The next few days of their journey aboard the Kaminari Kowashi became some of the best times of her life. She enjoyed her daily routine and got along very well with the crew, though she didn’t see much of Alice and Shiro other than when everyone got together for meals. Bennet and Aya were like her squad mates from Zeta protocol without all the talk of killing other people. Instead, they joked around, exercised, and fixed things on the ship or salvage equipment.

She learned more from Bennet about building strength than she ever had during PT or even with Angel in the gym. If she were being fair to Angel, though, Juliet hadn’t given her the proper attention or opportunity to really train her, not the way she did with Bennet. Something about having a living example working out with her was far more motivating. Just as Aya had warned, Bennet wanted to work out every day, but he had some high-end supplements which, coupled with Juliet’s nanites, sped her recovery nicely.

More than the exercise and camaraderie, Juliet enjoyed how, outside the weightlifting and mealtimes, every day was different. One day she might be helping Bennet perform maintenance on the H-3 reactor, while the next, she might be sent into the lesser-used corridors on the ship to change lightbulbs and tighten screws on panel covers. Everything on the Kaminari Kowashi needed maintenance now and then, and with Juliet along, the crew was getting a lot of old, piled-up issues taken care of.

“Do I have this on right?” she asked Angel, holding up her boot to show off the magnetic sole she’d clamped onto the bottom. The devices gave her another half-inch in height, which she didn’t really need, but she felt they were pretty neat. They weren’t just magnets as she’d always imagined when reading or watching vids about shipboard life. They were intelligent devices managed by clever processors that spoke to each other, equipped with complicated gyroscopic moving parts near the toes and heel.

The two magnetic soles were a pair, and with them on, Juliet should never have to worry about both boots coming free from the deck in a zero-G situation. More than that, they’d learn her strides and walking habits, and if Bennet were to be believed, eventually, she’d forget she had them on because they’d work so quickly and naturally to keep her secured to the metal flooring.

“Yes, that looks good.” Angel highlighted the four little clamps securing the magnetic soles to her boots, providing a brief green checkmark as she confirmed they were attached correctly.

“Thanks,” Juliet said, pulling the boot on. “How long ‘til we lose gravity?”

“Alice provided a countdown,” Angel replied, displaying it on Juliet’s AUI. Eleven minutes and change remained, and Juliet watched the seconds tick down, wondering if she should leave her room yet. She sort of wanted to experience her first zero-G situation alone, in her room, without others around to laugh when she lost her balance or something worse.

“How long are we going to be without gravity?” She thought she remembered Alice mentioning a few days but wanted Angel to confirm.

“The ship will cruise at this velocity for nearly two days.”

“Right. Because if we kept accelerating the whole way, the drives would come apart, or the hull would, or we’d navigate into an asteroid or something.” Bennet had explained to her that the Kaminari Kowashi was a “good old girl,” but she had her limits. The ship’s top “safe” cruising velocity was just a bit more than one percent of c, which was apparently respectable for that class of ship.

“That’s right; I wonder if, given a connection to the nav computer, I couldn’t improve that aspect of things a bit.”

“That would be nuclear, Angel, but it would also make me stand out like a sore red thumb to these folks. I like being a normal operator in their minds, so, yeah, let’s not have you do any supernatural feats of computing. I mean, at least not obvious ones.”

“If you got your own ship, with some excellent shielding and maneuvering jets, I bet we could win some races.”

Juliet barked a short laugh—Angel never failed to surprise her. “You want me to get into ship racing now?”

“I thought you enjoyed speed?”

“Oh, too true, Angel, too true. Ships are a bit outside my budget right now, however. As it is, I’m going to be sitting near zero bits after I send Doctor Ladia payment for that new arm in a couple of weeks.” Juliet’s lips twisted into a rueful smile as she stood and began clicking around her room, practicing with the magnetic soles.

“Isn’t it exciting to think we might find a Takamoto-era gunship? If the Kowashi is first to claim it, we’ll see a respectable payday, which might alter your financial outlook.”

“If we can manage to help Honey and Lilia in time to return to Luna with the ship,” Juliet grunted, tugging at her foot, wondering why it wouldn’t come loose, then flexed her ankle and tried a normal step—it popped free.

“Before the gravity cuts out, would you like to tell me about your last session with Dr. Ming?”

“We did some practice with that progressive muscle relaxation thing. I liked it, but honestly, just talking about my problems has made me feel a hundred times better. I’m glad you guilted me into buying that program.”

“I guilted you?”

“Um, not exactly, but I felt guilty about the idea of telling you no, so, yeah, I said yes.”

“Oh, I see. I think that’s good, Juliet—you cared about my feelings enough to do something you didn’t relish. Thank you!”

“Course, Angel. We’re friends. Sisters, even. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I like that very much. Henceforth, I’ll consider you my sister.” Angel sounded so pleased, so content, that Juliet almost didn’t notice the blinking warning on her AUI, indicating that the drives were cutting out. A moment later, the constant pressure in her belly that everyone on Earth forgets is there went away, and she almost puked. As she slowly started to feel normal enough to look around, Juliet saw a loose sock she’d failed to put into her dirty clothes crate floating in front of her face. “There goes the neighborhood,” she sighed, already deciding she wasn’t a fan of zero-g.

“Lucky?” Bennet’s voice came through her comms.

“Yeah?”

“Meet Aya and me in the hold; we’ll do that EVA we talked about.”

“Right! On my way,” Juliet replied, trying out her magnetic boots again, this time for real. She walked in a slow circle and found they worked the best when she didn’t overthink things. Nodding to herself, she stepped out of her room and carefully proceeded to the lift, almost moving naturally by the time she stepped onto it. “These work pretty damn well, Angel.”

“Good!”

As she rode down to the cargo level, Juliet remembered what she’d “heard” coming from Aya when trying to sleep the night before. She’d done a lot more reading about the GIPEL project and a lot of experimenting with different ways to keep her mind busy as she fell asleep, but music still worked the best and fastest. Last night she’d been trying out some of the mindfulness exercises Dr. Ming had taught her, and right in the middle of them, she’d heard Aya’s voice as though she were right next to her.

The salvage tech had been worrying about the EVA Bennet had scheduled. More specifically, she’d been worrying about Juliet—she thought for sure Juliet would break something or, even worse, fall off the hull and slip away into the endless expanse of space. Juliet had wanted to go to her to talk or even just message her, but she couldn’t, not without arousing suspicions, so she’d simply determined not to mess up.

Stepping off the lift and click-clacking her way down the metallic corridor toward the cargo hold, Juliet couldn’t help a smile popping onto her face, along with a slight blush, as she thought of some of the other stray thoughts she’d picked up over the last few days—Shiro and Alice were very much in love, and, more, they weren’t shy about their lustful thoughts. Juliet felt like she should feel guilty about hearing those private thoughts, but it wasn’t as though she were trying to listen to them, and when it happened, she did everything she could to snap herself out of that “receiving” state. That, in her mind, absolved her of the unintended eavesdropping.

She held her hand to the biometric pad beside the sliding metallic door leading into the cargo bay. It beeped, a green LED lit up, and the door whooshed open. Juliet stepped into the hold to find Bennet and Aya pulling EVA suit components out of a big plastic crate. “We’re not using the suits in the airlock?” she asked as she approached.

“Nah, those are fine, but these are sturdier—more tool pockets, and the air canisters are bigger. ‘Sides, we’re exiting from the airlock down here.” He jerked his thumb to the small, windowed door beside the enormous bay doors.

“You sure you wanna learn to do this at top cruising speed? We could do a practice session in orbit sometime. If something goes wrong, we’re a long way from any help . . .”

“She’ll be all right, Aya. I’ll keep her hooked to me, anyway.”

“You’re the boss.” Aya shrugged, then walked toward Juliet, holding a surprisingly compact, rectangular helmet with only a small viewport about the size of the palm of her hand.

“Not great visibility,” Juliet said, taking the helmet and looking inside. It had comfortable-looking padding and a hardline data cable that she supposed was meant to plug into her data port.

“Oh, the visibility is great,” Aya replied, reaching out to touch a ring of tiny cameras that encircled the helmet’s crown. “Your AUI will show you everything you want to see, as long as you’re not running some ancient hardware, and I know you aren’t.”

“Oh, sweet,” Juliet said, nodding. She hadn’t realized those little black circles were all cameras. It looked like she’d have a full three-sixty view of her surroundings as long as Angel managed the feed and displayed it properly in her AUI. As Aya had surmised, she had little doubt Angel could handle it. She tried the helmet on and found it was tight but roomy and cushioned enough to feel comfortable, even over her hair.

“Try this,” Aya said, handing her a heavy, synthetic, almost plastic-feeling overall, complete with attached, rubbery gloves and boots. “It’s a medium. You’ll need to remove your boots, but do it one at a time; the suit’s equipped with magnet locks.”

Juliet set the helmet on the deck, smiling as her guess was correct; it clung to the metal via a lightly magnetized square on the back. Then she sat down and, one by one, removed her boots, leaving them stuck to the decking. She inserted her feet into the rolled-down EVA suit so only her feet and ankles were inside. Aya had been right; the magnets on the built-in boots held her in place just fine.

She was wearing a pale blue ship jumper and felt perfectly comfortable as she pulled the EVA suit up over her legs, then her waist. She shrugged her arms into the sleeves and stood still while Aya sealed the front for her. “Good,” Aya said, reaching down to lift her helmet and place it on her head, but first, she, without even asking, peeled back Juliet’s synth-skin patch and plugged the cable into her data port. She helped Juliet to seal it to the suit’s collar, then added, “You’ll suffocate in about seven minutes if we don’t put on the breather pack."

“Well, put it on, please!” Juliet laughed, her voice amplified by a little speaker at the base of her helmet. As soon as Aya had plugged the helmet into her data port, Angel had updated her AUI to provide a panoramic vid screen feed that filled her vision; as far as she could see, she wasn’t wearing a helmet at all.

Aya didn’t move to hook up her oxygen; Bennet was the one who walked over with a big gray plastic pack. He walked around behind Juliet and said, “Hold still.” Then, she felt him pressing the pack against her back. She heard a couple of clicks, and then her AUI populated with a status bar for the breather pack that read: Oxygen 99%, Estimated empty: 4:45:18, Battery: 99.9%. “Have your PAI set it to recharge while you’re in the ship; it can keep your oxygen topped off until you go outside.”

“Adjusting the settings now,” Angel said.

“How’s it feel?” Aya asked, moving to stand in front of Juliet. “Can you see in every direction? Does the air feel all right? Can you move around? Try walking and jumping a little—you might as well practice with the maneuvering jets.”

“I can help you with those. Any PAI would, but we’ll be the best.” Juliet laughed at Angel’s confidence and then took a few steps around the cargo bay. It felt fine; the magnetic boots were even more sensitive than the soles she’d added to her work boots, and the suit was only a little baggy; she could flex her arms, legs, and torso easily.

“Feels great!” she announced from the center of the hold, giving Aya a thumb’s up.

“Well? Jump into the air. Let’s see you maneuver around a bit.” Aya’s voice held skeptical amusement, and Bennet stood with his arms folded, watching. Was this Aya’s way of trying to get Juliet to back out of the EVA?

“Are you ready, Angel? I mean, is there something I’m supposed to do while we maneuver?” Juliet gestured with an open palm to Bennet and Aya and said, “Gimme a sec, talking to my PAI.” Aya smirked and nodded, and Juliet could almost read her mind without trying—she was thinking that it was a little late to be going over these things with her PAI.

“I’m far more intuitive and clever than most PAIs, Juliet, so I’ll probably be able to help you regardless of your behavior, but there are a few things you should keep in mind. Firstly, I’ll watch for you to indicate where you want to go through standard EVA protocols. These are fairly easy. One: keep your eyes focused on where you want to move. Two: use your left arm to indicate where you want to go. Gently and deliberately point it in the direction you wish to move and avoid extraneous movements with that arm. If you desire to stop, hold your palm up as you would indicate to someone else that you want them to stop.”

“Sounds easy enough. Anything else?”

“While EVAing, and not anchored via your boots, you should always maintain a neutral body position—in a zero-gravity environment, this will help to avoid unintentionally drifting off in a particular direction. I will recognize your neutral position and interpret any deviations from it as commands to help you move.

“You should keep your core muscles engaged. This will help you maintain stability while maneuvering in the EVA suit. Finally, even when you don’t want me to use the maneuvering jets, you should always use deliberate movements. In a zero-gravity environment, sudden movements can make maintaining control of the EVA suit challenging.”

Juliet frowned in concentration, trying to visualize what Angel was describing, then she nodded and said, “Ready.”

“Decoupling your magnetic boots. Remember: slow, deliberate movements.”

Before Juliet could respond, she felt the clicks in her feet as the magnets let loose, and then, despite her efforts to hold still, she began to drift into the air of the cargo hold. As her body began to tilt to the side and she felt her feet coming up, gentle hisses sounded from inside her suit, and suddenly she was upright again, still facing Bennet and Aya. She grinned and said, “Do the jets take much power?”

“They use your air supply and a little bit of battery. In here, we can maneuver until the battery wears out, thanks to the atmospheric systems. It would take hours to deplete them, but if you maneuvered constantly in space, your air supply would last about one-fourth as long.”

“Do something!” Bennet called, laughing. Juliet gently breathed and focused on holding her core tight, then she lifted her left arm and pointed toward Bennet and Aya, also focusing her gaze that way. Sure enough, Angel responded, tiny jets firing from her air pack, scooting her in a straight line toward the two. She was still only about a foot off the ground, and as she slid up to the pair, some forward-facing jets sprouting from the sides of the pack fired, and she glided to a halt.

“Not bad,” Aya said, nodding. Then she picked up another EVA helmet from the crate and tossed it toward the ceiling. “Can you retrieve that?”

Juliet turned toward the gently spinning, floating helmet as it arced through the air on a trajectory that would take it into the far corner of the cavernous bay. She lifted her left arm to point at the helmet, kept it focused in her vision, and suddenly she was flying toward it. She started to drift sideways, and Angel said, “Hold still. Keep your core tight. Try to imagine you’re swimming; don’t let the fact that you’re floating fourteen meters above a hard plasteel floor dismay you.”

“Thanks,” Juliet quipped, though she tried to ignore her surroundings and just focus on the helmet. She held her abs tight, even squeezed her glutes and thighs, hoping to keep her legs from splaying out.

“Much better,” Angel said, and then, in just a few seconds, Juliet was within reach of the helmet. She snatched it up with her right hand, forcing Angel to fire more jets to stabilize her. With a whoop, Juliet turned her head toward her crewmates, and Angel fired the correct jets to turn her body with her gaze. Twenty seconds later, she was gliding to a stop in front of them.

“This is fun!” she said, face red with excitement. “We should make a game—surely you guys have games to play in zero-G?”

“Oh, now she wants to play games,” Bennet chuckled, nudging Aya’s shoulder with his elbow.

“You did well enough,” Aya conceded. “We do have some fun games, but it's more fun if we get everyone in on them. Let’s schedule something for after dinner. What do you say, Bennet? Sharks and minnows?”

“Hell, yes. Maybe tomorrow, but for now, let’s do this hull maintenance.”

“I’m ready,” Juliet said. “Point me toward the hull plates, and I’ll start stacking them while you two get your suits on.”

“The green crates by the wall behind me. Just get out ten plates; Aya and I will get the tools.”

“Roger,” Juliet said, gesturing toward the crates, and Angel maneuvered her that way.

“You could walk, show-off!” Aya said, but Juliet heard the laughter in her voice, so she ignored her, madly grinning as she flew through the hold.