Source Of Clothes

Aoi turned back to the cartography well, her fingers tapping the interface to isolate the signal. 

"Sensor contact in the Boiling Belt... Sector Four-Seven-Delta."

A faint flickering amber icon appeared on the three-dimensional map, deep inside the churning asteroid graveyard they had just left behind… It was an automated emergency transponder, broadcasting a weak low-power distress call from the shadow of a huge basalt fragment.

The purple needle.

Leo leaned forward with his dark eyes narrowing as he watched the amber light pulse on the screen.

PULSE! PULSE!

Right between his shoulder blades, the bronze warmth flared in a sudden sharp electric twitch that pulled his gaze straight to that point in the dark, and it carried a strange phantom ache, like a severed wire sparking in the rain.

STATIC-POP!

The beacon flickered violently twice, sputtered through a burst of interference... and went dark.