It wasn’t as if Qud hadn’t gone radio silent before.
There had been plenty of times in the past — like when he had swapped shifts with Kajj to enter into the Asteroid Dash. Or when he had gotten stuck molting and was too embarrassed to call for help, only pinging Kajj when he was so hungry that he seriously considered biting his way out of the shedding casing. Or, stars, even the times Kajj had heard him slip down the halls of the warren, muffling his laughter, a dancing partner hanging on his arm…
But that was the thing, Kajj thought, drumming his fingers against the *Rapier*’s dashboard. He had always *known* why it was that his hatch-mate was quiet. He was always the first one to know all the minutiae of Qud’s everyday life — it was hard not to with their rooms adjoining and the long hours spent standing together outside of Mother’s chambers. Qud told him everything, failures and successes alike, and it was always Kajj who reached him first when he called for help.
He had to. He owed him, after all. Not only as a counterpart, but for the marring of his face…
//OBSERVATION: You are being quite foolish,*// his echo chimed in, the AI’s irritation ghosting over the back of Kajj’s mind. //*Last we knew, he was taking the Targe out for a spin. He’s likely just out of signal range. Or maybe he’s done something embarrassing again and is trying to save face.//
Maybe… or maybe there was something else to it. Maybe there was something to the prickling in the back of his mind, the coldness that had settled in his gastra.
Something didn’t sit right.
“~I’m going to check on him,~” Kajj sang, even knowing that he did not need to speak his words aloud for his echo to hear him. He reached for the ignition switch, flicking the proper sequence, his ship’s dash lighting up like a sun cresting over the horizon. “~If it’s nothing… we can play a round of cards or something. Or maybe I’ll challenge him to a race!~”
//Kajj…//
“~I know it’s nothing, alright? I’m just going to check. You can call me an idiot all you like when we’re done.~”
He did his best to ignore the cold prickle along his spin, the AI’s equivalent of an exasperated sigh as he checked the vincam flight logs, located the nearest stable punch-hole, and tunneled through to his hatchmate’s last known location.
In just a few moments, Qud would be laughing at him, telling him that he watched too many serials, that he needed to lay off the stimulant drinks so late in the cycle. In just a few —
The Rapier jolted as the ship entered and exited subspace, bringing with it the faint hint of nausea that always came with using the vincam punch-drive, the familiar constellations of the flotilla’s current idling location replaced with a field of floating debris.
Kajj’s hands tightened on the Rapier’s yoke, the leather of his gloves creaking.
This was…?
There had been a battle here, clearly. His ship’s sensors were still picking up the remnants of plasma burst canon signatures, and his proximity alarm was warning him of impending collision with the cloud of metal shards that spun violently in the Black, a broken trail leading to a familiar cockpit, attached by still sparking wires to a few remaining chunks of familiar fuselage.
He stared in unblinking horror, an icy chill spreading over him from his face down through his chest. Into his shaking hands.
A ship’s hull panel floated close to him, proximity alarms blaring, but Kajj could not force himself to move, to take evasive action. He could only stare, unbreathing, at the orange pinstripe painted across the panel, drawn by a steady, familiar hand.