“Odessa! I have a few concerns I want to talk to you about.”

  As Odessa made her way toward the tearoom, where her surprise visitor waited, she was interrupted by Carmen. With green eyes, jet-black skin, and slightly pointier ears than normal, Carmen was a full-blooded Chikari. An extremely organised Chikari.

  Carmen thrust a sheet of bullet points in front of Odessa.

  “What’s this?” Odessa asked, taking the list and reading a random line.

  “Discussion points, concerns.” Carmen spoke plainly and with a perky tone. Another commonality among the astronauts was that all of them bordered on just a little too confident. Not overly cocky though, not even Dash, although he walked with a swagger and a world-conquering grin everywhere. Even Odessa often had a habit of her mouth working before her brain did. It was a good thing, she rationalised. With this many skilled minds, it was important everyone felt they could speak up about any issues. Odessa just hoped that personality trait wouldn’t cause issues once they were all in confined quarters. It would probably be fine. Everyone had shown themselves to be nice and sensible people so far. Mostly.

  “You want more meetings?” Odessa asked in surprise. She was pretty sure they’d already had this conversation and launch was tomorrow, or at least it was supposed to be. She started walking again and motioned for Carmen to walk with her.

  “Well that one’s more a general feedback. I know we already discussed it. I’ve noted the reason for keeping them only once weekly in the full document.”

  Carmen was taller so she kept pace easily. Most people here were taller than Odessa. Amanda was one of the few who wasn’t.

  “The full document?” Odessa flipped the single page over and was relieved to find it was only one-sided. She had a low threshold for reading documentation that didn’t directly relate to doing something fun. When she’d bought her house, it had taken her five attempts just to read the first page of the terms and conditions before she’d just given up and handed it over to her friend with a law degree.

  “This is the summary page. I thought it would be good to document everything in full. You know, cover our arses and stuff in case anything goes wrong,” Carmen explained.

  Odessa paused walking and squinted at Carmen. “You do remember that what we’re doing isn’t technically legal. If the local councils find out we have a giant hunk of metal this close to the Dragon Mountains, our arses are fried. Documenting stuff just makes more evidence.”

  “Evidence that we know what we’re doing. Just like when you climbed the Tower of Temperance in Jonesville.”

  “I still spent three days in jail for that stunt and this is a little bit different.” It also hadn’t been Odessa who had put together the paperwork for that. Carmen did sort of have a point though since that paperwork was why it had only been three days in jail. That and the attention they’d brought to the place.

  “They’re going to find out after launch anyway.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Odessa replied. She started walking again.

  “I think a large rocket shooting off into space is kinda obvious,” Carmen pointed out.

  “Yeah, but it won’t be here then. And it’s only the once. We’ve got a plan in place in case anyone shows up here anyway, as long as it’s after launch.”

  “Yeah, that’s the other thing. Speaking of getting our arses fried. I know we’ve done what tests we can and that we are limited by secrecy, but how confident are you about letting a firestarter near a giant explosive mass of fuel? Do you think it might be safer to use an infusement or maybe do without magic at all? Dash says we don’t actually need her to reach our required momentum based on the calculations.”

  Odessa stopped walking again. “No, see, Amanda’s not there to give us a boost. She’s there to make our first burn safer. She’s good, like really good. She’ll control the burn rate, make sure it’s even, at least until we get out of range.”

  Carmen nodded and appeared mostly convinced. But as they started moving again she asked, “Is it true she’s an alcoholic?”

  How had Carmen found out about that? Maybe it was just obvious? It was probably Cat who had told her.

  “Reformed,” Odessa replied.

  “I saw her drinking yesterday.”

  “Yes, well, she still drinks, she just keeps it sensible.” Odessa knew she wasn’t being very convincing and it wasn’t always true, just mostly true. She had a terrible poker face, gods knows, she’d lost enough games to Amanda. Then again, most people lost at poker against Amanda.

  Carmen gave her a doubtful look.

  “I’ll make sure she’s not drinking for takeoff,” Odessa told her, and meant every word of it. Perhaps she’d recruit Cat to help with that. “Promise.”

  Carmen was quiet a moment.

  To distract her, Odessa asked, “Was it Dash who suggested infusements?” Most witches, with the exception of Stella, had one power. Amanda was a firestarter, Jade was a strongarm, Dash was a healer. But some witches had the power to put another’s magic in an item, making it available for others to use. Such items were known as infusements. They still required a fair amount of skill to use, but apparently, Dash was especially good with such things. He’d already tried to convince Odessa that they should be taking more infusements with them.

  “I actually have some concerns about that too. I’m quite happy not to be using any infusements in the ship construction since we don’t know how magic behaves in space but I’m a little concerned that that means we also don’t know how the payloads are going to behave.”

  Odessa agreed with Carmen on that point. Stella had argued that the experimental payloads were important for obtaining not just future investment but current investment too. So Odessa had agreed to have them on board, but only as long as the payloads got their own special area somewhat separate from the main crew module.

  “You’ll have to talk to Stella about that. It’s kind of the point though, you know, figuring out how magic behaves in space.”

  “Yeah, I’m just not clear on why it couldn’t be on a different rocket?”

  “Because then it wouldn’t be once, and it would be way more conspicuous.”

  “But we do want to do it more than once don’t we?”

  “Yeah, but to get public support for it we have to go big or go home. We likely have one trip to prove it’s worth doing, and that means sending people and payloads.” She trusted Stella’s psychic powers enough that she didn’t think the payloads would probably get them killed. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t cause trouble. Psychic powers worked on probability and Stella would accept plenty of risk if the benefit proved good enough. Stella’s motivations were rarely ever easy to read and there had been times in the past where Stella had not been forthcoming with all the information. Odessa was still an adventurer though. Risk was part of the job, and if she was being honest, it was part of the fun too.

  "Another thing..."

  Odessa would have kept listening but it was at that point that they rounded the corner to the tearoom and she saw who her visitor was.

  She handed the page back to Carmen, interrupting the woman in mid-sentence. “Uh... can you put this on my desk. I’ll take a look at it later.”

  “Sure?” Carmen followed Odessa’s eye line into the tearoom to where a lean, blonde-haired man was sitting, or at least he would have been blonde-haired if he’d had any hair. “Who’s that?”

  “Chaser,” Odessa mumbled, her eye line still on her best friend. At least he had been her best friend until a few years ago when she’d found out what he’d done. They hadn’t talked since. Odessa had sent him away to think about things. So they could both think about things. Then she’d thrown herself into the space project as a distraction. Now he was back the day before they were set to go into space. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t her fifth astronaut.

  Carmen must have sensed Odessa’s mood because she left them be. Although once she was gone Odessa found herself wishing Carmen had stayed. Carmen knew nothing about Chaser. None of the astronauts did. Only some of her ground crew friends knew what he’d done but none of them had known him before. Odessa wasn’t sure she knew Chaser anymore either. Did she still want to?

  She walked into the tearoom.

  “What happened to your mullet?” she asked. He didn’t really look like Chaser without it. It was like he’d lost something important.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Hi Odie,” Chaser replied using a nickname for her that he only ever used when he was being serious. “I shaved it off.”

  “Why? I liked it.” Odessa kept her voice light and playful but the air was thick with tension, like they were talking through maple syrup and both of them were doing their very best to pretend it wasn’t there.

  Chaser smiled. She’d missed that smile. She had loved Chaser. He’d always been so happy and playful. But right now, despite the smile, he didn’t look happy. And for the first time she realised that there had always been a hint of sadness behind his smiles, she’d just never noticed it before. She’d never been the best at reading people. Until another friend had opened her eyes.

  Chaser had told her about his past. The things he’d done. The things that had been done to him. Odessa remembered all of it.

  Now everything was flipped back the front. Now that she’d seen behind the curtain. Despite the smile, it was no longer like looking at glimpses of sadness behind a happy mask, because it was all the real Chaser, it always had been, and behind those eyes of sadness she could still see the playful, happy Chaser.

  When he’d left he’d been miserable, remorseful, broken. He brought it upon himself in many ways. She’d had to send him away though. What he’d done hadn’t been something either of them could heal from together. She hadn’t told him never to come back. She’d even implied the opposite. But she also wasn’t sure she was ready for this yet, to forgive him.

  “It’ll grow back,” he said.

  For a moment, Odessa wasn’t sure if he was talking about his hair or their friendship. Well, she was going to space tomorrow. She’d have more time to think. For now, she might as well see how things went.

  “I hear you’re going into space,” he said when she didn’t say anything. His tone was gentle. He was treading lightly. Especially for Chaser. He knew what he’d done. He’d known not to expect to be immediately welcomed back. He knew he’d have to work for it.

  “Yeah, we’re gonna go around the moon.” They still needed a fifth astronaut, but Chaser definitely wasn’t it. Odessa wasn’t ready to spend a week in a tiny tin can with him. They once spent days sleeping on a tiny platform halfway up a mountain together. But that was before he’d betrayed her trust.

  “Hey, Odie...” Amanda started to say from the doorway behind Odessa, “Stella wants...” Amanda trailed off as she saw who else was in the tearoom. “Chaser!” Her tone turned into a slight growl and she walked forward into the room, placing her body in front of Odessa’s.

  Odessa’s heart melted. She didn’t think Chaser was a danger to her but despite Amanda saying she didn’t love Odessa like that, she’d still put herself between Odessa and anything that threatened her. That damn woman did not make it easy to stop liking her.

  Amanda looked to Odessa, to judge how she felt about Chaser being there. According to Amanda, Odessa was easy to read, but then everyone seemed easy to read for Amanda.

  “It’s fine,” Odessa said. “It’s been long enough.”

  “Are you sure?” Amanda said in a lower voice, as she turned to face Odessa fully and scanned her face for any signs of distress. “You don’t have to forgive him you know. I can get Cat to drag him out of here if need be?”

  Odessa gave a small smiled. “I’m sure.” And she was, sure about him being here. Less so about forgiving him, but it had been long enough. He’d taken the first step. She might as well hear him out. To Chaser she said, “Do you want to see the rocket ship?”

  “Guys! Guys!” The moment they stepped into the main hangar, software programmer, and half-vampire half-witch, Indi, came running up to them. Her violet eyes wide behind her black rimmed glasses. Her silky black bob of hair swinging wildly with her movements. She raised her hands up in excitement, only then realising that her sleeves were hanging down over them. She pulled her hands free and then breathlessly declared, “I’ve fixed the weird telemetry bug.”

  “Nice!” Amanda remarked. “See, you didn’t need me as your rubber duck after all?”

  Odessa blinked. “I didn’t realise it was broken.”

  “Oh.” Indi paused and looked left and then right as if trying to decide whether or not to back track and pretend nothing had happened. Then her grin got wide again. Indi was probably the only person who was worse at poker than Odessa was. “It was in the software. There were two things that were deadlocked waiting on one another but only under a really specific condition. Took me aaaages to reproduce it. Data looks real clean now. Wanna see? Also there’s still one other bug that I haven’t figured out but it’s not a biggie. And you totally helped,” Indi added reassuringly to Amanda.

  Amanda knew the basics of programming but she was more systems and web focused than firmware focused. Odessa knew enough programming to make hardware do what she wanted but she had no idea about web-based stuff. Indi knew everything although she was a little weaker with how some of the physical electronics worked. Anything that involved data was her wheelhouse though,

  They followed Indi over to her desk. Cat lounged in a chair nearby. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of Chaser who came along too. Indi, on the other hand hadn’t even appeared to notice him yet. Indi could be completely oblivious when she was focused on something though.

  Odessa helped herself to some candy from one of several open bags that lay on Indi’s desk. Technically there wasn’t supposed to be any food in this room but Odessa liked sugar almost as much as Indi did and she couldn’t reasonably call Indi out on it while also eating it. It was an easy choice to make.

  “See.” Indi said as she pointed at a graph of an almost straight line.

  “Uh huh,” Amanda replied in a tone that said she found it way less exciting than Indi did.

  Odessa smiled. She knew what it felt like to finally figure out a hard problem.

  Then Indi noticed Chaser.

  “Oh, hey Chaser!” Indi greeted him like an old friend she’d just seen yesterday and not someone who’d done what he had and then been away for a few years.

  Indi greeted everyone like they were her best friend. She was basically the complete opposite of Cat. Odessa didn’t understand how it was those two managed to get on as well as they did.

  Indi’s greeting made Chaser smile a good and proper smile, one without any sadness in it. “Hey,” he said.

  “Odessa!” Stella called down from a balcony up on the next floor.

  “Oh yeah,” Amanda said. “That was what I came to tell you. Stella wants to see you about something.”

  Odessa glanced at Chaser.

  He held up his hands. “I won’t touch anything, promise.”

  “I’ll watch him.” Amanda grinned.

  With the way Cat was looking at Chaser, Odessa was more worried about his safety than the other way around. Cat would warm up to him eventually though. Chaser was kind of like Indi in a lot of ways.

  “You want some candy?” Indi offered him.

  “Well, maybe I can touch the candy,” Chaser remarked as Odessa walked toward the stairs with a smile.

  “You’re wearing a suit?” Odessa remarked in surprise when she laid eyes on Stella. Stella was usually more of a dress-wearing sort of person but today she was dressed up more businesslike. It was almost unsettling.

  Odessa was so surprised by the outfit that it took her a moment to realise that there was another person on the balcony with them.

  “I have found you a fifth astronaut,” Stella said.

  “Hi.” The taller woman, standing beside the perfectly-average but petite looking Stella, had candyfloss pink hair, long on one side and shaven on the other, and enough earrings to break a metal detector.

  Odessa recognised her.

  “Athena!” For a moment Odessa was speechless, not sure how to handle this revelation, Then before her brain could catch up her mouth remarked, “But you’re a bartender.”

  “Which is exactly why she is perfect for my experiment,” Stella explained, explaining nothing.

  “Uh, what?” Odessa knew there was little point in arguing. Whatever Stella wanted she tended to get.

  “We’re making space wine,” Athena added, giving a little context but still not enough.

  “What?” Odessa repeated.

  “It’s going to be big,” Stella explained. “Aristocrats love their fine alcoholic beverages and they have money. If we’re going to continue space travel, we need both their approval and a lot of funding. It’s two birds with one stone, but we need to prove it can work yet.”

  “But aristocrats don’t care about space, do they?” Odessa asked. She didn’t doubt Stella was right about them having money and loving their drink. Despite being an electrical engineer, Stella’s wealth came primarily from wine and spirit distribution, among other high-end items. But as far as Odessa knew, aristocrats were decidedly old-fashioned. They still carried swords around and considered guns beneath them.

  “You of all people know that it’s all about the marketing. Trust me, they’ll love it.” Stella smiled. Of all the attractive faces on this base, Stella’s was the prettiest. It was a side effect of her healing magic. She had blemish free skin with face structure that fit a mathematician’s ideal. But she lacked Amanda’s warmth. Stella could be fun, and smart, and crazy, the scary kind of crazy, but Stella had always felt like she was somewhere else to Odessa. Perhaps that was a side effect of her psychic powers. Stella didn’t really live in one world. She lived in many.

  “You actually have engineering experience though,” Odessa replied. “Why aren’t you coming yourself? No offense,” she added in Athena’s direction. “Athena hasn’t done any training.”

  “None taken,” Athena smiled. Athena was always good-natured. Truth be told, if she’d had the engineering background, Odessa would have preferred her over Stella.

  Stella shook her head and replied succinctly, “I have things I need to do here. Athena has done the training. I offered her the position months ago when it became obvious our astronaut had no intention of going up.”

  Athena was watching them like one might watch a tennis match. She didn’t seem offended just mildly amused.

  Odessa frowned. She wasn’t sure if Stella meant it had been obvious because the guy had made it obvious or if she’d simply known because of her powers. Either way, she hadn’t bothered to tell Odessa. “But...”

  “We’re already more than covered skill wise,” Stella said. “And I didn’t mention it because it was just a backup option. I wasn’t certain we were going to need it.”

  Odessa narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she believed Stella or not and thanks to Chaser’s arrival she was having flashbacks to another trip where the benefactor had thrown a random tag-along at the team. That was a trip that had not gone well. In fact, if it hadn’t been for that trip, Chaser and her would probably still be best friends.

  But Athena wasn’t a complete random. Odessa did know her and she liked her. She felt sort of bad for questioning her as much as she was, but this trip was dangerous. There was no room for politeness when it came to safety. The real question was, how much did she trust Stella?

  Odessa had known her since uni and if it hadn’t been for Stella, Odessa never would have found out what Chaser had done. But what did the risk profile of this trip come out to when even the psychic didn’t want to go into space?

  “We can either take off tomorrow or spend months finding someone else and retraining them. Your call.” Stella said with the subtle smile of one who knew the answer already.

  Stella certainly had her there.

  Odessa looked at Athena. Athena gave her a smile. Odessa couldn’t help smiling back. It was no secret that there was some attraction between her and Athena. Athena may look harsh apart from the pink hair but she was incredibly kind and down to earth, with a bartender’s intuition and a no nonsense attitude. Was it that Stella was just playing matchmaker? It wouldn’t be the first time. Predicting Stella was impossible though. She was always one step ahead. And anyway Odessa wasn’t looking for a relationship right now. But, it wasn’t like she was opposed to eye-candy.

  Eye-candy was safe, safer than Indi’s real candy, safer than whatever it was that she and Amanda didn’t have. Earth was messy and full of complicated feelings, and friendships she didn’t know what to do with. Space was... She looked up, but all she could see was the ceiling.

  Space was unknown, exciting, new.

  She thought of Chaser. Should she forgive him? Once she did, she couldn’t bring it up again. What he’d done would have to be forgotten. She wasn’t sure she was ready for that. She was much more ready for space.

  She gave a nod. “Okay. Tomorrow we launch.”