The Soulmate Curse

Ingenuity - Part 3

Six hours later, they were both sitting in the cabin of one of the largest rocket boosters ever built. As tourist passengers, they only had to sit back and wait. There were four others in the cabin with them. They were veteran GSI astronauts who now worked for this commercial space resupply company. They went through the pre-launch check list, coordinating with their ground control team. Zhen and Finn listened for a while before Zhen broke the silence between them.

"Do you think they'll find the vigilante group?" Zhen asked.

"Jesse and Zac are more capable than meets the eye," said Finn, still watching the flight crew working. "They'll rain hellfire on that compound. MechSoft messed up. They won't know what hit them."

They went silent again for a while.

Zhen turned to Finn. "I never asked. How did you make this happen? I thought you'd cancelled our trip?"

"I had," said Finn. "And usually they'd be a wait-list with someone to replace us. But ISS1 is way more popular with the tourists now compared to the moon."

"That makes sense," said Zhen. "I heard that they're adding tourist specific modules to the old space station. The moon, on the other hand, is pretty much just a slightly modified version of a military base."

"Exactly. It also helps that a ticket to the ISS is only a fraction of the cost of a ticket to the moon, and the travel time there is in hours, not days," said Finn, adjusting her sitting position. "So, with no one on the tourist waiting list for this supply launch, my contact, Darren, was able to get our seats back."

There stayed in silence for a while, once again listening to the pre-launch stuff going on.

Zhen broke the silence once more. "If Cruz was able to go after us, do you think he'll target our families?"

"I thought about that," said Finn. She turned to face Zhen. "I sent an invite to my mum and your dad letting them know they'd won a raffle to go back to the Great Metmou Hotel."

"Where the GSI awards were held?" said Zhen in disbelief.

"Yeah," said Finn, blushing slightly before adding, "Our room. Kara helped set the whole thing up. And she promised to personally keep an eye on them."

Zhen smiled. "Of course, she did."

"As for the girls," said Finn. "I convinced Ina to join one of her band members in their country for the next leg of their virtual tour and to let Sorcha and Akemi tag along."

"And she said yes?"

"It cost me a pretty penny," said Finn laughing.

Zhen joined her in laughter, marvelling at how relieved she was that her family was safe. For the moment at least. All thanks to Finn. Finn, who always treated her with undeserved kindness. Finn, who brought all the walls down around her. Finn, who would never be hers to have and to hold. It hurt, but it hurt a little less than before because she still had her as part of her life, and that was enough. For now.

Zhen reached out her hand and placed it on Finn's. "Thank you."

Finn shrugged and smiled back; a book full of unsaid words in her gaze.

*

Zhen smiled as she watched Finn. It was fun to watch newbies to zero gravity do the quintessential flips and tricks that gravity rendered impossible in everyday life. Finn was laughing hysterically, spinning around, and banging onto the sides of the ship. She was still getting used to pushing off surfaces to move. And the fact that there was no up or down or that things didn't stay put when you let go of them.