Eyes watering, I push through until I catch a glimpse of my sister in one corner of the room, lost among the mess of colorful wires and mismatched mechanical parts that make up Fortuna’s oft-repaired heart. Lyre is bent over some piece of machinery, muttering curses under her breath. I wait, fanning smoke away from my face. One of my boots taps against the metal floor, but the sound is swallowed by the other noises in the engine room: hisses of air, mechanical clinks and clunks, and the steady thump-thump-thump of the huge main fan keeping the engine cool. The smoke gradually clears, and our tiny engineer straightens up with a grumble, wiping her gloves on the pants of her oversized jumpsuit.

“You lighting my ship on fire again?” I ask. My sister turns and scowls through the dissipating smoke. It’s not very intimidating considering she’s barely five feet tall, especially with a smear of dark grease across her face and her curls wrestled into a ridiculous knot atop her head, but she scowls nonetheless. At only twenty years old, she’s already mastered our mother’s trademark expression.

“Your ship?” she asks, placing a gloved hand on her hip. “It’s not yours. Maybe you should remember that next time you think about crashing it.”

“Oh, come on.” I’m hearing an awful lot of complaints, considering I managed to land the ship without a single explosion to speak of. “I got us here with the engine on fire, didn’t I? You should be thanking me.”

“Thank you, oh glorious pilot, for not quite managing to kill us all.”

“You’re very welcome.” I smile and bow. When I straighten up again, Lyre is still frowning, this time at the engine instead of me. “Something fried my systems halfway through landing,” I say, more seriously. “What gives?”

“The thermal control system is damaged and the left coolant pump needs—”

“Maybe a little less specific.”

Lyre sighs, pushing a stray curl out of her face.

“To put it simply, nothing unexpected,” she says. “I’ve been telling Momma we need parts since Deva. She threw out some excuses about ‘prioritizing’ our funds.”

“Well, I’d say it’s a priority now.”

“It should’ve been a priority before the crash landing.” Lyre yanks off her greasy gloves and lets them fall to the floor one at a time. “I’m not leaving this planet before we fix my ship,” she says, and stomps past me.

“Your ship? I dunno if that’s—”

“You reek of alcohol, by the way,” she says over her shoulder as she clambers up the stairs, making a surprising amount of noise for such a tiny woman.