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1. Amber Quiet
A nameless asteroid belt, several light-years from Subaru Station.
Countless rocks drifted through the dark in slow, silent procession — a river with no banks and no destination.
"...Scan complete. Fifty-meter asteroid ahead, starboard side. Grade-B ore reading, good concentration. Let's begin, Shutia."
Ledea Mace read the situation aloud with her usual precision, unhurried, accurate. The light from the console caught her silver hair; her slender fingers traced the holographic display. To Shutia, watching from the seat beside her, it was worth more than any gemstone the asteroid belt had ever produced.
"Copy, sis. Positioning is mine to handle. You look absolutely perfect today too, by the way. Can I record this angle? Just for reference."
"Please focus. Anchor — ready to fire."
"Yes, sis! Firing with love—!"
The tow anchor launched like something that had been waiting to move, and buried itself in the asteroid's surface.
Ledea held their position against the rock's irregular spin with surgical precision. The mining laser went to work — quiet, steady, methodical. Shutia adjusted the anchor tension to her sister's unspoken rhythm, and felt something settle warmly in her chest.
After the Katrine incident — the contamination, the voice going to the wrong ears, the long days of recovery — this was what she'd needed. Just the two of them, a job, and the sound of Ledea's instructions filling the cockpit like something that belonged there.
*(Sis's voice, coming only to me. This frequency, this air, all of it mine. There is nothing better than this.)*
The work moved quickly. Grade-B ore filled the cargo container in steady increments. At this rate they'd be back at Subaru Station ahead of schedule.
The universe, which had been listening, chose that moment to remind them it wasn't done.
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2. An Unexpected Impact
"...Container at eighty percent. One more pass and we can—"
Ledea didn't finish the sentence.
From the sensor's blind spot at the ship's rear, an untracked piece of debris hit the Silver Anchor near the engine housing at high speed.
The impact sound filled the cabin like a physical thing. The ship lurched violently. Every alarm on the bridge fired at once. The lights went red.
"Brace—! Shutia, hold on—!"
Ledea's hands found the seat restraints by reflex. The automatic harness deployed and locked her in place — hard, immediate, no room to argue with it.
The G-force hit like a wall.
"—ugh—!"
The breath left her body. Her vision went white at the edges. The ship's gravity stabilizers stuttered, and for a moment the floor and ceiling were equally unconvincing.
The harness dug in. Her inner ear protested. Everything hurt in a general, insistent way.
She did not let go of the controls.
"Shutia — damage report! Shutia?!"
Nothing.
The voice that always came — the one that appeared at the smallest tremor with *are you okay, sis, are you all right* — wasn't there.
Ledea turned her head through the pain.
The seat beside her was empty.
"...What—"
She looked down.
Shutia was on the floor against the far wall, slumped at the base of a console, one shoulder against the metal edge she'd hit on the way down. Her head was down. She wasn't moving.
She had unclipped her harness sometime during the work — absorbed in the job, or absorbed in watching Ledea, or both — and the impact had thrown her across the cabin.
"Shutia—? That's not — you can't—"
Ledea's heart did something it had never done before.
The color left her.
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3. Coming Apart
"Shutia! Answer me! Shutia—!"
She got the harness off with shaking hands and crossed the tilting cabin on hands and knees, because standing wasn't reliable yet and she didn't care.
Shutia was breathing. Shallow, unsteady, but breathing. A thin line of blood traced from her hairline. Her eyes were half-open.
"...sis... nee... chan..."
"Shutia! Stay with me — I need to — I have to—"
Ledea's hands found her shoulders and stopped there. She knew what to do in a crisis. She had trained for this. The knowledge was somewhere in her, organized and accessible.
It wasn't accessible right now.
The person who was always there — loud, warm, overwhelming, the one who caught her before she hit the floor and held her tighter than strictly necessary — was lying on the ground, and Ledea's chest felt like something had been removed from it.
"...s'okay... just hit it... hard... sis, are you... hurt...?"
"That doesn't matter! Why didn't you have your harness on?! Why — how could you — do you understand what I—"
Her voice broke.
The tears came before she decided to let them. Hot, immediate, not the kind she could manage or redirect.
"I can't — if you're not here, I can't — I said I don't like staying still, but that's not — that's not what I meant, I meant — Shutia, if you weren't here, I don't know what I would—"
She couldn't finish the sentence.
She cried instead — properly, openly, in a way she hadn't since she was much younger — while Shutia lay there and watched her with half-closed eyes.
"...don't cry, sis... I'm sorry... I really am okay..."
Shutia raised one arm, slow and effortful, and tried to reach Ledea's face.
Her fingers were shaking.
Ledea cried harder.
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4. The Medical Bay
She got Shutia to the ship's medical bay on determination alone, using the remote manipulator to move her when carrying wasn't stable enough, crying the entire time without stopping.
The diagnostic AI ran its scan without opinion.
*Vital signs stable. No fractures detected. Temporary motor impairment consistent with full-body impact trauma. Mild concussion. Recommended: twenty-four hours rest.*
Ledea read it twice.
Then again.
Nothing serious. A hard landing, a rattled nervous system, a body that had locked up in response and needed time to unlock. Nothing that wouldn't pass.
"...okay."
She sat down on the floor next to the bed. The relief came in waves, each one taking something with it — the tension in her shoulders, the grip in her chest, the particular flavor of fear that had no name.
"See?" Shutia's voice came from the bed, quieter than usual, but with its familiar warmth finding its way back in. "Told you. I'm solid."
"...I'm sorry, Shutia." Ledea pressed the back of her hand to her own face, felt how hot it was. Her eyes were still red. "I lost my composure. If I had detected the debris sooner—"
"Stop." Shutia's hand found hers — weak grip, but there. "None of that. Don't apologize."
"I put you in danger. As your pilot. As your—"
"Sis."
Ledea stopped.
"You're safe. That's the only thing that matters to me. My body is just something I use to make sure of that." A pause. "...though I'll admit, getting scolded by you about it is secretly very nice."
"...Please don't say things like that about yourself."
"Ehehe. Too late." Shutia's eyes curved. "But sis — you cried for me. Like that. I didn't know you could."
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5. Monologue, or Something Like a Vow
The Silver Anchor moved toward Subaru Station on autopilot, unhurried.
The medical bay lights were low. Somewhere in the ship, a system hummed at its usual frequency.
Ledea had checked on Shutia, confirmed she was asleep, and gone to her own room. The exhaustion had caught up all at once.
In the dark of the medical bay, Shutia opened her eyes.
The bruises ached. She noted this the way she noted weather — present, not particularly relevant.
What stayed with her was the heat of Ledea's tears on her skin. The sound of her voice breaking. The way her hands had shaken trying to help.
*(My sis. My sweet, impossible sis.)*
She looked at her left hand in the dim light.
*(I want to keep you in my arms forever. In a case, somewhere beautiful, where nothing can touch you. I want to be the one who keeps you safe forever.)*
The obsession. The need. The thing that lived in her chest and never quieted.
*(But more than any of that — don't go before me. Whatever happens. Don't be the one who disappears first. Because I don't know what I would do.)*
She played the heartbeat file — the one she'd saved from the magnetic storm, still not deleted, backed up three times over — and let it run.
*Thump. Thump.*
Alive. Present. Here.
"Good night, sis," Shutia said to the ceiling. "Tomorrow I'm getting all the headpats you owe me from today."
In the dark, her eyes held something that had no clean name — deep, and patient, and entirely without limit.