“Woah,” Juliet said as she stepped into the Kowashi’s little infirmary. “You guys have an autosurgeon?” She’d only peered into the room through the rectangular window in the door when Bennet had first given her a tour of the ship. It was a small space, usually dimly lit by a single LED when not in use, and she hadn’t noticed the surgical table with the rather ancient-looking, stainless steel autosurgeon hunkering next to it.

“Yeah. An old one my father salvaged from a Kroger navy wreck on Mars.” Shiro was standing at the autosurgeon’s control panel, fussing with the settings, while Alice and Aya stood to the sides, watching and speaking softly to Bennet, who was reclining on the bed.

“Is that my hero?” Bennet asked, his words slurred from whatever pain management they’d injected into him.

“Come over here, Lucky,” Aya said, glancing over her shoulder to offer Juliet a friendly smile.

Juliet continued into the infirmary, though it was crowded with everyone inside. Bennet’s bed and the autosurgeon took up half the space, but there was room for Juliet to stand between Aya and Alice. Bennet’s mangled knee and lower leg were exposed on some sterile blue paperweave sheets, and she pointedly avoided looking at it as she offered him her brightest smile. “Hey, nice going jumping off the ship like that. Didn’t they explain the dangers of flying through space when you went through training?”

“Training? What’s that?” Bennet slurred, then laughed, holding up his hand as though he wanted Juliet to take it. Aya shifted a little further to the side, and Juliet leaned closer to grasp his meaty palm with her flesh-and-blood hand. “I owe you my life, Lucky. I take my debts seriously,” he said, suddenly very sober, very severe.

“Well,” Juliet thought about joking and brushing off the words, but she saw Bennet wanted her to be serious, so she said, “I’m happy to have a guy like you in my debt. Here’s hoping you never have to pay me back.” She winked, then let go of his hand as Shiro cursed under his breath.

“This damn thing . . .”

“Want me to have a crack at it? My PAI is pretty smart, and I’ve had her hooked up to a few autosurgeons.”

“God, yes. By all means,” Shiro said, stepping away from the terminal. Juliet moved into his vacated position and pulled out her data cable, hooking it into the control pad.

“This autosurgeon doesn’t have all of the functionality of the ones in Dr. Ladia’s clinic or even Dr. Murphy’s. Many of the injectables are missing, but there are nerve blockers, and I see programs for setting fractures and mending flesh. I’m scanning the leg now.” Juliet had avoided looking at Bennet’s leg, but as one of the stainless arms with a wide, opaque lens moved over it, slowly mapping his injuries, she glanced at it and blanched.

The crew had put a tourniquet around his thigh above the knee, and below that, it was a mass of purple, distended flesh with several fragments of bone protruding. “Jeez, Bennet. What the hell did you do to yourself, huh?” She squeezed his shoulder, then added, “My PAI is scanning it. I think we’ll have a nerve blocker in place in a minute, so that’ll be nice, won’t it?”

“Well, they shot me up with something. I’m honestly not hurting too bad.”

“Wait till this chrome spider starts pushing your bones around,” Aya said. She hurriedly grabbed Bennet’s wrist, her eyes wide with guilt. “I’m sorry!”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

“Juliet,” Angel said, “I’ve categorized all the damage and created a treatment plan, but we’re missing synthetic nerve material. If we don’t have that, Bennet will likely have a severe loss of function in his foot.”

“Um, the autosurgeon doesn’t have any synthetic nerve material. Do you guys have a supply?”

“Oh, shit,” Shiro said, then moved over to a cabinet on the far side of the room. “I haven’t reloaded that thing in a while, but yeah, we have some supplies in here.”

“Perfect,” Juliet said, watching as Shiro hurried over with a plastic cartridge that looked a lot like a can of soda. He moved to the back of the autosurgeon, popped open a chrome panel cover, and fiddled with something inside for a few seconds. With a grunt, he pulled out an old cartridge and then shoved in the new one. A few clicks sounded as he reset whatever he’d done and gave Juliet a thumbs up.

“How’s that, Angel?” she subvocalized.

“I’m reading synthetic nerve supplies at fifty percent! I can begin the repair. Please ask the crew to stand back.”

“Okay, we’re going to fire this thing up. Stand back.”

“Ask Shiro if there are any cold gel casts on board. It would make Bennet’s recovery more comfortable and swift.” As Angel spoke, the autosurgeon began to whir, then performed a series of rapid injections in Bennet’s thigh. “Also, tell Bennet that his pain should be gone for now.”

Juliet spent the next twenty minutes passing on Angel’s questions and instructions and trying to avoid watching as the autosurgeon performed several rapid surgical procedures on Bennet’s leg. While it worked, plenty of small talk ensued, and Bennet made a comment that startled Juliet, “I guess I got pretty lucky, really.”

“Lucky? Really?”

“Well, in a lot of ways, yeah. Whatever hit the ship didn’t actually hit my leg; it shredded my tether, which caught my leg as it whipped away from the ship. The line is what messed me up. I think if the debris or meteorite or whatever had hit me directly, I’d be dead. That’s lucky break number one. Then we need to consider you managed to snatch me up before I drifted too far . . .”

“Yeah. You really lived up to your name today, Lucky,” Alice said from where she leaned against the wall near the foot of Bennet’s bed.

“I already told you—I have this handle for a reason. I get a feeling and go with it; I tend to have good results.” Juliet shrugged.

“More than luck out there,” Aya said. “You handled that repair faster than I could have. You handled that rig better than I could have. I know you’ve got experience in them back on Earth, but that’s a lot different from flying out of a ship like that. You’re one talented chick,” Aya walked away from the bed, giving Juliet a friendly punch on the shoulder as she passed. “I’m going down to run diagnostics on the drive and reactor before we flip and burn.”

As the door hissed and clicked shut behind her, Shiro said, “Not easy to get Aya’s respect. For what it’s worth, you’ve got mine, too. You and Alice should hit your racks; we’re scheduled to start decelerating in just over four hours. I mean, the autosurgeon’s got its program, right? Do you need to stay connected?”

“You do not,” Angel supplied.

“No, I’m good to unplug.” Juliet reached for her cable and gently pulled it from the autosurgeon’s panel.

“Yeah, I wanna be up for the flip. I’m getting to bed. Feel better, Bennet.” Alice squeezed Bennet’s uninjured foot, careful to avoid the autosurgeon arms, then walked to the door. “I just have one question, Lucky.” She glanced over her shoulder and met Juliet’s eyes, then said, “How’d you know something was up with Bennet? You were the first to ask after him in comms.”

With the conviction of truth behind her words, Juliet shrugged and simply said, “I had a feeling, Alice. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“I’ll take it. Those ‘feelings’ work for the job we hired you for? Security?”

“Sure. Sometimes.”

“I hope so because we really need this job to go well.”

“Alice,” Bennet croaked from beneath the autosurgeon’s arms, “Lay off her, will you?”

“Right. I’m not trying to be a bitch. Good work today.” With that, she stepped out, and the door closed behind her.

“Go on, Lucky. Get some sleep. You’re bound to wake up when the drives kick back on,” Shiro said, gesturing toward the door.

“Thanks again,” Bennet muttered, clearly very near to falling asleep.

“You’re welcome. See you guys tomorrow.”

Juliet started for the door and was reaching for the activation panel when Shiro cleared his throat, and in his gruff, sometimes halting speech, he said, “Tomorrow I cook. I’ll break out a bottle of good whiskey, and we’ll celebrate. Glad you aren’t dead, buddy.” Juliet smiled and opened the door, then, magnetic soles clicking and clacking, made her way to her room. She’d been tired before, but now she felt wired, energized by her activities.

“I hope I can sleep,” she muttered, pulling herself back into her bunk, letting the gel fold around her. She needn’t have worried; no more than ten seconds passed between her closing her eyes, Angel starting up her “sleep soundtrack,” and her falling into a deep, restful sleep.

If Alice turned on an alarm or gave a ship-wide warning about the drives turning on to begin their deceleration burn, Angel kept it from Juliet. When she woke, she could feel the presence of gravity in her gut and against the muscles on her face when she smiled. She laboriously climbed out of her acceleration couch and said, “Gravity!”

“Yes, we’ve been under one-point-two Gs for three hours now. Alice’s flight path includes a faster deceleration than acceleration.”

“Yeah, Bennet told me that. He was amped about it—said it was good for his muscles to work under the strain.”

“You, too, will make some gains in the next few days, especially when combined with your exercise in the first week of this journey.”

“Yes, Angel,” Juliet chuckled, gathering her toiletries; she badly wanted a shower, something she’d been deprived of for the two days under zero-G.

“You have a message from Bennet. He marked it as non-urgent, so I let you sleep.”

“Let’s hear it,” Juliet said, walking out of her room and toward the showers.

An audio file of Bennet’s voice began to play, “Yo, Lucky. I’m going to need your help in engineering today. If you can help me with a little maintenance down here, I’ll spot you while you get a pump on.”

“Seriously?” Juliet laughed. “What time did he send that?”

“He sent it at 0600 ship time.”

“So, he slept for, what, five hours? I guess that’s assuming he went to sleep right after his surgery.” Juliet stepped into the shower room, once again the only occupant, and began to undress. “Reply with the following: Bennet, I’ll be down to engineering by 0900. I need protein for the kind of day I’m imagining, so I’m going to grab a bite.”

Fifteen minutes later, Juliet was in the mess, mixing a cashew protein culture with some of Bennet’s mystery “supplement” powder that he kept in a clear plastic jar in the fridge. She sampled the mix and found it sour and unpleasant, so she dug around in the refrigerator until she found someone’s jar of strawberry-flavored jam. She mixed in a tablespoon to her bowl and, finding that a much better flavor, sat down to eat the creamy mixture.

Juliet was halfway through her little meal when the coffee machine chimed. She got up to fill a mug when footsteps announced someone’s presence, and then Aya said, “Up and at ‘em?”

“Yep! How are you doing? Everything holding together?”

“I’m good, but I haven’t slept yet. I was too wound up from the excitement, and by the time my eyes started to get heavy, Alice was starting the deceleration burn, and, of course, my brain wouldn’t shut down, so I got up and went to monitor the drive during the ignition. I mean, it wasn’t necessary, but I felt better.”

“Well, damn, Aya. You need to sleep too. Why not head to your bunk?”

“I’m going to. Bennet said you’d help him out today.”

“Yep! I’m on my way to engineering as soon as I wash this bowl. I’ll bring my coffee along; isn’t gravity nice?” Juliet lifted her mug and smiled, her mood exceptionally good. If she paused to consider why she was so upbeat, she supposed it might have to do with a couple of factors—she’d gotten a great night of sleep, and she’d managed to use the psionic lattice for something truly good. She’d saved a crew member, and no matter the evils Gordon, Vance, and the rest of Grave might have visited upon her, they’d given her that; Bennet was alive because of the thing they’d shoved into her head.

“Oh yeah! I’m looking forward to a shower, and then it’s bunk time for me. I was tempted to drink some coffee, but I guess that would be dumb. I’ll see you in six hours or so.” Aya waved briefly, then turned and walked out of the mess. Juliet leaned back against the counter, sipped her coffee, and then, still smiling, turned to wash her bowl.

She walked through the ship to the engineering room, a low-ceilinged space shaped like an H with lots of panels, valves, and storage compartments. More importantly, it contained a doorway that gave access to the H-3 reactor and a hatch that led down to the drives. Bennet sat on a magnetic shop stool with his injured leg on a workbench. The appendage was wrapped in a blue gel cast, and he was clearly distracted, his head bobbing with some music while he gestured in the air with a stylus.

“What’s up,” Juliet asked, leaning against the workbench and sipping from her coffee mug. She had to fight to keep from snorting out her coffee as his face twisted in surprise, and he dropped his stylus.

“Damn it, Lucky!” he cried, laughing. “Do that again, and you’ll have to get that autodoc to defibrillate me.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Juliet held up a hand in surrender, then asked again, “What’s up?”

“Trying to work the math on a better hydrogen mix; we’re burning a bit too hot in the reactor—Alice is struggling to keep us at the right thrust, and we’re going through fuel faster than we’d like.” He picked up his stylus, then said, “I’ve almost got it, but I’m going to need you to go through the hatch to adjust the magnetic containment system. It’s pretty easy.” He saw Juliet’s frown and added, “I’ll tell you exactly what to do.”

“Oh, all right. I thought you had some actual, like, hard work for me to do.” Juliet smirked as Bennet cocked an eyebrow at her.

“You’ll have some hard work on the weights when we’re done here.”

“Are you trying to lift vicariously through me?”

“Damn right! I missed working out for two days, and now I’m laid up again. That damn autodoc beeped at me about keeping weight off this leg for a week! I told Shiro we need to pick up some nanites when we get to Titan. I mean, if we get this salvage, we should be able to stock some of the injectable kind.”

Juliet nodded, “Kidding aside, it would be smart to have some one-off healing nanites in the med bay. What if one of you got exposed to radiation or something.”

“One of us, you mean!” Bennet nodded.

“Right,” Juliet smiled; she didn’t feel she had to explain to Bennet that she already had a nanite suite. While he continued to work his stylus around in the air, she subvocalized, “My nanites can help with radiation poisoning, right?”

“Yes. If the dose isn’t outright lethal, they can slowly remove the contamination. The management organ is shielded, but enough radiation could potentially render the nanites inert, requiring the organ to manufacture more. Such a delay could prove fatal if you suffered a bad enough exposure.”

“All right, Lucky. Put on those gloves, grab that socket wrench, and go into the reactor room. Don’t worry; we recently had the shielding upgraded. I’m sending the adjustments to your PAI.”

The following two hours were painful in a way Juliet wasn’t used to. She had to move around in the cramped, hot reactor room, going from one panel to another, opening them by removing four tiny screws. Once that was done, she had to reach in with the wrench to tighten or loosen spring-loaded adjustment bolts for the magnetic containment system on the reactor. Each adjustment was made by counting clicks on the bolts, requiring meticulous torque on the wrench. Worse, as her work progressed, Juliet had to go back and forth to bolts she’d already adjusted and change their position as Bennet monitored the energy levels in the reactor.

When Bennet finally announced that things were “looking good” and gave her permission to screw down all the access panels, Juliet was sweating, exhausted, and suffering from a pounding headache. When she emerged to find Bennet still sitting with his leg up, sipping from something cold enough to leave condensation on the cup, she growled at him, “No wonder you waited to do this work until you couldn’t move around in there!”

“Hey! I’ve done that job plenty of times, and, yeah, it sucks, but now you can say you’ve done it, right? Experience is experience!” He had a little too much laughter in his voice for Juliet, so she stalked toward him, snatched the cup from his hand, and lifted it to her nose. She gave it a good sniff, then, finding nothing but the scent of water and cold metal, she tilted it to her lips and swallowed it down.

“Two hours in that steam box!” she grunted. She held the cup out and said, “Where’s the cold water?”

“Mini fridge in the tool room we made.”

“You had a mini fridge onboard?”

“Yeah, in my quarters. I moved it down here ‘cause I do a lot of projects, and sometimes I don’t want to walk all the way to the mess, you know? I’ll buy another one for my room when we get to port.”

Juliet laughed, “You crack me up, Bennet.”

“Well? Ready to do some lifting? I can already see your posture is a lot better; those deadlifts are doing wonders for your glutes . . .”

“All right, all right,” Juliet laughed, looking around the room. “Don’t make it creepy. Where’s your crutch?”