He looked into Aly’s eyes, almost getting lost inside them.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to come at you like that. I just miss you. We all miss you. We’ve been waiting for you to come home for a long time.”
“Even Althaus?”
“Well, I suppose not everyone.” They both laughed. “Your heart’s set on the Reach, isn’t it?”
“There’s more to Nash’s death. I know it. Maybe, just maybe I’ll find out what.”
“Then you’ll have your closure?”
That was a question Jason couldn’t answer. “We’ll see.”
Aly drank the remains of her water and put it down on the bar. “Well, make sure you’re at the Bay Seventeen tonight at oh-twenty-one hundred.”
He cocked his head sideways.
She smiled at him. “Tyler’s decided to take you to the Reach.”
Jason shook his head in astonishment. “Thank you.”
“You’ve got nothing to thank me—”
“I know you had something to do with it.”
She stood and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t forget. Bay Seventeen.”
“I’ll be there.”
With that, she walked from the bar, like an angel into the night.
Nine
Cargo Ship Argo
With a bag on each shoulder, Jason strode into the Argo’s cargo bay. He’d brought with him the only possessions he had left. Everything else had been sold or pawned so he could get the money he needed to pay his brother. He thanked his lucky stars for Tyler’s compassion. Short of hijacking another ship, he wasn’t sure what other way he could get to the Reach. And he didn’t particularly want a criminal record.
He stepped toward the elevator and Althaus appeared out of the corner of his eye. His uncle was doing a final inventory check of the fully stocked cargo bay. The pair glimpsed at each other. Althaus looked at Jason as if he were a parasite. Jason wondered if he should be the bigger man and say something. Anything. He tread warily toward him, but before he could open his mouth to speak, Althaus turned his back on him and disappeared off down to the other end of the cargo bay.
Jason shrugged.
Screw you, too.
He walked back to the elevator chute and ascended to an empty B Deck. He hadn’t expected a welcoming committee, with everyone preparing for departure, but the silence gave the habitat section of the Argo an eerie feeling. He could almost touch the ghosts of the past surrounding him. When they were kids, he, Tyler, and Aly would chase each other up and down the corridor, hiding in all the nooks and crannies getting up to no good. Letting the nostalgia pass, he headed toward his quarters. He hadn’t expected to be given his old room, but guessed when he left and Dad had died, Tyler would’ve taken the captain’s quarters.
Struggling with his bags, he leaned down and pressed the terminal beside the door. It unlocked, and he pushed it open. It was almost pitch black, save for some light coming through the viewport. Jason reached around the corner to the interior door terminal and flicked a switch. The lights blinked on, illuminating his quarters in a dull luminescence. He raised his eyebrows. It was as if he’d entered a time machine. His room had not changed from when he’d left the Argo, ten years earlier.
The bed had the same blue-and-white patterned sheets on it. The two posters of swimsuit models Sky Jensen and Anabelle Pearl were still plastered on the bulkhead behind his bed, and on the opposite wall was his giant poster of the Neptune LC Land Speeder.
A knock on the door interrupted him as he put his bags down. “Come in.”
The door opened, and Tyler walked in. He immediately twisted up his nose. “It’s a bit stale in here.”
“I guess that’s what happens when you keep a door locked for a decade.” Jason waved his hands around his quarters. “Did you leave my room like this?”
“Well, you up and left, remember? You took what you needed, and the rest stayed here. What did you think, I’d pack it away for you?”
“Fair point, I guess.” He knew his brother would never admit to being sentimental. All the same, Jason was surprised that after he’d gone to the academy, Tyler hadn’t come in and ripped everything down, packed it into a crate, and blown it out an airlock. “Thanks.”
“For your room?”
“For taking me to Frontier’s Reach.”
Tyler’s eyes darted sideways. “Aly had to convince me.”
“I know.” Jason walked to his closet and opened it up. The musty smell was even worse than the rest of the room. Jackets, pants, and sweaters from yesteryear, which were severely out of fashion, took up the bulk of the space, while several crates were stacked up beneath them.
Jason picked one up and placed it on his bed. He yanked off the lid and peered inside. There were more clothes, a tattered E-Class technical manual, some flight instruction books, and a photo frame.
Huh, what’s this?
He flipped it over and brushed the dust from it. Inside the silver frame was a family photo. Jason shook his head in disbelief. It was a picture of him as a toddler. His father… and his mother. “Well, I’ll be damned. Come and look at this.”
He turned, but Tyler was gone. Jason sighed and regarded the photo. It’s faded color was just as faded as the memory. The fateful day she’d died was from a time before he could remember. But sometimes he would gladly take it if it meant being able to see her face when he closed his eyes.
Jason put the photo frame back in the box and returned it to the closet. With the crates secured, he opened his bags from Odyssey Station. All he had left were a few changes of clothes, old rank pins from the service, and a small box containing the medals he’d awarded during the war. He’d wondered why he’d even bothered to keep them. He rummaged to find something a little more to his liking.
A bottle of Blue Jacket bourbon. Jason bought it from Vic, just before he’d left
