The banging on the door became insistent. The small office reverberated with too much noise.

“THREE!” Lucin’s arm started to flinch in anticipation of the first shot.

“DON’T SHOOT!” Molly yelled, but not at Lucin.

The banging on the door grew furious. The old oak slab rattled in its hinges.

Shots were fired. Lucin and Molly couldn’t hear them, just the crinkle of glass they made, like three coins dropped into a pile of change. Lucin’s face twisted up as if he smelled something familiar—wondering what it reminded him of. He collapsed across his old desk, his arm locked straight, the gun still pointing at Molly.

Three spider webs in the office window let in tight pools of bright light. Molly bolted out of her chair and pressed both hands across the three corresponding holes in Lucin’s back. But nothing was going to stop them from leaking out puddles of life.

Molly wanted to scream at Cole, tell him how stupid he was, that Lucin would never have shot her—but she needed to convince herself first.

The banging at the door became mixed with worried shouts.

Molly felt like cradling her old friend, her adoptive father, but she could imagine Cole’s voice telling her he had been right and she had been wrong—and they both needed to get the hell out of there.

Molly grabbed Lucin’s gun. If felt nice to have it pointing it away from her. She turned to the door, worried about the fact that someone wanted in as badly as she wanted out. With no time for pleasantries, she turned the knob and stood back, allowing the pounding to do the rest.

When her eyes locked with Saunders’s, she found her own confusion mirrored on his face. Molly still had not yet sorted this man’s innocence. Years of anger welled up within her. And he stood in her way.

She saw him glance at Lucin’s body. Before he could turn back, Molly took one step forward and brought her other leg up after. Her knee was a ball of bone, swinging up between Saunders’s Navy blacks. The blow landed with a dull thud. Molly had to stop the forward momentum of her attack by placing one hand to the fat man’s chest. It became a guide, helping the poor seaman splash down to the blue carpet at his feet.

She didn’t say a word to him, just vaulted over his curling body and rushed down the hallway. If the Navy hadn’t been looking for them before, they would now. But at least she’d know why and what they were up against.

She ran down the checkerboard tile, she smell of industrial cleaning agent stinging her nostrils. For the second time in the past six months, she found herself fleeing the Academy with an unknown future ahead. And once again, she left behind two men with tears of agony on their faces.

This time, Molly Fyde had none.

Epilogue - The Parsona Rescue

“If it’s worth finding, don’t ever stop looking.”

~ The Bern Seer ~

A buzzing erupted by Molly’s head. The unique blend of tone, frequency, and duration created a magical brand of annoyance unimproved in almost half a millennia. Molly swatted at the alarm, groaned, and pulled the sheets up against the chill. The muscles in her back writhed in agony from three days of crawling through Parsona’s holds and bilges looking for the supposed salvation of mankind. The longer she searched, the more she suspected Lucin had lied to her a final time, or perhaps he’d just been wrong. Either possibility made his death more tragic and pointless.

It had been a week, and the tension between her and Cole over Lucin’s death had grown worse. She’d been incredibly hard on him, perhaps insisting too much that Lucin would never have shot her, but Cole remained just as stubborn. He insisted that he’d saved her life, and he refused to apologize.

This unwillingness to bend, to apologize, hurt like a fourth bullet. The first three, nicely grouped, had already done enough damage by killing an Admiral, a rare friend, and severing a thread leading back to her past. Now, just when she needed Cole the most, she found herself pushing him away.

The clock ticked. Another minute slid by. A minute she should’ve used to get up and don her flightsuit. She rolled on her side and faced the door, wondering which section of the ship to search next. She needed to know what her father had been up to. She needed to uncover Parsona’s mystery. Her conversation with Lucin stirred old fantasies, bringing them to the surface. Every cadet dreamed of ending the war with the Drenards. She’d eventually outgrown that delusion, but now it loomed again, tantalizingly real and completely unfathomable. What in the galaxy could a stupid ship contain to end an entire war?

Another minute flicked by on the clock.

Molly imagined the Navy was just as thrilled with Lucin’s death as she. Until they found a news outlet, she assumed the reports went something like: Disgruntled Female Cadet Returns and Shoots Admiral, Attacks Captain. School Records Show Unwillingness to Follow Orders and Inaptitude for Flight.

Unbelievably, even Walter seemed upset with her. As she and Edison rummaged through the ship yanking off wall panels, he followed along, hissing obscenities and attempting to reorganize. He kept asking Molly what she hoped to find and sniffed, annoyed at her lies.

He’d become surly with the only crew member willing to forgive his treachery! Cole wanted to drop Walter off on the next moon they passed. Edison’s calculations came up with a similar recommendation. Even gentle Anlyn couldn’t stand to be around him.

So many problems . . . Molly’s clock ticked up to 5:56, as if counting them.

She felt like staying in bed for another shift and flopped over to the other side, pressing her face close to her small porthole. She sighed, frosting the glass. Through the moisture, something large and bright glimmered. She wiped her breath away with a corner of her bedsheet and marveled at the sight beyond.

A black hole. She couldn’t see it, of course, but she could see the star orbiting it—could see its effects. A single plume of plasma streaked out of the yellow orb and spiraled around the pinprick of dense mass. As they orbited each other, a curve of flame millions of kilometers across formed. It reminded Molly of a pinwheel firecracker at a Lokian fair.

Parsona hovered directly over the center of the spiral, laying over on her port side. It provided Molly with the best view possible of one of nature’s largest and most spectacular wonders. She forgot her worries for a moment and snuggled up in a contented ball to enjoy the sight.

It took her morning brain a few minutes to work it out: that such an amazing vista lining up on her porthole could not be a coincidence.

Cole.

Wow.

A romantic gesture or an apology for Lucin, it didn’t matter. She appreciated it. Growing up in the military, Molly never dreamed of a healthy relationship with a caring man. Ending a major war seemed more likely. And yet, someone had just laid a flower the size of a small solar system on her pillow.

Molly wept. After mourning Lucin—after suffering a month of wild emotional swings—she had resolved to go a week without crying. She decided these didn’t count; they were good tears. And through her blurred vision, the spectacle outside looked even more surreal.

The clock ticked up a minute and the alarm went off. Molly slapped the snooze button and decided she could take another ten minutes to wallow in how good this felt.

Something told her Cole wouldn’t mind.

••••

Molly woke up to her alarm once more, newly energized. Today would be the day that she uncovered Parsona’s secret. She’d said the same thing the last two mornings, but this time she felt it. She wiggled into her flightsuit and keyed open her door.

She wanted to head straight for the cockpit to kiss her navigator and thank him for the gift, but the low rumble of a snoring Glemot caught her attention. Molly snuck aft to check in on Edison and Anlyn.

With almost a week together repairing Parsona, a fascinating bond had formed between the two. Anlyn had become smitten with Edison; she absolutely refused to sleep alone or in the dark. It was difficult to know what Edison thought of this; the rational and obtuse way he talked about Anlyn seemed anything but romantic. As far as Molly could tell, the two were having a positive effect on each other, so she gladly gave them some space.

Peeking into their room, she could see Edison’s head propped up on the wall behind his bunk, his knees poking up in the air, the space much too short for him. He snored contentedly through his open mouth while Anlyn, curled up on his chest, seemed tiny and serene by comparison. Both of her arms draped over one of the Edison’s massive paws. It made Molly’s heart hurt to take in the scene. She could understand why Anlyn hardly left his side; his embrace looked like the safest place in the universe.

Padding away quietly, Molly walked through her dark and sleeping ship. She passed Walter’s room, the door closed. She hoped he was asleep and not up to anything they would all regret later. Keeping him out of the computer systems had proved difficult; Molly constantly reminded him that very little trust had been restored with the rest of the crew—and that would soon include her. Walter, however, visualized his penance as something to barter over, rather than pay wordlessly.

Molly stole through the cargo bay and noticed that Edison had yet another project strewn across the workbench. Seeing the things he came up with made her long for the resurrection of Glemot. Other things he built, however, demonstrated the reality of Campton’s fears: a race so dangerously powerful could only be kept in check by others of equal strength and cunning. The tragedy of their planet haunted her, and it probably would forever. It remained one of the few hurts that Cole couldn’t soothe away.

He possessed a talent for that, she’d realized. His soft voice and engaging face were good things. They weren’t a mask with which to fool people, nor were they a tool he used to adjust others. It was just who he was—his wonderful self—and she didn’t need the nose of a Palan to sense it.

Cole turned and smiled at her as she entered the cockpit. “Morning,” he said, trying to act as normal as possible. As if a flower made of plasma didn’t linger off to port.

Molly grinned. And then it occurred to her that she could kiss him right now if she wanted. He wouldn’t stop her. He’d welcome it.

The sensation had been with her for a week, but she still hadn’t got used to it. She hoped it would take millions of kisses to remove that thrilling awareness.

“What’re you smiling—?” Cole started to ask. Molly bent down and kissed him on the lips.

Just because she could.

“Thanks for the flower,” she said, squeezing into her seat.

“You’re welcome.” He paused. “It’s our anniversary today.”

“What anniversary?” Molly asked. “Our one week?”

“Our one month, knucklehead.” He gave her a stern look. “You and I have been together since the first day we faked it.”

Molly’s laughter filled the cockpit and drifted out through her sleeping ship. The release felt wonderful. “Wow,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s only been a month.”

“Yeah, we’ve been busy little beavers. Speaking of which, Edison got the last of the mods done before he hit the sack. That one crate back there is just full of scraps, so we can jet it into a star the next time we get close to one.”

“Excellent.”

“Oh, and as your navigator, I’d like to point out that we’re down to twenty-four percent on fusion fuel.”

“It’ll be enough, right?”

“According to Anlyn.”

“Then it will be.”

“Well, I’m glad you have complete faith in the offspring of mankind’s enemy, ’cause I’m not there yet.”

“Walter can smell a lie. He says we can trust her.”

“And you trust Walter?” Cole shot back.

After a moment he followed up with another source of contention. “You know, we could get more rest and shave some time off the trip if she’d take a shift or two. No flying, of course, just sit and watch the instruments while the hyperdrive cycles.”

She turned to Cole, dead serious. “She does not set foot in a cockpit until she chooses to, okay?”

“Okay, okay. I’m just worried we aren’t getting enough sleep. Between thrusting along looking for good jump points, respooling the hyperdrive, and tearing the ship apart . . . I just think everyone needs to be helping out. Spread the load.”

“I know, Cole.” Molly rubbed her hands up her face and through her hair. “I’m sorry to snap. I just have some of Edison in me I guess. Something makes me want to wrap that poor girl up and keep her safe.”

“She certainly elicits that reaction.”

“Please try and trust her. For me.”

“I trust you,” he said, turning to gaze through the porthole on his side.

She smiled at that and looked back to the pinwheel of fire.

“It is beautiful out here.” After a pause, she added, “With you.”

Their hands found each other without having to look, a dominate hand healing from its wounds and a clumsy one groping and trembling to do its best.

They intertwined. Indistinguishable.

“I’m sorry,” Cole said.

••••

They sat like that for a long while, allowing everyone, the ship included, to enjoy the rare state of rest. Cole broke the spell, leaning forward to the nav computer and the work that had been keeping him occupied for the last two days.

“Why don’t you go take a nap?” Molly asked. “It’s my shift.”

“I can’t sleep right now.”

“Why? What’re you working on?”

“I’m still trying to integrate these four different star charts. The three new ones differ in places and our old copy is the absolute pits.”