Chapter 38: More Improvements

PING!

A brilliant gold-bordered diagnostic panel materialized in the middle of the bay.

[VESSEL ARMAMENT EXPANSION COMPLETE!]

[Weapon System: Graventhal Rail-Harpoon (Ventral Mount)]

[Status: ONLINE / FULLY ARMED]

[Projectile: 4-Meter Solid Graventhal Barbed Spike (Velocity: 7 km/s)]

[Tether: Superconductive Graventhal-Carbon Composite (Max Range: 800 Meters)]

[Winch: High-Tension Piezoelectric Magnetic Reeler (Direct Fusion Bus Link)]

[Function: Capable of tethering, anchoring and reeling multi-thousand-tonne targets or high-velocity cosmic entities directly to the ventral hull.]

Harper wiped a smear of black conductive grease off her freckled nose with the back of her wrist and let out a long proud whistle.

"Now that... is a serious piece of iron."

Elena crossed her arms and lifted her chin with supreme aristocratic satisfaction, but her eyes were shining. "It is an engineering triumph. Naturally."

Harper bumped her with an elbow while Elena, very briefly, bumped her back.

Up on the bridge, Leo stepped back onto the command dais with the deep hum of the new winch still buzzing faintly in the soles of his boots, and looked out past the glass at the slow-tumbling rocks of the outer field.

BEEP.

The blue flight data shrank away and a flashing crimson banner took the middle of the viewport, throwing long bloody shadows across the deck.

[GLOBAL REMNANT PROTOCOL: NOVICE BUFFER COUNTDOWN]

[TIME REMAINING: 11 HOURS, 42 MINUTES, 08 SECONDS]

...Under twelve hours.

The silence on the bridge felt heavy, pressing down on his shoulders like extra gravity.

Outside the canopy the stars burned cold and indifferent, completely unconcerned with the fragile iron bubble drifting through their graveyard.

[The Graventhal Rail-Harpoon has completed diagnostic synchronization. All physical mounts are secure, and the magnetic reeler operates within optimal lethal parameters.]

A short terrible pause hung in the speakers.

[The Master Captain and his crew are to be congratulated on crafting a weapon of significant destructive utility. Enjoy the accomplishment while your cellular integrity remains intact... Sensor grids indicate deep-space gravitational fluctuations consistent with apex biological awakening. You will likely require that harpoon far sooner than your fragile nervous systems would prefer.]

Leo stared at the red numbers for a long moment, watching the seconds peel away one at a time.

[11:42:07... 11:42:06...]

’Apex biological awakening,’ Leo thought with his jaw tightening. ’Great... Love that for us.’

Then he made himself turn his back on the clock and went to find something to eat, because a starving pilot was a dead pilot.

...

The smell hit him the second he stepped off the companionway into the mid-deck hall.

Damp dirt, crushed green stems and the sharp peppery sweetness of ripening vines. Leo stopped in the doorway of the garden and leaned his shoulder against the frame.

The bare cold metal storage room he’d bolted shelves into yesterday was gone.

In its place was a living tangled canopy of deep emerald foliage, the racks Chloe had hauled in buried under dense curtains of serrated leaves, creeping runners and pale yellow blossoms.

The rose-gold lamps poured a rich honeyed dawn across the beds, and fat dark-red tomatoes hung in clusters of six and seven, their taut skins practically bursting.

Below them, potato foliage spilled over the sides of the bins, and glossy bell peppers hung from their stalks like polished green ornaments.

Camila stood in the middle aisle with a pair of harvesting shears in one hand and a plastic tub braced on her hip.

She had grey gravel dust smudged across her temple and her curls pinned up with two yellow plastic clips, and her hazel eyes were dancing.

SNIP!

"That’s four kilos of potatoes from tray two alone," she whispered, practically vibrating as she dropped three dusty fist-sized russets into the tub. "Four kilos! And look at the skins, Leo! They’re thin, they’re firm, the starch feels solid!"

Leo walked over and crouched beside the bed, picking one up and turning it over in his hand.

It was still cool from the drip-line feed and smelled of wet volcanic gravel and clean earth, the way his mother’s garden had smelled after the sprinklers.

"You did all of this in less than a day," he said, looking up at her with a slow shake of his head. "You’re a miracle worker, Camila."

Her cheeks went bright radiant pink, and a breathless laugh slipped out of her as she wiped her dusty forearm across her forehead and only made the smudge worse.

"It wasn’t just me! Jin-Ah’s water cycle was perfect... The nutrients were so steady the roots didn’t even have to look for food, they just drank until they exploded!"

She snipped off a plump vine-ripened tomato, turned it in her palm like a polished ruby and held it out to him.

"Smell it."

He leaned in and smelled it right out of her hand.

It was sweet and overwhelmingly fresh, green and sun-warm even under fake lamps... the unmistakable nostalgic smell of a summer garden that had somehow survived the death of an entire solar system.

Camila didn’t move her hand.

She was very still, watching his face that close to her fingers, and the pink in her cheeks spread down her neck.

"Come on," Leo smiled, straightening up and taking the tub off her hip. "Let’s turn this into lunch before Harper tries to eat one raw like an apple."

...

An hour later the galley was warmer, louder and more alive than it had ever been.

The induction burners hummed on the steel island, where two wide skillets sizzled with sliced potatoes frying in oil until their edges curled into golden crispy ribbons.

In a second pot, Camila and Leo had crushed eight fresh tomatoes with salt, minced dried chilies and a handful of fresh basil and simmered it all down into a rich fragrant sauce that filled the narrow galley with a thick mouthwatering smell.

Beside the range sat a big platter of crusty potato cakes, golden-brown and steaming under the amber lights.

The crew squeezed in around the island, perched on stools or leaning against the counters with plates balanced in their hands with their elbows bumping and their forks clinking.

Chloe sat in the corner by the pantry with her small hands folded in her lap and her dark bangs combed away from her face for once, showing clear luminous green eyes.

After last night, the sickly fragile look was gone... Her cheeks had a soft healthy peach glow and the dark circles under her eyes had vanished.

She looked relaxed and content.

’I feel good...’

She couldn’t swallow a single bite of the potatoes or the sauce, but she didn’t shrink away from the table.

Leo had set a clean plate in front of her anyway, with a glass of cold filtered water and two crushed mint leaves beside her fork, so she wouldn’t be sitting in front of an empty space.

"Drink the mint water, Chloe," he’d said, nudging her shoulder gently as he handed out the forks. "Keeps you hydrated, and it smells good."

She’d looked up at him through her lashes with a tiny breathtakingly shy smile that lit up her whole face, then cradled the glass in both hands.

’He remembered,’ she thought, her chest warming as she watched him move around the counter. ’Leo didn’t make me sit in the corner like an outcast and he didn’t tell me to leave because I can’t eat either... He gave me a cup so I’d have something in my hands...’

She didn’t take her eyes off him once... not even when Camila asked her a question twice.

’Mmh~’

Across the island, Harper leaned her hip against the dishwasher with a plate heaped with crispy potatoes, chewing happily... but her grey-blue eyes kept flicking between Leo and Chloe.

The way Chloe didn’t flinch anymore when his sleeve brushed her shoulder and the way Leo checked her glass without even thinking about it to make sure it was full.

Harper didn’t say anything.

There were no loud jokes about vampires or bed warmers... She just took another slow bite of her potato cake, a quiet shadow passing over her freckled face before she forced her eyes back down to her plate and covered the small ache behind her ribs with an appreciative hum.

"This sauce is ridiculous, Camila," she managed through a full mouth, pointing her fork at the red bowl and dragging another potato through it. "If you’d told me yesterday we’d be eating fresh tomato sauce in deep vacuum, I would’ve checked you for radiation poisoning..."

"It is biologically astonishing," Jin-Ah agreed from her stool.

She had set her datapad flat beside her plate and was methodically carving a crispy potato cake into four mathematically identical quadrants with her butter knife, her geometric bob swinging as she inspected each forkful before it went into her mouth.

"The accelerated growth cycle has, surprisingly, not degraded cellular starch density," she said, chewing with focus. "In fact, the sugar-to-acid ratio in these tomatoes deviates from standard terrestrial hydroponics by less than one point two percent... My previous projection of nutritional deficit was fundamentally flawed."

Camila beamed and kicked her heels against her stool. "See?! I told you plants aren’t math problems!"

"They remain governed by biochemistry." Jin-Ah swallowed, took a delicate sip of water, then looked across the island at Harper with a perfectly straight face. "However, given the alternative of the AI’s suggested asteroid sludge, I am prepared to concede that Camila’s tomatoes are statistically superior to eating dirt..."

The galley went dead silent for two full seconds.

Harper froze mid-chew.

Camila’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Elena blinked in slow-motion disbelief, and even Chloe peeked out from behind her glass with wide eyes.

"Wait..." Harper leaned forward with her jaw hanging. "Did... did Jin-Ah just make a joke? An actual intentional human joke?"

Jin-Ah’s neck and ears went bright pink in an instant.

She cleared her throat fiercely and grabbed her stylus, stabbing at a random spot on her screen.

"It was an objective comparative analysis of soil versus sludge... It was not an attempt at juvenile humor!"

"No, no, that was DEFINITELY a joke!" Harper howled, slapping the counter. "Mark the ship’s log! The robot developed a sense of humor! The universe is healing!"

Camila was clapping.

Elena had a hand pressed to her chest like she’d witnessed a miracle and even Ms. Tachibana let out a soft musical laugh behind her hand, her dark eyes sparkling as Jin-Ah buried her burning face in her cup.

Leo caught Jin-Ah’s eye over the rim of it from across the island and grinned at her.

"Jokes, huh?"

She held his gaze for one second... and the corner of her mouth twitched up before she ducked back down.

A few minutes later, while the girls crowded around the skillet for seconds and argued over who got the crispiest edges, Leo slipped over to the coffee dispenser by the open door to refill his mug with the quiet amber corridor stretching away behind him.

Soft footsteps clicked on the runner and Ms. Tachibana stepped up beside him with an empty saucer, her dark hair pinned in an elegant twist that showed the graceful curve of her neck.

"You should eat another cake, Leo," she said softly. "You’ve burned more calories than anyone in the last thirty hours..."

"I ate three while I was frying them, Sensei," he smiled, stirring sweetener into his coffee. "Those are the perks of being the cook."

She didn’t laugh.

She leaned against the steel counter beside him, close enough that her sleeve brushed his arm, and studied the side of his face.

The hyper-alert set of his shoulders that never fully dropped, even when he was laughing at the table.

’He’s carrying the entire world on his back,’ she thought, something soft and aching tightening in her chest. ’He’s only twenty-one. He should be worrying about midterms and simulator scores and weekend plans... not holding life and death in his palms... and he never lets them see him bend.’

"You’re doing very well, Leo," she said, her voice dropping into that warm tone that always made his pulse settle and stumble at the same time. "Not just with the ship... With them, Look at them."

He glanced over his shoulder.

Camila was eagerly explaining the nitrogen cycle to a flustered Jin-Ah, drawing diagrams in the spilled sauce with her finger.

Harper was trying to steal a fried potato off Elena’s plate while Elena slapped at her hand with a fork.

Chloe was watching all of them with bright happy eyes, sipping her mint water.

"They’re smiling, Sensei," he said quietly. "That’s all that matters. As long as they’re smiling, the ship feels like a home."

She looked at him, and something deep and ringing moved through her dark eyes.

"It feels like a home because you made it one, Leo." She reached out and rested her fingers on his forearm and they stayed there. "Don’t forget to take care of yourself too... You’re allowed to rest."

He looked down at her hand on his arm, then up into her eyes, and that warm familiar flutter climbed into his throat and stuck there.

She was very close and neither of them looked away.