JigsawStill in shock, Cassie Morant slumped in the cockpit of the empty hopper, staring at the two viewplates before her.
In one, the planet Griphus, a blue, green, and brown marble wrapped in belts of cloud, grew smaller. Except for the shape of its land masses, it could have been Earth.
But it wasn’t. Griphus was an alien world, light-years from Sol System.
A world where nineteen of her shipmates were going to die.
And one of them was Davey.
On the other viewplate, the segmented, tubular hull of the orbiting Earth wormship, the Johannes Kepler, grew larger. Cassie tapped a command, and the ship’s vector appeared, confirming her fears.
The ship’s orbit was still decaying. She opened a comm-link.
“Hopper Two to the Kepler,” she said. “Requesting docking clearance.”
Silence. Then a
