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1. A Race of Thoughts, or: Reassigned
Three days until the high-difficulty asteroid belt transit mission.
The Silver Anchor's maintenance had entered its final stage.
"...We don't have time to waste. Shutia — let's split the work. I'll stay in the dock and run the final calibration on the anchor's output systems. You go to Hal Maintenance and order the replacement panels for the damaged exterior plating."
Ledea Mace didn't look up from the diagnostic log.
"Wait — sis! The anchor is *my* equipment. I should be the one calibrating it — that way I'm not making extra work for you—"
"No. The calibration involves rewriting precision programming. That's my department."
"Then — then I'll stay right beside sis and make sure sis stays hydrated by offering tea every three seconds—"
"That would make the work impossible. ...Go. Hal Maintenance. Sati will be waiting."
The name landed in Shutia's mind like a thrown object.
*(Sati—)*
The image surfaced immediately: a certain earnest girl gripping Shutia's sleeve, looking up with complete sincerity and asking to be treated like a little sister. And behind her, Ledea, smiling without any defenses whatsoever — *you seem close, I think that's a good thing.*
If Ledea went to Hal Maintenance alone right now — what would happen? What would Sati do? What would Ledea's face look like when she did it? The possibilities were unclear and every single one of them was unacceptable.
*(Absolutely not. That, of all things—)*
This was survival instinct. Pure and simple. It had nothing to do with how soothing Sati's presence was, or the fact that touching her hair had produced a strangely pleasant calm, or anything remotely impure like that. Nothing whatsoever. (Probably.)
"...Understood, sis! I'll leave the anchor calibration entirely to sis! I'll handle the repair order! I'm going right now, at light speed, and I'll be back immediately, so sis please do not move from this spot under any circumstances—!!"
"...Yes, yes. There's no need to rush."
Shutia left like a storm passing through.
Ledea turned back to the anchor's console in the quiet that followed.
"...Honestly. Noisy as ever."
But the small smile on her face remained.
She began checking the anchor's delicate drive components, one by one, with unhurried care.
"...This part. I chose this myself, when we were first putting the ship together. So Shutia could use it freely. As powerfully as she wanted to."
The sound of careful work filled the dock.
The trust that lived in it went unspoken.
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2. An Angel of Comfort, and an Uninvited "Premier"
Hal Maintenance.
The automatic door had barely finished opening before Sati came bounding over, smile at full brightness.
"Oh — Shutia! Hello! ...Hm? Is Ledea not with you today?"
"...Hello, Sati. Sis is holding down the fort. Just me today."
"Ehehe — Shutia coming in on your own, that's somehow exciting. Come on, to the counter in the back! I'll make cold tea!"
Sati's uncomplicated smile. Her ponytail swinging with every step. The moment Shutia saw it, the anxious tangle that had been building since she left the Silver Anchor simply — dissolved.
*(...She really is soothing. Having sis meet her still terrifies me, but this — the way she just, openly, genuinely — there's something about that that doesn't feel bad at all—)*
Shutia had just begun to relax, fractionally, when it happened.
"My... it seems the air in here has taken a sudden turn for the unsanitary, hasn't it."
From the depths of the workshop: a voice. High. Familiar. Insufferably self-assured.
The woman who emerged was shaking her ringlet curls with the deliberate flair of someone who knew exactly what she was doing, a decorative folding fan — rated for use in vacuum — held open in one hand.
Katrine.
"...Oh no."
"*'Oh no'?!* How dare you look at a guest of my distinction as though you've encountered something unpleasant — have some manners, Shutia Mace!"
Katrine advanced on Shutia, who had made no effort to hide her expression.
"What are you doing here? Someone like you — a rough-edged odd-jobs operator — belongs in a rust-smelling, oil-soaked repair bay. Somewhere more appropriate to your station."
"I could say the same to you. Where's your personal maintenance team? ...Don't tell me you're here to spy on my work again, out of sheer envy."
"How *rude*. I'll have you know I am here because I was informed that Sati's technical expertise befits the Galaxy's Premier Adventurer — that would be myself — and I came to confirm this personally for the first time. ...And I must say, it is a splendid shop." A pause, with deliberate timing. "Aside from one rather significant problem with the clientele."
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3. A Three-Way Stalemate, or: The Limits of a Lady
Sparks. Both of them, generating sparks.
Then Sati tilted her head and inserted herself between them.
"Um... do you two know each other?"
Sati's eyes, completely clear and entirely without guile.
Shutia caught herself.
*(I can't lose composure in front of Sati. In front of Sati, I am composed, elegant, and gracious — that is the only version of me she gets to see.)*
"...Yes, we have a passing acquaintance. Don't mind us, Sati."
The composed smile snapped back into place.
Katrine, for her part, appeared to have similar calculations running — she wanted to remain a *good client* in Sati's eyes, which meant the fan came up, and her voice dropped to something conspiratorial.
"Sati, dear. A word of caution — I wouldn't open your heart too readily to this one. Lovely exterior, I'll grant that, but the interior is entirely occupied by her sister, with no room for anything else. She is, in the clinical sense, an irredeemable obsessive. You may want to take care — you could find yourself mistaken for a substitute at any moment."
"Oh — Shutia might... mistake me for her sister...?" Sati paused. Then, with a faint color in her cheeks: "...That's... actually a little exciting."
"It would never happen! Sati, surely I don't seem like someone who would do that—?!"
Katrine's insinuation had passed through Sati's particular filter — a filter made entirely of admiration — and arrived somewhere that was not the intended destination at all.
Shutia turned back to Katrine with her smile intact and her voice sweet.
"Ka — *trine.* Might I ask you not to monopolize Sati's time unnecessarily? She's busy. She is far too skilled an engineer to be spending her afternoon on someone with your level of social grace."
"I beg your pardon — I am compensating her fairly and appreciating her craft appropriately. ...Sati, dear, does this woman's rather uncharitable phrasing make you at all uncomfortable? You're welcome to take refuge aboard my ship, if it does."
"No — Shutia is incredibly kind! She even patted my head once — isn't that right, Shutia!"
Sati attached herself to Shutia's arm.
*(Oh — that's wonderful, it's genuinely wonderful, but Katrine is right now looking at me with the exact expression of someone who has confirmed their worst suspicions and I cannot—)*
Three sets of emotions, entirely incompatible, colliding in the space of a small repair shop:
Shutia, desperate to look composed in front of Sati.
Katrine, desperate to isolate Shutia by turning Sati against her.
Sati, watching both of them with shining eyes and an absolute gift for accidentally making everything worse.
Hal Maintenance had never before contained quite this particular atmosphere.
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4. The Return, or: A Living Ghost
Several hours later.
Shutia walked back into the Silver Anchor looking as though her soul had partially vacated the premises.
"...I'm back. Sis..."
"Welcome back, Shutia. You took quite a while — did something happen?"
Ledea had finished the anchor calibration perfectly. She was toweling off her hands when she came to meet her.
"...No. The repair order is... in. ...Sati... and Katrine... and the Galaxy's Premier... three-way standoff..."
"Katrine was there? That's unexpected."
"...Sis. ...Why is the world... so complicated..."
Shutia collapsed face-first onto the living room sofa and did not move again.
Ledea looked at her with something that was not quite exasperation, then found the spare blanket and laid it over the motionless figure.
"You worked hard, Shutia. ...I'll make tea. Rest for a while."
"...Sis. ...Promise me sis will always be... my sis..."
Muffled. Barely audible. Face still in the cushion.
Ledea looked at her own hands — the ones that had spent the afternoon tuning every component of the anchor so that Shutia could use it as freely and as powerfully as she needed to.
Then she set one hand on her sister's head, and ran it through her hair — slowly, with more care than Shutia had shown Sati, more care than most things warranted.
"Of course I will. ...You are my precious sister. And my partner."
Whether even half of it reached her was unclear. Shutia had begun to breathe in the slow, even rhythm of someone already asleep.
The storm of Hal Maintenance receded. The Silver Anchor's quiet settled around it, and Ledea's tea was already beginning to brew.