And so it was that, five hours later, I found myself sitting in the commons area of The Pharaoh with Sango curled up on my lap, inspecting my new metal leg.

  It was a fine leg, light and strong, with good energy regulation, and it would enhance some of my movement speed and strength as well. I liked my original leg just fine, but I could get used to this one. I suspected I could ask the Hollow Kings to upgrade it too. If you're going to have a metal leg, might as well lean into it. Ha ha ha.

  Get it? Lean. On your leg.

  Not funny? Well, screw off then. It's a leg joke. We can't all be as funny as the eerie clone twins.

  "We still don't see signs of a ship leaving the area with organic signatures that would indicate human cargo," @astrowave said, exchanging a look with @zerogstar. Instead of resting or talking about what had happened when she was with the Shoemaker, she had jumped straight into trying to track down our missing crew members.

  "The truth is," @zerogstar added, "we probably won't. Gravemind Syndicate are excellent at not being detected."

  They were right, and I wondered if we were losing time by not picking one of the many departing ships, taking a chance that we had picked the right one.

  "Being on a popular tourist destination sucks," I said, calling out the obvious. "There are just too many ships, with too many people. And if the Alliance Starmada looks the other way, we won't have intel to go on."

  Sango purred and stretched. In my head, I thought maybe the little guy was trying to comfort me.

  "But we can't give up," I added. "Any ideas?"

  @zerogstar was playing with a handful of the Scrabble pieces. "Just because they look the other way doesn't mean they won't have intel."

  I nodded. "True, but can we trust them? Would they give it to us?"

  "Hack them," @astrowave interrupted. "Don't ask. With our access to the network, shouldn't we be able to?"

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  I looked at @zerogstar. "With my credentials, I have access to a lot, but probably not something like this. You'd have to hack further into the network."

  She was less familiar with our systems than @foxcutter, who had been with the Alliance Starmada for a long time, but I knew @zerogstar was talented.

  "If they catch me, wouldn't there be serious ramifications for you or for me?"

  I thought about that. There probably would be. We could even end up among the disappeared, but it depended on who caught us.

  "Yeah, it could be bad," I admitted, "but I'm supposed to do whatever it takes to get the job done, and that's what we're doing. We just need to avoid being found by the wrong people. Not to put you on the spot, but how do you feel about it? Will they catch you?"

  "I can do it," she said. "It will take longer if we don't want to get caught, but I can do it."

  I looked over the two of them. This was my crew now. We had to do what we could for the others. I was happy to know that they felt the same way.

  "You better get started then," I said to @zerogstar. "In the meantime, I don't trust them, but I need to contact @horus and see what's going on with that Gravemind Syndicate contract. We need the info off that quantum drive."

  @zerogstar rose and pointed her head in the direction of her comm station. I acknowledged her, motioning that it was fine for her to go. She sprinted off to start her hack.

  @astrowave raised his hand from the couch across from me. "Small thing, but do we want to leave Eros? Our parking pass will renew in a few hours, and parking is expensive. Once they find out we are staying on the ship, they'll probably kick us out anyway."

  Las Vegastroid required that visitors pay to stay in one of their many resorts, not on their ships, so he was right. We really needed to leave.

  "We can rendezvous with the closest Alliance space station," I said, "but let's wait until either @zerogstar finds a lead or the Eros authorities ask us to go."

  "Why?" @astrowave asked.

  "I'm hoping a doctor can join us. I'd feel better if we had a medic on board, but it's a long shot."

  "Makes sense," he said. "Is there anything I can do?"

  There was, and it was critical to our success. "Yes, as our weapons expert, can you lay out the preparations for the rescue? Could be boarding a ship or storming a compound. We need to be ready."

  @astrowave smiled and stood up. "Yes, sir."

  "Consider our assets to be you, me, @zerogstar, and whatever other weaponry and tools we have. I'll send you the specs on my ARM so you can factor that in."

  "Thank you! I'm on it."

  I watched his huge body lumber down the passage to the battle room. I was proud of my crew, and I was glad I wasn't alone.

  Next I had to talk to @horus. I needed to be careful what I shared with him. I didn't know who to trust. But I wasn't going to let that stop us from doing whatever we could to get @bitchfrog back.