AS EACH MINUTE LEADING to the crash of the Nova Fortuna passed, more and more of the sheltering colonists were drawn to the control room. They crowded inside and leaned in at the door. The Mistral had its scanners and cameras trained on the colony ship, tracking its smooth descent.
No shuttle had launched. The generally accepted reason was that the alien attack must have damaged the shuttle bay. Whether that was true didn’t really matter. There was clearly an insurmountable problem preventing Geisen, Florian, and Cassie from abandoning ship. The comm lines were dead, so no one would ever know.
Cariad was trying not to imagine her techs spending their final hours together, knowing their inevitable fate. She wished with all her heart she’d fought harder to persuade them to come down to the
