“Good boat?”
“Good for me.”
“That sucks. I’m serious, you should consider just keeping that freighter. Then sue the bastards—ah, shit.”
“Everything okay?” And could she get the hell off this station already?
“You’re cleared, Captain. The angry mob you predicted just showed up. You should probably go before they try to set something on fire or bust into your berth and you can’t depart.” Her comm board pinged as the controller authorized her freighter to leave Crystal Station.
“Will you be okay?”
“Eh.” Brya thought she could hear the man shrugging. “I’ll be fine. This isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with a bunch of pissed-off spacers and it won’t be the last. The station’s fireproof and no one onboard has any lethal weapons. I have a stunner in my pocket, if it comes to that, which I doubt. I’ll be fine. Safe journey, Captain Dennir. The doors are opening in ninety seconds.”
Brya fired up the freighter’s engines and the dock’s safety lights changed from green to red as the station computers scanned for life forms. The dock’s doors yawned open and the freighter was sucked into space, and Brya left Crystal Station.
****
The Larsen gate she was warned about when she signed on with Renascent was shaping up to be her favorite shortcut. Brya had never been prone to space sickness, even when she first fled Ra’lani, and she wasn’t now. The gate spit her out a short distance to her destination in Alliance space, and she checked her comm board, wanting to see what news bulletins and messages she might have missed while she was incommunicado in hyperspace.
The news about Renascent Galactic had blown up over the last couple of hours and she devoured every scrap of information the freighter computer had downloaded. There had been a riot at Renascent’s moon colony base, with weapons fired from all sides, making Brya glad she decided to come to Prime instead. Gleda Naith had already issued a statement through her attorney, and a class-action fund had already been set up for employees who lost their independent freighters thanks to Q-Bots. Brya made a mental note to remind herself to register as a litigant.
Her personal inbox pinged an incoming transmit, stamped with Kai’s address. Her heart leaped at the signature.
Still, her fingers hovered over the “accept” tab, unsure. She hadn’t left him under the best of circumstances. She’d said some pretty terrible things to him. Things that, in his position, she would find unforgivable.
I lied, Kai, and I’m so sorry. I love you so much but I’m not the right woman for you.
The transmit’s timestamp indicated it was sent while she was still in hyperspace. She hadn’t told Kai about her plans when she left him on Ishka, but he would have access to that kind of information, especially since she had stopped trying to cover her tracks the way she did when she still worked for Wethmore and then when she flew the Rapture. He would know Renascent had hired her.
She braced herself and accepted the transmit.
Kai’s face filled the screen and she sighed wistfully. “Brya,” he said, all business. “I’m hoping you’ll get this sooner rather than later. I know about Renascent Galactic’s troubles and I’m sure by now you know, too.” He ran his hand through his hair, nervousness flitting across his features. “I was going to send you a message anyway even if Renascent hadn’t spent so much time and money fucking over independent captains.” He turned to speak to someone off-camera. “Yeah, I know, and this is a personal transmit. Don’t tell me to watch my language. You’re not my CO.”
A smile crept across Brya’s face.
He turned back to the screen. “I did this before the news broke about Renascent, but I bought the Rapture from the scrapyard you sold her to.”
Brya’s breath caught in her throat, and she almost asked why Kai would do that before remembering it was a recording.
“I fixed her,” Kai said. “Stripped out the hardware, got rid of the Q-Bot, repaired her hyperspace engines, and I’m really hoping you’ll take her off my hands as soon as possible, especially given Renascent’s legal troubles. I’ve left her at the civilian docks at the Fleet outpost on Prime Two.” His expression softened. “Please get in touch when you get this. I’m not mad at you, I’m not trying to run your life. You know how I feel and that hasn’t changed. I care about you, Brya.”
He paused, then gave a small wave to the camera before the transmit ended.
Brya burst into tears.
Noisy sobs escaped her as she keyed in a course for Prime Two, not caring that it deviated from her original flight plan. She doubted that the transit controller at Crystal Station or anyone at Renascent cared about a tiny diversion from an empty freighter, anyway.
Kai’s feelings hadn’t changed. She was surprised, grateful, and humbled to know that, and she had no idea how anything could work between them, but maybe it was worth a shot.
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, cleaning herself up as best as she could, before launching a transmit to record.
“Kai,” she began, “You didn’t have to do this.”
Chapter Thirteen
Kai waited at Prime Two’s civilian docks, pacing the length of the corridor. Where was she?
Soon, he reminded himself. She said she was only an hour out in her transmit, she’ll be here soon, she won’t run away this time…
At least, he hoped she wouldn’t run away this time.
The whoosh of doors cycling at the end of the corridor had his heart racing, and he looked in that direction. He spotted a head of familiar multicolored hair and an unfamiliar but drab gray shipsuit issued by Renascent Galactic.
She saw him and started running. Kai remained rooted to the spot until Brya unexpectedly threw her arms around him in a fierce hug he hadn’t dared to hope for. “Thank you,” she said in his ear.
His arms wrapped around her, not wanting to let go. “I’d do anything for you.”
“And I don’t know why.”
“Because I love you, Brya.” He’d said it before and he would keep telling her until she believed him.
“I love you, too.”
He was struck speechless at that admission, hardly daring to believe he’d really heard it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “These last weeks have been so miserable for me, and I’ve missed you so much. I thought you deserved someone better.” She pulled away from him so they could face each other. “I fucked up everything so badly ever since we left Ra’lani. I always do. I wrecked my life and I didn’t want to wreck yours.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“I know that now. And I’m still scared I’m going to do something to destroy your life or career. It’s sort of my specialty.”
“It isn’t. You’re a lot more resourceful and intelligent than you think. You’re always going to be okay, Brya.”
“I don’t know how to make this work, Kai.”
“We’ll figure it out.” He let her go and laced his fingers through hers. “Want to see the Rapture?”
She sucked in a deep breath, as though trying to quell the flutters in her stomach. “I still can’t believe you did that.”
He led her to the berth doors and palmed open the lock. They were met with a rush of cold air, but neither of them noticed as Brya gasped at the sight of the freighter. “She’s totally bot-free,” Kai said as Brya rushed to her ship. The lock still recognized her handprint and she launched the cargo bay’s ramp. He followed her into the ship’s belly.
She turned around, gazing at the empty bay. “It’s your ship but better,” Kai said.
“It’s … Kai, this is the best thing that anyone’s ever done for me.”
“There’s something else.” He didn’t want to blow his own horn, but he’d rather tell her how the Q-Bot investigation started himself. “This hasn’t been made public yet, but I launched the Q-Bot investigation into Renascent.”
She froze, mouth open in an “O” of shock. “That was you?”
“Well, Lieu
tenant Anders helped. You met him on Ishka when he shot Wethmore. It seemed weird that a Q-Bot would be installed on a ship just for the sake of a Q-Bot being installed. It was weird. We did some cross-referencing with invasive malware reports aboard independent freighters and Renascent Galactic was the common denominator. That information will probably go public in the next couple of days, including stuff about the Rapture.”
“So you’re giving me a heads up about a possible media frenzy?”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe I’ll be in hyperspace by then and won’t have to take questions from reporters.” But she didn’t seem put out about it. She wasn’t even really paying attention to the Rapture anymore and had crossed the cargo bay to Kai, taking his hand again.
“Yeah, no more two-week trips through space.”
“I can’t believe you did all of this.”
“I want you to be happy, Brya. I’ve always wanted that.”
They walked through the Rapture’s corridors, still unchanged, but empty of furniture and fixtures that Brya had been forced to sell along with the ship herself. “There’s something else,” Kai said. “My contract with the Fleet is up for renewal in six weeks. I’m not renewing it. I’m going into the independent shipping business with you.”
Her eyes widened with alarm. “But your career…”
“Doesn’t mean anything to me if I can’t be with you. I told you before, I spent years looking for you. I’m not passing on a chance to spend the rest of my life with you again.”
They stopped at the cockpit. The computers were dark, but Brya activated them, and they both looked at the ship’s systems activating with delight. “You really want to do this?” she asked.
“I really want to do this with you.” He sat down in the captain’s chair and pulled her down into his lap.
“Can I sit in the captain’s chair?”
“You can sit wherever you want.”
She snuggled against his chest. “I can’t wait to start flying her again.” She craned her face up to meet his, lips meeting a in a fierce kiss.
The small motion was enough to evoke powerful memories of the last time they’d kissed on the Rapture and what that led to, and his regret that there wasn’t any furniture in the captain’s quarters. She shifted until she straddled his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Remember what you said about the wall?” She felt herself blush at the memory.
“Remember what you said about foreplay?” He paused. “Maybe that was me.”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” he said. “We’ll use the captain’s seat. It still needs to be broken in.”
A giggle escaped her, and she sank against him. “Kai, I can’t believe you still want to be with me,” she said. Her gaze fixed on his. “I didn’t think I was worthy of you.”
“You are. You always were.”
She shook her head slightly. “I fucked up a lot, I know that. I didn’t want to push you away, I thought I had to. I thought you were better off without me.”
He knew that, and it still tore at him that she felt that way. “No,” he said. “My life is better with you in it.”
“I love you, Kai” she said.
Those words would never fail to send a thrill through him. “Tell me again.”
“Kai,” she said deliberately, fingers resting against his jaw. “I love you. I’ll never leave you again.”
“I love you, too.” He eased them off the control panel. “There’s just one more thing this ship needs.”
“A bed?”
“Exactly.” He kissed her, relishing the contact, knowing he’d never get enough of her. “A bed, and everything that makes this ship a home.”
“Kai,” she said, “I don’t care about that. Anywhere you are—that’s my home.”
The End
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