Free Lana's Comet (Outer Settlement Agency) by Lyn Brittan

immediate action. It was a lot more certain than going through the proper channels.
    But that was a long time ago...back when Kin-Humanoids were still clones.
    Things were different now. Old thoughts wiped away. Supposedly. Thousands of Kin must work for Meash these days. If word got out, rioting was sure to follow and innocent lives on both sides would be lost.
    This required a soft hand, and OSA didn’t have a reputation for gentility.
    For every plan he came up with he’d find a reason to dismiss it. When the alarm roused Lana though, it came to him that he wouldn’t have to solve this problem alone. He had a confident woman beside him and he saw nothing in her eyes close to defeat.
    “I’m here,” Lana said and slid into the flight engineer’s seat. “I’m ready.”
    “I know.” He cleared his throat and went on with the training that still had to be done. “Your next task is to weld in open space. There’s a lot of junk flying around and not every sensor picks it up. Most won’t be an issue, but we need to see what you can do in the event of outer hull damage. Suit up.”
    “Where is the breach?”
    He shrugged.
    “Right, sir. What seems to be the problem?”
    “Good question. Sensors indicate that something near the wing is off a few degrees. It’s back where it meets the access hatch.”
    “Got it.”
    She did. The woman made smart decisions all the way around. Lana went out through the cargo bay door rather than near the deck to save time. She wasted some moments around the wing, but he smiled at the screen when she quickly realized that problem started with the elevon and not the wing itself. Her management of the shock angle and collision point velocity showed a talent beyond most. He zoomed in to check the momentary angle relative to the weld piece. Perfect. Cyprus signed off his approval on this section of her training before she even made it back inside.
    “You were magnificent,” he whispered as he helped her out of the suit.
    “With our without your assistance?”
    “Don’t get lippy, Kagen. But to answer your question, in spite of it.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    Had they not had the threat of distant minders, he’d have kissed her, removed her suit and...
    Sirens split the air, yanking him painfully into the present and they jumped back to their seats, heads shifting from one panel to the other. “What’s going on, Lana?”
    “Nothing. The sensors aren’t showing anything.” She leaned up to look out the windshield, then back to her screen. “This says that something is approaching fast, but there’s nothing there. I...I don’t know how to pass this part of the test.”
    “That’s because this isn’t on it. Get someone on the comms now. I’ll try to make...” The shuttle dimmed to emergency lighting and the engine whirled down. “...Contact,” he finished lamely. “It’s probably a sensor out of calibration.”
    “It’s a little more than that,” she added, pointing to one of the few lights still working. “The polarity panel is fuzzed. Maybe we can reverse them?”
    “If we can reach them. They’re through the lox tank baffles. Pull up the schematics, I’ll get the tools.”
    “We’re screwed.”
    “Because?”
    “Even though we can get to it from an interior access point, we don’t have the proper equipment to handle when we reach it, or rather, reach them. Trust me on this, Cyprus.”
    “Cyprus?”
    “Yep. Cyprus. It’s that serious. A regular visor can’t handle the infrared lighting. I’ve seen the damage from this and I’ve treated it dozens of times. It’s possible to reverse blindness with a medipod if we get to one in time, but we can’t even make contact with OSA base.”
    “Then we’ll be careful.”
    “This isn’t a joke.”
    “What choice do we have? Wait a day and a half and hope the oxygen doesn’t run out? It will, Lana. We might buy some time with the support systems in the control suits, but not much. We’ll have to do this by