This Shattered World (Starbound #2)(91)

My eyes start to burn, and abruptly I let go of his hand. Clearing my throat and ducking my head so I can fumble with my harness, I manage hoarsely, “You hungry? We might not get a chance to eat later, and there should be an emergency pack or two somewhere.”

Flynn has to hunt for his voice too, but when he murmurs, “Sure,” he gives no sign that he noticed my inexplicable surge of emotion. Maybe I’m just remembering the first time I saw the stars from space. That’s what I fight to tell myself, anyway.

I shove the straps of my harness away and let myself rise out of my seat, using the handles to gradually walk myself back into the small cargo area. On the big passenger ships and space stations, they use rotating rings to generate gravity, but on the shuttles, we’re stuck dealing with weightlessness.

I turn back to find Flynn watching me, studying the way I move in zero-g. I reach the lockers and hook my toes under the handles on the wall there. From his perspective it’ll look like I’m standing on the wall, but from mine, the lockers are now sunk into the floor and much easier to access.

There’s a full emergency pack in the first locker I try. Two of them, I discover as I pull the first out. “It’ll be freeze-dried rations,” I warn him. “You can come back, if you move slowly. Tiny movements go a long way. Don’t overcompensate if you find yourself moving in an unexpected direction, just let your hand or foot graze something lightly to correct it.”

Flynn unbuckles his harness and pulls himself along with exaggerated care, his face a study in concentration. “Just like poling a boat through the swamp.” His grip slips a little, and I reach out with my free hand to grab a handful of his jacket to steady him. “Well, mostly.”

He’s doing what all the new trainees do, trying to keep the “floor” of the shuttle below his feet, though there’s no gravity to hold him there. I want to laugh at him—but I’m forced to admit he’s doing okay.

I toss him one of the ration bars and then take a few bites of one myself before shoving the rest into my back pocket for later. Flynn looks as worn down as I feel, exhausted and restless at the same time. I know we need to find a way back down to the surface, but now that I’m able to breathe, I’m realizing how tired I am.

I have to keep moving or I’ll never get up again. “Wonder what else we’ve got up here,” I muse aloud, reaching for the next locker over and finding more of the emergency packs, all with their seals unbroken. “Each of these is designed to keep a pair of soldiers alive for a fortnight, with the ship’s H2O recyc system.”

“That’s months’ worth of food,” Flynn replies, finishing his bar and popping open a few more lockers, all stuffed with the emergency packs. “Or even years.”

“There are dozens of them.” My mind is turning over slowly, inching around an idea, unwilling to look at it directly. “It must’ve been set up for a transport mission, so it could take a shuttle full of soldiers somewhere remote.”

Flynn’s turned to the other side of the shuttle to see if there are more of the packs in the rest of the lockers. But I can’t stop looking at the one I opened. Months’ worth of food for a platoon.

Years, for two people.

“We could just go.” The words come out in a whisper, and as I say them, I find I can’t look up, can’t see Flynn’s face. I can’t bear to know his reaction.

Still, I can feel him turn toward me. I can feel the air move as he makes his way back. He ducks his head to try to see my face, but I still can’t look at him. No matter what he’s about to say, I don’t want to hear it. Hearing it will make what I’ve just said real.

“Never mind,” I say sharply. “I was just kidding.”

But I wasn’t.

“Jubilee.” He’s got one hand wrapped around a handle to steady himself, but the other reaches for me, his fingers tracing the outline of my face.

“Just drop it, Flynn. Forget it.”

He’s silent for a few seconds, speaking only with the weight of his eyes on me. I can feel my face flushing hot with shame, with guilt, under his gaze. “Where do you want to go?” he asks finally, a smile in his voice.

I glance at him and then away again. “What do you mean?”

“Where do we go? Anywhere in the galaxy. Where does Jubilee Chase want to live?”

This time I look at him longer, properly, scanning his face for some sign of what he’s thinking—some judgment, some hint of blame or guilt that I’m standing there, talking about leaving his people and mine, about abandoning our whole lives. About running away. But he only smiles at me, his fingers sliding from my cheek to twine around a floating lock of hair, making it spiral slowly in midair.

“Not Corinth,” I say finally, my voice emerging somewhat hoarsely. “Too busy, too many people. But not any place too new either. Maybe Patron, I liked it there. Haven’t been any rebellions for quite a while now.”

He grins, his smile easing away some of my horror at my own impulse. “As long as there’s a sky there, like this one, I’m game.”

“It’s not quite like this, the air gets in the way. But we could find ourselves a mountaintop where the air’s nice and thin, and it’d be awfully close.”

Flynn shifts, sliding his foot more firmly under the handle bracing him. “And what does Jubilee Chase want to do with her life, if she’s not hunting down rebel leaders and skinning them alive?”