Course plotted for Rhenn Logistics home base, Fred said. ETA fourteen hours.
She nodded. The stadium’s orbital ring shrank in the rear display until it was just another point of brightness among the stars.
Then she put her head in her hands and absolutely didn’t cry.
The cockpit was quiet. Too quiet.
Cait slumped in the pilot’s seat, legs tucked under her. The H4-RPY hummed around her, engines steady, systems running normally. No red lights flashed on the overhead panel to demand her attention. There was nothing to patch with duct tape and swearing.
For the first time since she’d breached Parac’Norr’s atmosphere, the ship was peaceful.
She stared at the readouts. Her chest felt like a scooped-out hole. The air recycler hissed, pushing stale, cycled air over her face, and she blinked against the sudden dry sting in her eyes.
The crisis was over. She’d gotten off that hellhole prison planet and made her cargo runs, more or less on time. And she’d dumped the lying asshole alien who’d played her for a fool.
All in all, a job well done.
Even Kian’s downfall had already been handled. The heavily encrypted files detailing her brother’s sabotage were currently sitting in her solicitor’s inbox. A loaded gun waiting to be fired.
And absolutely none of it mattered.
God, what she’d give for a hydraulic failure right about now.
The stars outside the viewport were the same stars they’d been flying through for days, but they looked different now. Flatter. Like someone had painted them on the glass instead of scattering them across the blackness of space. Her hands rested on the armrests where they’d been resting since she’d finished the pre-flight checks, and she hadn’t moved them because there was nothing to move them for.
“Fuel margins holding at twelve percent,” Fred said, his voice gruff. The same tone he’d used since she was fourteen and sneaking him illegal processor upgrades. “Projected arrival at oh-nine-hundred station time.”
“Good.”
“Traffic density in Sector 41 is minimal. We will bypass the outer asteroid belts entirely and should have clear lanes all the way through.”
“Fine.”
“The hydraulic cylinder is holding pressure at ninety-nine point eight percent efficiency. The port-side strut is miraculously stable given the nature of the field repair.”
“Okay.”
She stared out the main viewport. The star streaks blurring past the reinforced glass looked wrong. Distant. Like she was watching the universe through two feet of dirty aquarium water.
Her reflection was a ghost in the viewport glass… hair pulled back, face pale, eyes that looked like someone else’s eyes looking back at her.
Insufficient.
Her father’s voice surfaced from the dark corners of her mind. It was what he always said. No matter what she did, it was somehow never enough. She’d once dragged a barely functional freighter across three hostile systems on nothing more than vapor and a prayer, dumped the manifest on his polished desk, and waited for a nod. A sliver of respect that she was a Rhenn in more than just name.
Insufficient, Caitlyn. The margins are too thin. The risk was unnecessary.
She waited for the spike, the hot rush of anger that welded her jaw shut because she couldn’t trust her voice. The heat made her curl her fists until her fingernails dug into her palms. The one that caused the urge to yell, scream, and try harder to prove the old bastard wrong.
But there was nothing. No anger, no embarrassment, no drive to try harder. Just… nothing.
“Cait?”
“What?”
“Your solicitor has acknowledged receipt of the evidence packet. She’s requested a preliminary consultation upon your return.”
“Fine.”
