Pining For Kim -tail-blazer- -

“Good. I’m coming about for a pass. Look up.”

The fleet called her reckless. Dangerous. Uncontainable .

Lina exhaled. Her hand moved before her mind caught up—tapping the ship-to-ship channel.

Lina looked.

Not to watch the stars.

The comms crackled. “Aft-deck, you still awake?”

They stayed up the entire night cycle. Kim talked about the Fringe Rift. About a maneuver she called the Tail-Blaze —a trajectory so sharp, so precisely disobedient, it would leave a permanent scar of light across the nebula. “Proof I was here,” she said. “Even after I’m dust.” Pining For Kim -Tail-Blazer-

Kim had stumbled into the engine bay smelling of ozone and burnt cinnamon. Her suit was half-unsealed, her grin crooked, her eyes the color of a collapsing star’s final flash. She held out a fistful of crystallized dark matter.

“For your dampeners,” she said. “Heard you complaining about the surge.”

Lina’s heart hit her ribs. Kim’s voice—low, laughing, slightly frayed from G-force. “Good

“Always,” Lina replied. She pressed her palm flat against the console, grounding herself.

Lina had wanted to say: I’d remember you without the light.