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"No," he admitted.
"Unless you have a solution..." J'avet stared him down.
Slek frowned. "The cannon Selvia had might do it."
"It's in here," I said. "The nanobots are out there."
Slek rubbed the side of his nose. "Unless we can rig that up to the forward array and…" He wandered off toward the cockpit, talking under his breath about numbers and technical specifications.
"In the meantime, stay away from—" J'avet's eyes widened at what he saw in the opposite window, behind my shoulder.
I turned and gaped.
The rogue's ship flashed with warning lights. I braced myself for the wake from the explosion if the Freytauri had engaged the self-destruct.
From one breath to the next, the lights turned off and the ship began to move away.
I creased my brow. "Either the Freytauri kept control, or—"
"Or the Iritauri are leaving orbit," J'avet finished.
Barely a minute later, another ship appeared in the window. This one was more distant, but coming fast. It was followed by another and another.
"It's about time," I muttered.
J'avet smirked.
"What?" I asked. "I sent the distress signal hours ago."
"They got here as soon as they could," he said.
Before I could respond, he turned away.
He was right, but the nanobots were quickly increasing in number. I didn't want to think about how. They didn't seem to feed on each other, and there was no material floating around, except the pod. They would either eat their way in, or they would eat the pod around us, until we were sucked out into the vacuum.
Maybe now I should kiss my ass goodbye. Instead, I moved to lace my arm around Danec's.
"It'll be all right," I said. I wasn't sure if I was trying to convince him or myself.
The pod shuddered as the nanobot swarm started to tap at the windows.
"Yes, it will," Danec said. He sounded as terrified as I felt.
The IF ships drew closer, but they seemed slow, too slow. The rogue ship increased speed.
"If we get out of this," I started.
"We will," Danec said. "We'll be fine. The IF is here. Slek is working. We'll be okay. We'll be okay."
The tapping became more insistent. I felt the overwhelming need to pee.
"We're going to die!" Humar shouted. His voice was raw with stone cold fear, the likes of which I had never heard before. It accurately summed up what I was feeling myself.
"We'll be fine," I snapped, in spite of myself. "Keep calm."
Tap.
Tap.
