“Jude, how can you even be sure? I know you don’t want to hear this, man, but if she went outside there’s a good chance she’s not ali—”
“Don’t fucking finish that.” The words came out low and dangerous as I shoved my arm through my jacket and turned toward the door. It was already difficult enough not to question my own sanity. Did I actually believe our dreams connected us? That there was some tear in the fabric of things that had been letting us find each other in the dark? If that was true—if any of it was true—was she even down there?
For once in my life, I had no fucking clue.
But I knew what I wanted. Her.
Gesturing around the room, I sighed before adding, “Would you let this go?”
Their quarters were small but lived in. Two pairs of boots by the door. A stack of dishes in the sink. Kit’s books piled beside Elias’s research papers on the low table in front of the portside window where a soft lamp cast a warm glow over the small fabric cot waiting for their baby.
“Would you walk away from all of this?” I met his eyes only to watch his jaw tighten.
He shook his head slowly. “No.”
“Well, I did.” I dragged a hand through my hair, pacing once across the floor. The words tasted bitter, but it was true. All my life I ran from becoming my father, only to trace his shape in the space I made by pushing her away. “A million fucking times. She was right there, Elias. All those years—right there—and I kept telling myself the timing was wrong. That, maybe, we’d figure it out later.”I laughed once under my breath. “Turns out later was the end of the world.”
I stopped pacing and looked back at him. “I found her and I’m not letting a few thousand miles of empty space get between us again.” I grabbed the pack from the floor. “I’d rather die trying.”
“You can take the rig.” Kit took a sip of tea, set the mug down carefully, and pulled a card attached to her badge from beside the hatch. “It’s ready.”
“Kit—babe, no.” Elias was already reaching for it, but I snagged it first.
“I love you,” I said, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek.
“Dude. No. What the hell. This is a terrible idea—” Elias followed me toward the door.
“Let me grab my jacket and some shoes. I’ll show you how to fly her.” Kit rounded the island and waddled toward the bedroom.
Elias turned after her. “Kit, no.”
I leaned back against the counter, grinning. “She can make her own decisions, Jones.” It was a low blow, and I knew it, considering they’d been fighting about birth plans for the last week. It didn't matter.
“Yeah, Lieutenant,” Kit called from the bedroom. “I can make my own decisions.” She reappeared a moment later, tugging Elias’s sweatshirt over her head and smoothing the stray hairs back from her face. “Stay here, you big scared baby.”
Elias dragged on his coat anyways. “Let it be known I am accompanying you because my wife is seven months pregnant, and the books say she could go into early labor given her family history—not to mention the stress you’re about to put her through.”
“More like excitement,” Kit said, slinging her badge around her neck. “If this thing actually works, I’m going to be stoked.”
I frowned as we stepped through the hatch. “What do you meanifit works? I thought you said you’d test-flown it already.”
“Eh” they both replied.
Long strips of soft illumination ran along the corridor ceiling. We moved quickly through the rings, boots thudding against the metal floor as the station whirred around us. To our right, wide port windows stretched along the curve of the hall where deep space stared back. Black and endless, punctured by cold white stars and beautiful streaks of colored gas. I tried not to look at Earth, but it was impossible not to. The planet hung off to the side of the station like a buried blue jewel, swallowed in dark bands of soot and storm.
From this distance it almost looked peaceful, but I couldn’t reconcile that the girl I loved was trapped in its hostile atmosphere.
I forced my eyes forward and pushed through the final hatch. The shipping bay vestibule was small, a narrow chamber lined with lockers and suit racks. Hooks of gray tethers hung from the wall where rows of sleek pressure suits waited in their cradles.
Kit grabbed one down, “Suit up. The bay itself runs low gravity.” She clipped a tether to a suit pulled down from the rack and tossed it toward me. “Helmets are over there.”
Elias groaned while pulling on his gloves. “Let the record show I still think this is the stupidest shit either of you have ever pulled.”
“Good thing we didn’t ask,” Kit added, rolling her eyes. “I’ll grab another suit for Solace. She’ll need it.”
“Thanks Kit.” I slid my badge over a scanner beside the lockers where a hidden compartment droned open. Guns were only permitted to ranking members of the Order, and even then they were locked away in a pressurized compartment only to be used in extreme cases of emergency. We couldn’t risk a hole to the hull. I unlocked it anyway and slid a handgun into my belt with an extra magazine. Just in case.
Once suited, the inner hatch opened with a hiss and cold air rushed past us as we stepped through. The shipping bay stretched before us in glass and steel. Crates floated lazily in tether nets above the floor, massive cargo arms hung suspended from the dome rails, and tucked in the corner was Kit’s rig.
