The return to the Magellan's Hope was a blur of terror and recrimination. Webb had found Chen wandering the alien ship's corridors, half-mad with fear, and dragged her back to the airlock. Varga had followed, his face gray, his hands shaking.
Dmitri was dead. They'd had to leave him behind.
Saito met them at the airlock, his expression shifting from concern to horror as he took in their panicked state. "Report. Now."
Webb told him—the eggs, the creature, Dmitri's death. He left nothing out, though his voice cracked when he described the thing punching through the helmet.
Saito listened in silence. When Webb finished, he turned to Amira, who had joined them from the bridge. "Get me a channel to Corporate. Priority one."
"Captain," Webb said, "we need to quarantine. If that thing got into Dmitri's suit, if there are spores or—"
"I know." Saito's voice was tired. "Everyone into the decontamination chamber. Full cycle. Then we wait for instructions."
The decontamination cycle took six hours—six hours of standing in sterilizing radiation while automated systems scanned them for foreign biological material. Chen spent most of it in a daze, replaying the moment of Dmitri's death over and over in her mind. The crack of the visor. The screams. The wet, horrible sounds that had followed.
When they finally emerged, clean and exhausted, Amira had news.
"Corporate is sending a ship. A science vessel, the Prometheus. They'll be here in three weeks."
"Three weeks?" Varga exploded. "We need to get out of here now! That thing—"
"Is still on the alien ship," Saito interrupted. "And we have our orders. We're to maintain station and await the Prometheus's arrival. They want to study the site."
"Study it?" Chen's voice was hollow. "People died. Dmitri died. And they want to study it?"
Saito met her eyes. "I know. But we signed contracts. We have families who need the pay. And if we leave now, we abandon any claim to salvage rights. We'll be in debt for the rest of our lives."
The silence that followed was heavy with despair.