TWO YEARS LATER
Epicurean Space Yards, New Smyrna Beach, Florida
“Nothing like that new ‘old ship’ smell.” Kane wrinkles his nose as he climbs the metal ramp, his footsteps clanking.
I frown at him as he passes me at the top of the ramp and then crosses the threshold into the ship.
“The T-176 model is a classic,” I call after him. That’s what the sales guy said, anyway. “It might be a little older.” Point in fact, my “new” ship is a lot older. It’s been around a decade and a half longer than I have. Not quite senior citizen status, but maybe closer than either of us would like to admit. “But it’s built to last.”
Thick, durable hull. Huge cargo bay. Oversized crew quarters from when trips were longer and slower. It would cost me a small fortune to charge her for a long trip, but I’m not planning any of those. Never again.
Plus, the Charlotte is a revamped CitiFutura product—part of their transport class—which I have considerably more faith in these days. Though making sure the remote kill switch had been deactivated was job one.
Yeah, she’s got a few scrapes and dents. I reach out and rub my finger along a lengthy scratch down the side of the hull; it leaves the impression a newbie pilot might have gotten confused between port and starboard at some point in the past, to the detriment of any nearby stationary objects.
But that’s all superficial. She’s sturdy. Reliable. And sure, occasionally she smells of overheating metal and burning dust, but that’ll work its way out eventually. Maybe. But even if it doesn’t, that’s okay. It reminds me of home. Which it now is. I’ve been living here for the last six weeks, getting Charlotte ready for her new life. And mine.
This ship, named for my mother, is central to my plan. It’s one of the only major purchases I’ve made with my share of the salvage claim that Verux was forced to pay when Kane and I returned, back when Verux still thought they could buy their way out of the bad press, spin our survival as a miracle rather than an unhappy accident.
The salvagers who’d picked up our message on the emergency beacon had been more than happy to bring us aboard and let us post our story to the Forum and newsfeeds. In exchange for payment, of course. We gave them the only thing we had—the LINA. She wasn’t technically ours to give, but in that situation, the salvagers weren’t all that picky and neither were we.
It was, in the end, a version of the plan we’d had from the beginning. We had proof. The pieces of the Tratorelli sculptures worked nearly as well as the whole ones might have. And the blast that took out the Aurora also knocked out a decent portion of the commweb, backing up our story. Not to mention, Verux had made plenty of enemies who were willing to believe the worst of them. The plan just hadn’t played out exactly the way we’d anticipated on that first day. And with fewer of us to reap the benefits.
In my case, those benefits included my own transport ship, my own transport business. LINA Shipping Co. LSC. It doesn’t come close to making up for what we lost. Who we lost. But I’m trying to make it count.
This is my future, shaped by me, not Verux’s greed or that of any other company. Right now, though, it’s just one ship and me.
Though I’m hoping to change that.
I watch Kane prod at the hatchway, probably checking for crumbling foam seals out of habit, and my stomach lurches in a mix of anticipatory flutters and stabbing dread. It’s not too late, Kovalik. Just give Kane the tour, and let it be done. You don’t have to do this.
Except I want to. I think. I’m just not sure which is going to win out, the want or the fear. The possibility of success versus the very real relief from not taking the chance at all.
I follow Kane in. “Lots of available parts means cheaper repairs. You’re the one who told me that,” I say, rubbing my sweaty palms against the worn legs of my jumpsuit. Wearing anything else still feels strange, even after months of dressier clothes for congressional hearings, depositions, and court dates.
Kane lowers his hand from the hatch. He looks so much healthier these days. No more gray tint to his skin, no deep purple circles beneath his eyes from stress and lack of sleep. It took months for him to make a full recovery, and he still has issues with headaches.
“I did say that,” he agrees readily enough. “But it’ll be a full-time job keeping her up and running. I told you that, too.” He holds my gaze, bright blue eyes seeing right through me, to the core where I’m scared and he knows it.
Suddenly, we are standing too close together.
“Come on.” I turn away from him, but my shoulder brushes his chest.
I shiver, heat rising in my cheeks.
Taking a deep breath, I push down unruly emotions and lead the way to the bridge, up a short flight of stairs and to the left through a narrow corridor. The overheads are higher on the Charlotte, so at least Kane won’t have to duck.
From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Derik, drifting aimlessly down the hall away from us, his hand trailing lovingly across the wall. Derik has been dead, as near as I can tell, for at least twenty years. I haven’t found his name in the Charlotte’s records yet, but whoever he was, he loved this ship and he seems okay here. Perfectly happy to ignore me. For now, anyway.
I’ve been watching for my mom, but nothing. Perhaps her absence is the best sign of all. It’s safe. I think she would be pleased, though, both by the ship and its name.
The narrow corridor dead-ends into a blast door—another safety protection, given that piracy is an ever-present threat in the transport business—but the door is currently standing open, revealing the bridge. A wide, open space, compared to the LINA’s. There’s even a seat for my mech, assuming he—or she or whoever!—wants it. No matter what, I’ll need to hire other crew.
“All the chairs have been replaced,” I say to Kane, gesturing toward the bridge. “Used models, yes, but upgrades. No more worn-out padding and questionable springs.” I sound defensive, and I hate it.
Kane just nods.
“The comm board has also been completely—” I begin, gesturing at the console right as it signals a new message. And because I’m the only one living here at the moment, I don’t have the privacy controls on, which means the message pops right up on the main screen.
He raises his eyebrows. “A Forum subscription. To the Aurora threads?”
I try not to grimace. “It’s proved useful in the past.”
Kane stays silent, but I can feel both the questions and concern radiating from him. And it’s not like that. I’m not obsessing.
“Did you see the fucking memorial?” I burst out, furious heat in my chest at just the memory of it. “Just an empty hunk of rock with their names carved in it.” Just like all of Verux’s other fuckups. Slap a memorial up and call it done. No. Hell no.
The civil suit—the one we’re bringing against Verux with the families of the Aurora passengers—might help, if we win before Verux goes bankrupt. But I’m not taking any chances.
“At least this way Nysus’s name will be remembered,” I say, quieter. Nysus’s family refused to meet or speak with me, even after I sent his share. They’ve never publicly acknowledged the death of their son. “All of their names will be remembered.”
“What did you do?” Kane asks, eyeing me with mild suspicion.
“I made sure Voller, Lourdes, and Nysus were all officially acknowledged on the thread as the finders of the Aurora, along with us.” Lately the media has been too focused on Kane and me, forgetting that we were once a team of five.
“And?” Kane prompts, gesturing for me to spit out the rest.
I sigh. “I might have paid the Forum to permanently rename that section. It’s now the Dionysus Memorial Aurora Archive and Messageboard.” That was my only other major purchase.
A smile spreads slowly across Kane’s face. “That’s a mouthful,” he says after a moment.
“Yeah, but his name is on every page now, at the top,” I point out.
Kane laughs. “He would have liked that.”
“Yeah.”
An awkward silence follows, and my fingers fidget nervously with the metal scroll hanging around my neck on a delicate chain. The scroll is warm from my skin. It’s not Lourdes’s necklace, but a similar one. Her mother pressed it into my hand as I was leaving after delivering Lourdes’s share of the fee. It wasn’t enough, not the money, not the words I had for them, to tell them how sorry I was.
But Lourdes’s mother insisted I take the necklace, that Lourdes would have wanted me to have it. I hope that’s true.
I don’t know what the scripture inside says. I kind of like not knowing, walking around with it, a blessing from Lourdes beating close to my heart. It could just as easily be a curse, for what I did to her, but I’m somehow sure it’s not. And that seems as much guidance as anything for a path forward.
Come on, TL, Lourdes would say to me now, if she were here. Just ask him.
I shake my head at myself, and in denial. Not yet.
“So you probably want to see the engine room,” I say quickly, starting toward the corridor again. “Hey, did I tell you that I finally met Voller’s mother? When I took her his share. She’s this tall, gorgeous—”
“Claire,” Kane says.
“—redhead.” I stop and slowly turn to face him. My heart is beating way too hard, a thrashing animal in my chest.
“Why are you showing me around a ship that I’ve already seen?” Kane asks gently. “That I inspected before you even put in an offer?”
“I…” I hesitate.
He folds his arms and leans back against the edge of the communications console, waiting patiently. He knows. I know he knows. But he’s going to make me say it, going to make me ask.
Part of me, furious at being cornered, wants to just walk away. Yeah, that’ll show him. But more of me is relieved to have the help, the nudge I still need in the right direction when it comes to being vulnerable.
“Are you trying to hire me?” he prompts.
“No! I know you have that offer from Zenit,” I say. I’d had a similar one from them, Verux’s largest competitor. But that would have been the same shit, different company. No thanks.
“Are you trying to seduce me?” He’s teasing, but his expression flickers with heat at the idea.
I glare at him. “No,” I grit out.
Kane raises his hands in surrender. “Just asking.”
I roll my eyes.
“What do you want, Claire?” he asks.
It’s direct, with just enough pressure behind it that I feel compelled to answer.
“I want you to be a partner with me. In LSC.” The words tumble out, sounding brazen and loud and un-take-back-able. “You don’t have to, obviously. And you wouldn’t have to contribute a half stake. I’m staying majority owner.” Because no one is taking this away from me. “It’s just short runs from here to the colonies. A couple of weeks tops, so you wouldn’t be away from Isabelle very long. And we certainly have enough publicity to get us started.”
“You want me to work for you,” he says slowly with something that sounds like disappointment.
Frustrated, I rake my hand through my hair. “I’m not your TL. I’m not your anything.”
Kane straightens up, alarmed, his arms dropping to his sides. “Claire, that’s not—”
“I just want you to be with me. Us to be together. Whatever that looks like.” I lift my chin defiantly, though my face feels like it’s on fire. “If you don’t want to work for LSC, fine. But I—”
“Yes.”
I stop, mouth open mid-word. “Yes?”
“Yes.” He smiles, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Though I was sort of expecting this conversation two months ago when you had me come look at the ship,” he points out, moving to stand next to me.
“Yeah, well. You could have said something,” I mutter.
“No,” he says evenly. “I couldn’t have.”
He’s right, as annoying as it is; I needed to get here myself.
Kane holds out his hand, and I take it.
I lock my fingers tight through his, relieved still, after all this time, to feel the firm pressure of his grip in response rather than the slackness of his fingers trapped in mine.
I still have nightmares about being on the Aurora. About all of it. Nothing for it but more time. And focusing on the future while still remembering the past, I guess.
“So what now?” he asks.
“I might have some champagne in the galley for a toast. Just in case.” It seemed like the thing to honor Voller in this new iteration of a crew. He would have appreciated the alcohol, if not the sentiment. “A new bottle,” I add quickly.
“To fame and fortune?” Kane asks, repeating Voller’s words, a quick flicker of sadness accompanying his smile.
“Something like that. Maybe a little less of both, if we can manage it,” I say, edging closer, my body pressed to Kane’s in a firm line at his side.
Kane nods before brushing his mouth against my temple. “Sounds good to me.”