Project Charon 2 by Patty Jansen (brene brown rising strong .TXT) 📗

voice dark. “I’d hoped to never see her again.”

“She seemed nice.”

“You met her? You talked to her?”

“Was that wrong? She came into the room and told us all we didn’t have to wait anymore and could collect our supplies for free.”

“You talked to her personally?” Finn almost shouted at her.

Rasa shrank back. “We didn’t say much. What did I do wrong? I got permission. I said thank you. That’s all.”

“Did she ask you any questions?”

“Just the name of my ship.”

Finn got up from the table. “We’ve got to go. Immediately. Come on, let’s go.”

“Actually, I intended to stay,” Tina said. “There’s still Evelle.”

Finn stared at her, his nostrils flaring. Tina could see the thoughts whirling through his mind. He wiped sweat from his forehead.

Just what was he so afraid of?

Before she could ask, a clang sounded through the hull of the ship.

Tina got up from the table. “I better check what’s happening.”

She went outside the docking tube where it was indeed as Rasa had said: a couple of men in station overalls were setting up the power systems so that the ship could be recharged. No one asked for money. It was the strangest thing ever.

Not only that, they were doing the same to all the other ships in the passage. A great sense of excitement was in the air.

Tina went back inside, and explained what the sounds were from.

“I told you this would happen,” Thor said.

Finn had already started bustling about, packing away items that would float through the cabin in flight.

“We need to decide what to do,” Tina said. “I think some of us should stay here to find out where Evelle is, and if possible, to do whatever damage we can do to the pirates’ illicit operations.”

Finn gave her a concerned look. “Are you suggesting that you stay on the station alone?”

“Everyone who wants to stay, except perhaps you, because someone has to fly the craft, and it can’t stay here when the docks are closed. Anyone who doesn’t feel safe can go with the ship. Rasa should probably go with you.”

Rasa said, “No way.”

But Tina also didn’t want to leave Finn alone with the ship. She thought she could trust him, but she was no longer certain. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t defect to the pirates but wondered if he might panic and take off to Olympus without them.

“What am I supposed to do?” Rex asked.

“You’re staying with me,” Tina said. “I need you.”

Rex glanced across the table at Rasa, an anguished look on his face. He asked, “What if they can’t come back to the station?”

“The closure is not forever.”

“It might be.”

“Impossible. They still need to eat and, and they’ll need all kinds of supplies that are only provided by commercial carriers.”

“But Rasa has told the station director the name of the ship.”

“Ship names are not secret. Anyone can look them up. I don’t understand why giving out the ship name is significant.”

“You don’t know this woman,” Finn said. “If she decides she doesn’t like you, she will hound you to the edges of settled space. She doesn’t forget. She has a team of people to act on her paranoia.”

“It sounds like you know her,” Rex said. “Is that something I missed?”

“Zia Partlow is his ex,” Tina said.

Rex snorted. “This is like one of those stupid family dramas. If this is what being an adult is like, then I’m happy to stay a teenager.”

Rasa laughed.

Tina said, “That would be funny if we weren’t talking about two of the most powerful families in settled space. Look, I don’t know what the issue is either, but I know we can’t trust the people in control of this station. We don’t know if they’re going to side with the pirates. But ultimately, they still need supplies and will need to open the docks and then you can come back.”

“At which point they’ll be waiting for the ship,” Finn said.

Tina spread her hands. “Why? If they want us, they know we’re here. They can just keep us here. We’re vulnerable and we have been for the past few days. Why let us go and then wait for us to come back? It makes no sense.”

Finn sighed and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “I just want to protect you from these people. They’ll eat you up and spit you out.”

“Rex and I will be fine. You leave and come back when the station reopens. We’ll meet with Thor’s friends to see if we can do anything about Evelle. We’ll decide what to do after that when you come back here.”

“What about the supplies?” Rasa asked.

“We get those now. If they’re free, we grab as much as we can. Who knows when we’ll next need to restock. For one, I’m sick of curry.”

Chapter Sixteen

Before going to collect their supplies, Tina wanted to wait until refuelling had finished. The departure permission Rasa had brought showed that they needed to pick up their supplies elsewhere at the docks, likely from a supply ship that had just arrived. Tina wondered if that was why the departure permits had been so delayed: because they were waiting for a ship to arrive.

She needed to know how she and Rex were going to survive after the ship left to wait near the station. Thor offered to put them up in a room, but Tina didn’t want to put him and his son at risk. “We have some money now that we don’t have to pay for refuelling. We can use temporary accommodation.”

Thor wouldn’t have any of it. “Take it from me: you don’t want to stay there. Those guesthouses are not nice places.”

“But I don’t want to disturb your life either, and we’ve stayed at these places before. Who knows what trouble we’ll get into once we find where the prisoners are? If they find out we stayed with you, you would get their attention, too.”

“There is nothing in my life that they don’t already know, including that I have no