Samira

 Bryce looked to be deep in thought for a moment, but quickly seemed to resign herself to whatever conclusion she had drawn.

 I sent a questioning look towards Sora. They just gave a confused shrug and asked for the both of us, “Is there a problem?”

 Bryce looked like she was about to answer, but Thea interjected before she could start.

 “Bryce, if this is about sharing a room, we don’t have to. I just really enjoyed this morning, and I kind of thought that you had too. I was trying to be cute; I would never actually try to hold you to something like that if you didn’t really want it.”

 Thea was awkwardly rubbing the back of her short hair, and that would probably look bashful on anybody else, but the short elf’s black eyes made it look creepy. I didn’t know what the hells Sora had got us into, but I was having concerns.

 They must have realized that, because they placed an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close.

 “Thea, that part is fine. I really enjoyed this morning and I would love to share a room with you. Please, next time, just ask me directly,” Bryce responded with an embarrassed half-smile, but it slowly shifted to a frown as she looked towards the two of us. “Yeah, there’s a problem, I wanted to explain some things at The Garden, before you agreed to come with us, but now it’s too late and I think it’s best we wait until we’re off world to go over them.”

 “Okay, that’s fine. We'll just have to trust you until then,” Sora answered for both of us. While I didn’t share their optimism, I trusted their instincts.

 It wasn’t that Sora’s instincts were never wrong, it’s that they were always right. It’s a subtle distinction, but one that made a massive difference.

 Whenever Sora’s instincts were involved, we always committed one hundred percent to trusting them, and later we would always either be rewarded or learn about some terrible disaster we barely avoided. It was never a neutral thing, so we never ignored them.

 Except for once, when I hadn’t wanted to leave, and we fought about it for days, but they eventually gave in.

 We both spent years paying for my mistake. Hells, we were still paying for it up until last night, but Sora never once complained about it.

 Not a single I-told-you-so or any attempts made to guilt me. Just comfort and promises that everything was going to be alright and that we would get through it together.

 Don’t get me wrong, Sora was an absolute dick when they weren’t being a bitch, but I trusted them with my life. Blood relations be damned, they were the only family that I cared about.

 “Samira, how long until we can get off the ground?” Bryce pulled me back into the conversation with her question.

 “I’m not sure. It’ll take about an hour for Sora to attune, but they can do that after we leave, so the real problem is actually just installing their core. We’ll have to power down completely for that, so it’s safer if we’re in the hangar.”

 Swapping a navigator’s core wasn’t meant to happen often, so most ships weren’t really designed to make it easy on the engineer. Especially not luxury yachts.

 I did a few calculations in my head before landing on what I thought to be a reasonable estimate.

 “Give me an hour to finish the installation, then if one of you can pilot, we can take off. Otherwise, we’ll need another twenty minutes for Sora to get used to the new ship enough to fly it themselves. We should be able to be in the Aether in about two-and-a-half hours, assuming there aren’t any difficulties attuning.”

 “That’ll be fine. If we plan to leave at noon, that would give you three hours to install everything and for Sora to get attuned. I don’t think you’ll need that long, but the buffer won’t hurt and I’d like to go shopping before we leave. Al said the pantry was stocked for Teolix’s tastes, which probably means a lot of meat and no fruits or vegetables.”

 I shrugged at that. I liked meat, but vegetables never really sat well in my stomach. They weren’t necessarily bad, and I didn’t really get sick or anything. They were just tasteless and left me hungry a few hours later.

 “Sami and I probably won’t eat many vegetables, but fruit would be nice if you don’t mind getting some extra for the two of us.” Sora paused for a moment before adding, “My understanding is that the ship is the only payment for this job, so be careful with what you buy. It might have to last us for a while.”

 Bryce nodded, but didn’t seem concerned.

 “The vegetables will probably just be for me, then. I don’t think Thea likes them.” Bryce looked at the other elf, who was shaking her head with a disgusted look on her face. Having confirmed that, she continued, “And I was thinking the same thing about money. I don’t know where the next source of income will come from and that’s part of what we’ll talk about when we get off world. But for now I have a substantial amount hidden away and, while I don’t know where we’re heading, I doubt the produce there will be nearly as cheap as in New Eden.”

 That made sense, well, the part about the produce prices. It seemed like anybody on New Eden that wasn’t either a miner or gang member was a farmer, which meant there was a lot of produce to go around.

 What didn’t make sense was Thea not liking vegetables or how Bryce had put together such a substantial amount of money. The accepted rumor was that the executive was indentured with enough debt that she’d never pay it off, which meant she wasn’t getting paid by the corporation. I could explain the money easily enough with crime, but I had never in my life heard of an elf that didn’t like vegetables.

 Most elves were vegetarian, and those who weren’t still rarely ate a meal without some sort of vegetable as the main course.

The conversation finally ended and we walked onto the ship, away from the pair of suspicious elves.

 “Still feeling good about all of this?” I asked, with more than a little condescension.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

 “I actually do.”

 Sora looked as surprised as I felt at their own response.

 “I’ve never heard of an elf who hates vegetables and I don’t think those eyes are mods.”

 I was mostly grumbling and had put myself in a bad mood. I trusted Sora, and I wouldn’t argue against their instincts, but this really was asking a lot.

 “I don’t think Thea is an elf.”

 I stopped walking and just stared at Sora until they turned to look back.

 “What do you mean, not an elf? If she’s not an elf, then what in the hells is she?”

 Apparently, I had said something funny because Sora smirked, which just annoyed me more.

 “You’re exactly right. What in the hells is she? Right now I have my money on a demon and that’s probably part of what Bryce wanted to talk to us about in a place that isn’t being monitored by Teolix.”

 I stomped up to Sora and lowered my voice to a hiss.

 “Are you serious? A demon? We’ve worked with some pretty bad people, but Sora, a freaking demon?!”

 Sora sighed. “I don’t actually know if Thea is a demon, but she is powerful and, despite the way she acts, I feel like we can trust her.” Sora paused for just long enough to switch to a more pleading tone. “Sami, New Eden is going to shit in the next few days and we need to get off world, which means we need Bryce and Thea—at least enough to overlook a few quirks.”

 I didn’t exactly consider being a demon to be all that quirky, but the rest of what Sora had said was true enough. I calmed myself as best I could.

 “Okay, fine. You know what? Fine, okay, I’ll trust you, but if you’re wrong.” I stopped my flustered stream of nonsense, not actually sure what I could do if they were wrong. I would probably just get killed by a demon. “Yeah, you know what? If you’re wrong, then I’m going to haunt you forever. Don’t think even for a second you can get rid of me just by getting us both killed.”

 Sora just smiled and didn’t even tease me for my stupid empty threat; instead, they pulled me into a tight hug.

 “I love you, too.”

 I growled back and mumbled a quick “I love you” before breaking the hug and stomping my way to the engineering room.

 Only, I didn’t know where the engineering room was, and it took an awkward amount of time to find it. All the while, Sora followed me around the stupid gaudy ship, silently smiling.

 Turns out they hid it behind a panel in the back of the cargo bay. Which was exactly what I hated about these types of luxury ships. Their owners didn’t want to have to think about the inner workings, and why would they? They always paid people to worry about that, so “out of sight and out of mind” was the prevailing design philosophy for the parts of the ship that actually mattered.

 I walked into the utterly utilitarian room and instantly forgave both the ship’s designers and Sora for whatever it was that I had been angry about. I couldn’t actually remember.

 It was beautiful. A pillar of transparent material shaped like a capsule extended into the floor and ceiling, taking up the center of the room. It was the P-432 fusion reactor, and it was freaking amazing. An immense number of corrugated metal pipes ran along the ceiling, ending in easily accessible junction boxes with digital displays.

 It was all right there for when I needed it. I wouldn’t even have to open up random unlabeled panels to find anything.

 I did a lap around the generator to take it all in, I was giddy with excitement. There was a network of corridors that ran the entire length of the ship and intercepted each other at key points. They gave me quick and easy access to every critical system.

Towards the front, under the ship’s bridge, was even a work area with its own fabricator. It wasn’t rated for anything structural, but would be more than enough for basic parts or tools.

 “Okay, I don’t care if both of them are demons. We’re going to stay on this ship,” I said.

 Sora finally broke their smug silence and laughed with me.

 “I’ll have to move your bed down here. In the meantime, we are actually going to have to install my core, otherwise they’ll probably kick us out for being too lazy.”

 Sora was joking. They wouldn’t kick us out just because I took a little longer than expected to install the navigator core. Well, they probably wouldn’t, but I wasn’t about to risk it.

“Let’s go then, because I am not losing my new ship before we can even take it for a test flight.” I looked up at Sora with a toothy grin as I walked back to the generator room.

 “Looks like she’s already claimed it for herself,” Sora deadpanned as I passed them.

 I had to leap to reach the edge of the reactor so I could pull myself up and disconnect it from the rest of the ship, I could have just used the console to do the same thing, but a partial disconnect meant being electrocuted to death and I hadn’t built that sort of trust with The Fury, not yet.

 Next, I redirected the power to the engines and attempted to fire them in a short burst, discharging what power was left in the capacitors.

 It took me longer than I wanted to find the nav-core receiver but was pleasantly surprised to find it hidden under the floor in a secure panel whose mag-locks had been disengaged after I had cut the power.

 I opened the heavy panel, revealing a perfectly transparent sphere small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.

 I gave an exasperated sigh as I sat back onto my ankles and looked towards the ceiling.

 “That’s pretty macabre,” Sora said. They were looking past me and into the burnt mess that was under the panel.

 “Yeah, it’s bad. The last navigator was still jacked in when she overdosed.”

 I hated seeing the dormant orb resting at the bottom of the safe. The carbon scoring and scrapped connectors served as a reminder of what would happen if Sora ever died while attuned to a ship.

 Navigators lived short lives before burning out during a shift or overdosing on drugs trying to replicate the feeling of traveling in the Aether.

 The last navigator did the latter almost a year ago, which meant we were going to be scrubbing blast residue for a while.

 “How long do we have until Bryce said she’d be back?” I asked.

 “A little under two hours, but that looks pretty bad. Do we have enough time?”

 I stood and stretched my arms high into the air as I prepared myself for the work to come.

 “We might be cutting it close, but if we can’t get this cleaned up completely, you’ll constantly feel dirty and gross. Well, more dirty and gross than usual.”

 They shot me a glare, but I just placed my hand on their shoulder as I walked past, leaving a dark sooty handprint.

 “I think I saw a few wire brushes in the fabricator room,” I called back from the corridor. “Don’t worry, maybe we can even toughen up your delicate hands a little.”

 “Oh? You think my hands are delicate?”

 I started fabricating the new connectors while Sora cleaned the residue and before too long, we were ready.

 I swung my backpack off before setting it on the ground and dug around until I pulled out Sora’s core. I unwrapped the black cloth from around it to reveal a comfortable, glowing blue light.

 The core contained a living fragment of Sora’s soul. It swam around, playfully responding to my touch and tickling my palm as I held it out.

 “Stop that. You don’t want me to drop it.” I was trying to hold back laughter as the fragment’s tickling intensified.

 Sora was leaning against the wall, smirking. “It’s going to do whatever it wants, I don’t control it.”

 I slowly lowered the core into the receiving slot between two large corrugated pipes with about a dozen wires pouring out of each.

 “You say that like you’re any different,” I responded while delicately attaching the small wires to the surface of the core.

 “Well, it is still my soul.”