Chapter 5: Bram's Galley

Alden's face filled the sky over the yard, and behind him the Citadel's gold towers glittered in the evening.

He was standing on a stage with flowers in the background.

Vesper stood next to him in a pale blue gown, her pearl pins catching the light.

"Citizens of the Union," Alden said, to a camera that was clearly not for Ghostfall. "A brief word on the Null bride."

His eyes slid down and found Maxine standing in the yard with a ladle.

He blinked, then smiled wider.

"Max. You look well. Thin. My father says brides tend to last forty days out there, and I've put a small wager on thirty."

Vesper laid a hand on his arm. "Alden, don't."

"I'm being kind," he said. "I'm giving her a goal."

Rhys stood very still beside Maxine.

Dax made a noise in his chest that was not quite a growl yet.

"Put it on forty-one," Maxine said.

Alden's smile stuck.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The wager. Put it on forty-one." She tasted the stew on her ladle and nodded.

"And tell Vesper the soup is good. She always liked my cooking."

Vesper's face went white.

Maxine turned her back on the sky, the way she would on a dripping tap, and went on stirring.

The feed cut out with a loud, offended crackle.

Nobody in the yard spoke for a moment.

Then Lucan began to laugh, softly at first and then helplessly, bent over his barrel.

"Forty-one," he gasped. "Commander, I would die for her."

"Please don't," said Rhys.

But the corner of his mouth had moved.

That night, Bram stood in the doorway of the Resolute's old galley, scrubbing a wrench with a rag, not meeting her eyes.

"I fixed it," he said.

She stepped past him and stopped.

The room had been a wreck of rust that morning.

Now a steel counter ran the length of one wall, scoured bright.

A real stove with four rings sat under a patched vent.

A sink with a tap stood beside it, fed by a pipe he must have welded from scrap.

A lamp glowed over a long table with enough room for eight.

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