Jorry stood in the middle of the nest and frowned at the broken regulator conduit. A long crack made a jagged smile at her from the side of its cylindrical surface and the input valve at the top was charred beyond repair. She stared at it, coaching herself to breathe – just breathe – while trying to find the right course of action.

She’d broken the ship. God help her, she’d actually broken the ship.

“Zephyr, call Seach, Devon, and Mr. Kelly to the nest.”

Zephyr acknowledged her request and Jorry folded her arms over her chest. In thirty years she had never broken anything of this size before. Without the regulator conduit they couldn’t use a jumper, they couldn’t push any sort of energy into Zephyr’s drives. As soon as their momentum ran out they’d be stuck.

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

They were so screwed.

“That bad, huh?” Seach asked as he walked into the nest.

His voice was a comfort even if his words weren’t and she relaxed.

“Worse,” she said, lowering her hand and opening her eyes again.

He’d been sleeping, she could tell. His hair was tousled and his eyes still looked glassy in the dim light. He spotted the conduit on the floor and cringed. Even he could recognize how broken it was and he wasn’t nearly as familiar with Zephyr’s components.

Stuck, she thought again; trapped in Consulate space with a dead ship.

Devon and Paul filed into the room. Jorry saw Seach stiffen and shared a look with him. He knew she wouldn’t call Paul in for repair discussions. His mouth tightened at the corners and a new wariness flashed in his eyes.

Maybe she should have called him in first, but she hated repeating herself. Better to inform them all at once, keep any communication errors to a minimum, she thought.

“Zephyr, close the door,” she said.

The nest door slid shut, blocking out the halogens in the corridor. Streaks of white starlight and soft blue controls lit the room just enough that they could see each other. Devon looked startled, glancing back at the door as he moved to the command chair. He must have sensed the gravity of the moment because he stayed quiet.

“We have a serious problem,” Jorry said. She gestured to the conduit and proceeded to explain. “That is the main regulator unit. It’s how we transfer power from a Jumper and into the ship. As you can see, it’s broken.”

Paul seemed to understand that she was speaking for his benefit. He straightened his shoulders and nodded slowly. “So without it we can’t jump,” he said.

“Exactly,” Jorry said, glad to see he was keeping up.

“Zephyr, what’s our current trajectory and decrease increment?” Seach asked, moving to one of the command consoles.

Jorry quietly watched them. She’d already been through this with Zephyr but she imagined Seach and Devon needed to hear it on their own. Besides, a big part of her hoped the calculations would somehow be different. They wouldn’t be, but she could hope anyway.

“We have passed Saturn space and are headed toward Jupiter,” Zephyr reported. “D.I. stands at 0.00028 kilometers.”

“D.I?” Paul asked.

“Decrease Increment,” Devon said. “Basically, Jumpers shove us into light speed but a ship can’t hold that acceleration forever. The stress on the ship would be too great and there isn’t enough space to hold enough fuel. So we sort of ride the initial push until we slow to a halt. D.I. tells us the rate at which we’re slowing down.” Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ Find_Nøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Seach flicked through several commands on his console and took up the explanation. “Combined with satellite images and trajectory, D.I. can tell us with relative accuracy where we’ll eventually stop.”

“Which is normally in the vicinity of another Jumper station,” Jorry said. “That’s how humanity got out here in the first place, after all.”

Seach and Devon stared at the console wearing identical expressions of grim displeasure. She glanced at Paul, who looked awkward and out of place in the nest. His broad-shouldered frame blocked out the starlight as it passed behind him and the padded grey and black uniform was too big for him but at least he didn’t look confused. On the contrary, Paul looked sharp and clear as he waited for Seach to announce their heading.

“Ganymede,” Devon said.

“It could be worse,” Jorry said and clasped her hands behind her back. “We could be landing on top of Europa Station with no cover.”

Seach grunted his agreement.

“At least this way we can hide for a bit, try to figure out what to do,” Jorry said.

It hadn’t escaped her that Europa Jumper Station was the same place she’d lost Devon’s parents, and that Ganymede was literally right next door. The whole situation reeked of disaster. She looked at Devon and could tell he was thinking the same thing. She tried to smile for him but it felt awkward so she looked away.

“What are we going to do?” Paul asked.

Devon slid around the console and moved to kneel beside the broken conduit. He had that expression on his face that he always got when he was working through a new schematic and Jorry felt her heart pinch, thinking of his dreams of going to University. He would never get to go, not after all this.

“Regulators have to be special ordered,” Seach said to Paul. “We’ll have to park the Zephyr and pray.”

“Ganymede is a class four settlement,” Jorry said, tearing her gaze away from Devon. “There are worse places to be stuck. I can fix you, Kenzie, and Zoe fake identity chips. You’re welcome to find passage on another ship, or you can wait with us. The choice is yours.”

Paul squirmed and glanced at the viewport. “Fake identity chips are very illegal,” he said.

“It’s a little late to be worried about legality, don’t you think?” Seach said.

Paul flushed a deep red, the color spreading over his bald spot, and she pitied the man. Aside from being an Offender, and she was almost positive that’s what he was, Paul Kelly probably hadn’t broken a law in his life. He was quiet for a long minute as he debated the choice in front of him.

“I think I can fix this,” Devon said suddenly.

They all turned to look at him.

“Well, not fix it,” Devon amended. “But I can build a new one.”

Jorry moved to crouch beside him. She eyed the charred, cracked cylinder with a frown. The logical side of her brain said that Devon was untrained and underage. She couldn’t trust the fate of her ship, the fate of these people, to a boy. She met Devon’s eyes, prepared to tell him no, but stopped.

He didn’t look excited or arrogant, as she’d been expecting.

No, she thought, squinting at him in consideration. He looked capable.

“Are you sure?” She asked.

“No,” he said. “But it beats sitting around waiting for the Consulate to pick us up.”

She couldn’t argue with him there. And the fact that he’d said no made her feel more confident. Jorry glanced up at Seach, who was frowning at them. He looked uncertain, maybe even unhappy, and she faltered.

“What do you think?” She asked him.

Seach met her eyes, his brow lifting in surprise. She didn’t think this was the first time she’d ever sought his advice but by the way Devon glanced between them and the purely startled expression on Seach’s face she had the sinking suspicion it might have been. Heaven help her, what a mess she’d made of things.

Seach took a long, deep breath and let it out slow, eyeing the broken regulator. “It’s worth a shot,” he said, but he still looked troubled.

Jorry nodded once, decided to get the reasons for Seach’s reticence later, and clapped a hand on Devon’s shoulder. “Make a list of the things you need,” she said. “We’ve got eighteen days before we reach Ganymede.”

~*~*~

Zephyr wasn’t a small ship but she was still a ship. There was no reason a person could go missing, especially with all the security feeds, but try as he might Seach could not find Jorry. She kept breezing through every room, stopping just long enough to tweak something and then move on. He didn’t think she was avoiding him but she certainly wasn’t making it easy to catch her either.

He thought about opening comms with her, contacting her through Zephyr to ask her to wait just a minute so he could reach her, but his pride couldn’t do it. Seemed too much like begging to him and Seach Barlow was not the begging sort. So he kept going, striding through Zephyr’s curving corridors and eyeing the computer readouts as he passed. Nothing was out of place. There were no alerts for her to be seeing to, so what the hell was she doing?

He found her, finally, in his room.

Seach was so startled by the sight that he stood dumbfounded on the threshold, just staring at her. Jorry was at his workbench, which was clean of all reloading equipment and weapon pieces because they were in flight.

Jorry hadn’t been in his room since Devon was a little boy and Seach felt both unsettled and pleased by the sight. He stepped inside and heard the door close behind him. She looked up at him with a hesitant smile that made his chest squeeze tight.

What was she doing here?

“I had Zephyr stop the security feed,” she said, glancing up at where they both knew the camera to be. “So we’re alone.”

Alone, he thought, following her gaze to the camera. For a dizzy moment he forgot what he’d been hunting her for. There’d been a reason, he knew, but suddenly the only thing that mattered was the privacy. She was two steps away, he thought. All he had to do was move.

He imagined himself pulling her hair out of that silly braid, imagined what it would feel like to slide his fingers into the straight, soft gold and tilt her head back. He forced himself to stand still and met her clear blue gaze, his mind stuck on that moment in the medical bay when he’d nearly kissed her. In all his life he’d never wanted anything the way he wanted her; completely and forever and far away from this whole mess.

“I know you wanted to tell me something,” she said, averting her gaze to the floor. “I could see it on your face. I figured you didn’t want Paul or Devon to hear it so I did a sweep of the ship to make sure we wouldn’t be interrupted and I …”

She trailed off, gesturing back to the camera again.

A sweep of the ship, he thought. So that’s what she’d been doing.

“Right,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. It was an effort but he managed to drag his mind back onto the task he’d set for himself. “I … um … I thought we should discuss Devon.”

“Devon?”

“Yeah.” Seach straightened and took a step closer. “If it comes to it, we should send Devon with Paul.”

Jorry stiffened, crossing her arms over her chest. “What?”

“If we’re stuck out here for as long as I think we will be, Devon would be safer far away from us and you know it.”

She scowled at him and then glared down at his feet, but she didn’t immediately dismiss him either. He stepped again, moving close enough so that he could cup her shoulders in his hands. She was rigid, fairly vibrating with emotion, but Seach held on. He was right in this and he knew it. What was more, she knew it too. She just needed a minute to come to terms with idea of sending Devon away.

“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered.

Seach’s heart ached at the despair in her voice. He kissed the top of her head and pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her tense frame until she molded against him. She smelled of soap and mint and her hair was cool under his cheek. He felt her arms slide around his waist, felt her cling tightly to him, and closed his eyes.

“I’ll get the papers ready for him,” she murmured against his chest.

He relaxed and ran his palms over her back. “It’s just in case,” he said. “Hopefully he won’t have to use them.”

His hand found the end of her braid and he took it, tugging gently until her head tilted back. She met his eyes for a moment and he felt her breathing change, heard it catch in her chest and every inch of him tensed in reaction. Her gaze slipped to his mouth and lingered there. Seach waited for the debate, waited for her expression to close and the indecision to cloud them both, but there was no hesitation this time.

He wasn’t much taller than she was but there was enough of a difference to be noticed. Enough of a difference that he had to bend just-so before capturing her mouth with his own. Her fingers curled into his shirt, bunching it against the small of his back, but she didn’t withdraw, didn’t protest. He thought she should, thought they both should.

This would complicate things. Something could go wrong.

She made a soft noise, something between a gasp and a groan, and Seach turned them both until she was leaning against the workbench. Her mouth was a confusing mix of pliant and firm, both giving and taking as the kiss deepened and he groaned, marveling in the feel of her, in the challenge of her. His hands slipped under her shirt, desperately seeking the softness of her skin, and she arched into him as his fingers traced her spine.

“Oh, God, Jo,” he panted against her mouth, and then he went back to kissing her.

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