The Beyond: Chapter Five

 Notes: Back at it again! Have some fretting Wyl before we get deeper into Cloverleaf Station and learn who's expected, who isn't, and how it's going to fuck some shit up ;)

Title: The Beyond: Chapter Five

***

Chapter Five

Photo by Mohamed Marey
 

 

Well, they had made it to Cloverleaf Station. The hardest part of their trip was done. The worst, at least for now, was over.

That was what Wyl told himself, at least. It was what he had to tell himself if he was going to be able to deal with Robbie’s bad days, which this definitely qualified as. The more time they spent in the Beyond, the harder the parasite wore on him, Robbie shameless about using its abilities to help keep them safe whether they were in the middle of a meteor field, planetside, or trading with another crew. It was funny, how interacting with other people was one of the most dangerous things you could do out there.

Trades were always a dicey proposition; there was no law in the Beyond, no one to get revenge if the person you were trading with decided to sign on the bottom line in your blood. The more established crews were pretty safe, but in the first year the only ones who would do deals with their little group were extremely unreliable. There had been no fewer than three attempts to blow up their ship once the cargo was exchanged, and it was only Robbie’s abilities that managed to keep them alive two of those times.

And Wyl was grateful for that. He was! He just hated putting so much pressure on Robbie when they didn’t know what the parasite was really doing inside of him—how it was using him, what it got from riding him, and how it connected to the larger universe. Robbie had always been a little thin on the details when it came to telling them how it felt.

“Like another person in my head, sitting quietly at the back and watching everything I do.”

“Is it painful?”

“No.”

“Intrusive?”

“Not really.”

“Does it make you paranoid?”

“No more paranoid than usual.”

Usual was changing, though. Like when Robbie woke up with black eyes this morning. That was a first. And he’d choked on his coffee, which—fine, it happened, but he’d never finished the mug. Robbie didn’t believe in wasting food, especially not something expensive like coffee, and yet he hadn’t touched it after that. Wyl wasn’t sure Robbie had eaten the protein bar he’d handed him, and now…

The motion detector on the tiny bed next to the medbot squealed as Robbie swung his legs down.

“Don’t move.”

“Baby, I’m fine now.”

Wyl scoffed. “You passed out over the fucking control panel the second we docked, so please don’t think you pretending it didn’t happen carried any weight with me.”

“I was just tired.”

“Clearly.” Wyl shut off his implant’s screen so he could make firm eye contact with Robbie. “And the best cure for fatigue is rest and Regen, so lie down and shut up and let the machine work on you.”

Robbie sighed in irritation but pulled his legs back up onto the narrow bed, grimacing as he shifted himself in such a way that most of him rested on the surface of it. He was the biggest of their little crew, and the med bed was made for someone Wyl’s size or smaller. Pence had had trouble on it too, and Robbie had two inches on him, easy, and was far broader through the shoulders. “Our Regen store is nearly spent,” he said after a moment.”

“Mm.”

“We’re going to have to stock up on it while we’re here. Maybe renegotiate for a smaller amount, since it’s just the three of us now.”

“No, we’ll be getting the same or more.”

Robbie sighed again. “Wyl—”

“No.” Wyl turned on him, knowing he was being mean about this but not caring. He needed Robbie to understand him right now. “No, you don’t get to downplay the seriousness of your condition. You don’t get to pretend that this is something you can just brush off and get over like it’s a cold, like it hasn’t completely reshaped your biorhythms and given you literal god-like abilities when it comes to avoiding danger. I was the one who wanted to go to Garrett and let him dip into his untold and fabulous riches to figure out how to fix you, and—”

“We talked about this,” Robbie interjected. “We’re fugitives in Alliance space right now. We wouldn’t be safe there.”

“Garrett was in Perel space at the time.”

“And they were never going to give us clearance to land on their planet while I’m being ridden by a sentient space parasite.”

“Don’t pretend we couldn’t have set up an orbital base there just as easily as we have in the Beyond,” Wyl snapped. “You wanted to come out here because you wanted to indulge your curiosity about the damn thing, and I let you because it was more than just our lives at stake. And it’s been quite an adventure, it really has, but I’m just about done doing things your way, do you get me? Pence is gone, Isidore is gone, Kyle is—”

“Still a fugitive.” It was Robbie’s turn to snap now. “Still forced to live outside Alliance space, and don’t pretend that it would be simple to smuggle him in either because it wouldn’t. Cloverleaf Station is one of the few places left on the Fringe that doesn’t require DNA checks to dock, and who knows how long that will last? There are bounty hunters out there who would make their whole careers if they could haul the last Alexander back to face ‘justice’ in front of the Central System mob, and for all that he’s grown a lot with us, Kyle is only three years older than Cody and Ten.”

“Cody and Ten are legally adults.”

“And do you care about legal distinctions when Cody is still a walking time bomb and Ten is a pyrotechnic disaster in a human skin suit?”

Despite his grumpy mood, Wyl snickered. “Ze really is.” The expression faded after a second, though. “I care about Kyle,” he said. “I really do. But Kyle is not the person I’m married to, Robbie. That person is you, and if the best way for me to guarantee your survival is to take Garrett up on his offer to set you up with the best experts in the entire galaxy, doctors and scientists who specialize in this sort of thing, then I’d leave him to fend for himself in a heartbeat. I would.” He’d leave him with the ship and as much money and supplies as he could manage, but Wyl was dead serious.

“You won’t have to do that,” Robbie insisted. “Because we’re going to figure this thing out very soon, I can feel it. The things we’re finding out there in the ruins, the carvings and the mosaics in the temples, they’re going to help. I have a good feeling about it.”

Wyl scooted a little closer. “And what does your ride-along have to say on the subject?”

Robbie sighed. “Not much. You know it’s a dick when it comes to actually telling me anything.”

“Yeah, I know.” Fucking parasite. It might have saved Robbie’s life when he first got it, but ever since then it had been taking and taking and taking. Wyl wasn’t sure how much Robbie had left to give at this point.

Speaking of…Robbie’s eyes had fallen closed, his mouth open and his chest moving in gentle ups and downs as he slipped into a catnap. It was the most normal thing Wyl had seen him do all day, and he smiled a little even as he turned his attention to their manifests. Goods on one side, supply needs on the other…ugh, adulting sucked so hard, but it was better to get a jump on it while they could.

Regen and fuel were the priorities. Fresh water and food came next.

Fuel is the top priority. Fill all the tanks, then fuss with Regen stores after you’ve sold the goods.

Yeah, but Wyl just didn’t feel right if the Regen unit was low these days. And Cloverleaf Station stocked the stuff at a significant discount, an order from the oligarch who owned the contract on the thing. The story went that Desfontaines and his lover—husband? Partner? Whatever—had both come close to dying on this station back when he first took it over, and had basically used up half the place’s available Regen between them in the quest to stay alive. Which, fair, it was his station and his money, but he’d decided that people having to make the choice of saving a life or saving money wasn’t right. Hence, the discount Regen. It was good stuff, too, not the highest quality but far from the watered-down shit you found across most of the Fringe.

I’ll split the credits we’ve got. They’d have more soon enough for the other essentials, and then they could start thinking about what to splurge on. Wyl was getting another bag of the Ankona blend of espresso beans if they had it, damn it, and a dozen Olympian chocolate bars for Kyle and Robbie to split. They each had serious sweet tooths. Plus he had to make sure Isidore got his share of the profits to help him build his new life with.

It was a lot, but it had to be done. Wyl paid the fees and made sure the relevant transfers had started, then opened up his messages.

There, at the top, were the two he was most interested in—the most recent one from Garrett, which was sure to be informative and entertaining, and the other was a formal request from Kathryn Blake for a meeting this very evening in one of the conference rooms.

[I was informed by your associate Mr. Pence that you would be available then, and as my time is tight, I’m afraid this is all I can offer you. I’m most intrigued by your footage of the temple on Z, particularly because I was led to believe it was impossible to actually land a ship on. Even drone footage is unreliable, and yet you purport to have gotten your entire crew onto the planet and up again. I’m very eager to verify this for myself.]

Aaah, she thought they were liars. Wyl couldn’t really blame her, either; it was a little hard to fathom, given that Z was a planet of more legend than substance in the Beyond. It was only thanks to Robbie’s little passenger that they’d managed to time the shifting sheets of ice coruscating through the atmosphere well enough to actually land their ship, and even then, Robbie wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t been sucked into the planet’s gravity without enough fuel to free themselves. Wyl had genuinely thought they were making a one-way trip for a while there, and seeing the temple was the least they could do to solace themselves before they inevitably died, but a few innovations with shielding and a volcano later, and they were back in space hardly any worse for wear.

Wyl was pretty sure he could prove their footage was real, though. What he couldn’t do was expose Robbie to Blake right now, not when he was having such a rough time. Wyl could handle this meeting himself. He’d get everything Robbie wanted out of it and more, sell off as many of their raw goods as he could, pay Isidore what he was owed, and then…

Back to the black. One more foray into the Beyond, one more chance to find a way to pry this parasite out of Robbie in a way that kept them all together, and then he was done messing around. He’d do whatever he had to in order to keep Robbie alive, even if he didn’t like it.

Even if none of them did.

 

The Beyond: Chapter Four

Notes: Aaand we're back! It's been a minute (or two) but I hope you enjoy this Isidore POV as we start to settle into the plot of The Beyond :)

Title: The Beyond: Chapter Four

***

 

Chapter Four

 

 

Photo by Rafael Oliveira

 

Isidore couldn’t help but breathe a silent sigh of relief when they finally docked at Cloverleaf Station. “Welcome aboard,” the station master, Elia Accambray, relayed through the radio as their airlock repressurized. “We’ve got your usual rooms set aside, and payment has already been made for your stay.”

Isidore frowned and waited for Wyl to say something about that, because prepayment wasn’t the standard for their stays at Cloverleaf, not when they made most of their money from bartering for goods on the station, but Wyl and Robbie were still wrapped around each other in the cockpit. He glanced at Kyle for a second, but Kyle was looking almost as out of it as Robbie, so after another moment Isidore took over. “That’s good to hear, if a little surprising. Would you mind forwarding the transaction log over, Elia?”

“Not a problem,” Elia replied easily. “I figured you’d want to doublecheck that it was permissible, but it came from a verified Alliance account with no red flags. I don’t recognize the name on the account, but you probably will.”

A second later the information came through the ship and registered in Isidore’s implant, which was still connected to the ship’s control systems. They kept their connections open while they were in the Beyond as a safety measure, and it took Isidore a moment to realize he could turn his receptivity down now. He did so, and was briefly startled by the silence in his own mind.

Kyle jolted and looked over at him with a surprised, almost hurt expression.

“Oh, I didn’t—”

“No, it’s okay,” Kyle said, but he put a foot of space between them anyway. “I just keep forgetting that you’re leaving after this.” He put on his Alexander smile. “Now’s as good a time as any to get used to it.”

Isidore wanted to reach out and pull him back in, to make it clear that there were no hard feelings on his side, but the data from the station was blinking in his visual implant, waiting for attention. He opened it and verified the balance on their account, then immediately checked the payer information. The numbers were gibberish as far as he was concerned, but the name—Gerald Caradog—clarified the situation.

“Garrett footed the bill for our stay this time,” Isidore said.

Kyle blinked. “Why would he do that?”

Isidore smiled. “Probably his version of a ‘welcome back to civilization’ gift. This way we can keep more of what we earn from our finds, which will help a lot once I’m—” He stopped right before he put his foot in his mouth, but Kyle caught it anyway.

“Once you’re gone.”

“Yeah.” Isidore wasn’t sure why he felt so awkward; he’d been living with Kyle for the past three years, as close as two people could be without living in each other’s skin, and even then they’d fucked around more than enough to qualify them as very good friends. “You know this isn’t the last time we’re going to see each other,” Isidore said as the ship continued its power-down protocols. “I’ll be on my way to pick you up the second I hear that you’re clear.”

Kyle looked pensive. “You could be waiting a very long time.”

“I don’t think so.” Garrett was working on their behalf, after all, and it might be naïve thinking, but Isidore was pretty sure that Garrett could do just about anything he set his mind to. “But even if it takes fifty years, I’ll come for you.”

The younger man finally cracked a smile. “You suck at being comforting, Iz.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah.” He bumped his shoulder. “But that’s okay, you make up for it in other ways.” The airlock was almost clear. “I’ll miss you.” Kyle sounded a little wistful.

“I’ll miss you too,” Isidore said. “But I’m going to be here for a few days. This isn’t goodbye yet.”

“I know.” Kyle’s eyes went vague in a way that meant he was checking his implant, and Isidore was momentarily startled to realize he couldn’t feel the movement of the other man’s mind at all. He was outside of their little bubble now, four members of the team becoming three, and he hadn’t realized he’d miss it until it was too late to get back in. “But I’ve got some stuff to handle and I’m not sure how long it will take, so don’t wait around for me if I’m a little scarce, okay?”

“What kind of stuff?” Isidore thought he knew all of Kyle’s stuff.

Kyle just smiled, and then the door was open and he was out the airlock and down the ramp before Isidore could say anything else to him. He even had his pack on his shoulder—when had he had time to pick that up? Isidore wanted to go after him, but he still had his own bags to grab out of his tiny room, not to mention he needed to debrief with Wyl and Robbie if they were ready. Which…so far, not looking good.

Isidore sighed and walked back down the hall to the little bunk that he’d laid claim to three long years ago. It was the closest to the mess, which suited him fine since he liked to get up for water at night, but also the smallest of the bunks and the only one that required you to bend down to get into it. He wasn’t going to miss that, but as he looked around the space—barely enough floor for two people standing side by side, a bunk that lifted up into the ceiling but was only wide enough for one person comfortably, the myriad drawers that sometimes turned into a puzzle if you opened too many of them at once—and he felt a pang go through him.

This was the closest he’d come to having family in a very long time. Even on Paradise, back before he’d been drawn into Garrett’s web of high-level espionage, Isidore had been alone for years after his parents were killed in a terrorist attack. Being imprisoned—either time—hadn’t been fun, but he’d appreciated being a part of something bigger than himself. He’d appreciated getting the chance to do something important, something that would hopefully make the universe a better place in the long run.

And now that part of his life was over. He was going to Solaydor, where Pence was already set up and where he had a home and a job waiting for him to step into, and Isidore hated to admit it, but he was ready for the change. Three years in a tiny spaceship doing things that terrified him on the regular was long enough. He knew he was lucky to be getting this break, but he also thought he deserved it.

That didn’t mean he liked watching Kyle run away from him like he was on fire.

Isidore picked up his two bags and walked back into the mess, where he found Wyl waiting for him. “Where’s Robbie?”

“He’s getting a little rest before we head in,” Wyl said, and his blasé attitude was almost believable if not for the tight skin around his eyes. “The approach tired him out more than usual this time.”

“That’s not surprising.” That was crazy, Isidore wanted to say, but Wyl didn’t like hearing words like “crazy” and “unreal” applied to what Robbie could do. Isidore couldn’t blame him. “I’m happy to wait with you,” he offered instead, and got a small but genuine smile out of Wyl.

“It’s okay, I know you have to be eager to see Pence again.”

“I am,” he admitted, and it was an easy thing to admit these days. Pence had gone from just another threat in Redstone to the most solid, reliable friend that Isidore had, with the potential to be more if the two of them had let themselves go like that. They hadn’t—it hadn’t felt right, when life in the Beyond was so unstable, and once Pence left the ship Isidore had assumed their chance was shot.

Then Pence had gotten an apartment on the planet where Isidore was cleared to work, and found a job for himself there, and sent Isidore messages with startling frequency, many of them far more romantic than he was expecting, and…the chance came back. It was here, right now, just outside the door to their ship’s berth, waiting for him.

“Good.” Wyl reached out and clasped his shoulder. “You deserve to have all the nice things, Iz. Everything you’ve done for us, everything you’ve been through to do it—I’ll never be able to repay you. We’ll never be able to repay you.”

“You don’t have to,” Isidore said, a little surprised. “I wanted to stay and help you.”

“I’m talking before, Iz.” Wyl shook his head. “Your connection was to Garrett, not to us. Not to Kyle, and definitely not to Robbie. I know you could have left a lot sooner, but I’m really grateful you stuck around as long as you did. It made our time out there a little less terrifying.”

“Wyl…” Isidore dropped his bags and pulled him into a hug and Wyl went easily, almost eagerly, until they were holding each other so tightly it hurt. Isidore felt a stab of unease go through him as he registered that Wyl was shaking ever so slightly, and maybe it was residual adrenaline from their passage to Cloverleaf, maybe it was sadness, or maybe it was because he was afraid for Robbie and doing his best not to show it.

Robbie and the coffee…that was unusual. He loved coffee, even when other foods and drinks appealed to him less and less. And being able to manipulate their ship through so many close calls, all thanks to the passenger he bore that he hadn’t even asked for, that had been forced on him by a psychopath who wanted to turn Robbie into his personal creation… “I could stay,” he said before he could second-guess himself. “If you need me to. I can stay.”

It felt right to make the offer, but Isidore had to admit he was relieved when Wyl immediately shook his head. “No, no,” he said.  “It’s time for you to go start living your life, man. You’ve got a lot to look forward to. Don’t put it off any longer.”

“I’ll see you again.” Isidore wanted to make that clear. “I’ll see all of you again.”

“Yeah, at dinner,” Wyl said easily. “I’ve already reserved one of the big rooms off the main mess hall for us tonight, so be there. Drag Pence along too, I special ordered the booze he likes.”

Isidore made a face. “That stuff is foul.”

“I know, I think Redstone permanently fucked up his taste buds,” Wyl agreed. “But I mean it. We’re not done yet, and even if we don’t see you in person for a while, I expect regular messages.”

“You’ll get them,” Isidore promised. He finally let go of Wyl and glanced down the hall at their closed door. “Want me to wait with you?”

Wyl waved him off. “Nah, Robbie might be a while. Go ahead, go say hi to Pence and we’ll see you at dinner.” He smiled sharply. “I’ll make sure Kyle is there too.”

“Thanks.” Isidore leaned in and kissed Wyl on both cheeks, an old Paradisian greeting he hadn’t used in a while, then grabbed his bags, turned, and headed down the ramp.

The shuttle bay was pretty spacious for a little craft like theirs, but dark and cold, and the air seemed to fizz slightly in the way that a place that had been exposed to too much radiation sometimes could. Isidore knew that the radiation levels on Cloverleaf were strictly accounted for, but it still made him uneasy to be so close to the exterior of the station. He walked quickly to the exit, let the doors sense his presence and open, and then—

Light, yellow and warm. Heat, and with it the scent of food and people and air that he hadn’t been recycling for months on end. And in the center of the hallway in front of him, arms crossed insouciantly but face smiling a broad welcome, was Pence, familiar despite the loss of his moustache and the new, vibrant blue suit he was wearing.

Isidore dropped his bags without realizing it and rushed over to the other man just in time for him to unfold his arms with a laugh and catch Isidore in them. He was subjected to a second crushing hug in as many minutes, but this one left him warm and happy, and the fizz seemed to be bubbling up inside of him now, overflowing into laughter as they embraced, rocking from side to side.

“There you are,” Pence murmured. “At last.”

Isidore pressed suddenly wet eyes against his lover’s shoulder and sighed a tremendous sigh of relief.

“Here I am.”

 

The Beyond: Chapter Three

 Notes: I'm still going! This story is getting told, damn it! Have some Kyle POV--he's going to be a pretty big presence in this one.

Title: The Beyond, Chapter Three

***

Chapter Three

 

Photo by the NASA Hubble Space Telescope

 

 

 

Kyle sat next to Robbie in the cockpit of their little ship, prepping everything from the emergency cut-offs for the engine to the modified trajectory calculator that he planned to run in tandem with Robbie’s approach. It wasn’t enough to really help, but it would make Kyle feel better about the whole thing.

Their crew was, unfortunately, a little infamous among people in the Beyond for this particular approach to Cloverleaf Station. The asteroid field was a decent approach as long as you kept enough distance, but given the strength of the gravity waves, you didn’t save much on fuel by skirting close to the pulsar. Most people found it easier to go long, fly a few million kilometers away and get some bigger eddies and currents in there to break up the persistent damage of the pulsar, and round on the station from the larger spaceways, usually hitching onto the most popular from Gania.

That sort of patience wasn’t to be found in Wyl and Pence, back when he was with them. As for the benefit of keeping their unique status to themselves, Robbie of all people declined to bother with hiding that there was something that allowed them to do what they did. “We need people to know that there’s something weird going on with us,” he reasoned. “We need them to want to approach us and interview us, so we can learn from them as much as they might learn from us.”

Which…he wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t the way Kyle had been trained to go about things. Admiral Liang had taught him from a young age that the best way to get information was by being covert, by hiding your true intentions and giving people what they wanted to see. It had worked for him for a long time—worked too well in the end, when his brother decided to discard him at Redstone.

Garrett Caractacus had anticipated that and sent Isidore Cain ahead of him to save his life, and Kyle would be forever grateful for that, not just because Isidore had saved him, but because in doing so, he’d met someone who was so much like him. Isidore was clever, and knew the benefit of a pretty face and empty eyes, and was so much more dangerous than he looked. If he hadn’t fallen in love with Pence, Kyle would have done his damndest to convince Isidore to stay with them.

But he’d fallen in love after all, tempted into the start of it before Kyle ever showed up, and Kyle knew better than to fight it. That was another thing he’d grown used to—perpetually coming second in the race for a heart.

Stop it. Isidore was happy, so he was happy for him. Besides, the man was pining for civilization and Kyle couldn’t blame him. He had a chance to do more with himself, and he should take it. Kyle would be in good company with Wyl and Robbie.

Second place again. Which, again—Robbie and Wyl were married, and he was old-fashioned the way you got from Martians—he only had eyes for Wyl, and Wyl felt the same. They were the sort of devoted he’d never seen before…well, maybe with Cody and Ten, but that relationship was pure chaos, where these two were solid, two planets in perfect orbit around each other. The only hiccup there was the parasite, and that could be fixed.

It could.

It had to be.

“Ready for approach.” Robbie’s voice was steady, almost mechanical as he made minute adjustments to their pitch.

“Ready,” Kyle confirmed. “The quickest route looks like about forty thousand kilometers, with permanent shadow.” The information wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better since the Ganian stationmaster had started sending drones out to map the field and give spacers continual updates.

“I’ll increase speed a little.” Ten thousand kilometers an hour was a brisk enough pace, but should give them time to make the adjustments needed to handle unexpected asteroid movement.

“Copy.”

“Are we good?” Wyl asked, coming up behind Robbie and laying his hands on the other man’s shoulders.

“We’re good,” Robbie said, covering one of Wyl’s hands with his own for a moment.

They were. It would be fine, they’d done this a dozen times over the past three years. They’d only ever had problems once, and that was the very first trip. Robbie was better at this now—perfect, in fact.

Because he had the parasite.

“Here.” A mug appeared in Kyle’s peripheral vision. He turned and took it from Isidore with a smile.

“Thanks.” He sipped—mm, milky and sweet, the only way he liked coffee. Kyle took his share of ribbing from Wyl about taking his coffee like a child, but the hell with it. He liked what he liked, and he liked coffee that didn’t feel like a punishment.

“You ready for the station?”

Kyle shrugged. “It’ll be nice to see Pence again.”

“What about your friend there? Jenette, right?”

Kyle shook his head. “She left at the end of last season.”

“And you got her com info, right?”

No, he hadn’t. Jenette had been friendly, a Drifter turned miner who didn’t know who Kyle was and wouldn’t have cared anyway, but there was no point in keeping in touch with her. He’d had to lie to her every moment they spent together; it was just easier not to dig his hole any deeper, especially since she was heading deeper into Alliance space. “It’s fine.”

“Let’s get going,” Robbie said briskly, and Kyle gratefully abandoned the conversation and focused on watching Robbie instead.

This far out, the parasite’s abilities weren’t really apparent. Robbie manipulated the ship onto the right path, the same one Kyle’s program had identified, and they set off into the asteroid field. Forty thousand kilometers…no problem, and yet…there were so many things that could go wrong so quickly. One miscalculation, one misstep, and they’d be splashed across the side of a massive space rock, a brief flare of heat that a drone might catch, if they were lucky, and if they weren’t…

Well, they’d be lost. One more missing ship in a long, long line of ships that had never returned from the Beyond. It wasn’t a place people lived, or where they attempted to make careers or build a life for themselves. The Beyond was simply beyond, a region of space that teemed with so many anomalies that regular radio contact was impossible. Space itself had been warped, like an enormous hand had reached down and twisted it, making it into something that was almost totally incompatible with life.

Almost. There were also the Ruins, hard to find and harder yet to return to, and those were what people like Kathryn Blake were interested in. They were evidence of—hell, the claims varied. Everything from more species of aliens to a portal into another universe had been floated, and Robbie read them all. They all kept up with the research, but Robbie was particularly keen to figure out as much as he could.

The parasite had come from the Beyond, after all. Stood to reason that if he was going to be able to get rid of it, that was the place to do it.

Wyl and Isidore headed back to the mess once they were underway, chatting about anything and everything, but Kyle kept his focus on the charted path. He was the second pilot, and if anything happened to Robbie he’d have to take over. Not that anything would happen to Robbie, but Kyle needed to be ready, just in case. He might not have the military level of mods he used to, not since his brother had ordered them all permanently deactivated before Redstone, but Isidore had gotten him some damn good replacements, and Kyle still had the muscle memory to use them to the highest level. His reflexes were amazing.

They still weren’t as good as Robbie’s when the parasite was driving.

Kyle watched him out of the corner of his eye. Right now it was Robbie in charge, as far as he could tell. His eyes were normal, he wasn’t sweating or shivering—he was just Robbie. He was Robbie for the first hour, and the second, and then they were halfway through the field and had to slow down a bit, which was fine, because—

“Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbee—”

“Proximity alert,” Kyle said quickly, shutting off the alarm and pulling the affected zone up on his implant. He broadcast it to the ship so it showed on the screen. “Two asteroids had an unanticipated collision about five thousand kilometers out. There’s a new debris field.”

“How much?” Wyl demanded. “What size are we talking here?”

Size made a big difference. Big debris was better—easier to see, easier to maneuver around, easier to avoid. Small was like trying to fly through thousands of bullets at the speed they were going right now.  Their shielding just wasn’t good enough to endure it.

“It’s—shit, it’s showing up as a cloud,” Kyle said with a grimace. “No visible pieces, small enough to scatter fast. We need to backtrack.”

“No.”

They all turned to look at Robbie. His pupils had gotten large, and too shiny.

“We can’t make it through that debris,” Wyl said in something close to his normal voice.

“Backtracking will take too much fuel. We won’t be able to make Cloverleaf without bartering back in the Beyond for more, and that will take too much money.”

He wasn’t wrong, but it was the only reasonable thing to do.

“The Devas owe me,” Isidore said after a moment. “I can get fuel for less from them.”

“Pence is only allowed on Cloverleaf for another two days. He’ll have to leave to renew his pass, and that could take months. You’ll miss your window to leave with him.”

Kyle’s heart lurched downward for a moment. That would be bad, Isidore having to stay would be bad, and yet…

“I can get us there,” Robbie said, blinking hard. When he looked at thema gain, his eyes were their normal blue. “Trust me.”

Wyl bit his lip. “Robbie.”

“I can.”

“All right.” That was Isidore, nodding firmly. “Let’s do it.”

Robbie smiled at them. “I’ve got this.” He turned back to the viewscreen and began to modify their course, taking over manually.

Kyle startled badly when Robbie looked over at him and, with a wry smile on his face, winked. His eyes had gone completely black. “Follow my lead and reprogram as we go,” he said, then turned to face forward again, and his face sort of…blanked.

This, at least, Kyle had seen before, when the parasite was extending its—shit, he didn’t know what to call it. Aura? Cosmic range? Whatever it was, Robbie’s passenger had the ability to sense the space around him better than anything Kyle had ever heard of before. He could do it from inside a ship, from standing on the surface of a vantablack planet with no light except what they brought with them, he could do it underground and under water. And clearly he could do it for thousands of kilometers, which begged so many questions that Kyle wasn’t prepared to even ask.

Robbie kept them on course for another fifteen minutes. The first deviation came in the shadow of an enormous asteroid, one several miles across. Instead of skirting around the side of it, he took them under, keeping them in the protective shadow and curling up tight on the other side as they emerged—

Right next to a second asteroid, holy shit, the radar showed it was almost close enough to touch. Kyle inhaled sharply, and from right behind him Wyl cursed, then put the viewfinder on visible. He knew it didn’t matter to Robbie, after all.

Their lights illuminated the pitted, gray rock of the asteroid they’d nearly kissed a moment ago, smaller than the one they’d darted under but spinning slightly, more mobile. Kyle’s breath stilled in his lungs, his heart starting to race as he realized his program was completely useless now. If anything happened to Robbie, he wouldn’t be able to pick up the slack. He’d get them all killed. Useless, worthless, dragging other people down…

“Focus,” Robbie whispered, and Kyle knew it was for him. He forced himself to look away from the screen and at what his own implant was broadcasting, willing the calculations to catch up even though he knew it was impossible.

They had three more close calls over the next forty minutes, including actually watching an impact take place less than a thousand yards away. The asteroids involved were tiny, only about the size of their ship, and broke into a dozen pieces that Robbie was able to weave around without a problem. Still, it was humbling and terrifying in equal measure knowing that the field was always, always in motion. The pulsar’s gravitational waves left the asteroids unstable, moving them around, while at the same time its gravity well pulled the smaller pieces in over time to be consumed by the broken star. It was the only reason the field was passable at all, instead of a solid cloud of dust.

Two more hours and they were finally within range of Cloverleaf Station. Robbie was soaked with sweat and Kyle didn’t feel much better, but as soon as they emerged from the field he reversed their forward propulsion and shut the engines down, then sent their docking code off so a drone could come get them.

“Holy shit,” Isidore murmured.

Kyle looked over his shoulder at them, and one glance was enough to make him get up and give his chair to Wyl. They needed space, and he needed some water. He went back to the mess, head pounding from residual tension, and poured himself a drink. It was tepid and metallic, but it still tasted amazing to him.

Isidore’s hand clasped his shoulder. Kyle shuddered at the clammy feel of his shirt pressing down on his skin. “Are you okay?”

Kyle resisted the wild urge to giggle. What a question. “I’m fine. I didn’t even have to do anything.”

“You had to watch.”

And watching was hard, was what he was getting at, but the truth was Kyle had been grateful to watch. Happy to do so, even. He’d known he couldn’t do what Robbie did in those moments, knew he was nothing but a liability.

In the end, he just shook his head. Isidore squeezed him one more time, then let go. “Come on. Let’s get you kitted out for the station.”

Ah right, his disguise. Couldn’t show up looking like himself, not even on the edge of the known universe. Kyle drained his cup and set it in the sink. He’d clear it later. “Yeah, okay.”