Daniel didn't look convinced. He went back to fiddling with the wires while she watched silently.
"Did the new government approve this?"
Finley grinned. "They didn't disapprove it."
"Meaning you didn't bring it up at all and they have no idea."
"It's like we've met before."
"You could get in trouble."
"I'm already in trouble. And since when do you worry about getting in trouble?"
"Now, now. You're not the only one who's special."
"You're intimidating, I'm brilliant."
"I'm not exactly stupid, Daniel."
"You're not as smart as me either."
"And you're not as intimidating as me."
Daniel snorted. "I'd injure myself even trying." His shoulders slumped a bit and Finley wanted to smack whoever had killed his confidence.
"Well, numbers give me a headache." She offered, nudging his shoulder with her knee.
The look he gave her said he wasn't buying it, so she switched tactics. "Look, no matter what anyone else says, I know how good you are in an emergency and this whole mission is going to be one long emergency."
"That's not really a selling point." Daniel believed himself a cautious man. His idea of risk was vastly different than most peoples and his scale was likewise skewed. A man who understood the truths of the universe didn't fear it the way one who didn't understand did. Daniel was perfectly comfortable next to a pile of explosives because he knew exactly what it would take to set each and every one of them off and likewise knew exactly how to stop that from happening.
"Aren't you bored here?" Finley asked.
"Boring is safe."
"There's no such thing as safe. Not really. You could have an aneurysm just as easily as you could catch some alien disease or get killed by some madman. The universe doesn't do safe. She just…bides her time and picks her moments."
Daniel glanced at her. "I don't remember you being a pessimist."
"I'm not! I'm a realist. Humans overestimate their worth to the universe. We're a mere page in her story, but we think we're the main plot." Finley shrugged. "She's going to go on long after we're gone, the same way she was around long before we were."
Daniel nodded in agreement; he'd always identified as a universist who believed the universe was the defining factor in all things. Finley remembered having to wan off the few religious people who'd worked with them before the war, because universists believed religion was a human creation for the purpose of manipulation and control.
"Just another name for politics." Daniel had called it and gotten punched in the face once for it.
Finley agreed with him, but unlike the scientist she was an experienced fighter, and no one had ever been brave enough to try and strike her over it. Despite its dwindling influence and existence among humankind, religion still provoked a strong response in the few that followed it. Lending further credence to the universists theory that it nothing more than a brainwashing methodology.
Needless to say, the two groups didn't get along.
"What ship did they give you?" His curiosity was getting the better of him.
Finley smiled. "It's called the Loss. She's a Frankenstein."
He gave her a confused look.
"They took a bunch of destroyed ships and stuck them together." She should have just told him this in the beginning, she could practically see his need to know take over.
"That's not- The engineering behind that doesn't sound…sound."
"You should come look at it. She's quite impressive."
Daniel looked torn, stripping and twisting wires as he thought over her offer. After a few minutes, he finally put the wires down. "Fine, but just to look."
***
Daniel grimaced when they stepped out of the heart and into the satellite proper. Because Walker Hospital made so much money from its tourism side that most of the satellite, including the hospital proper was made to look like a simulated paradise. With bright, bright lights simulating the sun during the day, and ceilings and walls that turned translucent during night hours.
Since it was noon, the lights were on their brightest setting and Daniel, who was a self-admitted workaholic who hadn't left the heart in a few days while he worked on the wiring, squinted and hissed like mole finally coming out of its tunnel.
They were endemic to several of the largest asteroids in the belt now, having been introduced by miners' centuries before.
Finley thought they were adorable.
They scared the shit out of Evan, who was a proven animal lover, but who screamed every time one popped its head out of a tunnel and surprised him.
"When do you leave?" Daniel stopped to buy an iced coffee at a cart and Finley followed suit.
"A few days. Of course, I could delay if you really don't want to join us."
"It would take at least two weeks to make a new set of upgrades. Provided all the materials are available on the satellite." Daniel drank half of his huge coffee in one swallow.
"Two weeks?" Finley winced. She wouldn't be able to stall for that long without a very specific reason and installing illegal upgrades on her ship wasn't going to qualify.
The only way she was going to get them now was if she got Daniel on the ship.
Most of the debris from the explosion had been cleaned up by the time they arrived. The explosion had been twenty-four hours ago, but it had small enough and contained enough that it had been a quick clean up. There'd been nothing salvageable from the crates unfortunately, but there'd also been no loss of life, and even the those with the worst wounds had already been released from the hospital.
Security had searched every berth on the satellite after the explosion and found no other explosive devices. Russo and Security were still tracing the origins and route of the crates, but with no other signs of another weapon, everyone was confident in assuming it was another one-off attempt on Finley or the Loss itself.
~ tbc