. “It’ll be in commission by the time I graduate.”

“I’m sure you’ll serve on it someday,” his mother blithely contradicted herself, completely missing the interplay going on between him and the Kostolain. “You always distinguish yourself, darling.”

Bobbie Ray grinned to himself as he left the group, swiping some meat puffs on his way out. He and his mother might as well speak two different languages, but he couldn’t get upset, knowing that he would never have gotten into Starfleet Academy without his parents’ connections in high places. Even though his family had accepted the local customs and he had been born on Earth–in Texas, in fact–he still needed a high‑ranking Starfleet officer to vouch for him, since the scattered Rex population had never joined the Federation.

Bobbie Ray knew he could have stayed and charmed the Kostolain a while longer, but in spite of his assurances, he wanted to find out exactly what had happened to the Enterprise.s He knew it was dangerous sometimes being in Starfleet, but that was the trade‑off you made for living life more intensely. He had already seen it and experienced it for himself during his field assignments. The people in Starfleet were getting more from every moment than anyone else in the galaxy, and he was glad to be part of that.

Starsa found out about the Enterprisewhile she and some fellow cadets were backpacking through the six inhabited planets of the Rigel system. They all heard the news shortly after disembarking from their transport, standing in the Stargazer Lobby of Starbase 34 with their gear piled haphazardly around them.

Starsa, like the others, quickly accessed the communiquйs waiting for them at the starbase. Jayme hadn’t sent a message, which was strange. Usually Starsa got all her inside information from Jayme, who would surely know the identity of the crewmember who had died on board the Enterprise.

Starsa couldn’t stop thinking about Nev Reoh’s last message (they arrived like clockwork every month, ever since he had graduated a year ago). He had mentioned he might transfer to a post at Starfleet Academy at the beginning of the school year. Starsa couldn’t understand why the Bajoran wanted to leave the best ship in Starfleet, and she hadn’t answered him. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t answered the past few communiques. Reoh was much better at sustaining their friendship than she was.

Without waiting to find out where her companions would be staying on Starbase 34, she ran to find a comm so she could send Reoh a message. Every nice thing the older cadet had ever done for her flooded back–helping with her science assignments, taking care of her when she had acclimation sickness, and explaining why Riker and his girlfriend got upset when she wandered into his room to watch them. She had thought they were just wrestling–how was she to know any different?

Reoh was the only one who understood she was simply curious, that she wasn’t deliberately trying to be annoying. There were so many strange customs she didn’t understand her first year, and without Reoh’s hesitant suggestions–which she had usually laughed at, but basically tried to follow–she would have gotten in twice as much trouble.

The comm told her it would take five days for her message to reach the rescue ships, so it was routed to Earth to await the return of the Enterprisecrew‑members.

Starsa checked her passage back to Earth, departing early the next morning. It would take nearly a week to return, but with some creative juggling, she still might make it before the rescue ships returned to Starfleet Headquarters.

Chapter One

First Year, 2368‑69

JAYME TOOK THE STAIR‑LIFT two steps at a time, but the antique monorail let out a melodious chime, announcing the closing of the doors. Using the guardrail as support, she propelled herself onto the platform as the monorail began to silently slide away from the Academy station.

It was nearly midnight, so there were no people on the platform and few were inside the monorail. Jayme ran alongside the train, nearing the edge of the platform, unable to stop and give up. She could see Elma sitting inside, her head held high and her back stiff, unable to relax and lean back even in the empty passenger compartment. Jayme could also see her own tricorder in Elma’s hand.

She scrabbled to get hold of the monorail, but its smooth, modular design gave her no purchase. As it began to pick up speed, Jayme lunged desperately at the rear of the last car. One of her booted feet got purchase on the small brake box protruding right over the rail.

Her fingers strained to hang on to the groove of the rear window, and she realized she had made a very bad mistake. She was wearing the new waffle‑cut style shoes instead of her regulation Starfleet‑issue boots. As the monorail pulled out of the Academy station, heading into San Francisco and parts unknown, along with Elma and the tricorder, Jayme’s foot slid off the brake box.

Jayme hit the rail with a solid ooff!and tried to grab on. The double rail was about a meter wide, and her arms could barely get around it. As her legs went over, she had nothing to grab hold of. She hung for a second by one elbow, and almost stuck her hand into the tempting grooves on the side of the rail. Anyone else would have, but Jayme’s trained engineering reflexes made her jerk away from the highly charged conduit.

She had just enough time to congratulate herself on her own wisdom before she fell.

It flashed through her mind during the twelve‑meter drop that it was her own fault if she got killed. Then she hit something solid, but not solid, sending a tingling energy shock wave through her body as her stomach seemed to keep on falling. She let herself go limp, knowing better than to resist a forcefield.

All she could see beneath her were the orange, gaping mouths of Ibernian tulips, freshly planted and protected from dimwits like her by a force field bubble. She slid off the side of the bubble, headfirst into the grass.

Rubbing her head, Jayme groaned at the rips in her cadet uniform. One sleeve was hanging by a few threads, looking exactly the way the pulled muscle in her shoulder felt. Next to her, the blue residue of ionization crackled over the flowers before the forcefield became invisible again.

At least it was the dead of night, so there wasn’t a crowd gathering around. Jayme knew she should feel lucky at her narrow escape–the cobblestone pathway was two paces away–but she was upset about Elma getting away. Where was Elma taking her tricorder? She knew her roommate had taken it before, but the temporary memory of the tricorder was always erased after Elma used it. So Jayme had been watching her carefully for several weeks to catch her in the act.

She pulled a small device from the roomy trouser pocket of her cadet uniform. With a few keystrokes, she activated the homing beacon she had recently planted inside the tricorder, and a map appeared on the tiny holoscreen. A green blip appeared, moving slowly across the grid as the centuries‑old monorail system carried Elma east of the Presidio, into San Francisco. Jayme glanced around, looking for the Golden Gate Bridge to orient herself. The graceful span of the bridge was visible from almost everywhere on the Academy grounds.

“That was pretty impressive,” a voice said right behind her.

The homing map flew into the air as Jayme startled. If it wasn’t for the forcefield, she would have crushed the tulips a second time.

Her hands clutched at her chest, staring at the intruder, her heart beating faster than it had from the fall. “Who are you?”

A woman stepped forward, letting the light of the monorail tower fall on her smooth, dark skin. For a moment, from the strange shape of her head, Jayme thought it was an alien she’d never seen before–and she had seen more than most. Then she realized the woman was wearing an odd, bulbous hat made of some kind of plushy maroon material.

“I’m Guinan. And who are you?”

“Cadet Jayme Miranda,” she replied, straightening her uniform. She ignored the hanging rags of her black sleeve as she tried to regain her dignity. “You’re not Starfleet, are you?”

“Not exactly. I’m the bartender on the Enterprise.”

“The bartender?” Jayme repeated incredulously.

Guinan stooped and picked up the homing map, considering it. “You know, on Earth, electronic eavesdropping is illegal.”

“It’s my own tricorder,” Jayme quickly defended herself. “My roommate took it.”

One smooth brow lifted, slightly incredulous. “Your roommate stole your tricorder? Is that why you almost killed yourself?”

Jayme wasn’t about to mention the extra gadgets it had taken months to jury‑rig into that tricorder. “It’s more than that. Elma’s a member of my Quad, she’s my roommate. We’re responsible for each other.”

Guinan’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if considering the well‑known Starfleet policy that made a unit out of the eight cadets living on each floor of the dormitory towers. The Quads were often a cadet’s first taste of what it took to be a team. If a cadet got in bad enough trouble, the members of their Quad were questioned and if negligence was found, then they were disciplined as well.

Overhead, a monorail chimed as it pulled into the tower station. Voices emerged from the cars and a few cadets descended the stair‑lift on the other side of the station, disappearing toward the Quads. The hum of the white monorail as it smoothly passed by overhead wasn’t loud, but Guinan watched it with interest as if she had never seen anything like it before.

Jayme decided to take the offensive. “What are you doing here? I thought the Enterprisewas in the Signat system for those trade negotiations.”

“They are. I’m here to see a friend.”

“Here at the Academy?” Jayme asked doubtfully, eyeing the bartender’s outlandish costume again. If she had a few hours and a bonding tool, she might be able to make something interesting out of Guinan’s tunic and that hat–but right now all you could see was the round oval of her face.

Guinan’s pleasant expression never changed. “You may know him. His name is Wesley Crusher.”

Jayme stopped herself from letting out a laugh of disbelief. Wesley Crusher?Who didn’tknow Crusher and the rest of the Nova Squadron, who had tried and failed to perform a Kolvoord Starburst?

“Yeah, he’s in the class ahead of me,” Jayme said diplomatically, leaving out the fact that the members of Nova Squadron were repeating a year.

“You don’t sound very sympathetic,” Guinan told her.

Stung, Jayme protested, “There’s only so much you can sympathize, especially when people do stupid things. Besides, we’re allgetting punished because of Joshua Albert’s death. The Academy has clamped down on everyone, like we can’t be trusted because a few cadets made a mistake.”

Guinan shrugged slightly, undisturbed by Jayme’s outburst. “People make mistakes. It could have happened to anyone. It could happen to you.”

“Excuse me, I know he’s a friend of yours, but I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

Guinan smiled, glancing up at the gleaming monorail overhead. “You wouldn’t?”

Jayme shifted, trying to ignore the bed of Ibernian tulips that seemed to be mocking her with their vibrant orange mouths. “That’s different. I’m trying to help my roommate. I can’t just turn her into Academy security.”

“Have you tried talking to her?” Guinan asked.

“Of course! I try all the time, but she’s . . . she’s an odd person. Elma grew up on Holt, in the habitat domes.”

Guinan nodded as if she knew Holt well. “You would value your privacy, too, if you lived with that many people under one roof.”

“So you understand my problem!” Jayme exclaimed in relief. “She won’t confide in me, and I’m afraid she’s gotten into something over her head.”

Guinan turned her head slightly, once more considering the homing beacon in her hand. Jayme couldn’t see the map, but she heard the tone that signaled that the beacon was now stationary.

“Listen,” Jayme said urgently, taking a step closer to Guinan. “What is Holt known for? It’s mostly Bajoran resettlement camps, right? Well, why do you think that is?”

“Because Bajorans are the only ones desperate enough to put up with those conditions?” Guinan suggested.

“Well, that’s true,” Jayme conceded. “But it’s also in the perfect strategic position to serve as a resistance base.”

Guinan furrowed her brow. “So what are you saying?” she asked.

“I’m saying that I grew up here in San Francisco, and most of my mother’s family is in Starfleet. My aunt Dani is on a patrol right now near the border of occupied Bajor. I know the Federation can’t risk their peace with the Cardassians by helping the Bajorans get back their homeworld. And I’m afraid Elma is trying to help the Bajoran resistance. She might get something from my aunt’s messages, or . . .” Jayme glanced away, as if suddenly more interested in the lights on the Golden Gate Bridge than the homing beacon in Guinan’s hand. “There’s lots of programs in my tricorder that could be used to . . . well, used to compromise Starfleet systems.”

“I see.” For a moment Jayme thought Guinan really understood, then the bartender added, “If you turn in your roommate, they’ll find out that you’ve juiced up your tricorder.”

“No!” Jayme quickly denied. “I’ve done nothing illegal, just . . . unorthodox. If I thought there was a real danger, I would tell security even if I got into trouble myself. See, I realize we’re in this together. I’d just like to be able to confront her with everything.” She looked longingly at the homing beacon. “But it would help if I knew where she was going. She could be in a bar right now, and I’m making a big deal over nothing.”

Guinan slowly nodded. “You’re very good, Jayme Miranda.”

For some reason, Jayme didn’t think that was intended as a compliment. But when Guinan handed back the homing device, she was too pleased to care.

As she zoomed and focused the map, Jayme absently told Guinan, “You know, Crusher’s lucky to have you for a friend.” Finally the correct section of the city clicked in and the readout showed the location–the radio observatory.

Guinan waited, clearly leaving it up to Jayme whether to tell her.

“She’s at the Deng Observatory.”

“That doesn’t sound too dangerous,” Guinan commented.

“No . . .” But Jayme wasn’t so certain, and while she owed Guinan for not turning her in for that crazy leap onto the monorail, she wasn’t about to tell this stranger everything. “Maybe I should talk to my Quadmates about this.”

“That’s probably a good idea.” Guinan kept staring at Jayme until the cadet started to squirm, feeling as if she hadtold Guinan everything. “Maybe you should think about going into a different line of work, Jayme Miranda.”

“Why do you say that?” Jayme asked, startled.

“You aren’t happy.”

“Not happy? But I love Starfleet! I’ve waited all my life to join Starfleet.”

“If you say so,” Guinan demurred with a smile.

Jayme hesitated, but Guinan didn’t seem concerned about pressing her point. Uneasily, she said, “Thanks,” as she left.

At the end of the walk, she glanced back. Guinan was waiting in the soft pool of light around the monorail tower. Her hands were patiently folded together under her tunic, and she was apparently ready to stay as long as it took for Crusher to show up. Jayme knew she was being irritable, but she thought Crusher must not properly appreciate his friend to make her wait like that when she’d come so far.

But Guinan was wrong about one thing–her situation was completely different from Crusher’s. The Nova Squadron had been acting like kids, playing a dangerous game to show off in front of everyone. Just look what it got them. Nick Locarno, the leader of Nova Squadron, expelled from Starfleet, and the others skulking around like pariahs, living, breathing examples for the other cadets of what notto do.

But Jayme didn’t need that lesson. She was doing this to help Elma, not to get glory or praise for her own efforts. No, she understood the Starfleet code, and she would keep on trying to help her roommate, even if Elma didn’t want her help.

“Why couldn’t you build another subverter–or whatever it is you call it!” Bobbie Ray complained for the dozenth time. “Then we could have walked in the front door like normal people.”

Jayme hardly had any breath left, and rather than argue with Bobbie Ray, she concentrated on climbing the endless ladder to the top of the peaks that supported the Deng parabolic dish. She did spare the time to glare at the furry orange humanoid clinging to the exterior maintenance ladder, the last one in line.

Starsa, who was just below Jayme, shot back, “What are you complaining about? You don’t seem to be having a hard time.”

It was true–the large Rex was a natural athlete, specializing in security and hand‑to‑hand combat. But to hear Bobbie Ray talk, he would rather curl up on a couch in the sun and sleep all day.

Bobbie Ray’s roommate, Hammon Titus, gave Jayme an edgy grin. “You could have warned us about this part when we were back in the Quad. Is there any other surprises you have planned for us?”

“I thought I told you,” Jayme muttered, letting Starsa relay what she’d said to the others. Then she had to ignore their indignant denials.

Okay, so she hadn’t told them about this part. But how else did they think they were going to get inside the closed observatory? They knew the dish was anchored in a large natural depression in the mountains, with the receiving station deep underground.

They had a saying in Starfleet–you always remember your first Quad. Jayme just wished her first Quad was worth remembering. All the spark was in her fellow freshmen cadets, and her opinion of them was falling fast under this test. It was only two thousand feet up, for the Horta’s sake.

As for the four older cadets in their Quad, the ones they were supposed to look up to and emulate, that was an even sorrier lot. Not that she expected to have much fun around T’Rees since he was a Vulcan, and she gave Elma allowances for being socially twisted by her upbringing on Holt, but she had expected more from Nev Reoh, a former Bajoran Vedek, and Moll Enor, a newly joined Trill. The exotic possibilities in such roommates were endless, but Moll Enor had hardly spoken four words since the semester had begun, while Nev Reoh readily admitted that he was a failure at everything he had tried. It was practically the first thing he said, and he tended to repeat it periodically. Reoh was different, even among the few Bajoran cadets–he was older than everyone else, and it didn’t help that his prematurely receding hairline added even more years to his appearance. With so many somber people around, Jayme sometimes felt like she was living in a geriatric ward instead of a Quad.

Jayme heaved herself onto the perimeter walkway, shifting over to allow the others up behind her. Bobbie Ray took one look at the five thousand foot parabolic dish, with the opposite edge so far away that the regularly spaced lights disappeared in the darkness, and said, “I’m having second thoughts about this.”

Titus crossed his arms. “Yeah, what makes you so sure Elma’s helping the Bajoran resistance? She’s got a class in radio astronomy this semester. Maybe she’s doing lab work.”

“After midnight?” Jayme countered. “And what about those Cardassian code files I found hidden in the back of her closet?” She hurried on before they could think to ask her what she was doing in the back of Elma’s closet. “What else is she doing with code files if she isn’t decoding intercepted material and sending it to the resistance?”

“But this antenna only receives,” Titus protested. “It doesn’t transmit.”

“Ah, but it doestransmit!” Jayme said triumphantly, pleased that she’d taken a few minutes to flip through some of Elma’s technical manuals on the large radio telescope. “It has to send coordinates to an orbital satellite to focus the telescopic electronic camera. That beam could be aimed at a communications satellite, relaying information that the antenna has picked up. Or it could be used to tap into the orbital satellites, relaying the faster‑than‑light subspace radio communications from Federation starbases and starships throughout the Alpha Quadrant.”

Bobbie Ray stood right on the edge of the dish, perfectly comfortable with the sheer drop. “I think we should quit while we’re ahead.”

“And what if she isa spy?” Starsa asked. “Do we just march into Superintendent Brand’s office and tell her we were right here but didn’t bother to go inside and see what Elma was doing?”

Jayme silently applauded Starsa’s spirit. Her species experienced a late puberty, so she was basically a ten‑year‑old both physically and in the amount of impulsive daring she possessed. Unfortunately, the tall, slender girl was also suffering from severe acclimation sickness, so her slow metabolism had to be regulated and adjusted for Earth’s pressure and gravity.

Jayme had almost rejected Starsa for this mission on physical grounds, but now she was glad she had brought her along. Especially when Starsa leaned over the edge, shuddering at the drop but laughing at the vertigo it caused. The others shifted uneasily, clearly reconsidering their protests in the face of her courage.

“Come on,” Jayme ordered, taking advantage of their indecision. “We’ve got to climb out on the truss and take the antigrav lift down.”

She gestured to the enormous cross‑lines high overhead, anchored to three towers around the edge of the dish. The lines met in the center, supporting a ring that allowed the feed to move, steering the beam that was reflected from the dish anywhere within five degrees of the zenith.

“Up there?” Bobbie Ray protested, looking at the lines overhead, then down into the black hole in the very center of the dish. “It looks dangerous.”

“The maintenance crew does it all the time,” Jayme tossed off, heading toward the nearest tower.

“More climbing,” Titus grumbled, but he followed her.

Starsa was kicking her heels over the edge. “Why is it so big? Our telescope at the Academy isn’t nearly as big.”

“That’s because it’s a light wave telescope,” Jayme explained. “Radio waves go from a few millimeters to about thirty meters in wavelength. So the bigger the parabolic dish, the bigger waves it can catch.”

“Oh, I knew that–” Starsa started to say, then she let out a piercing scream.

Jayme wasn’t sure what happened, but Starsa was suddenly plummeting down the nearly vertical wall of the dish, screaming like she was being burned alive.

An orange blur shot down the white, curving wall as Bobbie Ray dived after her. While Starsa tumbled, bouncing against the reflective metal plates that lined the dish, Bobbie Ray took an aerodynamically correct position as he zipped down headfirst.

Jayme jammed her fist in her mouth as she hung over Titus, watching their descent. Bobbie Ray’s greater bulk caused him to rush past Starsa. They receded to tiny dots as they neared the flattened curve at the bottom of the dish, but they were still going fast, straight toward the gaping black hole in the center.

Bobbie Ray splayed his arms and legs, turning into a dark gray Xagainst the dish, spinning as he slowed. But Starsa was still tumbling out of control. Jayme didn’t think Bobbie Ray would have time, but he got his feet under him and made an impossible leap sideways. Even his tremendous strength wasn’t enough, but at the last second, he snagged Starsa by the hair, stopping her right at the edge of the hole.

Starsa’s screams continued to echo out of the dish as Jayme frantically tapped her communicator, set for a special frequency just for this mission. “Is she hurt? Is she hurt!”

Titus had put on his spotting loop and was peering through the misty air. “He’s got her! He’s picking her up. Now he’s shaking her–”

Starsa’s screams abruptly stopped.

Bobbie Ray’s lazy drawl came over their communicators. “She’s fine.”

“He grabbed my hair!” Starsa shrieked in the background as Bobbie Ray released her. “It’s half pulled out! You big stupid cat!”

Jayme let out her breath, sitting down on the walkway with a jolt. “That was close!”

“Good thing she’s gotall that hair.” Titus murmured, still watching them through the loop.

Jayme was still shaking her head, thinking– Now what?But she didn’t want Titus to know how shaken she was.

Bobbie Ray was poking around at the edge of the hole, not bothering to respond to Starsa’s complaints, which came clearly through the communicators. “Hey, there’s a lift down here,” Bobbie Ray said. “Why don’t you slide down and join us?”

“What?!” Jayme exclaimed. “Do you think we’re insane–”

“Just make sure you catch me!” Titus sang out. “Yee‑ ha!”

With that, he leaped over the side of the dish, laughing as he whizzed down feetfirst.

Jayme watched him quickly dwindle, falling nearly two thousand feet. But this time Bobbie Ray jogged over to position himself in Titus’s path, leaving plenty of space between him and the hole. As the big Rex grabbed hold of the cadet, Titus’s momentum carried them spinning the last few meters. Starsa tried to help by getting between them and the hole, but she nearly got knocked in.