An Unexpected Debt – Chapter 4

Asteria squeals and opens her arms to me for a giant hug, and I gratefully melt straight into her. Hugs are so hard to come by. I’ll take anything I can get.

“I’m so, so happy you’re here,” she says, pulling back and holding me at arm’s length, “and I’m so, so sorry I couldn’t make it to Ossun for the big party.” She pouts. “Trust me. I would rather have been there than here helping clients.”

“I know.” I let her slip her arm around mine and lead me forward. “It was good to see your mom at the party,” I say, leaning in to whisper, “though I would have loved it if she had stayed home with the clients and you had come instead.”

“It’s my job now.” Her voice pitches up, and she rolls her eyes. “Mom would love to retire most of the busy jobs to me, and I can’t say I blame her. She has barely seen her husbands and consorts in the last few years. I think she could use a break.”

We amble through the Lee home ship, and I continue to marvel at this behemoth. Jinzo Lee, Vivian’s number one, is Asteria’s younger brother, and his family has run Lee Shipyards for generations. The Lee home ship is where he and Asteria grew up, and it was my home base for most of my time in flight school. Not that I got here all that often. Maybe once a month when I couldn’t stand to look at my cabin at flight school any longer. Asteria has a Class Four license, one better than my Class Three, and she helped me study and prepare for exams. I couldn’t have gotten my license without her.

While I was studying and schooling, Jinzo and his team were putting the Amagi back together for me after the military commandeered and stripped it for parts a little over two years ago. Past tense ‘putting together.’ The Amagi is ready to fly now.

Basically, the Lees saved my ass, and I owe them my life, but they would never collect on that debt. That’s not the kind of people they are. I would do anything for them, though. They put their ship and their lives on the line for us so many times. So many of us would be dead right now if it weren’t for them.

“Your mom deserves a really fucking long vacation.” We both laugh because we know it’s true, but Ms. Lee would never admit to needing it.

“Don’t we all,” Asteria says.

She has no idea.

We walk through the ship, stopping at the mall of shops to pick up lunch and eat it at one of the observatory windows. People along the way talk to Asteria or wave to her. Some day this ship, this huge fucking ship, will be hers. If I didn’t adore Asteria, I would be supremely jealous.

Okay, maybe I’m a little jealous, anyway.

We unwrap our sandwiches at the table and stare out the window at the local traffic zooming in and out of the shipyards. This is one of the few places in the universe where you can see so many ships at once. Many of them are derelicts or in pieces, sold to the Lees for a small sum. Others are docked here and maintained by the Lee Shipyards crews until their owners need them again. Security is tight, and the area is safely away from the nearest jump ring. No one approaches without being seen.

“How are your men doing?” I ask, sitting back in the seat and crossing my legs. I sip my iced green tea while she nods and opens a bag of crispy chips.

“They’re all good. Happy. The kids are running around somewhere.” She waves her hand vaguely at the ship, and I laugh. “What? They’re like feral beasts.”

“There are some days I can’t believe you have kids.”

Asteria is a marvel. She’s petite, smaller than me. In my family, Vivian’s side got the tall genes. I barely graze Vivian’s shoulder. Asteria has a style all her own. She wears black pretty much exclusively, either with black combat boots or black flats with a skirt. Her short black hair sweeps over her eyes, and she is rarely without a shine of pink lip balm. And this is how she commands this ship. People do not care how she’s dressed. They care how she acts.

That’s the kind of pilot and captain I want to be.

“Trust me. I can’t believe I have kids either,” she drawls.

We both laugh as we pick up our sandwiches and eat them.

“Speaking of men, Marcelo was here not too long ago. Stopped by to say hi as he was passing through the system. I gave him a preview of the Amagi. He was excited for you.”

I can’t keep the smile off my face. “I can’t wait to see it all done. It’s been a few weeks, and I know the biggest changes were going to happen at the end of construction.”

The Amagi had to be rebuilt almost from the inside out. It had to be towed off Neve because it couldn’t hold air in. My smile fades quickly, and anger burns in my belly.

Asteria leans away. “I know that look. Try not to think about it. The ship is yours again, and it’s almost perfect. Plus, remember what we talked about.”

Asteria doesn’t say it out loud because many people disapprove of guns and weapons. I used to be one of those people until the military hijacked my ship. And knowing that there are more pirates and hijackers out there every day (a lesson I painfully learned in flight school), there is only one thing for me to do.

Arm the Amagi to the teeth.

But, you know, subtly.

“I remember,” I say, lifting my eyebrows. “I have my feelers out, and I’m going to take care of it.”

“Good.” Asteria nods once.

We dig into our sandwiches and move the conversation along to the other random stuff we both love — movies, dramas, and men, of course.

I try not to think about how my life got so far off the beaten path in the last few years. I’m still single. My ship is in space dock. And I’m wondering how I’ll reconcile using a weapon if my life or my crew’s lives are in danger.

Yeah, try not to think of it, Skylar.

—-

“It’s only fair that you go first,” Carlos says, gesturing to the airlock. “Captain Skylar.” He stresses my new title, and I sneer at him.

The funny thing is that I have never wanted to be a captain. All I’ve ever wanted to do is fly. And I thought I could divide out that duty by giving it to Vivian, but I should have known that would never last. Vivian is a planet dweller. She loves her green grass, brown dirt, and big blue sky. I have only ever lived in ships. I love gray corridors, the feel of a ship’s air supply brushing against my cheek, and speed, baby, speed.

“Cut that shit out,” I say, chuffing him on the shoulder. “I remember when you were a pimple-nosed kid, barely thirteen years old, and now you’re giving me shit?”

He blows on his nails. “It’s my strength.”

Lia rolls her eyes.

For the last three years, these two have been inseparable. And now that they’re both nineteen, they’ve turned into quite the adults.

When I hired Carlos six years ago to run the tech on the Amagi, he was like an excited kid at all times. He was so skinny, I often saw his ribs when he went shirtless. Now, he’s filled out from working on Vivian’s farm, getting fresh air and good food every day. He takes up a lot more space than he used to. His arms are muscular now, and he’s gained quite a few centimeters of height since we last flew together. He has a tan, and all of his acne has cleared up. Someday he’ll make some woman completely miserable, I’m sure of it.

Lia hasn’t changed much. She went back to work on the farm, too, for a while, but then she also took an accounting course while she waited for the Amagi to return to service. She commuted to classes from Vivian’s farm for a year while helping out with the cooking, farm animal husbandry, and babysitting when she could. So, not only will she care for our onboard animals and hydroponics systems on the Amagi that Vivian designed, she’ll also handle all the accounting for Flyght and eventually the family business when I take the reins from Mom in a few months.

“Strength is right,” I say.

I sigh as I dog the connection from the shuttle to the Amagi. The shuttle pilot looks over at the console and gives me a thumbs-up before I swing open the door.

Walking into my ship now is like coming back home to a place you haven’t lived in for years. Everything looks the same, except different. Newer, brighter, cleaner. It’s like seeing an old friend who got a boob job and a facelift. You like the new look, but you’re suspicious of what it took to make it happen.

I sniff the air and nod. At least it smells like the Amagi, metallic with a slight tinge of ozone.

“There she is!” Jinzo steps out of the auxiliary cargo bay with Ken by his side. “Welcome home,” he says, sweeping his hands over the cargo bay.

“Wow, guys. This looks amazing.” I turn around and take it all in.

Everything in here is new, considering the military was taking off the side panels when we liberated the ship. Heck, even the staircases are new.

Jinzo and Ken descend the stairs, and I hug them both. I remember when I used to dislike Ken many years ago when he and Vivian had started dating. I always pegged him as a moocher, and I was so wrong about that. And Jinzo? I wasn’t sure about him either in the beginning. Stepping back and looking at them both, I call into question all of my previous decisions about people. Am I a really poor judge of character?

But then I did okay choosing my friends, like Carlos, Amira, and Asteria.

So maybe it’s just romantic decisions that elude me. Even when those romantic decisions are for my cousin and not for me.

“Come on,” Jinzo says, jerking his head to the side. “Let us give you the grand tour.”

“Carlos, I’ll take you straight to your den of technology, as Vivian likes to call it,” Ken says, gesturing Carlos forward. “I’m pretty happy with the way we laid everything out in the room.”

Carlos narrows his eyes. “We’ll see about that.”

I let them go and smile at Carlos’s back as he retreats away from us. He’s very particular about how his computers are set up.

“I’m going to go check out the crew quarters,” Lia says, angling past us and running up the stairs. I wonder if she’ll choose the same room she had last time.

“So,” Jinzo starts, and his hesitation is clear as he rocks back on his heels, “you’re going to need to hire an engineer to run everything we’ve implemented in here. There’s no way you’ll be able to maintain this ship on your own like the last time.” He clears his throat.

“Sorry about all the duct tape you had to patch up.” I shrug. “It was the best I could do back then. But with a Diamond Level license from Flyght and running smaller shipments for Vivian and Kawabata Holdings, I should be able to afford a talented engineer. I plan to make this ship my home until Mom retires, so I want someone who will take good care of it. Do you have any candidates you’re willing to put forward?”

I shift in my oversized pants and shirt. I lost a lot of weight at flight school despite all the excellent cafeteria food. Really, it was tasty. But I spent so many days studying that I would often forget to eat. And then the incident in the desert really did me in. I need a new wardrobe and a spa day like whoa.

“I know a few guys —”

I hold out my hand to interrupt him. “Stop right there. No guys. No men. I want a woman engineer this time around. Someone I won’t be romantically involved with.”

He pulls back, his eyebrows raised.

“Look, I know it worked for you and Vivian, but I don’t want any of my consorts to be crew. I hope you understand.”

He shrugs. “Okay. It’s your call, Captain,” he stresses, and I hold back the sigh. “But I don’t know any women engineers, so I won’t be able to help you out. They usually settle down with their own families.”

I figured this would be a sticking point. Women are just too scarce in the Duo Systems to do jobs that require them to be on the move all the time. Ship captains like me and my mom have enough room for consorts and husbands to live aboard the ships. If those captains are wealthy too, they can own land on a planet and those consorts and husbands can live there instead. Only women can purchase land on many of the worlds of the Duo Systems, even though they are only twenty percent of the population. A growing number of men want the balance of power to change in the Duo Systems, though, and bring back more rights for men. I don’t think the peace I grew up with is going to last for long.

“I guess I’ll have to ask around or devise a plan B.”

“Plan B.” He laughs. “You sound like Vivian.”

“Planning is what the Kawabatas do best. Hey, did Liam install the AI as planned?” I ask Jinzo.

When my first AI got hacked and stopped working, Vivian hired Liam Castillo to install a new AI in the Amagi.

“Yeah. Just left yesterday. Nanci is installed and probably listening to us now.” Jinzo’s eyes lift to the ceiling of the cargo bay.

“I’m always listening and ready to help,” Nanci says, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. I’m glad it’s Nanci and not Ai, my original AI. Ai had been a hack job ship’s AI made from a sexbot AI. And quite frankly, I have dealt with a lot of sexbots lately, and those two parts of my life need to be separated, by like a parsec.

Carlos turned Ai into a concierge bot for a while, and then he archived her and put her to rest. I think she’s sitting in a storage drive in his bedroom.

“Thank you, Nanci. I’m glad you’re on board,” I say, lifting my voice. Jinzo smiles and nods his head.

“That’s quite a change, but one I’m pleased with.” We step forward towards the crew quarters. “Ai was a lot of fun, but not the best AI for this ship.”

“She was a lot of fun, that’s for sure,” Jinzo says, rolling his eyes.

I breathe in deep and let it all out with a huff. “I’m looking forward to flying a tip-top ship without worrying about it falling apart or getting ticketed for an illegal AI.”

“Hell, those months we spent together on this ship were enough drama to last a lifetime,” Jinzo says, and he means every word. “At least this time, everything is running above board, and we don’t have to worry about stowaways.” He raises his eyebrows twice.

“Thank goodness for small miracles. I’m looking forward to the easy milk runs and happy clients,” I say with a sigh.

“From your lips to God’s ears.” Jinzo jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Come on. Let me show you the engines.”

His eyes light up with glee, and I laugh and let him lead the way.