Read Chapter 31: Aftermath: Free Fall

The shuttle’s cabin hummed at a frequency Elena had stopped noticing hours ago. Now, with Earth’s gravity nothing but a faint tug on the hull and the pursuit ships fading to pinpricks of light in the aft display, the silence felt louder than any alarm.

She unclipped her helmet and set it on the deck between her boots. The air recyclers clicked, and the recycled scent of ozone and Jack’s sweat filled her nostrils. She’d stopped minding it.

Jack sat two seats over, his leg propped on an equipment crate, his flight jacket draped over his knees. The bruise on his cheek had darkened into a purple smear, and his hand rested loosely on his thigh, fingers stained with grime and lunar dust. He was staring out the viewport at the curve of the Moon below—bright, desolate, and still.

“Iris said she’d patch us through to Earth command in twenty minutes,” Elena said. Her voice came out rougher than she’d intended. “She wants us to have a… statement prepared.”

Jack didn’t turn. “A statement. Right. That’s what they call it when you’re not under arrest yet.”

Elena watched the hard set of his jaw. She’d seen him angry, scared, defiant, and broken—but not uncertain. That was new.

“You’re not under arrest,” she said. “You’re a witness.”

He laughed, low and hollow. “The Navy has a different word for it when a pilot disobeys a direct order, commandeers a shuttle, and flies it into an active enforcement zone.” He finally turned to face her. “That’s not a witness. That’s a problem.”

Elena pulled her knees to her chest in the narrow seat, her boots scraping against the deck. The tether still hung coiled at her waist—neither of them had unclipped it. She hadn’t even thought about it.

“Then we’ll fix your problem,” she said. “Together.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “That’s a big word. ‘Together.’ You sure you want to use it with me?”

She met his eyes. The last time they’d hung over a crevasse, she’d told him she misjudged him. She’d meant it. She still did.

“I’m sure,” she said. And then, quieter: “I’ve spent a long time doing things on my own. I told myself it was because I was better at it. That other people would just slow me down or hold me back or—or get hurt.” She looked down at her hands. “But that was just an excuse. I was afraid.”

Jack was quiet for a long moment. The shuttle hummed. Somewhere behind them, Iris was running diagnostics, her voice a low murmur over the comm channel.

“What were you afraid of?” Jack asked.

Elena pictured Marcus’s face in the med-bay. She pictured the message he’d left her—the one that had lifted the weight of years off her shoulders. She thought of Liang, still unconscious back on the base, alone in the dark with Kessler somewhere in the corridors.

“That if I let someone in, and they left, they’d take a piece of me with them,” she said. “That I’d have to rebuild myself all over again. I’ve done it enough times.”

Jack shifted, wincing as he adjusted his leg. “And now?”

She looked at him—really looked. The stubble, the exhaustion ringing his eyes, the guarded way he held himself, like he expected her to pull away any second.

“I’m tired of losing pieces,” she said. “I want to keep the person I am now. All of her. Even the parts that embarrass me.”

Jack almost smiled. “The parts that embarrass you. Like trusting a washed-up pilot with a busted leg?”.

“Like trusting a man who called me ‘Dr. Crater’ for the first week we met.”

He did smile then, small and crooked. “I called you that. I’m not proud of it.”

“You should be,” she said, surprising herself. “It made me want to prove you wrong. It made me fight harder.”

“Does that mean you’ll fight for me?”.

The question hung in the air. Elena’s pulse ticked up.

She remembered the crevasse—his grip on her wrist, the breath knocked from her lungs as the ice cracked beneath them. She remembered his voice in her ear, telling her not to let go. She remembered the way he’d limped beside her across the lunar surface, never complaining, never slowing her down.

“Yes,” she said. “It does.”

Jack stared at her. Then he let out a long breath and leaned back in his seat, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted. “I’ve got a court martial waiting for me. My career’s probably over. My name’s been dragged through the mud for months.” He laughed, humorless. “And I just spent the worst three days of my life on a dead rock with the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met, and I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.”

Elena’s throat tightened. “The most stubborn woman you’ve ever met?”

“Don’t fish for compliments, doc.”

She ducked her head, hiding a smile. When she looked up, Jack was watching her carefully.

“What about you?” he asked. “After all this—after the hearing, after the evidence clears—what do you do? Earth’s going to line up to offer you a cushy lab job.”

Elena considered it. A year ago, the thought would have thrilled her—prestige, funding, a shiny office with windows that looked out at a garden, not a crater.

Now it felt like a cage.

“I’m going back,” she said.

Jack blinked. “Back to the Moon?”

“The base isn’t going to rebuild itself.” Her voice steadied. “Liang is still there. Our research is still there. There’s a whole archive of samples waiting to be analyzed. And TerraCore can’t touch it anymore—not after the evidence you helped me get out.” She paused, letting the weight of her decision settle. “I’m not done.”

“You’re not done,” Jack repeated. He nodded slowly. “That’s… very you.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“The best one I have.”

The comm crackled. Iris’s voice came through, clipped and efficient. “We’re halfway to the rendezvous point. Earth command is asking for a preliminary line. You two gonna be ready?”

Jack reached for the comm panel, but paused, hand hovering. He looked at Elena.

“I’ve got a court martial,” he said. “Maybe a discharge. Maybe worse. I don’t know what happens tomorrow, or the day after that. But I know what I want today.”

Elena’s heart did a quiet, unexpected flip. “What?”

He looked at her like the answer was simple. “To be near you. Even if I’m not sure where that leaves us.”

Elena held his gaze. A dozen responses winged through her mind—witty, guarded, professional—and she discarded them all.

“I don’t know what I want tomorrow either,” she said. “But I want to figure it out. Slowly.”

Jack’s eyes glinted. “Slowly?”

“Slower than your flying,” she said dryly. “Much slower.”

He laughed—a real laugh this time, rough and warm. It filled the small cabin better than any reassurance could have.

“Deal,” he said.

He pressed the comm button. “Iris, we’re ready. Patch us through.”

The cabin lights dimmed as Earth command’s carrier wave took over. Elena placed her hand over Jack’s as it rested on the console—brief, light.

He didn’t pull away.

The Moon slid past the viewport, gray and silver and patient. They had no home there anymore. Not yet.

But maybe, just maybe, they would build one.