He sighed, unable to quench the disappointment that doused his system. And when he felt Kat turn to peer up at him once more, questioning, he drew in a long breath, letting it slowly escape, peeling his stare away from the gap between railings as he looked back at her. As he let her see every raw and warring feeling battling inside of him tonight.
“I just… I want all of this to mean something. All our research into their mainframe. Our efforts with stealing the ship. In sacrificing our careers—for all intents and purposes, we are essentially disappearing from the galaxy.” He shook his head, trying to clear away the doubts waiting in the wings to pounce. “I don’t doubt my decision—our decision, in leaving the Academy and the AMG behind. I have no regrets there. I couldn’t serve another term with a clear head or a clear conscience having learned what we have. I just wish there were more. More to go on. More to be found. More good to be done.”
He swam in her gaze, watching for some shadow, some fault, some blame to come his way. And it never came. He clenched his free hand along the cool metal of the railing, eyes tracing along its polished slope. “I keep going back to that formula we found in the Commander’s notes. Verinity. There has to be something to it, something there, something we just aren’t seeing that triggered her attention. When I found that radiation band from Segura, I was sure that it was some sort of a sign.” His eyes flickered back over to Kat. Again awaiting judgement there. But none came. “I was sure that maybe it wasn’t just some chancehappening, or an accident that I held onto it. That Gaia and her teamletus leave with those bands intact. And that, maybe, there was something intentional about it. Some miraculous show of trust. A clue-in, the piece of evidence or detail that would justify all of our actions for the past few months. A justification that my gut had been right, and that I hadn’t just been blindly chasing after some pretty dreams on a drunken heart. Or maybe it was all just that. Nostalgia from a rush of excitement, and a preserved momento from a soon-to-be-distant memory.”
The pressure with which Kat now clutched at his middle nearly stole the breath from his lungs, but he stared down into her face, still tilted fervently up towards his. “It will mean something,” Kat said, finally. Voice unwavering, face unrelenting. “It does mean something,” she insisted, making him carry her gaze. “Even without evidence, or much to go on. Even if it’s just us in the end, chasing after the faintest hopes of a future in the days to come, trusting only our guts to get us there. I trust what we saw and what we felt that day on Segura. I trust the belief in a better galaxy.” She squeezed once more into his sides, before raising a chilled hand to grip his jaw. Firmly, but not tightly, she held him there. “It means something, Lee, because you made it so. And that makes it mean something to me, too.” She released his jaw, letting her hand drop down to rest upon his shoulder blade, a warm, tingling beginning where her fingers met his suit.
She stared out into the dimness and he followed suit. “Maybe they don’t have the answer. Maybe they aren’t the answer. Maybe it turns out that they were just that—a dream. But we keep going. And we chase after the next one. And the next one after that. And one day—someday, we’ll find that cosmic trail—that wish we’re looking for. Someday, we’ll find it.”
He had long since forgotten about the Canteen down below, mesmerized only on the ethereal being beside him as he peeredover at her. “Kat and Lee, unstoppable force to be reckoned with.”
“Dream chasers.” Kat smiled, a secret smile that glimmered up at him.
“Where you go, I go.”
“Wherever the stars may lead.”
CHAPTER 43: KAT
DOWN TO only two days left on the ship, Kat poked around her dorm room, whipping about in her own mini tornado strike as she attempted to collapse the litter of all her Academy years down to a single pink duffle. It was the second time she’d pulled it down from its haphazard storage at the top corner of her dusty closet in the last year.
Quite the active season it had been.
She plopped it down onto her rumpled comforter before scurrying up next to her duffle, the faintest aromas of coconut paradise pluming up from its depths. But they weren’t leaving on a mid-term holiday. This time, they’d be leaving for good.
So much time she had spent here. From those initial nights on the ship, when she’d been so excited to get started and get out there, but too anxious to actually go explore the ship. She’d only left the room when that quiet boy from the transports had knocked on her door and shyly asked her to join him. She hadn’t realized at the time that she’d be joining him for every adventure after that.
Then there’d been the emotional nights. The ones when she’d been so pissed at Flyn or Zane for out-doing her at the Laser Rounds. The one’s when she’d been faintly amused at Lee for hiding his first girlfriend’s name from her. The one’s when she’d questioned if she might ever belong anywhere in this universe…
And yes, she’d spent about as much time in Lee’s dorm as she had inside these four eggshell-paneled walls. But still. This had been her home, her ship, her personal space. Her comfort. Her passion. Her safety… This had been hers.
And in two more days, her world would either get very small, or very large, very quickly. She couldn’t say which she dreaded more.
Leap first, look back later. That had always been her code, her guiding star. But she’d always had the Academy to return home to as well. Where would she even call home after this?
Her eyes danced over the loose clothing strewn about the dorm room floor in various states of wear. The handful of outdated tech jumbled in a small stack near the waste bin. Where did she even begin?
Her hyperband buzzed. Kat read the brief update from Kiara, along with the cadet’s unrequested boss-babe opinion on Kat’s upcoming “extended vacation.” She hadn’t exactly told the twins what they were doing. But like with Hanna and Nikola, she was positive the twins had pieced enough of it together to understand the gist of their efforts.
A second message awaited her there as well—one from Lee that must have come in while she was digging through her closet earlier. He’d opted to hit the gym for another couple of hours; they both had a lot to work through at the moment.
Lee: how’s packing coming along, starflower?
She smiled, angling across her mattress with her hyperband to snap a photo of the plant now perching solidly on top of her desk. Lee would love this.
“I wonder how well you travel?” she murmured, doubting again, how—ever—she was supposed to keep a plant alive on a tiny skimmer for who knows how long… Her only comfort beingthat Lee would be there with her. If anyone could keep it alive through some interstellar travel, it was him.
Crawling forward onto her stomach, she hung her upper body over the edge of the bed. She swept her arms underneath while she located the small bundle of defensive tech she’d stashed there the night before.
Heaving them up onto the bed, she carefully laid them out for quick inspection. Two long-range blasters, a compact striker, and a few stunners. She’d snagged them from the post-raid staff cart in the main hangar. It wasn’t much; honestly, she felt very under-protected at the concept of carrying so little. But the objective of the mission was not a violent one. The blasters likely wouldn’t even be needed where they were headed; with any luck, they would merely be there for her own peace of mind.
Now if they could just keep them off the inventory radar until their skimmer was out of the hangar….
Returning back to her duffle, she flipped it upside down, shaking it over the edge of her bed. A fair amount of crumbs and the torn foil of a snack wrapper coiled its way down to the floor, before she set it back upright on her bed.
Dragging herself to her feet once more, she scoped around, bending down to retrieve a few of her underthings and her spare all-terrain suit from the mélange. Without giving herself time to question it, she also tucked the dusty orange top and swimsuit around the sunnies Tonya had gifted her into the bag, right alongside the little makeshift makeup tin. She didn’t know when they’d ever have a chance to find a pool, let alone something as nice as the resort-planet Bala. But that was irrelevant. And other than her holoblock which she’d left sitting out on her desk to use over the next couple of days, and her star flower, there wasn’t much more she even cared to salvage. Everything else was a mere remnant of her time here.
Rewrapping the blasters tightly in the towel, she nestled them up against her duffle. One more thing, done and out of the way.
