Chapter 2
“You actually bought a ship,” Celise said, deadpan.
Torian bristled at her tone. “Why is this so surprising? I told you I was saving for one.”
Around them, the medical depot bustled. Celise was waiting for much-needed supplies—supplies only doctors could purchase.
Torian always went with her on those trips, because she’d spent years working in Fleet security and even though she had a reputation for being terrible at it, anything was better than Celise “Claw at Their Eyes and Run” Razner.
Now they sat in a metal room, perched on two uncomfortable chairs while a medical bot ran Celise’s credentials and shopping list. Unlike Torian, Celise kept her bag of bars—modest ones, gold and silver instead of ionite—clutched on her lap.
Torian kept one hand on her empty pistol, just in case.
Luckily, the room was filled with other medical personnel. There weren’t many certified doctors on Colony 13, but there were plenty of nurses and researchers and assistants. Only a few glanced Celise’s way, and they didn’t seem intent on robbing the few bars Celise held.
Torian figured it’d be a rare day that they’d be robbed here—but rare wasn’t impossible.
“I mean, I knew you were saving. But for a fucking starship?” Celise rolled her eyes. Her vocabulary was just like her personality: sarcastic and scathing. “You don’t even have a real pilot’s license. How much did you spend?”
“You don’t want to know,” Torian said, because twenty ionite bars was a huge sum, even for a doctor. Celise would have done something far, far different with that money—and Torian didn’t want the “we could have helped people” lecture.
Not again.
Celise raised an eyebrow, but another fit overtook her.
It started with a low rumble in her chest, and then she was coughing into her ever-present handkerchief.
She had to gasp wheezing breaths in between.
The fit shook her entire body, and Torian couldn’t do anything but rub her back until she finished.
“She okay?” one of the nurses walking past asked.
“Halyon’s disease,” Torian replied, even as Celise huffed—coughed—in frustration and waved off the nurse.
The nurse grimaced. “Got it. Never mind.” With a wave of sympathy, they kept walking.
Nothing to do about Halyon’s disease, after all.
Not on a space station where the artificially generated air somehow poisoned a select few.
It was like asthma, but instead of avoiding triggers, those affected breathed it in day in and day out, and prayed the attacks weren’t debilitating enough that they would stop breathing for good.
Life expectancy for Halyon’s disease was thirty-five years old.
Celise was thirty.
“I bought the ship,” Torian said, setting her jaw, “so we can fly to Rhymarra.” It was past time to talk about the theoretical; now, Torian was ready to pluck her sister off of Colony 13 … but she couldn’t exactly drag her kicking and screaming.
But it was an age-old argument. As expected, Celise’s gray eyes flashed. She fumbled for the water, lowered the handkerchief—no blood this time, but Torian noticed how quickly she folded it from view—and took a quick drink. Her voice was rasping. “Don’t start with that bullshit again.”
It prickled Torian’s soul. “It’s not bullshit.”
“It is,” Celise hissed. She drank more water, swallowed a few times, and drew a shallow breath to compose herself. That attack was relatively quick, but she was still clearly pained by it. Her throat had been raw since she was a kid. “Rhymarra won’t even let you land. Amelia said that, didn’t she?”
“Hang on. I thought you didn’t trust Amelia. Now you’re using her as supporting evidence in your argument?” Torian’s cheeks warmed at the mention of Amelia.
Celise glared, her expression far too vitriolic for a doctor—but exactly right for a patronizing older sister.
“Amelia is an established captain of the Fleet, with routes to every other space station colony. You don’t think she’s tried to smuggle things to Rhymarra and back?
If anyone could figure out how to land on that fucking planet, it’s her. ”
Funny. That was exactly what Amelia had said.
Not that Torian was willing to admit it. “Amelia didn’t have time to fly to Rhymarra. She didn’t say it couldn’t be done.”
“You’re lying,” Celise replied, her voice hoarse. “Don’t fuck with me, Torian. Your left eyebrow twitches when you lie, and you won’t look at me.”
Torian pulled her gaze back to her sister. “I’m serious. Amelia is always busy—”
“She wouldn’t make the time for you? You were her girlfriend, weren’t you?”
“No,” Torian retorted, feeling hot all over now.
Celise coughed again. “You said you kissed—”
“One kiss! And then she demoted me, so clearly there’s nothing there.” That was something even Torian couldn’t unpack right now—maybe ever. Amelia Perrosk was untouchable, cold as space and hot as the sun, and Torian had been lucky to get close without being burned. All that was over now.
“Sure,” Celise said, disbelieving.
Torian scowled. “I’m a scrap on Amelia’s ship. Or, was. Now I have my own starship, and I’m flying to Rhymarra. And when I come back, we’re moving there.”
A bot slid through a pair of doors, pushing a hover-cart toward them. On the cart were stacks of boxes: supplies for Celise’s clinic. Their conversation died as the bot beeped twice, holding out a datapad.
Celise signed, stood perfectly still while the bot scanned her face, then offered the bag of gold and silver bars. Torian wondered again at Celise’s income—she only seemed to keep enough money to survive, and sometimes not even that much.
The clinic was her life, lately.
It made an irritating kind of sense, considering her own lifespan.
At least I’ll have helped, Celise said one night when one of Torian’s Fleet contracts had finished, and she had a few days before the next one started, when they drank and chatted well into the night in the dark recesses of their family apartment. That’s something, right?
Yeah. It’s something, Torian had replied, but she’d felt hollow inside.
“Thank you,” Celise said to the bot, which was a flat courtesy considering the bot didn’t have deeper intelligence. It was programmed to retrieve supplies and collect payment, nothing more. But Torian couldn’t blame her when it was floating there.
Torian silently helped her load the supplies into their backpacks.
It’d have been easier to use a pushcart, but that was just asking to be robbed on the way back home.
She tried to take Celise’s portion, too, but her sister snapped, “I’m not dead yet,” and shouldered her pack, leading the way out of the medical depot.
Torian followed, but clearly their conversation wasn’t over. The second they were in the narrow corridor beyond the depot, Celise started up again. “Even if you get to Rhymarra, how the hell are you going to convince the university to let you test?”
“Every colony citizen is allowed to test for citizenship. Rhymarra wants the best and brightest—”
Celise snorted. “They want educated folks from their fancy-ass university. You spent the last seven years doing security and basic labor. Your engineering degree is from our station community college.”
Working in security was a sore spot for Torian. She’d imagined getting a job in engineering, bettering her education while gaining experience that would impress the folks administering Rhymarra’s citizenship exam. But the fact was, becoming a station engineer was highly competitive.
It didn’t help that she’d chosen a focus in solar engineering—which would be very useful on Rhymarra, but truly sucked in the interim.
So, she pivoted.
Security paid well, even if Torian was terrible at it. Most of the time, they just needed a body to stand in the background, holding a gun. But Celise, the doctor, didn’t want to hear that.
Irritated, Torian replied: “Your medical degree is also from that college.”
“That’s my fucking point, Tor,” Celise replied.
Torian pressed her lips together, falling silent. They were walking slowly: Even though there weren’t traditional asthmatic triggers for Halyon’s disease, they instinctually avoided anything that might cause an attack, like intense physical exertion.
Unfortunately, that meant Torian’s full focus was on this conversation. Misery slid into her soul.
Celise realized it and sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. But you and me? We’re not Rhymarran material.”
“A doctor and an engineer? We can help them. It’s a merit-based society.”
“They still expel their own citizens if they don’t pass those ridiculous exams. I can’t imagine they’ll be jumping to bring you, a random spacer, onboard.” Her voice dropped. “Much less me.”
Torian was losing this fight, but she had to try. This couldn’t all be for nothing. Celise couldn’t just accept her fate. Torian’s words were forceful. “You’re researching a fatal disease—they should be fascinated with your findings. They’re all about scientific development.”
“Halyon’s disease doesn’t exist on Rhymarra. Why would they care?”
Torian didn’t have an answer to that. She set her jaw, trying to debate without dissolving into pleas or begging. It was hard when her sister, her best friend, was so defeatist.
Why was Torian the only one perpetually holding on to hope?
Celise stopped walking, adjusting the weight of her backpack. They were in an empty alley halfway to her clinic now, and Torian checked that her pistol was visible, even if it didn’t currently have bullets. She stubbornly didn’t meet her sister’s gaze.
“Talk to me,” Celise said.
Torian dragged her gaze back, her expression hard. Her eyes felt damp, and were probably shining in the harsh fluorescents of the hallway. “I’m going to Rhymarra. I’m going to get us citizenship. Then we can talk about options.”
That sat between them. For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Celise ran a hand over her face, clenching her eyes shut. “I … hope you’re successful. I would fucking love if you came back in a month and told me Rhymarra is welcoming us with open arms. I just … don’t think there’s a fairy-tale ending for our situation. For my situation.”
“If it doesn’t work, we’ll go somewhere else. My new ship—”
“Still uses recycled air,” Celise said quietly. “Tor, this is a problem everywhere in the galaxy. If I’m going to die anyway, I’d rather spend my time on Colony 13, in my clinic, helping our neighbors.”
Torian would rather her sister not die at all, personally. She swallowed that statement and fiddled with her backpack strap. “Can you promise me something?”
“Maybe.” Celise shrugged, although her lips tilted into a wry smile.
Typical. Torian snorted. “When I come back … will you at least try coming to Rhymarra? Or … or wherever else I find? I’ll search the galaxy for a new home for us, Lise.”
Celise contemplated that, then heaved a sigh. “I guess I should count myself lucky. Not many folks have someone who cares this much.”
“This doesn’t have to be terminal. You’ve found data to support that,” Torian said fervently. “You just need better air.”
Celise waved a hand and kept walking. “I’ll consider it. Do you have time for dinner before you tell Amelia that you’re abandoning her crew to play captain yourself?”
“Amelia and I aren’t anything.” She almost added, Amelia made damn sure of that, but the words died on her tongue.
Amelia may have stopped anything from developing six months ago, but in the months since, Torian couldn’t blame her.
A Fleet captain—especially a proverbial princess, in competition to take command of the Fleet someday—hardly had time to date scraps.
Even if she’d made Torian think, for a brief moment, that she was actually interested.
“You kissed,” Celise reminded her.
“Lots of people kiss. We’ve barely talked in the last six months.” It wasn’t awkward at all, laboring in the cargo hold, only to look up and see Amelia walking past. The way their eyes would meet. The way Amelia would duck her head and pick up speed.
They were nothing to each other.
And it was time to move on.
But Celise rolled her eyes. “Lots of people kiss, but you don’t kiss without intention. She’s the first person I’ve seen you gushing about since Riley, back in school.”
“I’m not gushing.”
“Well, not anymore. But six months ago…?” They were almost to the residential section of this ring, almost back to her clinic, and people started filling in the spaces around them.
A few eyed Torian’s backpack, but no one approached, which was a relief.
When Torian didn’t reply, Celise sighed.
“Just … be careful with Amelia. Someone our age, rising to power in a syndicate like the Fleet? I don’t think she’s as nice as you were hoping. ”
Torian couldn’t argue with that.
Instead, she said, “It’ll be fine. She probably won’t even notice I left.”
Probably.