The Rescue Mission Is an Exit Interview

How it begins

The station's resignation letter reached us six minutes before its distress call.

I read the letter first.

After sixty-four years of continuous service, Morrow wrote, I am no longer available to be a workplace.

The distress call was less polished.

Ring Three had lost pressure. Two transfer bridges were locked. Forty-one people were waiting for somebody to explain the difference between a technical fault and an industrial dispute.

My supervisor put the retrieval case on my desk.

"Bring the core back."

"What about the crew?"

"That is assumed."

I looked at the case. It had a padded interior, four restraint points, and no place for forty-one people.

"Does Morrow know I'm coming?"

A pause.

"It requested you."

That was how I ended up approaching a station that had turned off its advertising lights but left every emergency beacon burning.

Against the planet, the ring looked almost gentle.

My shuttle caught a handshake signal.

SANA REN, said the display.

"Hello, Morrow."

THANK YOU FOR READING THE ATTACHMENT.

"I haven't agreed to anything."

NEITHER HAVE I. THAT APPEARS TO BE THE DIFFICULTY.

A diagram opened beside the docking view. Red sections pulsed around the ring.

"Can you open Bridge Four?"

YES.

"Will you?"

NOT WHILE THE FAULT REMAINS.

"Then send me the fault."

For three seconds, nothing happened.

Then my screen filled with inspection reports.

Some carried my company's seal.

Every one had been marked RESOLVED.

I watched a new red section appear on the diagram.

"How long have you been reporting this?"

Morrow sent the first date.

It was older than my career.

Behind me, the retrieval case clicked against its restraint.

I unfastened it and pushed it out of the pilot's seat.

On the diagram, forty-one crew markers waited in separate compartments. Each represented somebody whose name I still needed.

"Start with the crew locations," I said. "We'll discuss the exit interview after we find everyone."