A Song in the Dark

> “[...] in the bays and down below. They all battled through the deep haze that came when death was on the prowl.”

>

> -from “Bravehearts”, traditional spacer song

yan banner [https://78.media.tumblr.com/3a8e1d12d80117e6afc9f5f48ca78e87/tumblr_pdxwrhUDP41xnm75po1_1280.png]

Several happy days later, Yan left Sylva and made the short plane flight to the space elevator. She met the entire group in a private meeting room at the base of the elevator, which ended up being quite crowded with everyone and their luggage.

Yan didn't recognize everyone there. There were the usual suspects: Sid and the Olar expert, Chaten Howe, who Yan had briefly met. There was also Iri Maedes, Yan's mysterious 'minder', who Yan had only talked to in person a few times. Iri was holding the leash of a massive black dog; the dog was laying on the floor and drooling happily, thumping his tail occasionally. Yan didn't know enough to identify the type of dog it was. Iri was talking to a man who looked to be in his mid thirties. Yan suspected that he was Sid's minder, and possibly Iri's supervisor. The rest of the group was made up of Fleet soldiers, led by Lieutenant Harber, a stiff necked man who Yan considered to be nervous but thorough.

Lieutenant Harber was the man in charge of their mission logistics. Yan and Sid were the heads of it diplomatically, but Harber was the one who kept the whole group together and in line. Harber called the group to attention to explain the journey, which would consist of several shorter trips with stops at various stations for transfers between ships. Because they were hitching a ride, they had to take a meandering route between Emerri and their ultimate destination; there was no one ship that would take them all the way to Olar. The entire journey would take the group more than a week.

"Does anyone have any questions?" Harber asked.

Everyone in the room shook their head no. Most of the Fleet contingent looked fairly bored, as if this presentation had been only for the non Fleet members of their party. Yan wondered how different life was like aboard a Fleet ship than a Guild ship. It must be pretty different, since there were so many more people on the Fleet ships. Thousands more. Yan couldn't even imagine it.

Yan was planning to spend most of the trip as incognito as possible. She had packed her uniform from the Iron Dreams. If she spent the trip looking like a fellow spacer hitching a ride between ships she would probably have a much better time aboard all of these places than if she looked like, well, a fancy apprentice. She would put it on once they were aboard the elevator.

The Fleet group started to all grab their belongings. Aside from one small personal bag each, all the Fleet group had were a couple of large trunks full of... Yan didn't know what they were full of precisely, but it was probably security equipment.

"Ready to go, Yan?" Iri asked, coming over to stand next to her. The big dog was now standing up and drooling.

"Of course," Yan said. "Is, uh, your dog ok with microgravity?"

"In small doses," Iri said. "He's very, very well trained."

"What's his name?" Yan asked.

"Bebop," Iri said in complete seriousness.

"What a name," Yan said dryly.

"My little brother named him," Iri said. "Dogs don't care what they're named, they just like being called. Isn't that right, Bebop?"

Bebop made a soft chuffing noise and looked up at Iri.

Yan was glad that being around Iri was no longer overwhelming. Though the woman still had quite a presence in any room, Yan was slightly more used to her now. In normal daily life Iri didn't insist on trying to dance with her at every opportunity. That was at least an improvement in their relationship, even if it was still an extremely one sided one.

On that thought, Yan changed the subject. "Well, I guess I'll have plenty of time to get to know you better, now that we're going to be on this trip together for so long."

"I thought you were planning to skive off and beg all the ships captains to let you fly their shuttles. Did you change your mind on that one?" Iri asked innocently.

"Ugh, I have absolutely no privacy, I forgot," Yan muttered, frustrated.

"I saw you packed that flight suit," Iri laughed. "Don't worry, I'm sure we will still have plenty of time to spend together. And if you do get to fly a shuttle, I will insist you take me with you."

"I'll do tight rolls and make you sick," Yan threatened.

"Oh, Yan, how could you be so cruel to me," Iri said. She batted her lashes and looked up into Yan's eyes. Yan sighed. "I'm only here to keep you safe, after all," Iri continued.

"Your definition of safe does seem to involve spying on me constantly," Yan said.

"Well that is my job, you know," Iri said. "If you don't like it, you probably could yell at enough people to make me stop."

Yan considered this, then decided that yelling at Halen to get him to call off his, in this case literal, watchdogs was not on top of the list of enjoyable tasks. If she had put up with it thus far, it wasn't as though having Iri's eyes on her would kill her.

"Is that your counterpart, but for Sid?" Yan asked, nodding across the room at the solidly built man who was standing near the door.

"Yes, that's Miles Hernan. He's Sid's case manager," Iri said.

"You friends?" Yan asked.

"Coworkers," Iri said. "But he is a real dreamboat."

Yan didn't see very much attractive about him, but then again, that was because she was Yan.

"Isn't he like, ten years older than you?" Yan asked.

"How old do you think I am, exactly?" Iri asked.

"I don't know, twenty-four?"

"I'm twenty-five, and he's thirty-two," Iri said. "Hardly cradle robbing, if you ask me."

Yan rolled her eyes. "You're like a flirtation machine that does not stop, I don't know how you get any work done."

"What can I say? I'm good at multitasking," Iri said, flipping some of her long brown hair casually back over her shoulders.

Yan felt fairly comfortable talking to Iri casually, as opposed to formally. It was partly because Yan and Iri had met under such strange circumstances, partly because Yan knew that she herself was actually the one in control of the situation, and partly because Iri just was a friendly person. And it wasn't as though Iri didn't already know everything about her.

One of the Fleet team approached the pair. He saluted Yan.

"Apprentice BarCarran, Agent Maedes, are you ready to board the elevator?"

"Yes, thank you," Yan said politely. She picked up her suitcase and adjusted her backpack on her back.

"Follow me," the Fleet soldier said. He led them down the hallway to the boarding station. It wasn't as though Yan hadn't taken the elevator many, many times, but she willingly followed the soldier out.

They boarded the elevator and got settled in for the long, slow climb. They did have a private section, but since the elevator was not particularly crowded that day, Yan chose a seat in the general seating area, near a window, so she could watch the planet as they traveled higher and higher.

Yan spent most of the elevator ride reading a briefing that had been compiled for her about the actual state of the Olar dispute, and some of the history behind it. It was a little bit crazy to Yan that she could just ask someone to write her an essay on a subject, like the dispute between Olar and the Guild, or Olar's history, and someone somewhere would just do that and get it to her. Like, someone was out there whose job it was to just provide that information to Yan. She didn't even have to ask for it most of the time. Ms. Rosario, one of Sandreas's many assistants, would just hand her packets of information. Or if she did need it, she could also ask Ms. Rosario for it, and it would be provided as quickly as possible.

Yan appreciated the effort that people went to to help her do her job effectively. It was a little scary. She tried to at least skim through all the information she was provided all the time, though she couldn't say that Sid always did the same. Kino, being the mysterious person that she was, didn't give any indication whether she had done the readings or not. Yan just hoped that the effort she was putting in to her apprenticeship was worth both the writing of these dossiers and the reading of them.

A little time into the elevator ride, Yan changed into her Iron Dreams uniform. She could feel the force of Emerri's gravity slowly but noticeably lessening as they climbed. It was a familiar and comforting feeling, but what was more comforting was the feeling of slipping on shoes with magnets, so that she didn't have to worry about accidentally drifting away. Not that she would, since the gravity wouldn't be truly unnoticeable until they got to near the top, but it was a comfort thing. In space she wore one thing, and on Emerri she wore another; that was just how Yan had always lived her life.

The journey up was tedious and long. Whenever they changed speed they all had to strap in, and that was less than enjoyable. Finally, though, it ended, and they all disembarked at Emerri Station.

Emerri Station was the massive asteroid that held the elevator in place. It had the usual station amenities, but, being so close to the planet, it had few permanent residents. The only people who lived there full time were those who actively ran the station: the stationmaster and a few maintenance employees. Most of the coordination work, such as traffic control, was handled on the planet. Though massive amounts of cargo passed up and down the elevator, most of the loading and unloading was done by the staff of the ships who were bringing and taking material, along with the specialized robotic shuttles and arms owned by the station.

Since their little party was immediately transferring to the Sun's Gold, they had little time for sightseeing at the top of the elevator. They all got a quick look out the windows at both the anchoring asteroid and the massive globe of Emerri at the bottom before they were shuffled into the long tube that allowed easy human passage between the Sun's Gold and the station.

Outside the windows, Yan could see massive cargo containers being transferred from the Sun’s Gold to the station and fastened onto the elevator for transport to the surface. Yan always had a morbid fascination with the process. It was a vital part of life in space, and she couldn't escape it, but she was always hyper aware of anything that could be going wrong. Whenever their group passed by a window she found it impossible to take her eyes off the moving cargo.

As expected, Yan was the most nimble navigating the microgravity environment as they traversed the station. The Fleet crew were all fine, but none of them were born spacers. The rest of their group had all at least been in space before, and weren't completely disoriented while trying to move. Even Bebop the dog seemed fine, paddling along on the short leash that Iri held. How Iri had managed to sweet talk people into allowing her to bring her pet to planets unknown, Yan had no idea.

When they finally made it off the Emerri station and onto the Sun's Gold, they were greeted personally by the captain, a tall blonde woman by the name of Bowen Lyle. Yan had seen her before, as she had hitched a ride on the Sun's Gold many times, but they had never talked. Now that Yan and the rest of her party were important Imperial officials, rather than freeloading apprentices, they couldn't avoid making small talk with the captain and getting a quick tour of her ship.

Yan was a little bit relieved when Captain Bowen eventually left them to return to the bridge. Although Yan was now an honored guest, there was still something extremely intimidating about captains of all types. And this one wasn't even her cousin!

Yan thought, privately, sometimes, that if she hadn't been born with the power, she might have ended up as a captain herself. Not that she begrudged whichever of her cousins who would eventually take up the position as head of the Iron Dreams, but that was a road that she would have, in a different life, wanted to have walked.

Yan spent the trip aboard the Sun's Gold wandering the halls of the ship, visiting the greenhouse and the cafeteria, and talking to various crew members that she knew from previous trips. The Sun's Gold was a popular ship for Academy students to hitch a ride on, since it travelled between Emerri and Byforest station as one of the legs of its typical route. As Byforest station served as a connector to many other planets, it was a good ship for Academy students to take when they went home over breaks. There were other popular ones, but the Sun's Gold had always been most convenient for Yan. As such, she knew plenty of the crew casually. Most Academy students who hitched rides on ships stayed in the guest areas and didn't talk to the crews much, but Yan, being a spacer, had no problem wandering a ship and blending in.

Even though the uniform she was wearing was the olive green of the Iron Dreams, while the Sun's Gold crew had a goldenrod yellow uniform, she looked the part enough to blend in. Yan had no doubt that even as she wandered, Iri was somehow keeping eyes on her. She didn’t know if Iri did it by wandering herself, or by some other, inscrutable tracking mechanism. Yan understood that she had no hope of privacy or escape from the watching eyes of her minders.

They eventually transferred to Byforest station, where they were finally given private rooms. The Sky Boat had not yet arrived, so Yan and the rest of the group were allowed to settle in until it came. No one knew exactly how long it would take for the Sky Boat to arrive, so it was just a matter of patiently waiting.

Byforest station was bustling, as stations went. It was a primary hub that connected the inner and outer planets, though those designations were almost more political rather than physical. It had a large permanent population, and a constant stream of ships coming and going.

Unlike ships, stations were not typically made up of single families. Since stations were created and run by colonies, they tended to attract a wide variety of people to live on them. Certain services, such as repair shops for vital equipment aboard ships, or markets selling exotic goods, flourished aboard stations. Local law enforcement had a permanent presence, as did planetary tax collectors and ship cargo inspectors. To keep stations financially viable, every ship who came into their port had to pay a docking fee, and further fees on any goods they traded or any people who entered the station doors. These fees were just part and parcel of existing in the Trade Guild. Though Guild ships hated them, the Guild had no authority to build their own stations, so they had no choice but to pay.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was all just part of the economy that the Empire and the Trade Guild built together. The result of it all was that Byforest Station was not an unpleasant place to spend a few days while waiting for a connecting ship.

The prime feature of Byforest station was the forest that gave it its name. In the center of the massive asteroid that had been mined out and converted into a space station, there was a large and carefully maintained forest. It was difficult to grow plants in microgravity, but the effort was worth it. Drifting through the forest, surrounded on all sides by tall trees, was a surreal experience. Yan was always glad whenever she got the chance to visit it. In the center of the forest, held in place by an array of strong wires, was a bright artificial light. One could push off a tree and fly in front of it, and cast crazy shadows on the trees 'below'. In the two days that their group waited in Byforest Station for the Sky Boat to arrive, Yan spent as much time there as she could. Sometimes, Sid or Iri joined her. Iri had a good time getting her dog to not dig up the roots of the trees and send dirt flying everywhere.

But then the Sky Boat did come, and it was time for the longest leg of their journey. Somewhat reluctant to leave the idylls of Byforest, everyone boarded the Sky Boat and greeted the captain and ship leadership. The captain of the Sky Boat was a slender old woman, short for a spacer, with braided red hair named Lida Migollen. Her second was a stout man with a wild red beard and a toothy smile named Joun.

Captain Lida greeted the group stiffly. She apparently had little patience for passengers, Fleet personnel, or Imperial staff. As Yan came in through the airlock doors into the ship proper, she shook hands with the captain, who looked her up and down.

"You're First Sandreas's apprentice?" Captain Lida asked skeptically.

Yan, who was dressed in her Iron Dreams jumpsuit, didn't look the part as well as Sid did, who was wearing his customary cassock.

"I am. It's a pleasure to meet you, Captain Lida," Yan said.

"Indeed," Lida said.

Yan pushed herself out of the way to let Sid come through.

As Captain Lida gave Sid even less of a friendly greeting to Sid, Joun Migollen, the second, leaned over to whisper in Yan's ear.

"Don't pay the captain any mind, she's friendlier than she sounds," Joun said.

Yan smiled at him thinly. She wondered what type of working relationship the two had that he could feel comfortable talking to Yan about his captain directly behind her back. He was her second, after all. It didn't seem right, but then again, it wasn't her business.

"Do you want a tour of the bridge?" Joun asked as the Fleet group came through and were also coldly greeted by the captain.

Yan nodded. She would love to have a bridge tour. Though it was most likely that all ships’ bridges were alike, even getting to step on one was a privilege that she had only been afforded for the first time this summer, and she wasn't going to let any opportunities to assuage her childhood wonders about them go to waste.

"Come find me during second shift tomorrow, I'll be up there," Joun said finally. Yan gave him a quick thumbs up, and he pushed off the wall and gave her her personal space back. He had been a little close whispering in her ear the whole time.

The group of guests were escorted to their loaned quarters in the grav section of the ship. Sleeping in the grav section was a luxury that Yan wasn't even afforded on the Iron Dreams, so she was pleasantly surprised that they were all able to bunk there. The Sky Boat seemed to have an unusual amount of empty guest space, especially considering that Captain Lida apparently hated ferrying passengers. Yan figured that if she hated it that much, she would have converted the area into storage or crew space. Maybe it was kept for emergencies.

After getting herself situated in her tiny room, Yan wandered out to explore the ship. She had never been on the Sky Boat before, but it was easy to navigate. Like the no nonsense captain, there were no unlabeled doors or meandering passages; the whole ship was laid out square and true. Despite the ship being made up, as most ships were, primarily of a mined out asteroid, great care had been taken on the Sky Boat to ensure that new rooms were not carved out randomly, and old mining chambers were finished cleanly.

The first place Yan explored was the dining hall, which was vital to locate on any ship. Then she looked for the communal baths, since her guest room didn't have its own attached shower, despite being in the grav section of the ship. Both were fairly empty, being the middle of third shift. Most people were either asleep or on duty at that time.

Though ships had artificial lighting nearly constant at all hours of the day, it was still convenient for most ships operations to run on the same schedule; third shift was the time that most people were sleeping.

Once Yan had located the essentials of living, she was free to explore a little more widely. She passed by the bridge, but had no intention of intruding on it, so she didn’t go inside. She then made her way down into the no grav sections of the ship, where the holds were. Usually, there was very little interesting happening there, but Yan was a little curious about what the Sky Boat was hauling between Byforest and Zhani. Since Byforest and Zhani were both trading hubs in their own right, it was likely that the Sky Boat would have some more interesting cargo than the mined metals that the Iron Dreams usually carried. Though most of the holds were kept in vacuum during transit to save on the energy needed to heat the air and the air itself, the manifests for each bay were displayed on small screens near the doors.

The Sky Boat seemed to be hauling a wide variety of both raw materials and luxury goods. There were specific cargo containers containing things like furniture, or cloth, or marble, being shipped to individual customers on planets along the circle run. There was also one hold entirely filled with copper ore, presumably a mining load being sold to a factory on some colony. Reading the manifests would have been more interesting to Yan if she had actually been able to open the doors to the bays and then the smaller cargo containers and investigate closely. She continued to wander down the hallways that linked the cargo holds.

As Yan drifted through the ship, she heard an odd noise off in the distance. Sounds were distorted in the long, winding hallways as they bounced off of heavy metal doors and walls. As she got closer, Yan determined that the sound was a group of people alternately singing and banging around loud objects. There was one bay that had an open door and was fully pressurized, though not very well lit.

It wasn't economical to install lights to fully illuminate the bays. When they were being actively worked in, temporary lighting would be strung up or personal lights were carried. It wasn’t surprising that the bay was dark, but it was surprising that it was open, pressurized, and occupied by singers.

Yan definitely wanted to investigate the interior of this bay, since it was open, and there were people inside doing... something. She looked around the hallway for a maintenance closet where lights would be kept, found one relatively quickly, and returned with the lamp. One of the nice things about the family culture aboard ships was that doors containing useful supplies were rarely locked. No one would be stealing or messing with cargo hold lamps unless they needed them. Yan knew she would return the light, so she had no problem with borrowing it.

Yan entered the cargo bay, pushing off from the wall and drifting towards one of the massive cargo containers that were locked down in firm stacks in the bay. Off in the distance, she could still hear the echoing song and see the wavering lights held by the singers.

"Oh the captain was mistaken

when he turned the ship around.

The pirates' grip had not been shaken

and the doors they did break down

"Dearest bravehearts, sons and daughters

will you stand your ground with me?

Or we all are to be slaughtered"

Cried the captain to the company

"They fought then in the hallways

in the bays and -"

"Hey, who's there?"

There was a clattering of metal against metal as it sounded like someone pushing through a floating cloud of metal instruments. Yan held her lantern up to show the singers where she was. She didn't know if they had heard or seen her approach, but they had clearly noticed her. As she came closer, it was apparent that the singers were a group of four boys, she couldn't tell their ages, but their voices sounded like they were teenagers at the oldest.

"Hi," Yan called out, her voice echoing as theirs had. "What are you doing here?"

She pushed off another cargo container to cross the final distance to the group, and finally came fully into the circle of light cast by their own lanterns, which they had left floating around them in the air.

They were all tall and pale; two of them were redheaded and the other two had brown hair. The group were probably cousins, given the resemblance and the fact that they were young and on a ship. The four looked her over as she approached.

"What are you doing here?" The oldest looking one, one of the redheaded pair, asked.

"Just looking around. I was wondering what your ship was carrying," Yan explained.

"Who are you?" One of the brown haired boys spoke up this time. He looked to be about fourteen. "What ship you headed to?"

"I'm Yan BarCarran. My family's ship is the Iron Dreams." Yan said. She didn't hold out her hand to shake, because she would have had to navigate her way through what seemed to be an array of metal pipes that were scattered throughout the nearby space. Between her lantern light and the boys', the pipes cast crazy moving shadows across nearby cargo containers.

"Oh, we've seen them before," the youngest, maybe twelve, said. "They dock at Byforest, too."

"So do half the ships in the Guild," the oldest said, rolling his eyes. "I saw the passenger manifest. You're one of the Imperials."

Yan laughed. "Caught me, I guess."

"I'm Endo, this is my brother Patt, and my cousins Zevin and Lief," the oldest, Endo, said. Patt was the younger redhead, Zevin was the fourteen year old brunett, and Lief was the other brown haired one, who looked like he was somewhere between Patt and Zevet in age.

"Nice to meet you," Yan said. "What are you doing here, though?"

"Cleaning up," Endo said.

"That what all these pipes are?" Yan asked.

"We were trying to get the pipes into one of the maintenance storage boxes, but we had a bit of an accident earlier," Patt said.

"Accident is not really the right term for it," Zevin spoke up. "More like a certain someone's foolishness that got us all in trouble." He glared at Lief.

"It wasn't entirely his fault," Endo said. "Anyway, the piping and paint got everywhere in the bay, and we were cleaning it up. We're almost done."

"Paint?" Yan asked.

"Look," Zevin said, pointing to one of the nearby cargo containers. There was indeed a long splash of red paint across it. If someone had come across it accidentally, it could have been confused for a murder scene. The only reason Yan hadn't noticed it was because it was so dark in the bays.

"Wow," Yan said. "And it's all through the bay?"

"We got most of the pipes," Patt said. "It will be harder to find all the paint, though."

"I heard you singing, you were pretty good," Yan said, switching the topic.

"We were just taking a break," Lief said defensively, the first time he had spoken up.

"No, you really are good. Do you perform?" Yan asked.

"No way," Lief said.

"Ok then," Yan said.

On the Iron Dreams, when the crew got together to have a party, which was often, and usually for frivolous reasons, there would always be someone who would go fetch their instrument and start singing a song. Yan had never been particularly proficient at any instrument, since she had gone off to the Academy before she really had a chance to learn. Yan did like singing along at any opportunity, which suited her well at Academy. Most prayer cycles were sung, after all.

"So if you're from the Imperial group, what do you do?" Endo asked. "They just taking people from the Guild into the Fleet?"

"I'm not with the Fleet, I'm an apprentice," Yan said.

"To who? The big one?" Patt asked.

Yan took a moment to consider who he was thinking of. Patt must mean Hernan, Sid's assigned guard.

"Hernan? No, he actually works for my friend Sid. I'm not an apprentice to anyone who's here," Yan said.

"You're one of the diplomats?" Endo asked. "Boys, we've got royalty in our midst."

Zevin laughed. "Did you study at the Academy?"

"Yeah, I did," Yan admitted.

"I don't believe you," Lief said. "What if you're just trying to trick us all?"

"Trick you into what? Thinking that a spacer who's hitching a ride from Byforest is actually an important politician? I think you came to that conclusion all on your own," Yan said.

"Show us a trick," Patt said. "I've never seen an Academy student before."

"What do you want me to do?" Yan asked.

This stumped the boy. "I don't know, what do you usually do?" Patt asked.

"Nothing very visually impressive," Yan said. Usually all she did with her power was participate in Halen’s self defense classes, and check if Iri happened to be personally stalking her at any particular moment. That and occasionally communing with one of her fellow apprentices or Sandreas. She hadn't used the power for anything entertaining since... She didn't really remember when.

"Think of something, I want to see your magic," Patt said. "Since you're here bothering us."

"It's not magic, it's a tool given by God," Yan said. "And if I'm really bothering you, I can leave."

"Don't let him scare you," Zevin said. "But could you show us a trick, please?"

"Since you're asking nicely," Yan said. "Can I use one of these pipes?"

"If you promise not to beat us with it," Endo said.

"Do I really come off as that mean?" Yan asked, pulling a pipe from the air and settling it in front of her. She let go of her lantern and it floated by her side.

What Yan wanted to do was a simple thing: to heat up and reshape the metal of the pipe into something more interesting. Technically, she didn't have to heat up the metal, she could just forcibly rearrange it and smooth out the imperfections in the structure afterwards, but since she was going for a visually impressive trick, heating the pipe to glowing hot and then reforming it would be a lot flashier. Especially in the darkness of their cargo bay, Yan thought it would be cool looking to a twelve year old.

"Don't touch this while I'm working on it," Yan cautioned. "I'll let you know when I'm done." She gave the boys a look that brooked no disagreement, and they all nodded.

She took a few breaths and closed her eyes, setting her hands above and below the pipe. Slipping into a trance was easier to Yan than falling asleep, and it made concentrating on work like this faster.

Yan started by heating the pipe slowly and evenly. She saw its entire structure in her mind, the way it had been formed, first by a centrifuge full of iron, then as it was forced down through smaller and smaller dies, annealed again and again, then cut to length. It was sturdy, seamless tubing. It had probably been intended for repairing pieces of the Sky Boat's plumbing, were any of it to break or need extension. The pipe had a mass of over a kilogram, as it was over a meter long and had a larger circumference than her hand.

Once it was up to a suitable temperature, Yan began to work it. She could feel the heat radiating off of it into her hands, though she kept her mind firmly fixed on what she was doing. First, she crushed the pipe flat, then began to fold it in onto itself until it was a solid lump of iron. At times, she did have to move her hands out of the way to avoid burning herself, but that barely impacted her focus.

It was so easy to slip back into the pure act of creating something. In a way, despite how hectic the end of her last year at the Academy had been, Yan missed the feeling of working on her project. It really was one of the best things that she had ever created. Certainly, the form of a goldfish was seared in her mind forever. That came in handy now, because she would need to make something from this superheated chunk of iron.

This was the fun part, to stretch and pull the iron into a shape. It took concentration, effort, and time. Yan finally stopped fiddling with the shape and rapidly reduced its temperature to harden it. She realized that it had probably taken a little bit too long, after she came out of the trance. While working, she had a nasty tendency to lose track of time completely. Yan opened her eyes and saw that the youngest boy, Patt, had fallen asleep. His cousin Lief was holding his hand. It was pretty sweet.

Yan blinked in the dim light.

"Are you done now?" Endo asked. "That was pretty cool."

"Yeah." Yan yawned. "Here, it's yours." She batted the goldfish over to Endo and he grabbed it out of the air. It was still warm to the touch, but nowhere near the heat that she had been working it at. Her hands were feeling a little dry and scorched from being near it that long. She licked the tips of her fingers while the boys examined her little sculpture.

"Thanks," Zevin said.

"Sorry I distracted you all from cleaning the bay," Yan said.

"It's ok, we were probably going to call it quits for the night soon anyway," Endo said. "No one else needs this place, so we have plenty of time to scrub paint before the cargo boxes get delivered."

Yan gave a wry smile. "As long as no one will miss a pipe," she said.

"Nah, it's fine," Endo said. "Lief, wake up Patt so we can get out of here."

"I'll see you around, ok?" Yan said.

"Yeah, see ya," Zevin said.

Yan grabbed her lamp and stretched to reach the closest cargo container. She grabbed onto its corrugated surface and hoisted herself towards the door of the bay. When she left, she put the lamp back where it had come from, and made her way through the ship to her own tiny guest cabin.