let the bots scout ahead, including outside the upper door. When the scans came back clear after only a minute or two, they continued their trek upward.
“Those bots are really handy,” Ginny observed.
“They are not something I would have asked to be made, had it been up to me, but Elius did have some good ideas, on occasion,” Tigh allowed. “And your floaters are something just as useful, if not better.”
“Well, they’ve come in very handy lately,” Ginny admitted with a rueful shake of her head.
“Emperor Tigh?” Tiggy’s voice came to Tigh over his earpiece.
“Go ahead, Ensign,” he signaled back.
“I’ve been able to tap into the facility’s coms, sir. With your permission, I’d like to play the recording of what just happened to the men in those two chambers.”
Tigh was surprised. Not that the human woman would show initiative, but her suggestion to play the recording of Ginny’s confrontation with Gruber was startling.
“Why is that, Ensign?” he asked her.
Tiggy’s response took a moment, as if she was thinking how best to phrase her answer before replying.
“Sir, if you’d ask Captain Starbridge, she might explain that…uh…I’m prone to a bit of foresight on occasion. Right now, it’s telling me these men need to see what just happened. I can’t explain it any better than that,” Tiggy said, her words tinged with a bit of hesitancy, though he heard a conviction in her beliefs, as well.
“Just a moment, Ensign,” Tigh replied, calmly, turning to Ginny to do as the younger woman had suggested. “Tiggy says she thinks she should play the recording you just made to the men we have isolated below.”
“She did?” Ginny’s eyes widened. “Did she say why?”
“Something about foresight?” Tigh replied. He would have scratched his head, if he wasn’t in the middle of an evacuation.
But Ginny’s eyes cleared, and she started nodding. “Do it, then. I’ve learned to follow Tiggy’s flashes of insight. Her family is a bit famous—or, perhaps, that should be infamous—for the gift of clairvoyance. If she says we should do it, we probably should, and really, there’s no downside to this particular action.” Ginny shrugged. “If you’re asking my opinion, I’d do as she says.”
“I will always value your opinion, my love,” he took the time to tell her, earning a sparkling smile for his efforts.
He gave Tiggy the go ahead as they reached the door that led outside. The bots formed a defensive perimeter around their small group as they made a dash for the ship. Tigh didn’t breathe easily until they were inside. He recalled all the bots and sealed the ship so that they’d be ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Tigh had Jimnai put Sally in a stasis pod. She wouldn’t get any worse before they could get help for her, and she’d be safe if they needed to make evasive maneuvers. That done, they all went to the bridge.
Ginny went straight over to Tiggy’s comm station as soon as she hit the bridge.
“Status?” Ginny asked her coms officer quietly.
“All clear, Captain. I’m playing the recording now. Do you want to see their reaction?” Tiggy replied, smirking a bit at her own brilliance.
“There’s a two-way comm you’ve tapped into?” Ginny surmised.
Tiggy nodded, enlarging the feed on her screen so Ginny could watch over her shoulder. She felt Tigh join her a moment later, his warm presence at her back as he watched over Ginny’s shoulder.
The men in the barracks were sitting up in their cots, awakened by the bright light of the comm screen that took up one wall of the small room. On the other side of Tiggy’s screen, the warriors in the rec room took a moment from their ongoing bids to escape to watch the communal comm that was also playing Ginny’s confrontation with Gruber.
She shuddered as he shouted at her. He’d been a vile sort of man. Knowing that he’d been the architect of so much death across two galaxies made it hard for her to look at him, but she’d never shirked from her duty, so she watched, her lips held in a grim line. Then, she noticed that the recording of her got really bright as she started to glow.
She knew what would come next, but it was still startling to watch. The view was intensified from the floating camera that zoomed around the action to capture the best angles. Ginny hadn’t paid the floater much attention at the time, but the static view from Krysta’s belt was somewhat one-dimensional compared to the angled