Solace in the Stars

Reaching

Lee didn't get much time to themselves the next day. They were booked solid day and night shifts for three days in fact. It was draining, but it did give xer enough extra credit to send Dae to pick up the test gaskets for the embrace port test run. Xe found themselves curled up in the tub, cold and wet long after the water had drained when their door alert sounded. They sighed, and pulled on a robe. If it was a playdate why bother with clothes?

"Daena?" Xe felt out of sorts, and her presence only made them feel untethered from the unfortunate reality they'd been drowning in for the last three days.

"Yo! Guess what? Not only did I book you that jailbreak, but as payment for it they bought your day shift for a week. I know we could use the influx of credit right now, but we need your skills way more. I hope that's... Oof!" Lee slammed into her, their feet off the ground in a desperate bear hug. Daena laughed, and held their skinny ass up with ease.

"I love you, you perfect, beautiful goddess you! If I thought you wanted me at all I would kiss you right now! Let me go change!" Lee ran back into the house, and left the door open. They grabbed something easy to slip on, and their bag with some extra clothes.

They settled for a knee length halter dress that collared their neck with black lace, with a silver loop over their throat. It hung down over their chest with ribbed curves that gave the impression of breasts. The hips had a cut out on either side with a delicate multi chain belt looped into the fabric. They pulled on knee high black boots to match, and sprinted back down the stairs.

"Let's do this!" Xe hooked their arm around her waist before she could get more than a few steps into the building.

"I wish your place wasn't filled with recording equipment, it would be a way better place to work." Daena huffed as they wound through the rows of identical housing units, the only difference in any of them were the occasional stacked units.

"It's also covered in bodily fluids if that helps." Xe teased, Daena made a face, and held their arms out as they walked through the scanner. It beeped a warning like always, and a Bastion Lee didn't recognize pulled her to the side. Lee went to the other side, and leaned on the rail to wait until they'd patted her down. She joined him once they'd cleared her.

"So the kid's name is Hero, they're sixteen, a bit old for a new port, but apparently they're a spider that got turned down for their first two license attempts so they had a Genic cross contract. They have fewer restrictions, but carrying two contracts means two jobs. You couldn't pay me to do something like that. Hamish says they want to do side gigs to work it off faster, but they need a jailbreak." Daena explained as they made their way down the long stairs that lead to the open halls.

"If they were rejected by Spider odds are they got psych issues." Xe huffed, but they couldn't afford to be choosy with this one, there weren't too many with the new model yet. Their steps started to get longer, with more bounce as the gravity dipped.

"No doubt, but they come with Hamish's stamp of approval, so they can't be that bad." She shrugged, and jumped the rail.

Instead of heading down towards the pods, they followed the high rail across to the industrial storage. Hamish's lot in the scrap yards had room for twelve ships, but four of the bays were filled with scrap, and spare parts, including the Chainbreaker. He also let them set up a jailbreaker suit in a decommissioned pod they kept in the same bay.

"Hey kid, Guinea pig is in the JB already." Hamish hitched his thumb over his slumped shoulders. He was a greasy fat fellow with a thick beard that held remnants of whatever he had eaten most recently. He was also one of the few people on the wheel that had no debt, and no mods. Hamish did everything his own way.