it was enough for me to get it. I get it. This isn’t a life. It’s a fucking prison sentence.”
I take in a deep breath, then walk over to my desk and sink into my chair.
“I’ve been coming to the office every day for as long as I can remember. Over a decade, for sure. And every time I sit down in this chair I think, OK. What the fuck is this station gonna throw at me today? Will we get some ruthless refugees who think they can take over? That’s happened… oh, three dozen times? Probably closer to four dozen, actually. Or maybe one of the sentient ships will try to escape and blow a hole in the docking bay hull? That’s happened sixteen times. Always fun. Or maybe all the autocooks will go out on one or two hundred levels. Or an entire garden will just suddenly die and whole sectors of people will have to be relocated. Or hey, I know! I know what could happen! Maybe… maybe Luck will go crazy and try to kill me! Dying is always super fun. And maybe Jimmy will come back with my sun-damned daughter and tell me he’s been fucking her for months! Another really good way to start a day. Or maybe—”
“I get it.”
“I don’t think you do, Baby. Because I’m just getting started. I mean… can anyone say Nyleena?”
“I’m not trying to devalue your feelings, Crux—”
“Fuck my feelings, Baby! This isn’t about feelings. This is about… it’s about… being caught. Yeah. Caught. I’m caught and don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to hear one more goddamned problem of one more goddamned person. Why is it always my fucking job to make everyone’s life easier? Why? Why is there no person in the sun-fucked universe whose job it is to make my life easier?”
“Hmmm… well, that would be me.”
“You?” I scoff.
“And ALCOR. And honestly, the Asshole did play his part.”
“His part. When do I get to play my part?”
“I’m pretty sure that time is now.”
“To do their bidding? I mean, Baby, when do I get to live my life? When? Because I’m tired, man. I’m fucking done. I can’t do it anymore. I want out.”
“OK. So there’s the docking bay, Crux. You have control of forty-seven unaffiliated sentient ships at the moment. Wake one up and go.”
“The fucking gates are locked.”
“The ALCOR Sector is fairly large. And there is a back door. You could always go to the Seven Sisters.”
“Yeah. That’s amazing. The Seven Sisters. A place so far away it would take me two hundred lifetimes to get there. I’ll just put myself into a cryopod, go through the second gate, shoot myself in that general direction, and hope someone can wake me up when I arrive. Great plan.”
He says nothing.
“Wait.” I furrow my brows. “Did you just say… back door?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Did you mean that literally? Like… there’s some kind of hidden gate out there? Or was that just a metaphorical way of referring to that vast, endless open space between us and the Seven Sisters?”
“Maybe you should stick around just long enough to wake up Serpint and ask him. He’s been through it.”
“When?”
“That day he arrived home without Draden.”
“Hmm. He did come in weird that day. Like… no one reported him arriving at the gate. I wondered about that at the time. But then he was there in the docking bay and Draden wasn’t.”
“Yes. I understand. I wasn’t here at the time, obviously. But I saw the records. It was stressful for everyone. And then Lyra was here and before you knew it, there was a mission to save Nyleena and…”
“That’s where it went wrong. We should’ve never—”
But I stop. Because SB19 told me when it went wrong in the dream. I just forgot about that part.
“We should’ve never… what?” Baby asks. Perhaps prodding me to say something like, We should’ve never let ALCOR leave.
But that’s not what I was gonna say. I sigh. “We should’ve looked harder for him, Baby. We should’ve moved time itself to find the remnants of Draden. Because all things point to him being alive. And I was told in the dream I just came out of that he’s the tipping point of this whole mess. Everything hinges on Draden’s deaths.”
Yes. Deaths. Because he died twice.
“You should wake Serpint. We don’t have Booty but we do have Lady and Dicker. Serpint would be happy to go on this quest with you.”
Quest. See? I always get sucked back in. There’s