She would be calm and logical and she would explain to them why their assumptions were wrong. It was too late to go now-tomorrow, then. The grease and whiskey scent from the tavern nearly choked her as she swallowed her breaths, trying to rationalize her way out of the anger. Her harness cut into her chest, suddenly strangling, and she released the buckle and kicked open her door at the same time, half falling into the alley’s shadows. “ You idiots!” She threw the port at the floorboards in front of the passenger seat and slumped back, stringing her curly hair through her fingers. After three solid whaps, the screen only flickered in mild irritation. She released a guttural scream and slammed the port down on the ship’s control panel, hoping to shatter it into pieces of plastic and metal and wire. The words CASE CLOSED laughed back up at her. The plastic panel on the back of the screen crunched in her tightening grip. Scarlet stared at the small screen until the words turned into a screaming blur of white and black and the ground seemed to drop out from beneath the ship. The comm was followed by a video ad from the police, reminding all delivery ship pilots to be safe and wear their harnesses while engines were running. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATRONAGE OF OUR DETECTIVE SERVICES. CONJECTURE: PERSON(S) LEFT OF OWN FREE WILL AND/OR SUICIDE. THIS COMMUNICATION IS TO INFORM SCARLET BENOIT OF RIEUX, FRANCE, EF, THAT AS OF 15:42 ON 28 AUG 126 THE CASE OF MISSING PERSON(S) MICHELLE BENOIT OF RIEUX, FRANCE, EF, HAS BEEN DISMISSED DUE TO LACK OF SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE OF VIOLENCE OR NONSPECIFIC FOUL PLAY. She expected a vidlink from the detective assigned to her grandmother’s case, but all she got was a stream of unembellished text. “Accept!” she yelled, practically choking the port in her fingers.

The Toulouse police must have found something. Its pale blue light glinted off the cockpit’s controls. Scarlet killed the engine, already grabbing for the discarded portscreen. Heart jumping, she swerved just in time to keep the ship’s starboard side from skidding against the stone wall, and threw down the brakes before reaching a complete stop. Scarlet was descending toward the alley behind the Rieux Tavern when her portscreen chimed from the passenger seat, followed by an automated voice: “ Comm received for Mademoiselle Scarlet Benoit from the Toulouse Law Enforcement Department of Missing Persons.”

Scarlet lunar