Defying Mars (The Saving Mars Series) - By Cidney Swanson Page 0,40
in trade with Earth.”
A tangle of emotions skittered through Jessamyn: eagerness to recover her own brother, pity for Cavanaugh’s plight, exhaustion at the thought of convincing him it was impossible, and finally a tingle of suspicion to do with the odd hour he’d chosen to make his request.
“Are you part of the faction that wants Terran trade to recommence?” asked Jessamyn, her face carefully neutral.
Something behind his eyes flickered. “I just want my sister back. She doesn’t deserve to live out her days on that miserable world. And if she is gone,” Cavanaugh said, “Then surely she deserves to have her bones returned to Mars.”
Jessamyn’s hands clenched at her side, Cavanaugh’s words piercing her like barbed accusations. She had to force herself not to flee, to weep, to howl in anger that none of what he suggested was possible. But then she saw the pain etched in his face—the mirror of her own.
“I’m sorry. I can’t help you,” she said softly. She repeated the words she’d spoken a dozen times on camera: “The Galleon won’t be fit to fly for another half-annum or more.” Her eyes fixed upon the table, noticing a nick upon its edge where she’d once slammed her chair in anger. Probably at this man’s sister.
“Now, now, kid,” began Crusty. “Hear the man out, why don’t you.”
As she looked up, she saw Cavanaugh’s eyes darting between the two raiders.
Jessamyn crossed her arms over her chest, as if to protect her heart. “What are you proposing, exactly?” she asked.
“You loved your brother. Surely you want to bring him back.” Cavanaugh’s appeal cut Jess to the quick, and the air in the room felt too thick, like she was breathing dust.
“If it were possible to return,” asked Kipper’s brother, his voice a mere whisper, “Would you be willing? That’s all I’m asking. Would you consider piloting us to Earth so we can bring Cassondra home?”
Jessamyn wanted to say yes. She wanted it. Wanted her brother. Pavel’s face, laughing, passed across her thoughts. Yes. She wanted him, too.
But she couldn’t have either of them.
“I appreciate the enormity of your loss and your grief,” she heard herself say, parroting the words others had offered, words that fell as flat and empty in this room as they had each time upon her ears. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
Her soul seemed to curl in upon itself as she made the pronouncement, and she drew her arms more tightly about her chest.
“I can’t,” she said.
She was saying no to Ethan, no to Pavel, and it felt like the cold fingers of death rending her heart.
“I can’t,” she repeated, a whisper now.
Cavanaugh rose and withdrew without a word, Crusty following on his heels.
The room lay in a silence dark and absolute as space. Jessamyn fought for each breath, pushed back against the black hole that was her loss. She should never have answered Crusty’s call.
The gruff mechanic returned to the rations room and sat without speaking.
“How could you?” she asked Crusty.
“Thought he deserved to be heard,” replied Crusty. “Kipper’s ma’s worrying herself to death over the whole thing. Cavanaugh took me out to see her. Woman’s a shadow of her former self.”
“We all knew the risks,” Jess said.
But that was just another phrase useful for interviews and sound bites. It meant nothing. It was a lie. Her heart had been whole and unmarked the day she stepped aboard the Galleon bound for Earth. She’d known nothing of what she risked.
Crusty kept silent.
“Is it true what Cavanaugh said about the Galleon? Is she ready to fly?” asked Jessamyn.
“She could be,” replied the mechanic. “In less than two days.”
You are not asking these questions, Jess told herself.
“What does she still need?” she asked.
“Not much,” said Crusty. “Overhaul the air filter—that’s the biggest thing I got left. Saved it ‘til last. Planetary Agriculture interns’re having a field day with what’s growin’ inside.”
After a minute’s silence passed, Crusty asked, “You thinkin’ about it?”
Jess shook her head no. Nodded her head yes. Began to cry. Blinked the tears back.
Crusty sighed. “Aw, kid. I know. I know.”
Jessamyn choked out her next words. “Nothing’s right. Home’s not home. I want them back, Crusty. I miss … I miss …”
She couldn’t say more and was content to let Crusty think she meant the three Mars Raiders. But in her mind, she saw her mother’s crumpled form, the emptiness of Ethan’s room, she saw Pavel’s farewell smile. All lost to her.