The sound of oxygen flooding. The sound of mechanical whirring.

He found himself laying on the floor next to the captain's body.

... So there was gravity.

The view from the window was grey and dark red. Rust. They were inside the hold of an old vessel.

... He could feel William's breath, shallow.

Alive.

That was what mattered most, now.

" Goddamn, what happened in here?"

An unfamiliar, rough voice.

Nova tensed, felt the metal moving under his skin; he needed to get that out soon.

He kept his arms wrapped around William.

The door was pried open manually. There were four people, in ratty looking clothes. The idea eluded him for a moment.

Scrappers.

They had picked it up to salvage parts. Just pure coincidence. Nova almost wanted to laugh.

He was thankful his clothes were stiff with his blood, so that if the scrappers were aligned with DASS, they wouldn't blame him for it.

Well, the cargo hold had been blown off by the escape pods exploding, so all the bodies that hadn't been strapped in had floated off.

They were all staring at him, and staring at William.

He almost forgot to speak for a moment.

" ... Can you help him, please?" he asked. " ... I think he got too cold."