“Kovalik,” he sings out my name. “Hellloooo?”
“It’s fine. Better if you’d shut up and let me concentrate.” I grab for the screwdriver dangling on a tool tether attached to my suit.
He sighs, the noise right on the edge of a petulant whine. “Lourdes says we’ve still got a wobble in the signal, TL. And we’re going to miss the rendezvous with the hauler if we don’t leave soon.” As if I’m unaware of those things as team lead. But then again, Voller excels at stating the obvious and being exceptionally annoying while doing so. After twenty-six months in close quarters, I’m ready to murder him for that as much as for the snoring that rumbles through the air vents into my quarters, keeping me awake. Unfortunately, he’s a good pilot.
I ignore him and focus on checking the beacon hardware, particularly where we’ve merged new with old. Software updates can be uploaded via signal from anywhere, but hardware? Hardware is hands-on. And even with years of practice and gloves designed for delicate work, it takes concentration. Snap off a piece or lose too many screws and it’s a whole operation to get replacements all the way out here at the edge of the solar system.
Not that there are any replacements, as this is the last beacon. Not just for this tour or this sector, but thelastlast. For us, anyway. The next time the commweb—a network of beacons throughout the solar system designed to boost ship and colony transmissions for virtually instantaneous communication—needs an upgrade, a Verux SmarTech machine will be at the controls.
The machine will probably lose fewer screws.
But no need for commweb maintenance teams means no need for commweb maintenance team leads. No need for me.
This is it. The last time I’ll be out here.Not just as TL, but forever. No more peace and quiet of the vast emptiness. No more endless field of tiny stars surrounding me. No more ship with bright lights to beckon me back from the dark.
I shove that thought down. Way down.
Maybe it’s the receiver. I slide my hand along the metal support structure, pulling myself along to the other side, trying to avoid getting tangled in the process. My tethers to the beacon and our ship, a commweb sniffer called the L1N4—LINA—keep me from floating away but they’re also a pain in the ass.
I tighten up every screw I can find, and eventually, my comm channel crackles. “You got it, TL,” Lourdes, my comms specialist, says. Her husky voice is softer in my ear. “Cycling up now. Come back in from the cold.”
The gentle tug on the red LINA tether tells me that someone is at the cable controls, ready to reel me in on my signal. Probably Kane, my mech and second-in-command. He doesn’t like other people touching the mechanics of LINA, even something as simple as a winch. Anything can break, he says. And repairs are limited out here.
Not that that matters now. I’m fairly sure LINA will be scrapped once we’re done anyway. She was already old when I inherited her with this sector assignment. Battered, scratched up, smelling of overheated metal, with shitty airlock seals that are pretty much a full-time job to keep hard-foam-repairing even with Verux swapping them out for equally shitty replacements every time we finish a job.
But LINA is home.
After unhooking the blue tether from the beacon structure, I reattach the far end to the designated loop on my suit. As I do, my gloved fingers brush over the carabiner that connects me to the red tether, to LINA and the future I no longer have.
My whole life I’ve wanted nothing more than to be out here. Away from everyone. That is the beauty of space. There’s nothing out here. Sure, stars, planets, and communication beacons, but no people.
And now… that’s all over.
For a moment, I consider it, my hand hovering over the latch. It would be so easy: flip the safety catch, unhook myself from the tether, and just… push off. Float away. Eventually, I’d have to decide between freezing to death or suffocating as my suit ran out of juice, but it would bemychoice. My choice out here among the stars, the distant glimmering planets, and the absolute silence of space.
“Kovalik?” Kane asks. “Are you ready?”
No, I’m not. I’m not meant to be dirt-side. Not for long and certainly not forever. Without a ship, you’re trapped. Bad things happen when you can’t get away. Just the thought of being permanently gravity-bound and surrounded by so many people again makes my breath rush in and out faster.
Guess that means suffocation will probably end up being a problem first.
“Team Lead Kovalik, do you copy?” Kane repeats, his voice taking on urgency.
“Claire?” Lourdes breaks in.
“Come on, Kovalik.” Voller sounds irritated. “I have a redhead and a packet of Scotch waiting for me on theGinsburg. Just because you can’t handle—”
“Shut up, Voller,” Kane says.
My fingers settle on the safety catch.
“Kovalik. Don’t move. I’m on my way,” he adds.
My vision blurs with tears, smearing the star field into a general haze. Of course Kane wouldn’t just let me go. He would make sure they retrieved me, like a rubber duck plucked out of bathwater. He’s good that way. Never mind that a duck, rubber or otherwise, has no place outside the water.
It would take him fifteen minutes to get suited up and through the airlock on a secondary tether, and in the meantime, per standard protocol, our ship’s log would be recording everything, transmitting back to Verux.
There might be one thing worse than never being up here again, and that would be being locked up in the Verux Peace and Rehabilitation Tower on Earth. In Florida. What’s left of it anyway. That’s where the company sends all their broken eggs. I’ve heard that once you’re in, you never leave, not even for a look up at the stars.
