Chapter 9

                                                                           Gerda

It was weird to have her sit so close to me again, but even I had to admit I’d sort of missed her. So it would probably suck even more to see her go, now that we had almost reached our destination, but that was a worry for later.

It would be okay… It always was in the end, right? No one said life was fair. Anyway, what other choice did I have? At least she seemed happy now, and I wasn't a complete asshole, so pushing her away for my sake wasn’t an option. I’d survived worse than this, so I would be fine…

So it surprised me when I heard the soft chime suddenly ring through the ship, announcing that we would soon leave hyperspace, and something in me almost broke. So soon… I’d thought we would have more time. I got up and headed over to the bridge. I still didn’t know where we’d ended up and how far away we’d land from our original plan. Worst case, we would just have to jump again. I heard the door to the bridge open, and Kaya walked in. She took her seat and switched on her console.

“W-we will arrive in seven minutes," she murmured, and I nodded.

I wished I’d had more time learning to pilot this ship, but the week we’d had was barely enough to get my head around the basics of the jump computer. I knew how to enter the coordinates and execute the jump, but someone with proper training could calculate where they were heading and how much time it would take before they could jump again. I could only wait for the lights on the jump console to turn green and press the button, so I only hoped the world we arrived in would suck less than the shithole we’d left.

                                                                       Kaya

The moment we got out of hyperspace, I connected to DataNet and scanned the news releases for any mention of us or the ship, but there were none, and our ship wasn’t listed as stolen or missing.

Of course, the few days we’d spent in hyperspace weren’t enough for the local news from our home world to catch up with us, but I was sure that stealing an interstellar yacht would have made it into the sector news.

Part of me was relieved there was no mention since I didn’t want Gerda to get into any trouble because of me, but it also hurt more than I’d expected. Had they really let me go without a concern about what would happen to me? Or maybe they were even relieved I had disappeared from their life and stopped disappointing them with my actions, ‘ruining their reputation', as they called it.

I knew they saw me as damaged goods that could neither be refunded nor returned to the seller, but still… I sniffled, and Gerda looked at me and sighed.

“Sorry, I’m not sure where we are. Give me a moment, I will figure it out.”

“Agartha C784…”, I whispered, trying to help.

She paused and turned to me.

“How do you know?”

“It’s in the news bulletin I got."

She got up and leaned over my seat to look at my screen.

“Anything…? You know…”

“No, it seems no one is looking for us”, I said quietly, holding my tears.

She sighed with relief.

“Good. But we haven’t ended up where we planned. I will set the ship again for the correct location, but it may take a while…”

“C-could we stay here for a bit?”

“Stay?”

She looked at me, and I smiled and put my hand on hers.

"Yes..."

“Why?”

"I…I’ve never been outside our world...”

                                                                   Gerda

If that’s what she really wanted, I guess we could. We could find a good place and take the ship's shuttle. Docking at a station would be risky, and the lack of a valid pilot's licence would still be a problem. I definitely didn’t want to repeat another emergency jump, so the shuttle was probably the best course of action. I was pretty sure I could handle it, and it was automatic anyway.

It wasn’t that uncommon for yachts like ours to never dock during their voyages to avoid the jurisdiction of local law, which, for sure, would be harder and better enforced than the law in our home port of X-997-301-B. I barely found this place on the chart, so how a place like this had obtained the status of an independent colony was a mystery.

“Where do you want to go?”, I asked.

“S-somewhere quiet..."

She peered at her screen.

"A wildlife enclave…?"

I nodded. It wasn’t a bad idea. Places like that probably didn’t have any means of grounding us if things went wrong.

“Sure”

She clung to me again, almost pulling me into her seat, and I smiled and let myself enjoy her affection until I realised what I was doing and stepped back before I acted on one of the random thoughts that suddenly popped into my mind without any apparent reason.

“Let’s prepare the shuttle."

                                                                   Kaya

I was so excited and anxious at the prospect of our trip that my mind almost shut down before we’d even started our adventure, and only the fact that I had nothing to pack, so I didn’t need to worry about it, saved me from total overwhelm.

Apparently, it was warm there, so my dress fitted perfectly for the occasion, and the fact that we’d chosen a remote location meant I didn't need to worry about what other people would think about me. It was a bit expensive, but after years of receiving cash instead of gifts and with nothing really to spend it on, I was pretty sure we could afford it.

To my surprise, my card was still working, so I took it upon myself to organise everything down there. We hadn’t expected my account to stay active, so before I left, I’d converted as much as I could do without raising any suspicions into platinum bars, enough to pay Gerda and cover our expenses on this one-way trip.

But then, if they wanted me dead, they had better opportunities than freezing my account. I was more likely to die in an accident during a break-in into one of those military depots Gerda somehow knew about, probably from her time in the Youth Explorers.

When I was ready, I rushed to the shuttle, not wanting to be late, even though I knew Gerda wouldn’t leave without me or look for a reason I couldn't come with her this time…