Chapter 13: Twelve Extra Beats
The trip back felt longer than the outbound leg—same velocity, same hum, but weight had shifted. The Echo's crew rode with him now, their portraits taped above the console, eyes catching starlight every time the ship rolled. He spoke to them like old shipmates, giving status they could no longer give him.
"Fuel holding at twenty-one percent. Reactor steady. Garden lettuce still crisp—Rios sends his regards."
No one answered, but the silence felt companionable, the way a cemetery feels when the wind knows the names.
On Day 64 he began the name-casts: every six hours he transmitted the list—full name, birth-date, next-of-kin—on both emergency and standard hailing bands. He added a line of his own at the end:
"If you knew these voices, answer. If you took them, confess. If you are kin, come claim their light."
Between casts he studied the chip's deeper folders. One held engine logs: last entry showed a sudden heat spike—external plasma burst, not internal failure. Boarders had used a cutting lance, not missiles. Clean, professional, silent. Pirates with manners.
Another folder contained nav data: Echo had been en-route to Haven-3 for scheduled resupply when an unscheduled ship matched vector and closed without transponder. No gun-camera footage, but Lina had typed a running commentary:
"Unknown freighter, hull black, no registry. They hailed us—voice masked, filter static. Demanded cargo. Captain refused. They burned through the cargo bay in forty minutes. Took the cores, the pods, the crew. I hid in hydro, rigged the beacon. If found, avenge or remember."
Karl closed the file, fists white on the console. He had come to rescue; he found a crime scene. Vengeance required tracking the killers, but tracking required data he didn't have. Yet.
On Day 65 the red dwarf swelled ahead, Haven-3 reappearing as a glinting wheel. He throttled to braking profile, shedding velocity in careful increments. Range 2 million km, closure 40 km/s. RCS tanks read 38 m/s—enough if the station still had docking hands open.
He tried hailing Haven on tight-beam. "Haven-Three, Folly returning. Bring the garden in, I've got stories."
Static crackled, then a voice—human, female, tired: "Folly, Haven actual. We copy. Docking cone ready. Airlock warm. And Karl… we have a guest."
His heart stuttered. "Define guest."
"Says he's Miguel Ortega. Says you're carrying his sister."
Karl stared at the portraits. Lina's eyes looked back, steady. He found his voice. "Tell him I'm bringing her home."
He burned the last of the RCS, slid into the cone, kissed clamps. Umbilical snaked across, locked, pressurized. He cycled through and stepped into Haven-3's gravity—light but real. A man waited in Ops coveralls, dark hair, same crooked grin as the portrait, eyes red from crying or lack of sleep.
Miguel spoke first, voice rough. "You have her?"
Karl pulled the folded list from his breast pocket—paper still warm from body heat—and handed it over. "Her words, her light, her truth. I'm sorry."
Miguel read, shoulders shaking. Around him the station crew—three others Karl had never met—stood silent. Rios the bot whirred in, offered a basil sprig. Miguel took it, crushed the leaf, breathed. "She always kept herbs," he whispered. "Thank you for keeping her."
Introductions followed. The newcomers were Meridian freight survivors—engineers, techs—who'd reached Haven-3 in a damaged shuttle months after the bankruptcy. They'd heard Karl's earlier beacon but stayed dark, afraid pirates still hunted the lanes. His continuous name-cast had convinced them he was real, not bait.
Population count now: five humans, one bot. Haven-3 was alive.
That night they held remembrance in the dome. They floated Lina's portrait among the grow-lights, told stories of each Echo crew member, voice by voice, until the garden smelled of mint and tears. Karl played the trumpet file through the speakers, slow blues that sounded like sunrise. When the last note faded Miguel raised a plastic cup of recycled water. "To the Echo—to Lina—to the keeper of the light." They drank, and the forty-third-second interval became a shared heartbeat, counted aloud by five voices instead of one.
After, Karl showed Miguel the chip. Together they decrypted a hidden partition: nav telemetry of the attacking ship—vector, acceleration signature, engine temp curve. Unique as fingerprints. Miguel's eyes hardened. "I know that curve. Black-hull freighter calls itself Vulture. They raid along the old corporate lanes, take cores, take crews, leave hulks. We thought they were myth."
Karl felt the old cold settle in his gut. "Myths bleed. We have their signature. We can track them."
Miguel studied him. "You want to hunt?"
"I want to finish the log. Lina wrote 'avenge or remember.' We've remembered. Now we avenge."
The room went quiet, only gyro hum underneath. Then the oldest engineer, a woman named Selene, spoke: "Station can build a warship if we strip the shuttles. We've got welders, steel, and rage. Question is: will you captain it?"
Karl looked at the faces—tired, determined. He thought of the sacrificed mess table, the jettisoned bunks, the drop-tank that had carried him here. Sacrifice was a habit now.
He answered with a question. "Can you build a cradle that holds Folly and still lets her breathe fire?"
Selene grinned like a shark. "Give us thirty days and steel enough, we'll strap engines to a garden if you ask."
Miguel clasped Karl's shoulder. "Then we start tomorrow. For Lina. For twelve."
Karl felt the weight settle—different from isolation, heavier but warmer. Command again, but shared. He nodded once. "Thirty days. We build, we train, we hunt. Vulture dies or we do. No middle ground."
The room erupted—not cheers, but low vows, each voice a file on steel. Rios recorded everything, eyes flashing green.
Later, alone in the cabin, Karl opened the paper log and wrote:
Day 68 – Homecoming complete. Population five, purpose one. Vulture signature confirmed. Thirty-day clock starts now. Ship will be crude, crew will be raw, but justice doesn't need polish—just a sharp edge. I keep the forty-third beat for all of us. – Karl Hasser, captain of something bigger than myself.
He closed the book, turned the light off, and let the station's gentle spin pull him toward sleep. Outside, the others moved through corridors, counting steel, counting rage. Inside his chest the extra beats marched steady: twelve for the dead, one for the living, one for the ship being born. Forty-three seconds compressed into every heartbeat, driving him toward the day black hulls would cross his sights and learn that echoes could bite.
Tomorrow the welders would spark. Tomorrow steel would remember names. And somewhere, unseen, Vulture coasted on, unaware that a garden station and a patched-up frigate had declared war with nothing more than basil, brass, and a promise made to the dark.