Read Chapter 22: Aftermath: The Uninvited Guests

The cheer that went up when the confirmation message finished scrolling across the main display was loud enough to echo through the habitat ring. Élise let it wash over her for exactly three seconds. Then she killed the sound with a flat hand and watched the faces in the common room turn toward her.

Dmitri was leaning against the far bulkhead, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. Beside him, Amir stood with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, a strange half-smile on his face that looked like it was still getting used to being there. Callum had his head buried in a tablet, already running diagnostics on the navigation interface, and Osei was at the comm station with his back to everyone, shoulders tight.

"We have seventy-two hours," Élise said. "That's a long time. Longer than we've planned for anything since this started."

"We have a ship coming," someone said from the back. A woman Élise didn't recognize by name. Deck crew, maybe. Maintenance rotated so much that faces blurred. "That's good, right? That's the whole point."

"It's good if it's who we think it is." Élise pulled the FalconKey's casing from her jacket pocket and held it up. The little black box felt cheap now that it had done its work, like a lighter that had burned down to the flint. "This thing belonged to the director. It was corporate-issue, tied to a recovery network that services their high-value assets. The people coming might be contractors. They might be security. They might be a cleanup crew."

The hope in the room didn't die, but it got quieter. Dmitri pushed off the bulkhead and moved to the center of the space, drawing eyes. "She's right. We need to think about what happens when they open that airlock. If they open it."

"If." The word hung in the recycled air. Élise watched it land on faces, on the way some of them looked at the ceiling, as if they could see through the regolith shielding to the black sky beyond. "If they open it. If they don't, we've got a ship full of unknowns sitting on our pad with heavy thrusters and no reason to be gentle."

"So what do we do?" Amir's voice cut through. He hadn't spoken much since the antenna incident, and when he did, it was clipped, deliberate. "We sit here and wait? We run out of food and air while they orbit us and decide what to do?"

"No," Élise said. "We do what we've been doing. We prepare."

She pulled up the base schematics on the main display, tapping through to the defense grid. The map was sparse—a handful of automated turrets positioned around the habitat domes and the mining sheds, mostly for meteor deflection and the occasional ice-miner's insurance requirements. They were civilian-grade. Light. But they were something.

"Callum, you know these systems better than anyone. I want them primed and switched to manual override. Full control from the command deck. If I need to fire on something, I don't want a software delay checking with corporate headquarters first."

Callum looked up from his tablet. "They're rated for debris, Élise. Not ships. If that shuttle comes back in firing range—"

"Then we'll make do. Priority one: get me an inventory of every round in this base, every charge, every power cell. Osei, you're on sensors. I want a passive scan running at all times. If anything larger than a coffee cup moves within five hundred kilometers, I want to know about it."

Osei grunted without turning around. "A ship coming in that close without us hearing it will have to be running silent. Mines don't run silent. Not with that much mass. We'll have plenty of warning."

"Unless they're not coming in hot," Dmitri said. "They stop at a distance, send a shuttle. The shuttle's small. Easy to miss until it's in the well."

"Then we watch for shuttles too." Élise turned back to the assembled group. Most of them had drifted closer now, forming a loose arc around the command deck's central console. She could feel the shift in their posture—less celebration, more orientation. That was good. That was what she needed.

"Rationing," she continued. "We have enough oxygen to stretch past the three-day mark if we dial back circulation in the noncritical zones. Food's tighter. I'm putting everyone on a two-meal schedule starting tomorrow. The kitchen will post portions."

A low murmur rolled through the room. Someone at the back said something sharp in a language Élise didn't catch, and a handful of them laughed the way people laugh when they're not really amused.

"I know it's not what you wanted to hear," she said. "I know you thought the hard part was over. It's not. The hard part was always going to be waiting to find out who's coming for us. And we need to be ready for either answer."

"And if it's the wrong answer?" It was the woman from before. She had her arms crossed now, defensive.

"Then we fight. Or we hide. Or we do whatever gives us the best chance of seeing Earth again." Élise let that sit for a moment. Then she hit the display control and the schematic winked out. "Go get some rest. You'll need it."

The group dispersed slowly, in pairs and small clusters, muttering among themselves. Élise watched them go until only the core team remained. Dmitri, Amir, Osei, Callum. And over by the auxiliary hatch, leaning against the frame with a tool belt slung low on her hips, Jana. She hadn't said anything since she'd come in, and Élise hadn't expected her to.

"They'll be looking for a sign," Dmitri said. "Everyone's holding it together because you told them to. The longer we wait, the harder that gets."

"I know."

"Seventy-two hours is a long time for people to sit with their thoughts. Especially when those thoughts are about who's coming to get them."

Élise looked at him. "What are you thinking about?"

Dmitri's jaw tightened. "I'm thinking about that shuttle that stopped firing. I'm thinking it didn't just stop. It parked. Like it was waiting for something. And now, less than an hour later, we find out a ship was already coming before we sent the signal."

"We're thinking the same thing." Élise moved to the comm station and leaned over Osei's shoulder. The passive scan was already running, a faint spiderweb of sensor returns painting the far side of the display. "Someone wanted us to signal. Someone knew we'd find that beacon."

Osei finally turned. His face was pale under the fluorescents, and there was a muscle jumping in his jaw. "If the corporation knew the beacon was there, knew we'd use it, then they already know what happened here. They know we took the base. They know we're armed."

"Not armed enough," Callum muttered.

"Then we fix that." Élise straightened. "I want every compartment between the habitat ring and the shuttle bay sealed. Two-person access codes only. Me and Dmitri. If something comes through those airlocks that isn't one of us, I want it to have to work for every meter."

"Speaking of work," Jana said. Her voice was low, used rarely. It carried. "You asked for a weapons inventory. I already did one."

Élise turned. "When?"

"An hour ago. Before you made the announcement." Jana pushed off the frame and walked over, pulling a folded piece of paper from her leg pocket. "You weren't the only one thinking about what comes next. I counted everything. Turret ammunition, handheld charge tools, cutting lasers, anything that could be turned into a weapon."

"And?"

"And there's less than I'd like. But there's some." She unfolded the paper and handed it to Élise.

Élise scanned it. It was thorough—Jana had always been thorough. Numbers, locations, condition ratings. But one line near the bottom caught her eye.

*Armory locker 7-C: unlisted manifest. Contents unknown. Key held by Deprez.*

She looked up. "Who's Deprez?"

Jana shrugged. "Old guy in the habitat crew. Ex-military, or so he says. Keeps to himself. I've been here three years and never exchanged more than a dozen words with the man. But he's got the only key to that locker."

Élise folded the paper and tucked it into her jacket. "Well. Sounds like I owe Mr. Deprez a visit."

"You think he's hiding something?" Dmitri's voice had an edge to it. Trust was still a scarce commodity between him and anyone who'd ever kept a secret on this base.

"I think everyone on this rock has secrets." Élise headed for the hatch. "I just want to make sure none of them are going to get us killed."

---

The corridor outside the common room was quieter than it had been in days. The usual clatter of boots on metal grates was muffled, subdued. People moved with the careful, deliberate pace of the newly uncertain. Élise passed a pair of technicians hunched over a portable heater, sharing a ration bar and talking in low voices. They fell silent as she walked by, offering nods she returned without slowing.

She found Deprez in the habitat ring's small mess, sitting alone at a table bolted to the floor. He was older than most of the crew, his face scored with deep lines that had nothing to do with moon dust. A coffee cup sat untouched in front of him, and on the bench beside him was a heavy canvas bag. His hands were folded on the tabletop, thick fingers scarred and callused.

Élise sat down across from him. He didn't look up.

"Jana tells me you've got the key to locker 7-C," she said.

Deprez lifted his gaze. His eyes were pale gray and flat. "Jana talks a lot."

"She also does her job. That's more than I can say for whoever's supposed to keep the armory inventory current." Élise set the folded paper on the table between them. "Says here your locker doesn't exist. No manifest. No record. Which means whatever you've got in there, corporate never counted it."

Deprez considered her for a long moment. Then he reached down and lifted the canvas bag onto the table. It made a heavy sound, metal shifting against metal.

"Never counted it because it never shipped through corporate channels," he said. His voice was rough, the accent thick in a way that suggested he'd spent decades rolling between nations. "I brought it myself. Personal effects. Regulation says a man's allowed a certain weight of personal gear."

Élise reached for the bag. Deprez let her.

Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, was a rifle.

It wasn't the kind of thing the base used for debris deflection. It was military hardware—compact, folding stock, power cells that could be recharged off the main grid. Crowd control, the stamped label on the side read. Non-lethal at standard settings.

Underneath it, another. And another.

Élise counted six in total, plus a crate of power cells and a bundle of what looked like gas cartridges.

"Six rifles," she said. "Personal effects."

Deprez shrugged. "I was a soldier. You don't stop being a soldier just because you take a mining contract." He paused. "Also, I've worked for these corporate bastards before. I know what they do when things go wrong."

Élise zipped the bag closed and pulled it onto her lap. Deprez watched her, but made no move to stop her.

"I'm confiscating the rifles," she said. "Five of them go in the command-deck safe. I keep the key. The sixth goes to Jana."

Deprez's mouth twitched in what might have been the ghost of a smile. "You want to arm the woman who ratted me out."

"I want to arm someone I trust with it." Élise stood, slinging the bag over her shoulder. "You keep your key to the locker. Clean it out, get rid of anything else you've been hiding. I don't care what it is. If I find out you've been sitting on something else that could help us or hurt us, I'll put you outside with Dmitri as your babysitter."

For a moment, something flickered in Deprez's pale eyes. Respect, maybe. Or wariness. It was hard to tell.

"You're going to need those rifles," he said quietly. "When they come, they won't be coming to talk."

Élise didn't answer. She just turned and carried the bag down the corridor, the weight of it heavy against her shoulder, a reminder that the next three days would define everything that came after.