A contingent from the Eastern Affiliates' ship entered Peter's vessel attired in matching olive green uniforms and gleaming black boots. Although they were allowed to keep their weapons for personal protection, they were asked not to point them at the crew.

Peter knew it was risky to have the armed visitors strolling around the ship, but the vessel was dead as far as usability. The marginal amount of thruster use they still possessed had been enough to come alongside the other ship, but it couldn't get them to a new world. Even if the gunmen proved a threat, they'd still be stranded on what amounted to a marooned craft.

I didn't notice your ships launching with ours," Peter said, trying to maintain a light conversational tone and keep things civil. "When did your ships launch?"

"Three weeks ago," Luo said. He leaned against one of the wall supports as if he were about to collapse.

"What's wrong?" Peter inquired. He stood nearby but didn't reach out to the man as he didn't want his actions to be misinterpreted as an attack.

"It's nothing," Luo denied. His stomach growled loudly.

"During your three weeks in orbit, how long have you been without food?" Peter asked. He didn't wait for an answer. Turning to Ace he issued instructions. "Get some people and retrieve a good sized portion of our food stores. Bring some here and have the rest delivered to their ship. Leave it at the hatch, they'll know where it needs to go."

Ace nodded and hurried away.

"Now then," Peter said as he turned to face Luo. "What happened to your food? It takes longer than three weeks to reach another planet, so I know you couldn't have run out already. What went wrong?"

"We had a malfunction in our storage facility," Luo explained. "Everything spoiled."

"We brought more than enough to share without running out," Peter assured him. "While your people are being fed, would you come to our meeting room? I'd like to explain our situation and see if we can come up with a few ideas together on how to leave orbit."

                                                                                                  ***

"These are the initial reports on the damage our engines took getting through the cloud," Peter explained while gesturing to the translucent image hovering over the table.

Seated around the rectangular table were Peter, Ace, Cathy, and the Tribunal members of Peter's city. Everyone was keeping a close eye on Luo and his people, wondering what they would choose to do.

"Based on the amount of usable components available," Luo explained between bites of the sandwich he held in his hand. "I would estimate you have enough to get perhaps half of your ships to their destination."

"We're not leaving anyone behind," Peter stated firmly.

"Millions upon millions have already died," Luo pointed out. "To save humanity, what are a few more?"

"Unacceptable, that what it is," Peter retorted. "We'll find a way to get to another planet even if we have to rig the engines up separately and take turns floating them between ships to get them all moving."

Luo chewed on his sandwich silently while staring at Peter. He waited until he'd finished his bite before speaking again.

"I'm glad you see it that way," Luo said. "My people were concerned if you intended to cut your losses, you might be tempted to start with us."

"Not going to happen," Peter promised. "Humanity destroyed the world fighting amongst itself, and it almost led to our extinction. Even now, we stand on the edge of it. Unity is the only way our species will survive."

"Glad to hear it," Luo agreed. "We've actually been working on the problem for a little while longer than you because we also took engine damage getting into orbit."

Luo placed a projection disk on the conference room table. An orange column of light spilled out of the device and formed an image of the ships belonging to the Eastern Affiliates. Engine components were highlighted in brighter lines.

"We realized we couldn't get our ships moving again with the parts we had available," Luo explained. "The salvaged engines either wouldn't move enough of our ships, forcing us to leave people behind, or they wouldn't be powerful enough if spread out across the fleet to get all of them moving."

"I take it you came up with a solution," Peter assumed.

Luo smiled as he tapped the projection disk once. The alignment of the ships adjusted, placing the vessels in a single line. As the people around the conference room table watched, parts flew off the Affiliates' ships and combined to create a new vessel. It was larger and more heavily equipped than any of the previous ones, and it appeared sufficient to do the job.

"If you've had this plan all along, why wasn't it completed?" Peter asked. "I don't see anything here that would've stopped you."

"It was our food supply," Luo answered. "Food storage was the first thing put in place on the new ship we were building. When the malfunction occurred, we lost everything."

"Ace," Peter instructed. "Contact the other ships and have them put together bundles of food we can jettison over to the Affiliates."

"I'm on it," Ace said before vanishing out the door.

"The plan can easily be adapted to incorporate your ships as well," Luo offered.

"It sounds good," Peter agreed. "Any reason we can't start immediately?"

"None that I can see," Luo replied.

                                                                                                  ***

Work commenced on salvaging the ships and combining them into a new colony vessel capable of carrying all of humanity's refugees to a new home.

Luo was very useful to the project as he spoke five different languages. Because the Eastern Affiliates maintained their individual dialects, Luo's ability to translate Russian, Arabic, Mandarin, and Hindi into English and back again allowed the two fleets to continue working together without a language barrier halting progress.

The main problem the fleet encountered was when they were establishing the new cryostasis chamber. One of the flammable coolant tanks ruptured, and the resulting explosion did tremendous damage to the primary control systems and several nearby ships.

Peter and Luo stood in the medical bay, waiting for the report on the injured. Seventy-three had already been reported dead, some of them among the workers putting everything together and the rest from the population of frozen civilians in stasis.

Ace walked in and handed Peter a data pad. "Here's the metallurgical report you requested."

"Thanks, Ace," Peter replied. He quickly scanned the information. Luo at his side was doing the same.

"It wasn't a design flaw or metal fatigue," Luo concluded. "You know what it means?"

"Yeah," Peter agreed grimly. "Sabotage."