Love Galaxy (The Imperial Broadcasts #1)

1 The Potential in Utter Trash

The Potential in Utter Trash

She pushed her safety goggles onto her forehead to better inspect the iron’s tip. It was badly oxidized . Not unlike my ex’s dick, she thought. And then laughed out loud because she was absolutely hilarious. Or exhausted to the point of delirium. Probably both.

Glancing around her crowded kitchen, she tried to remember where she kept her flux-cored solder and brass wool. Both were necessary to remove the oxidization. The counter next to the sink looked hopeful.

When Have a Lung was finished, Temmi would have a base prototype from which fully ambulatory synthetic lungs could be mass-produced.

Not only would she be able to save her mother’s life, but the Advancement Guild would be begging her to join their ranks.

She could already taste the fat fellowship grants that would accompany being a member.

There’d be no more worrying about paying down her family’s mountain of medicals bills, holding her brother Ollie back from the brink of self-destruction, putting food on the table, or keeping a roof over their heads.

She scooted her chair back from the chaos that was her kitchen table: handsome power tools, naked electrical circuits, pretty coils of copper wiring, sheets of warped aluminum, a dozen dissected power cells of varying sizes.

That was the one perk of living in the empire’s dumping grounds: endless opportunities for free supplies.

What most people saw as garbage, Temmi saw as potential.

She shimmied between the kitchen table’s edge and her mess of towering crates to reach the counter. The brass wool should be around here somewhere .

As she searched, she plucked out her foam earplugs to let her eardrums breathe for a moment.

From the living room came the blaring of the cursed holoscreen.

A masculine voice was announcing theatrically, in near-flawless Expanese, “. . . imperial Expani heirs, Nix and Spielin, are rumored to be orbiting distant X72 with plans of touching down in the planet’s capital city, X72-1, this afternoon.

The local authorities have issued a shelter-in-place order for the city’s nonessential personnel to ensure the heirs’ safety during this final portion of their Love Galaxy promotional tour. ”

To Temmi’s persistent annoyance, Ollie had been closely following the press circuit for this year’s season of Love Galaxy .

Personally, she couldn’t think of anything more obnoxious than imperial propaganda poorly disguised as a reality dating show, but it seemed the only thing that got her brother out of bed lately.

Okay, that was unfair. He cared for their mom, kept her company, dragged her to her appointments, made sure she ate.

She was a ghost of herself these days—less than a ghost. A smudged outline.

Yanking open a drawer beneath the kitchen sink, Temmi yelled, “That shit’s gonna give you brain-rot!”

Odds and ends rattled in the drawer. More odds than ends. No brass wool. She tried the over-the-sink cabinet.

“My brain’s already rotten!” came Ollie’s automatic response.

Seconds later, he kicked aside a crate of recyclables to limp into the kitchen.

Leaning against the yellowing wall, he crossed his good arm over his chest and grabbed the stump of what was left of his other arm.

A habit he’d grown into since the explosion at his plant last year.

Said it reminded him the arm was gone, eased some of the phantom pain.

But Temmi’s stomach always flopped when she saw him holding that stump.

Did that make her a terrible person? Probably.

It was selfish, but that missing arm, and his mangled left leg, were reminders of everything she’d lost, too.

“Found another eviction flimsy tacked to the door.”

Fuck. Temmi closed the cabinet. “How long?”

They’d been behind on rent since Ollie’s accident, outrunning eviction as effectively as a house fly trying to escape the eye of a hurricane.

Which was to say, not outrunning it at all.

Temmi’s trash-collector wages alone would never be enough to cover everything they needed.

That was where Have a Lung came in. The prototype was so close to being ready. Temmi just needed a little more time.

“This one says to be out by tomorrow morning. Police-enforced.”

“And you’re just telling me?”

“Just saw it.”

“Does Mom know?”

“She’s still sleeping.”

“Good. Don’t tell her.” Temmi focused on keeping her breathing even. “It’ll overly stress her, and she’ll do something stupid. I’ll just—I’ll talk to Shrimps, ask for another extension.”

Ollie shook his head. A thick, unkempt mess of light cerulean curls brushed his forehead and tumbled over his too-large ears.

He’d been graced with their mother’s native X-er coloring, while Temmi, with her deep navy hair, had been cursed with their father’s foreign, imperial features.

Not great for popularity in a city as homogenous and mean as X72-1.

“Shrimps is fed up. He won’t give another extension.” Ollie’s fingers dug angrily into the stump of his missing arm. “But I’ve been thinking—I can take a shuttle north. The mines always need bodies to test the orrist basalt on. They don’t care if those bodies are already broken.”

Temmi gaped at her brother. “Have you lost your mind?!” She wouldn’t hear this.

Since the accident, Ollie had been distant and moody, constantly going on about his own uselessness.

More than once, Temmi had fallen asleep to the sound of him crying privately—not that he’d ever admit it.

No one would hire him anymore. And Temmi didn’t have the money to put him into training for a profession that didn’t require one to abuse their body.

He’d dropped out of secondary school even earlier than she had—the opportunities for him were as narrow as a crack in the ice.

“The mines are out of the question—you’ll die, you idiot. ”

“Maybe not. I’ve heard of some people surviving years.

And the pay’s great—think about how much I could save if I worked there for just a few months.

You got a better option?” His voice quavered with a fragility he usually tried to hide.

“We can’t go back to the Graveyard. Mom won’t make it. Not this time.”

It’d been five years since they’d clawed their way back out of the Graveyard, a sprawling, toxic landfill crowded with the decaying skeletons of imperial starships.

On the one hand, it was where Temmi salvaged the supplies she used for her projects; on the other, it was where the city’s discarded, unwanted, and forgotten went to die.

It’d been Temmi’s fault that they’d ended up there in the first place; her fault they’d spent two years living in a cramped, filthy, disease-ridden cargo hold.

“You’re not going to the mines and we’re not going back to the Graveyard.” Temmi stepped away from the counter. “I’ll make my presentation to the guild today.”

It’d be risky; Have a Lung wasn’t operational yet. But the theory was sound. The guild master would be foolish not to see her potential.

“There’s a shelter-in-place,” Ollie said. “Nix and Spie are touching down.”

Right. Temmi swallowed. Stupid, insufferable heirs and their stupid, pointless dating show. The sharp beginnings of a tension headache twinged in her right temple. “I’m essential personnel. I’ll take a quick diversion from my route, drive my truck to the guild master’s home. Make him hear me out.”

Ollie glanced dubiously at the crude device on the table between them. “And if he won’t?”

Temmi wouldn’t let herself consider that option. “He will.”

The kitchen clock shrilled out a morning alarm: Temmi’s signal to get her ass to work.

She squeezed around the table and retrieved her invention.

Have a Lung wasn’t much to look at, but it alone held the power to save her family.

She hopped over a crate to get around Ollie and hurried into the living room to tug on her boots.

The holoscreen blared on about how Nix Expani liked to spend his free time since finishing his doctorate at Expan Central University. Temmi gritted her teeth. Had Scot not fucked her over, Expan Central was exactly where she’d be right now. Traitorous ex-boyfriend.

After wrangling her uncooperative hair into a low queue, she grabbed her overcoat from where she’d tossed it on the armchair.

As she made to open the front door, Ollie called, “Hey, Tem?”

“What?”

Ollie pointed to his forehead. Temmi glanced up. Oh, right. Goggles . She peeled them off and threw them on the couch.

“It’s a real pity you can’t just apply to Love Galaxy ’s open casting call.” He snorted to himself. “Shrimps would never evict a reality star.”

She flipped him off.

“I’m only mostly joking. I know you think it’s cheesy, but the opportunity is way bigger than a guild fellowship.

Sure, there’s probably tens of thousands of applicants and you’re, like, the last person a producer would ever cast”—Temmi flipped him off a second time even though he was one hundred percent correct—“but personally, I’d be first in line if either Nix or Spie were into men.

I mean, have you seen Nix?” He made an exaggerated face of longing, and for a moment, Temmi got a glimpse of the old, pre-factory-explosion Ollie.

The one who could find humor in the most hellish situation.

“Tall, dark, and broody. And those eyes? The things I would do to that man...it’s a pity he’s chronically attracted to women.

Or so the gossip channels say. He’s smart, too; his dissertation was in theoretical physics. I honestly think he’d be your type.”