"Sloane," she said, her voice steady for the first time in years. "I’m not coming back to the Rake . I’m taking the long way home."
Min detached the data core and placed it in a shielded pouch over her heart. Then she activated her suit’s long-range transmitter.
It was a name. And her name was Jae.
47 degrees, 44 minutes.
She cut the channel and set a new course. Not toward the salvage vessel. Not toward the nearest spaceport. Toward the relay station on Titan, where a journalist was waiting for proof of the ATID cover-up.
It was Jae’s emergency beacon. The casing was cracked, space-welded to a strut of twisted metal. Min pried it loose with a trembling hand. The data core was still intact, a tiny obsidian chip humming with residual power.