Jessica solar's Arc

Chapter 6 of 15

The lantern plant sat on the deck between them, glowing soft through its layered petals. Outside, the last wolf dragged a scavenger off the plating and vanished below the port. Jessica knelt by the plant and pressed a finger against the soil in its pot. Dry already. The corridor was too cold, the air too thin, the light too flat. She had hours, maybe a day, before the bloom wilted. If it died, the enemy faction's terms went from a debt to a broken contract, and broken contracts with them ended in boarding parties. "It needs a room," she said. "Warm. Humid. Full spectrum. I don't have one." Michael lowered his sketchpad. "The observation blister on deck four. Glass ceiling. South-facing when the ship spins." "Cracked in two places. Vents to vacuum if I look at it wrong." She stood and walked. He followed, pencil already moving. She passed the galley, the dead hydroponics bay, the sealed medbay. None of it would hold. Then she stopped at the cargo lock on deck three and put her hand on the hatch. Inside sat the iron rhino. A hauler drone, chest-high, armored in plate, its flanks stamped with sun-shaped heating cores. Salvage from the second scavenger run. She had stripped it for parts twice and never finished. The cores still worked. The shell was sealed. It had its own power line. "That," she said. "I gut the cargo bin. Line the inside with the growth film from medbay. Route two of the heat cores through the wall. It's a greenhouse the size of a coffin, but it's sealed and it's mine." She worked six hours. Michael sketched and passed her tools. She cut the hauler's cargo hatch, welded a viewport in the lid, and ran coolant loop backwards so the cores warmed instead of chilled. She needed her father's calibration wrench for the core regulators. It was in the locked toolbox under her bunk. She had not opened that box since he died. She broke the latch with a chisel and did not look at what else was inside. She took the wrench. She closed the lid. She set the lantern plant into the rhino's chest cavity and sealed the viewport. The petals lifted. Color spread across the glass. The soil sensor read green. Michael exhaled. "You did it." Jessica wiped her hands on her robe. Grease streaked the embroidered stars. "I kept it alive. That's not the same." The comm at her hip clicked. A clean voice, crimson-faction cadence, no name given. "Confirmed growth signature. Terms accepted. A representative arrives in twelve hours to inspect the specimen and deliver the second item of your repayment." The channel closed. Jessica looked at the glowing rhino. She had bought the plant's life. She had bought another delivery she had not agreed to. "Log it," she said. "They're sending more."