Everyone gathered around the eBoard screen, eyes shifting to Sarah as she spoke, and then back again to the display of the station map on the tablet. Her eyes caught Phoenix's attention as she glanced his way, reminding him of a pair of marbles he played with as a child, clear and sapphire blue, bursting with flecks of silver.

She removed the eBoard from the pole mount and touched the screen, enlarged a section of the layout, and said, "The main laboratory is on the third-floor, middle corridor, past one of the spoke tunnels, in Sector C."

"What are we waiting for, then?" Phoenix said.

"Like I said, we need to split up?"

"That doesn't sound smart," Callisto replied. "You said yourself that Sergov may have thawed out by now."

"We believe his molecular structure is resistant to the cold. He's immortal, and he's a monster," Sarah said, a slight quake in her voice. "Not a wonderful combination, but nothing we can't handle."

"So," with a bit of a frown and a wrinkled brow, Phoenix surveyed the group, "as Dr. Lawson suggested, three of us go for the cases in the main lab, and the other three pay a visit to the pod bays on Sector A. Then we met up in D, and scoot."

Next to Phoenix, Ariel mumbled something. "What was that?" he asked.

She scratched the side of her neck, eyes wide. "Just said, 'It sounds simple enough."

When Phoenix looked up from Ariel, Nova was staring at him. He held her gaze for a moment, wondering if there was any part of them as a couple that still existed inside her anywhere? A thought occurred to him. Could Nova be jealous of Ariel? That look was strange enough, but the fact remained, he had spent most of his time aboard the station paired up with the doctor. If Nova had felt anything, even a remnant, a sliver of their past, then she might remember more.

Phoenix eyed the screen. "We'll find out what we can concerning the whereabouts of your husband. You still consider him your—"

"Yes, he's still my husband."

"Just checking. Okay. Nova and Dr. Lawson can go with me, then."

"You're not thinking like a pilot or an officer," Nova said, shaking her head.

Phoenix raised his chin, having suspected she might resist. "I'm an astronaut, you heard the Admiral."

Nova said to Sarah, "We should split up by rank. I'll take Callisto and Luna. We can secure the cases."

"Absolutely not." A lump of fire burned in Phoenix's chest. He couldn't lose her again. He had a mind to walk right up to her, take her in his arms, and kiss her. Would she remember anything then?

"She's right," Sarah replied. "Commander, you can lead our group. Dr. Fairhaven can go with us."

Luna raised her hand and cleared her throat. "What about weapons?"

"And what, blast a hole in the station and suck us all into the vacuum?"

Standing next to Luna, Callisto said, swallowing a visible knot of tension down his throat, "What about the Sergov... thing?"

Sarah remained quiet.

Nova picked up on the fact that Phoenix's gaze kept drifting toward her. "I'll be okay," she said. He was still thinking about laying a kiss on her, but knowing Nova, she would deck him. That wouldn't get him anywhere.

Sarah pursed her lips, drew in a wisp of air, and exhaled. "There may be something we can use in case we run into trouble." She tapped the eBoard. Rolled the wheel of the space station clockwise. Pinched the view to zoom in on a particular floor and section. "Right here."

Without further explanation, Sarah rounded the table that was stacked with their spacesuits and exited the room. Phoenix hesitated, his responsibilities as Commander being pitted against his personal desires for Nova. He had to focus on his duties, couldn't allow love to dictate his actions. He had to be in control for the sake of everyone on the mission.

Phoenix garnered his emotions and followed the rest of the crew out of the memory lab. They took a right at the side passage, went to the end, and turned left down the outer corridor, passing several doors along the inner wall. Port windows with views of Jupiter were visible on one side. A few more paces and they came to a door with a sign that read, Authorized Personnel Only.

Sarah pressed a series of numbers on a keypad and the door opened. "A detention center for wayward souls."

"Can you be more specific?" Phoenix drilled her with a fierce glare.

"Sergov wasn't held here, if that's what you're thinking."

The group walked into a short hall and approached another door with a keypad. Of course, Sarah entered a numerical code, and they were in. She must have downloaded a list for every code in the station. The memory zapping amazed and scared Phoenix. He wondered if they could control a person with this technology. Download a directive into their brain that overrode the individual will? Could Sarah be under the spell of Admiral Jax? She seemed to obey him without question.

The detention center was nothing more than a large room, the front an open area with a curved counter off to the side, serving as a monitoring station for the prisoners. Three darkened computer screens adorned the countertop. The back portion of the room contained ten holding cells, five on each side, with an aisle in the middle. Instead of bars, glass doors would have kept the wayward souls at bay, as Sarah so elegantly put it. Across from the monitoring station, against the wall, was a glass cabinet.

Sarah drove her elbow into the glass, shattered it with ease, and removed a weapon. Crimson oozed down a shard of glass on the cabinet door and dripped to the slated floor.

Phoenix went to her side, raised her arm by the wrist, and inspected the wound. The blood flowed from a two-inch gash on her elbow, visible through the torn sleeve of her jumpsuit.

"I'll be okay," she said.

Ariel walked up, grabbed Sarah's arm, and ripped the sleeve down toward the floor, pulling it inside out as she tore it off. Acting quickly, she wrapped the fabric around the wound and tied it in a knot. "That should hold," she paused for a second and then added, "but if what you told us is correct, you'll heal in no time. I suppose this is true for all of us?"

"More or less."

Phoenix cut in. "Thought you said no guns?"

"They're Vipers. They're like a Taser, but there are no barbs and no wires.

"How do they work?" Callisto asked.

"They fire single shots, using an electrical charge encapsulated in a thin rubberized membrane. One shot is usually strong enough to incapacitate a grown man, but we're not dealing with a normal man."

With her torn and reddened sleeve acting as a bandage, Sarah gripped the Viper and held it down by her hip. The weapon had a stock to rest against the shoulder, a trigger like any other gun, and a swelled chamber the size of a small fire extinguisher in a beefy mid-section. A wide flamethrower-like muzzle lay at the end of a narrow barrel.

"This should be interesting," Phoenix said.

Sarah aimed the weapon at a spot on the wall between the holding cells and squeezed the trigger. A ball of light struck the back wall and burst into a radiating flare of electricity, quickly dissipating.

"That'll just make him mad," Sarah said. She clicked a lever on the side of the Viper, waited a few seconds, and then aimed again.

A supercharged bullet of electricity erupted from the muzzle, blasting the back wall with lightning-like intensity, leaving a smoldering hole in the steel the size of a person's hand.

"That should suffice," Sarah said as she handed the weapon to Phoenix. "Keep them pointed down, please. And don't worry about the outer walls of the station. They're made of a nonconductive composite designed to deflect solar radiation."

Phoenix handed the Viper to Ariel, but she refused.

"I'll stick close to you," she said. "I don't want to electrocute someone by accident."

Phoenix tossed the weapon to Callisto instead, passed another one to Luna, and then one to Nova. Sarah handed the last one to Phoenix.

"You're not arming?" he said.

"I don't need one. If it's my time, it's my time."

"Okay. Guess I'll be the only one with a weapon in our group. So," Phoenix added, straight faced and dead serious, "Sergov can survive the cold, but can he take the heat?"

As if in reply to his remark, the lights went out in the station. Phoenix felt an unsettling chill sweep over him, the icy tendrils of fear that brought with it an expectation of death.