Eve and Aster were waiting just outside the door to the entrance chamber. Both reacted to Andromeda's presence visibly, Aster taking a step back and Eve tensing as though readying herself for a fight.
"It's okay," said Kira. "I tested her loyalty. I think Andromeda can be trusted."
"You've decided this for all of us, then?" asked Aster. "I seem to recall us coming to the conclusion yesterday that trusting a potentially corrupted AI might get us all killed."
"My mother knows what she's doing," said Eve, with a nod.
"What she's doing is signing our death warrants!" shouted Aster.
Her eyes darted to the gun in Kira's hand, and with surprising speed, Aster stripped it loose. She took a step back with the barrel leveled at the drone. Nobody moved, the sudden shock of the situation seeming to cast a spell throughout the hallway.
"Aster." Jove stepped forward with his hands up, placing himself once more in the path of the gun. "Come on. We can't start turning on each other now."
"I'm not turning on anyone!" She panned the gun's barrel across the entire family, probably unintentionally, but Jove still winced. "If our situation is as dire as my sister makes it out to be, we can't afford to trust this AI."
"Aster," said Kira, voice impatient. "I trust Andromeda more than I trust us to survive without any heat. We need her to help get the most out of what little fuel we have left."
"Did anyone think to ask for my opinion before deciding this for all of us?" asked Aster.
It was a fair question, and it mirrored some of Jove's own feelings of discovering that his mother was sneaking in the middle of the night to take drastic action that affected all of them. It was hard to concede the point with a gun in his face, however.
"Enough." He set a hand atop the barrel and gently took the weapon from her. "How about we talk about this instead of waving guns at each other?"
"How about you stop treating me like an afterthought when it comes to making decisions that might cost us our fucking lives?"
Aster jabbed a finger in his chest hard enough to hurt and then pushed him outright. Kira didn't stop her as she stormed off to her room. Eve shook her head. Andromeda, still in the ice drone, remained eerily motionless.
"She'll come around," said Kira. "She has to."
They brought the ice drone to the command center. Jove winced at the sound of the metal studded treads moving across a surface other than snow. Kira gestured for the drone to move right up to the center computer and then, with a mere USB cable, connected it at the neck.
"The transfer is complete." Andromeda's voice came from the speakers of the station, and somehow sounded more familiar because of it. "I removed my backup from the drone's systems. You may return it to its original scientific use."
"For the time being I think I'll remove its battery and keep it in storage." Kira took out her phone and began controlling it with an app, navigating the lanes of the command center with much less finesse than the AI had. "I want to trust you, Andromeda, but it doesn't make sense to leave one of these with power, knowing what they can be made to do."
"I get the feeling that if Andromeda wanted to kill us, she could find other ways to do it now that she's back in our computer systems," muttered Eve.
"If she wanted to kill us," said Jove. "If."
"I have no intention of causing anyone harm, especially not Director Faremont or her family," said Andromeda. "I hope through the next few days and weeks, I can prove my loyalty to you all in a way that allays any fears or concerns you might have."
"I hope so, too," said Kira. "I wouldn't have brought you back inside if I didn't want to trust you. It's good to have you back, Andi."
"It's good to be back, Kira," said Andromeda.
Jove headed back to bed. He played Vertimon for a while, keenly aware that if he didn't make time for the game, Eve would out-level him to the point of being impossible to catch. Eventually, he fell asleep.
When he awoke the next morning, his face was cold. He got out of bed after checking his phone out of habit. The floor was frigid against his feet, and that could only mean one thing.
They were running out of fuel.