What a Rival Is Worth

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"Yes," Sera repeated. "I want help."

Mina sent the proposal, not a demand for surrender. Kite would retain its captain. Sparrow would make no sudden pull. The camera drone would inspect first. Any unsafe change would stop the attempt.

Sera read every line. Then her approval appeared beside Owen's.

The little camera left Sparrow through its equipment hatch. Mina watched its light move across the black. Three guide marks. A gap. Two more. The maintenance frame filled the screen in old, scarred sections.

There was the cable. Not wrapped around Kite's engine. Caught through the lower handling rail and under a fractured service bracket.

Owen marked the loads on his diagram. A straight pull would tighten both points. They needed the frame held still before Sera released the rail.

"Can Sparrow hold it?" Mina asked.

"Within our restriction. With a proper anchor and a clear withdrawal path."

He checked both before deploying the towing arm. It felt painfully slow. That was how Mina knew he was still thinking.

The arm's clamp settled on the frame's rated service lug. Owen tested a small load. Then waited. Then tested again. Sera kept her own crew clear of the handling assembly.

"Ready on my side," she said.

Owen steadied the rotation. On Mina's screen, the cable stopped trembling.

Sera released the damaged rail. It slipped free with the cable still attached. Kite moved clear on its small maneuvering jets. No great burst. No last-second leap across vacuum. Just three people following the same plan long enough for it to work.

Mina realized her shoulders hurt from holding them still.

"Clear," Sera said.

It was the best word Mina had heard all day.

They linked ships in a sheltered pocket beyond the frame. Sera crossed to Sparrow only after both captains checked the connection. Her dark flight coat had a tear at the shoulder. She carried a case of certified repair stock, not a weapon.

Owen inspected the case before accepting it. Enough material to patch Sparrow's damaged cooling plate. The work would take hours, and testing afterward. Adventure had no respect for schedules.

Sera looked at Mina.

"You warned me. I treated it as a trick."

"You did."

"I'm sorry."

Mina waited. Sera didn't follow the apology with an excuse.

"Venn sent me a private survey," she continued. "He said your drone had copied company data. I believed him because he pays on time."

Owen looked up from the repair case.

"Usually with money he owes someone else."

Sera accepted that too. She showed them her contract. It named recovery of Arbor's fold-stabilizer core as the first objective. Living cargo appeared in a later clause, to be secured at the client's discretion.

"You thought it was a dead ship," Mina said.

"I thought we were collecting equipment. Then he locked my drive while I was trapped. He could have sent the release. Instead, he told me to wait."

"For his recovery ship."

Sera nodded. "Which isn't coming to rescue competitors."

She copied the contract and the lock record into their shared mission file. Evidence didn't make her trustworthy by itself. Giving up the useful secret was a start.

Mina reopened the disputed claim notice. Sera filed a correction to her own priority submission, acknowledging the drone's route as their source. No instant award. No guarantee of ownership. Just one lie removed from the path.

"What do you want now?" Mina asked.

Sera glanced toward the little capsule.

"To see what he was willing to leave us here for."

While Owen repaired the cooling plate, Mina helped Sera inventory the connected ships. Water. Air reserves. Medical stock. Towing capacity. Nobody's courage went into the list because it couldn't be measured reliably.

Kite's local emergency interface could isolate the contracted navigation service. Sera had the authorized keys and the ship's own procedure. Doing it would cancel her support agreement with Venn's company. Her fast, expensive cutter would lose access to its favorite routes.

"He'll make sure you don't work here again," Mina said.

Sera sat on an equipment box.

"For a while, perhaps. I used to think a clean contract meant clean hands. I didn't ask enough about what came before the signature."

Mina thought of the auction room. All those people laughing because the price of not laughing might be a smaller discount next week.

"Why did you become a captain?" she asked.

"Because I hated being a passenger."

"Me too."

Sera gave her a sideways smile.

"You've been off-port one day."

"I've been a passenger longer than that."

For the first time, Sera looked at her without measuring her usefulness. She seemed to see the woman who had spent seventeen years living inside someone else's account of her family.

She handed Mina the ship's spare inspection camera.

"Then carry this when we board. Record what you actually find. Not what you hope will be there."

Mina clipped it to her jacket.

"And if all we find is a dead core?"

"Then we bring you home with the truth."

The words hurt. They also made room for something more durable than hope.

The patch held through its full test cycle. Sparrow could maneuver safely and make a restricted return hop. Owen logged the limit and kept it displayed. Kite could lead through the last service approach, using the drone's verified survey rather than Venn's chart.

They traveled slowly. Hours passed through the dim cabin. Mina slept badly, woke, checked the plant, and slept again. Each reserve entry still matched the stock inside their lockers.

On the second watch, she found Owen looking at the brass tag beside her notebook. He didn't pick it up.

"What if they were right about her?" Mina asked.

He took time before answering.

"Then you can love her without defending the mistake."

She had expected reassurance. Certainty. All the things friends gave when they couldn't bear seeing pain they couldn't mend.

"I don't know who I'd be without this fight."

Owen nodded toward the secured capsule.

"The person who kept that alive. The person who warned Sera. The one who made me teach her the backup radio twice."

"You made me do that."

"You stayed for the lesson."

Mina looked at the stars beyond the screen. Her mother's reputation had filled so much of her life that everything else felt like an empty room.

Perhaps it wasn't empty. Perhaps she simply hadn't learned its shape.

She put the tag back beneath her shirt and took the next watch.

At the final guide group, a curved shadow appeared beyond the debris. It was bigger than Mina remembered. Bigger than a child could have understood from inside its rooms.

Arbor turned in a sheltered orbit, its service hub dark. Most of the old garden windows reflected nothing. One narrow band held a soft green light.

Owen brought Sparrow alongside the visitor dock while Sera held Kite clear. A local signal answered their request. Automated docking guidance. Current pressure readings. A list of compartments closed to entry.

Mina's mouth went dry.

"Someone's maintaining the place."

"A system," Owen reminded her.

"A very stubborn system."

They matched the dock, checked the seals, and waited for the inner atmosphere test. Mina stayed behind the line until the panel cleared. Her mother's last ship deserved more than reckless devotion.

The door opened onto a dim corridor. Three green marks. A gap. Two blue ones.

Mina touched none of them. She simply followed the route.

At its end, a second door waited beneath a faded sign. GARDEN RING. The inspection camera's small light blinked against her jacket.

Owen stood beside her. Sera remained on Kite, monitoring their link. Two people at a door, and seventeen years between the last opening and this one.

Mina pressed the visitor control.

Warm air touched her face.

Beyond the threshold, branches rose under a vast transparent curve. Leaves moved in circulation fans. Somewhere, water fell into a shallow channel. Small golden fruit shone between the leaves.

Mina tried to speak. Nothing came.

Owen whispered her name.

"That's not a reserve capsule."

Above them, stars burned beyond the garden's glass.

It was an orchard.