Giovanni was in charge of interrogating Borja. Strange, but everyone else was busy trying to salvage what was left of the Inter-Galactic GG-20.

The passengers have successfully switched spacecrafts now. They were aboard the GG-12-B. They floated in it for a while before its gravity got restored. Logan was nowhere to be found at the moment.

The questioning was Giovanni’s sole contribution to the crew in all their six months in space and he was not going to mess it up. Logan claimed that he was too preoccupied to do it himself.

To be fair, he was. The Inter-Galactic GG-20 was threatening to burn up any minute. GIO must have listed several engine faults as damage from their earlier attacks. The engineers needed to start fixing it as soon as possible. Their commander needed to be present for that to happen.

Nevertheless, Giovanni suspected that that was just an excuse. Logan could wait till they were done to question the woman himself but he was avoiding the entire situation. She was his mentor, after all. A person that he respected deeply.

Logan did not have any time to address the rest of the passengers and neither did they themselves to listen to him, but they could tell something was amiss.

He, Logan, and Borja— in this order —had boarded the new shuttle, trailing after one another. Logan still held the gun pointed to the back of her head when he led her to a seat. It was not hard to put two and two together.

So that was why Borja was currently clamped to an electric seat, glaring at him like she was dying to wring his neck. Giovanni squatted in front of the cuffed woman. “Are you finally awake now?”

She moaned when she came to. The AA studied her environment in confusion for a moment before returning to his face. The confusion swiftly morphed into disappointment on seeing him.

“Yup. Me again.”

Borja sighed. “What now?”

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“I’m here to clarify a few things if you don’t mind.”

She began to tremble. Perhaps it was a pale attempt to garner sympathy but her hands shook uncontrollably as she struggled to look everywhere but at him. Her left leg started bouncing on the floor too.

“Who do you work for?” Giovanni continued. “Why did you try to sabotage the Inter-Galactic spacecraft?”

She bristled and looked away. Giovanni grabbed her chin firmly and forced her to face him. “I am not Logan, AA. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

“That wasn’t my plan,” she whispered.

“Speak up.”

“I was not trying to hurt anybody. I was only trying to stop the trip.”

“This is what you’ve been working on for years. You fought tooth and nail last year trying to come here. Why are you trying to stop it?”

She went mute again. Giovanni smiled. Borja was a very hard-headed woman. This was going to be very fun.

He leaned down to her face and stared right into her eyes. They harbored so much hate. Those clear blue eyes sparkled fiercely for a hot minute before she blinked, as though she could no longer hold his gaze.

“Cat got your tongue?”

Before Giovanni knew what was happening she threw her head back and head-butted him— hard. He staggered back words with a quick jerk. His nose throbbed.

Giovanni chuckled mirthlessly when he touched his nostril and drew blood. In one quick motion, he pulled her by the hair. “I am not above hitting a woman so I’d be careful if I were you.”

He wiped the blood away with the edge of his sleeve. “Just answer me. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

“The Resilience,” she replied curtly.

It sounded like an institution of some sort. “What is that? An organization?”

It seemed like her mind was debating which was the lesser evil: bluffing or risking getting tortured. He could tell just by looking at her.

“Not exactly,” she said instead.

Giovanni sighed in exasperation. “Well, what are they?”

“Basically, a group of people who don’t agree with this trip. Rich, powerful men. Mostly from Spain. They are convinced that finding a new planet is impossible and the UN is giving the world false hope. The Resilience believe that space travel is too risky at the moment– they think it’ll result in another tragedy at the end of the day, like the NASAA one.”

“And they’re willing to kill us to get their way?”

“Yes.”

After a rather aggressive encouragement from Giovanni, she went further into the specifics. Borja listed the names of the members of the Resilience; their plans, and their motivations. He prodded her till she nearly spilled her guts out.

By the time he was done, the passengers were returning to the GG-12-B for a break. Logan was right behind them.

Giovanni went to him. “I’ve been able to get some information out of her. Would you like to speak to her yourself?”

He gave him a stiff smile. “That’s alright. I trust your judgement, Mr. Gambetti.”