Page 4 of Cloverleaf Station

It impacted the rear hull, right above the cargo bay. The explosion was minor, no sudden bursts into the black to indicate depressurization.

One … Zero … Minus One … Minus Two …

They were out of the shadow now, and that meant they were being exposed to massive amounts of radiation. Kieron retracted the cable, tugging carefully at first, then more firmly once he was sure the lock was good.

Minus Six … Minus Seven …

More than a minute would mean heavy Regen treatments that Kieron didn’t have access to on Cloverleaf Station. More than two minutes would mean death. He pulled, and the ship slowly stopped spinning and began to reverse its course.

Minus Eleven … Minus Twelve …

Five breathless seconds later, Mason’s Bay was back in the shadow of Big Momma. Kieron focused on getting back to the station, not letting himself think about the state the Masons were in right now, about whether they were conscious, how badly they were burning. He couldn’t do anything about the rest of it until he had them on Cloverleaf again.

“Dave, we’re incoming. Open Shuttle Bay Three, I’m going to need the maneuvering space to get their ship settled without crashing into anyone else.”

“Aw, hey, you did it? Nice!”

“Haven’t you been watching?” Kieron demanded, feeling his tenuous control slip a bit. “That’s your job right now, Dave, to watch everything and back me up.”

“Right, yeah, but you totally had this. And what could I have done if you hadn’t, man?” There was a chewing sound over the comm.

He was eating his godsdamn lunch.

“What indeed.” Kieron shut off the audio and focused on getting the right angle on the shuttle bay. He needed to figure out how to drift-park the Bay behind him once they were inside, without doing more damage to it. He needed to remote-activate the clinic because fuck asking Dave to do that. He needed to prepare to handle two radioactive people with only the supplies he had on hand.

He could do it.

Dave might be useless, but Kieron was never going to be caught unprepared again.

***

Getting everyone else out of the station was one of the best parts of Kieron’s job. It wasn’t that he was completely antisocial; he couldn’t be effective as Cloverleaf’s station master if that was the case. It was more that the satisfaction he got from the eight standard months spent catering to other people’s needs paled in comparison to the pleasure he got out of spending five months by himself, alone, just him and the station and her various creaks and groans, working on his special project and diving in deep to the parts of his psyche he usually had to lock away.

Shadow time was for Kieron to devote to other people. When the station moved into the hot zone, that time was all for Zakari.

Getting people out had been more hectic this pass than usual. He’d had just enough time to get both the Masons in for a single deep-tissue Regen treatment before returning them to their patched-up ship, where their onboard Regen unit could handle things until they got to a major trading station or planet.

“It’ll be fine,” Thoosa Mason said after Kieron asked, for the third time, whether they thought they could make it. “It’s only a few weeks; we can manage that. Plus, I asked Robbie and his crew to come with us as far as Delta Nine, just in case.”

“Ah.” Kieron hadn’t had much interaction with “Robbie”—no last name—and his crew, four total, even less named, but they’d been model guests every time he met with them and had no red flags associated with their ship, so what he didn’t know wasn’t his business. “That’s good.”

“It is.” Thoosa sighed, then patted Kieron once on the shoulder. For a physically affectionate person like Thoosa, it was a very reserved gesture. Kieron knew he only had himself to blame for that. “Thanks for everything. You went above and beyond for Jin and me, and we’re not gonna forget it.”

“It’s my job.”

“Yeah,” Thoosa said, shouldering a pack that held the last of the things from their storage locker. “And you did it really fucking well.” Their departure left Kieron with a feeling he’d almost forgotten: pride.

Dave’s departure, on the other hand, left Kieron with a feeling he was very used to steeping in at this point: wrath. “The extra fuel isn’t free, Dave. You know that.”

“It’s a perk!” Dave protested, stabbing the surface of Kieron’s desk angrily. The holographic display in the air between them wavered. “It’s in the contract!”

Kieron shook his head. “What’s included is enough to get here from your point of hire and to return to the same place after the contract is done. Not enough to get you to Riva.”

“But I have to be at Riva in twenty-two days!”

“I don’t care.” I cannot express to you how little I fucking care where you go as long as it’s far away. “You only get free fuel as far as Delta Nine, which is where you came from after you signed the contract.”

“This is bullshit! I can’t afford that much fuel on my own.”