“No. I’m just being polite. It’s this new thing I’m trying. But your name does come up from time to time.”

They found her in the rear office, her back to the door, head bent over a datapad. The office was decorated just as he would have imagined: bare walls, clean desk, no trinkets, no dust. Everything in order. Everything in its place. Growing up on the streets of a filthy mining town can make you appreciate a certain level of tidiness.

“Those hover bikers keep stiffing me on tips. We really should make gratuities mandatory. Or at least let me threaten to blast the losers,” Skits complained as they entered.

Kat didn’t look up from the pad. “I’ve told you before, shooting customers is generally bad for business.”

“You’re the boss. Oh, by the way, Leo’s here.”

The former first mate of the Icarus turned around at last, taking him in—the stowaway who had dragged her all across the galaxy searching for his family. The kid who somehow put her right in the center of a centuries-old war and convinced her to help save the world, though it had cost her almost everything she cared about.

Leo didn’t think that she would hold that against him, but he wouldn’t blame her if she did.

“Ninja turtle,” she said, her voice gruff but her smile countering it. “It’s about damned time.”

Kat ordered Skits to hold down the fort and Leo was reminded of all the times the robot had been forced to stay on the ship. And all the times he was told to do the same and refused.

“Come on,” she said to Leo. “I want to show you something.”

Behind the tavern was a parking lift with a charging station, but a short walk beyond that sat a pond, a little slice of blue and green bursting from the landscape of cement and steel. Milkweed and bluebells grew along its edge. A rusted iron bench faced the water and the sunset. It was beautiful.

Out in the center of the pond, a paddling of ducks was lazily bobbing. Kat sat on the bench and motioned for Leo to sit next to her.

“Shame it took you so long. The ducklings are all grown up now. I got to see them from the start. Watched them waddle after their mother. They’d literally just fall over sometimes and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I ended up doing both.”

Leo couldn’t imagine Kat crying over anything. “It’s a really nice place,” he said.

“Yeah. I come here a lot when I need some peace, which is constantly.”

“I meant the bar, actually.”

Kat laughed. “You are a terrible liar. That place is a junk heap. The plumbing’s nearly shot, the wood’s rotted, the dining space is cramped. Pretty sure somebody was murdered there—before I showed up, I’ll have you know. But the location is good, at least. Easy enough to find . . . when someone finally gets around to looking.”