crew had been severely upset by the cancellation. Their mutiny had more or less been suppressed by now. But what if the crew had managed to find me here, after all?
Wyck had taken Lesh along, but he left his gun with me, for my protection.
It appeared I might have to use it.
The sound of someone moving around in the common area of the ship filtered through the wall. The person must be smaller than Wyck, their footfalls sounded lighter. That didn’t mean much, everyone here was smaller than Wyck. They might still be able to cause a lot of harm to me if they found me here.
Setting the tablet aside, I got up from the couch as noiselessly as I could. Drawing the gun out of its holster loosely draped over my shoulder, I pointed it at the door panel.
Chances were the intruder would leave soon. No one had discovered the cabins so far. Most likely, all I had to do was remain quiet and wait for them to go.
The footsteps moved closer, then stopped. It appeared the person now stood right at the door, on the other side of the wall.
I held my breath, half-expecting the dreadfully familiar spray of sparks from a cutting tool to shoot through the wall any minute. Raising my gun higher, I tightened my grip on it, ready to fire. I was not going to let them catch me off guard. Nocc was not going to touch me ever again.
Instead of the sparks, the beeping noise of the lock screen came. No one could open the doors, not even Wyck. The lock had been programmed with my and Val’s palm prints only. The cabin was our private area.
The door slid open, revealing a woman standing behind it. To my disappointment, it wasn’t Val, though she looked eerily familiar. Shock flashed on her face when she saw me. She leaped back, training her own gun at me.
“Svetlana? Svetlana Kostyk?” I mumbled, lowering my weapon.
She was exactly the same as in the pictures taken of her over fifty years ago—completely unchanged by time. Goosebumps rushed down my arms.
“You?” She stepped inside, quickly tucking her gun back into the holster at her belt. “So, that’s where he’s been hiding you?”
“You know of me?” I gaped at her, flabbergasted.
With a wide smile, she came up to me promptly and unexpectedly enclosed me in a hug.
“I can’t believe I’ve found you,” she muttered, holding me close, as if I were her long-lost relative. “I can’t believe you crashed here.”
She leaned back, holding me by my shoulders, and gave me a once-over, friendly excitement on her face.
I stared at her, too. Upon closer look, there actually were many differences between the woman who now stood in front of me and the official pictures of Svetlana Kostyk that I’d seen back on Earth.
Just like in the pictures, she had her long, wavy, chestnut hair pulled back into a ponytail. However, it wasn’t the sleek, tight, high ponytail in her official portrait. Now, it was low and loose, with tendrils of fly-away hair framing her lovely face.
Instead of the white uniform suit, she was dressed in a knee-length, flowery tunic with long sleeves and a pair of black pants.
The smile on her face smoothed out the severe wrinkle of focus and concentration she had on her brow in all the pictures I’d seen back on Earth.
“I did not expect to see another human here any time soon!” she gushed in a very girly way. Then, the excitement on her face dimmed. “I mean I’m sorry about the accident that brought you here.”
“It was no accident.” I shook my head. “The expedition was planned.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” She nodded slowly, not appearing surprised by my statement. “I wondered about that.”
“Why?”
“I’ve analyzed all available data of the past crashes. The one from your ship didn’t follow the usual pattern. At least not until the very end.”
“That’s when we lost control.” I sighed.
“So I thought.”
“Listen...” I took a nervous look at the door she’d left open. The sight of the gaping entrance filled me with anxiety. “We should lock it. And block the entrance to the ship, too.”
She followed my gaze then nodded with understanding. “Right.”
Together, we managed to prop the metal block against the entrance to the ship again. Then, Svetlana lifted the opaque cover of the electronic lock from the floor by my cabin.
“Did you break it?” I stared at it in alarm. Broken things scared me, I had no clue how to