Walter nodded. “Yeah.”

“Exscellent. Wait, you’re not there now, are you?”

“Am I thinking that?” Walter asked.

“Why don’t you tell me where you are?” the voice asked. “I’ll come right to you. Quick as I can.”

Walter shook his head. He knew how these transactions went down. It was always best to get information, never a good idea to give it.

“I’ll bring them to you,” Walter thought. “Jusst pick a sspot.”

“And you can deliver them? You have a sship?”

“Yess,” Walter hissed.

It was another lie, but he kept those thoughts deep. Palan deep. The truth was: it didn’t matter that he had no ship of his own, nor did it matter he couldn’t even fly one. What he could do was reprogram hyperdrives to go wherever he wanted, just like how he’d sent Cole into a star and what he’d done back on Palan. With that kind of talent, every ship was practically his, and he may as well be the one flying them.

ѻѻѻѻ

Molly checked the instruments on the dash one more time, making sure her mom was on course and holding steady, before she leaned over her reader. Typing on the thing was quite painful with the current state of her fingers, all of which were scabbed and blistered with dozens of votes. And yet, the writing was psychologically soothing, somehow, even though she couldn’t properly phrase an ounce of what she was feeling. It didn’t seem to matter; just attempting to do so—to reach out to Cole in some tangible way—eased the pressing weight off her chest, allowing her to breathe a little.

She stared at the first two sentences of the journal tab while the Wadi crawled down her flightsuit and stretched back out along her thigh.

ѻѻѻѻ

6/10/2414

Dearest Cole,

I got a new reader on Lok. So, here I am, writing you a letter on it.

Horrid. She deleted the entry. Then she wrote the exact same thing. She deleted it once more. She repeated the same stilted, juvenile wording over and over. Molly finally shook her head and decided to start from scratch, forgetting the need to make it perfect. She would simply write her thoughts as they came to her, unscripted and unedited.

Cole. I don’t know where to start. Trust me, I’ve tried. It’s just … I’ve always been bad at this, being faithful to a journal. I never know what to write. I think my last one had two entries in it. The first entry was about how many entries I was planning on writing. I remember composing that one on my first day of school at Avalon. My second entry was an apology to myself for going so many months between entries. I remember writing it on the Orbital Station while I was waiting on you. I’d love to read what I wrote back then. Can you imagine if I knew all the things that would take place as soon as we left Earth? I wonder if I would’ve gone. Anyway, that reader is long gone, probably being used by a pirate somewhere on Palan.