Chapter 2

The ballroom still held air, barely. Red emergency strips along the ceiling pulsed like tired arteries, and the floor plates flexed under every step with a faint hydraulic sigh. Between the drifting dust motes the station’s last AI kept the lights low and the music soft—something string-heavy, slow, recorded centuries before either of them had been born.

Renn floated in the hatch, gloved hands on the frame, watching Lira work. She had already cut the auxiliary power coupling and was threading a bypass line through the ruined chandelier’s crystal spines. The crystals caught the red light and threw it back in fractured spears across her suit.

“You’re going to short the whole deck if you cross those phases,” he said.

“I’m not the one who tried to hot-wire the gravity ring last cycle.” She didn’t look up. Her voice came flat through the shared channel, but the corner of her mouth moved—half a smile she probably didn’t know she still had.

Renn pushed off and drifted past her, magnetic boots ticking as he found purchase on the deck. He carried the data core they’d both been hunting: a cylinder the size of a forearm, warm even through his gloves. It held the station’s last navigation logs and, more importantly, the override keys for the cargo bays below. One of them would be rich. The other would be broke and maybe dead, depending on how the next three hours went.

They had been at this for eleven cycles. Each time the derelict’s orbit decayed a little more; each time the ballroom remained the only place they could both remove their helmets without dying. The AI, whatever fragment of it remained, seemed to enjoy company. When they were both inside it dimmed the lights further and cycled the same three songs on endless repeat.

Lira finished the splice. The chandelier flared once, then steadied into a soft gold glow that made the dust look like slow snow. She finally turned. The scar that ran from her left temple to the hinge of her jaw caught the light; it was old, from before she’d started flying salvage. Renn had never asked.

“You going to hand that over or keep fondling it?” she asked.

He held the core out between them. “We split the logs. You take the port manifests, I take the nav data. We both walk away with enough to cover fuel and still have something to fence.”

She studied his face through the visor gap. “Last time you offered a split you kept the beacon codes.”

“Last time you tried to vent my cabin while I slept.”

The music swelled—low brass, a single violin climbing. Lira reached up, unsealed her helmet, and pulled it off. Her hair floated in the micro-gravity like dark ink. She looked older without the visor between them, tired in a way that made Renn’s chest tighten. He followed suit. The air tasted of ozone and old plastic, but it was breathable.

They drifted closer without meaning to. The chandelier’s new light threw soft shadows across the scuffed dance floor. Lira took the core and slotted it into the reader on her forearm. Lines of text scrolled across the inside of her wrist display.

“Bay three still has sealed containers,” she said quietly. “Medical-grade recyclers. Someone will pay.”

Renn watched the data reflect in her eyes. “You could take it all. My ship’s running on vapor. You’d be gone before I finished repressurizing.”

“I could.” She didn’t move to do it. Instead she reached past him to tap the reader again, bringing up the station schematic. Their shoulders brushed. Neither pulled away. The contact was small, almost nothing, but in the confined space it felt like an admission.

The AI chose that moment to raise the volume. The strings turned mournful. Lira’s hand stayed near his arm.

“You ever wonder why it keeps playing the same tracks?” she asked.

“Someone left it running when they evacuated. It thinks we’re guests.”

“We’re not.”

“No,” he said. “But it doesn’t know the difference.”

They worked in silence after that, dividing the data. Renn copied the nav logs while Lira pulled manifests. Every few minutes one of them would drift to a new panel, check pressure seals, listen to the station groan as its orbit continued to decay. The ballroom’s windows—long dark panes—showed the curve of the planet below, clouds like slow bruises. Each time they passed each other the distance shrank by centimeters.

At some point Lira stopped pretending to check the next bulkhead. She turned, floating with her back to the wall, and looked at him.

“I pulled your flight record last cycle,” she said. “You used to run long-haul passenger before the accident.”

Renn’s fingers stilled on the core. “You checking up on me or looking for leverage?”

“Both.” She didn’t smile this time. “The report said you lost twelve. I’m sorry.”

He met her eyes. The scar on her face seemed suddenly less like a warning and more like a map. “You lost someone too. Different kind of loss, maybe. Station records show you were listed as crew on the evacuation manifest. Never boarded.”

Lira’s breath left her in a slow stream. “I stayed to shut down the reactors. Didn’t finish in time. They left without me.”

The music changed again—same song, different section, the violin now carrying the melody alone. Renn pushed off the panel and crossed the last meter between them. He stopped with his boots just touching hers on the deck.

“We don’t have to be the people who got left,” he said.

She looked at him for a long moment. Then she reached up, gloved fingers finding the edge of his suit collar, and pulled him the rest of the way in. The kiss was careful at first, the awkward angle of two people in suits who had spent too many cycles circling each other. Then it wasn’t. Her other hand found the back of his neck; his settled at her waist, pulling her closer until the bulk of their suits pressed together and the music filled the space between heartbeats.

When they broke apart the red strips along the ceiling had begun to flicker faster. A new alarm—distant, mechanical—threaded through the ballroom speakers.

“Orbit’s dropping,” Lira said against his mouth. “We have maybe forty minutes before the lower decks lose integrity.”

Renn rested his forehead against hers. “Then we take what we can and get out.”

She nodded once. But neither of them moved to leave. The AI, sensing the moment or simply following its last instructions, dimmed the chandelier again until only the emergency strips remained. The music continued, low and patient, as if the station itself were unwilling to admit the dance was ending.

Lira’s hand stayed at his neck. “One more cycle,” she said. “We meet here again. Decide what happens after.”

Renn didn’t answer with words. He kissed her once more, quick and certain, then pushed away toward the hatch. The data core was already warm in his suit pocket, split between them, proof that neither had taken everything.

Behind him the ballroom waited, lights pulsing, music still turning, two empty helmets drifting slowly in the thinning air.