The two walked through empty dusty corridors without speaking for a while. Lissia wanted to talk to Gabriella like they used to, but she was worried they would just end up arguing. Silence was safer, even if it was getting a little awkward. It seemed to get to Gabriella first. “How’d you get here? Is The Kestrel still in the air?”

Lissia cleared her throat. Truth was her ship had seen much better days. “Yep, shill in the air.” She said, not strictly lying. “It’s taken some hits since last you saw it, but it’s a solid ship.”

Gabriella got a hint of a smile on her face. “That ship had taken some hits when I did see it last. But it’s good to hear she’s still going.”

Lissia rolled her eyes. For some reason Gabriella insisted on calling The Kestrel ‘she’. As their conversation began petering out she tried to keep it alive. “How’d you get on this hulk?”

“Had one of the transporters drop me off at an airlock. Varek is tethered to the hull of this pile of junk waiting for my signal.”

Lissia found that worrying. Spacewalks were always risky, but when you were floating towards a drifting wreck for salvage it seemed needlessly risky. “Don’t know what you heard from Saxon, but I don’t think there is a transporters worth of cells here. Why not just dock with something smaller?”

Lissia felt it was a fair question, but Gabriella was shooting her a look again. “Lissia, we don’t have a ship that’s maneuverable enough for that kind of flying. The Kestrel used to be our…” She seemed to catch herself drifting towards Lissia’s exile again and stopped talking. They continued in renewed silence.

Lissia hated how it hung between them, poisoning everything. At the time it had not been a choice for her. If she had accepted the punishment it would have branded her forever. Once you were labeled a scalper it followed you everywhere. Exile was not much better, but at least that gave her some agency. Doing the time would just put her under someone’s thumb. It seemed impossible to avoid the subject, and if that meant not talking then so be it. At this point it seemed like Gabriella would never understand.

After a couple of minutes of walking they came to an old access station. The lamps in the room had gone out, and the only light came from the screen of a terminal that was somehow still online. Lissia got out her communicator and looked for a way to connect it. Pulling open a service panel revealed the right plug, and she got a cable out of a pocket and hoped the terminals’ wiring was not too fried. When she plugged in the communicator it registered the terminal and began establishing a connection. Gabriella started impatiently drumming a rhythm on the stock of her rifle.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Lissia sighed. “Just give it a minute. I am tired of walking around without any sort of map.”

“Sure, whatever.” Gabriella answered absentmindedly. She swung her rifle off her shoulder and scanned the room. She attached her flashlight to the rifle and clicked it on. As Gabriella began pacing the room Lissia realized she was getting nervous, not impatient. Eventually Lissia’s communicator beeped, letting her know it had established a connection. She began navigating through the terminal’s data to find a map of the ship.

Most of the data was corrupted, but she managed to find some general plans. They were not compatible with any location data so they would have to manually read the map, but it was better than nothing. As she set the plans to download onto her communicator she looked up and found Gabriella pointing her rifle around the room, constantly sweeping it with her light.

“Hey, are you alright Gab…riella?” Lissia asked concerned, catching herself shortening her name again. It was a hard habit to kick after having called her Gab for almost as long as they had known each other. If she had noticed the slipup, she seemed more worried about whatever was making her jumpy.

“Something isn’t right. Tell me you feel it as well.” Gabriella said without taking her eyes off her light as it moved across the walls. Lissia could not tell whether it was Gabriella’s nervousness rubbing off on her, but she was beginning to agree.

When her communicator was done downloading, she quickly disconnected it and loaded up the map. It took her a bit to orient it right, but eventually she somewhat got her bearings. “Alright, I got a map of sorts.” Lissia said with her brow furrowed. “Can you remember what airlock you came in through?”

“Airlock 23” Gabriella answered curtly, and Lissia nodded along.

“Alright, then I am pretty sure where we are. We are closer to where I docked than I thought.” There was an access corridor to the left of them that led directly to the hanger where The Kestrel was.

“That’s at least a comforting thought.” Gabriella said more to herself than Lissia. “I’m really getting a bad feeling from this place Lissia. Do you have an idea of where those cells could be?”

The map was not terribly detailed, but there was a storage room down the hall that seemed like a decent bet. “Yeah, follow me.”

The corridor was dark, so Lissia drew her pistol and turned on the flashlight mounted to it. With the weapon braced over her hand holding the communicator she started moving down the hall with Gabriella close behind.