"It's Victor Vasquez and his men," said Jove. "It has to be."
They'd relocated to the command center after Andromeda's warning. Kira was at her desk, frowning at the main wall screen. Aster stood alongside him. Eve leaned against a chair, still seeming annoyed by her situation.
"They're coming from the north," said his mother, with a sigh. "It makes sense for them to be from Port Sirius."
"They could just be looking for their missing men," said Aster. "They might not be after us."
"After us and interested in us are like two towns that share a bridge," said Eve. "Besides. What are they going to find if they keep looking for those men?"
A wallet, thought Jove. With a photo of a child tucked into it, wrinkled as though it had been pulled out over and over again.
"They're not yet in sight of the station, but they're on course to be," said Andromeda. "I would estimate avoiding an encounter to be rather unlikely at this point."
"Fuck," muttered Eve. "You're sure there's seven of them?"
"Yes," said Andromeda. "Quite sure."
Jove took a breath, trying to shake off the guilt even as the questions continued to gnaw at him. Was this because of him? If he'd found a way to spare the two men, to send them back without killing them, would they still be facing down a raiding party?
Maybe. Probably. But not one with this level of mandate.
"They might not all have guns," he said, trying to think. "One of the men who… attacked us last time had an empty pistol."
"I've confirmed firearms on at least five out of seven," said Andromeda.
"Fuck," muttered Eve. "Well… we have three guns. If I take one and you take one, Mother. And Jove…"
She looked at him, and he knew immediately what she was thinking. He was thinking it too. The thought of pulling the trigger again, shooting at humans with lives and feelings and maybe even families made him feel sick, dizzy, almost. It made his ears ring like right after the bullets had deafened him.
"Jove?" said Eve.
"Yeah," he said. "I can do it."
"You can't," said Kira. "Or I should say we can't. The math will never add up in a way that leads to all of us surviving. If we start shooting guns at them, I don't think we all make it through tonight alive."
"Mother!" snapped Eve. "Did you learn nothing from the last time this happened? What, do you want to throw the doors open for them again?"
"She has a point, darling," said Aster. "Think about how this place is built, even. The entrance chamber leading to the long main hallway. Do we really want to have an uneven gunfight in a space where nobody can miss?"
Mango walked through Jove's feet, letting out an odd moan as though she was aware of and equally unsettled by the situation.
"That's exactly what we'll do," said Kira.
"…What?" said Aster.
"What Eve said, not you," said Kira. "We let them in. It could work."
"Mom," said Jove. "What are you talking about?"
"Andromeda, bring up a map of the station," said Kira.
The AI brought up Termina's layout on the main wall screen, all of the modules viewed from overhead with critical infrastructure marked with different colors.
"Which of the modules could survive a few hours in the cold?" asked Kira. "It's obvious that some like the hydroponics laboratory, the kitchen, and the bathroom need to stay heated. We went through this with you rationing the propane when we were running low. Aren't some parts of the station more resistant to sub-zero temperatures?"
"They were designed to be, yes," said Andromeda. "It heavily simplified transporting the modules during the original construction."
The AI added a colored overlay on top of the map. The main hallway, the bedrooms, the command center, the sauna, and most of the rest of the station turned blue, while the cold-sensitive modules Kira had pointed out turned red."
"Where are you going with this?" asked Aster.
"You want us to fake like we've abandoned Termina Station," said Jove.
"Exactly," said Kira.
Eve was already shaking her head. "They'll never buy it. They'll see our tracks if we leave now and know we only left sometime after when it last stopped snowing."
"We won't leave," said Kira. "We'll hide inside the station. In my room, which is about as deep within the station as we can get."
"It seems… optimistic," said Aster. "What's to stop them from finding us?"
"Andromeda, could you use your basic labor drone to set the scene once we're hidden?" asked Kira. "Slide a bookshelf in front of the door to my room, for example?"
"Of course," said Andromeda.
"They'll just walk through the station and take whatever they want," snapped Eve. "This is our home now. Are we really going to cede everything we have here, potentially, to a group of bastards with guns?"
"It could work," said Jove nodding slowly. "That's a good point, though. We have to start immediately and move everything of value that's moveable into Mom's room with us."
"The station will need at least half an hour to convincingly 'go cold,' so we have to commit to this now," said Kira. "I know you all lost a certain amount of trust in my decision making after what happened last time, but I'm going to ask for you to follow me on this. Please."
She looked from face to face. Aster seemed uncertain. Eve was shaking her head, but didn't otherwise object. Jove slowly nodded.
"It's the best plan we have," he said.
Each of the next few minutes became slightly more frantic than the one before as the amount of work the transition to "playing dead" would require became apparent. Jove didn't have much in terms of personal supplies, so he set his efforts to trying to stage the scene as believably as possible.
He found a spray bottle and filled it up, an idea coming to him as he thought about how quickly frost formed in the Antarctic's subzero temperatures. He coated the walls and the handles of the doors they'd have to keep closed and heated with enough water to leave frost if not ice outright once the station went cold.
"Everyone, now is the time to bundle up," called Kira. "Andromeda is going to open the entrance chamber doors fully to ice the station as quickly as possible."
Jove pulled on his winter gear alongside the others. The speed at which the station immediately succumbed to the unforgiving cold was sobering, as though the shelter and safety it had provided had only ever been a convincing illusion.
"The frost was a nice touch," said Kira. "I'd say to do the floor, too, but I'm not sure if we have time."
"We'd have to be careful not to leave footprints," he muttered. "Might not be worth it."
"True." She turned and looked him directly in the eyes. "Do you have your gun?"
He nodded slowly.
"You've double checked that it's loaded?"
"Yeah," he said.
She let out a breath, gave him a forced smile, and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you for backing me up. I think this might work."
"I hope so." He squeezed her tight, surprised at how small she seemed in his arms.
"The men are approaching the station," said Andromeda. "I would advise you to quickly make your way into hiding so I can conceal the door to Director Fairmont's room in time to power down as well."
"We're on it, Andi," said Kira.
Jove headed into his mother's office, following the others. He was about to join them in his mother's bedroom when he realized, in that dim, unhelpful way, that he was forgetting something.
"Fuck!" he hissed. "Mango!"
"The cat," groaned Kira. "Jovian! Leave her."
"She'll die in the cold, not to mention give us away!"
He hurried to the hallway, glancing around, but Andromeda had already turned the lights off behind them. His mother pulled at his arm. Jove took her by the shoulders, walked her back into her room, and closed the door.
"I'm finding my cat," he said.
"Jovian Faremont!"
He held the door closed for a second as she tried to push it back open. He pulled the bookcase into place in front of it, muffling the annoyed and worried complaints of the others on its far side.