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operating. She could sell the apartment. Still nowhere near enough, not in the same country as enough.
    For the first time she wished she could have tapped into the income stream from Uncle Brennan’s Y-Drive patents. But that had never tempted her. It had all been tied up in the courts anyhow, and shown promise to stay that way for years. Disappearance in space, it seemed, had no legal precedent. No court could be persuaded to declare Brennan Yuschenkov dead. His income went into escrow, accumulating interest, though with regular withdrawals to pay the lawyers. And that had been fine with Brooklynn. Capitalizing on her uncle’s fame, infamy, or money did not sit well with her. Anonymity was a prize she and her mother had worked hard to achieve. Brooklynn had determined to succeed or fail on her own merits and she had stuck to that commitment, keeping her connection to Brennan Yuschenkov to herself whenever possible.
    She would need to keep working, berth onboard whatever spaceship hired her on, save the expense of lodgings. But even with her rating, wages wouldn’t begin to come close. She would need investors, which would require some sort of business proposal. More details. The complications piled up. Maybe she could hit up mom for a loan. Her mother had never given up her claim to her brother’s patent income. Perhaps a probate court had finally come around, though Brooklynn wasn’t sanguine about the prospect.
    And of course she would need a crew. Birthing another complication: There was no way she would be able to afford a pair of ships, not with the investors her utter lack of a track record would attract. That, sure as Mehmet Azziz was roasting in Hell, would affect the makeup of the crew. Given the roughly one in fifty odds of Y-Drive failure, Brooklynn would have to find people crazy enough, desperate enough, damaged enough to take the risk of becoming adrift in deep space, on an endless one-way trip.
    Crazy, desperate, damaged. Okay. But above all, the crew would need to be people she could trust.

Chapter 3
    S TAFF SERGEANT AIDAN CARSON ADJUSTED THE fit of his parachute harness and wondered why the prospect of a fiery atmospheric re-entry followed by a nighttime HALO jump into hostilities left him feeling unmoved. Should have had his blood pumping, the adrenaline flowing like Niagara Falls. Instead he sat calmly in the passenger bay as the rest of the five-man team saw to last minute equipment checks.
    The shuttle detached from the dedicated Special Forces orbital platform. Maneuvering thrusters spurted, orienting the craft earthward. Another jet and the craft began its descent.
    Master Sergeant Antoine Summers drifted by, taking advantage of the last few minutes of weightlessness to inspect the team. Clutching a hanging strap he paused by Staff Sergeant Bryce Sinclair, seated next to Aidan, and he tightened the chinstrap on Sinclair’s aerodynamic helmet. The smart camouflage paint impregnating the Kevlar/polycarbonate sandwich of the helmet showed as dim ochre with red and orange highlights, mimicking the conditions inside the cramped bay; muted tactical lighting and LED status indicators provided limited illumination for the team.
    “Slipstream’ll rip your fucking head off if you keep it so loose, John Wayne,” Summers told Sinclair. Then, continuing on to Aidan he said, “You in the game, Carson?”
    “Don’t worry about me, Summers. I’m in all four quarters.” And he meant it. He didn’t display or even feel any of the symptoms of short-timer’s disease. He was focused and knew the other four on the team could rely on him just as he relied on them. He didn’t feel detached, just...emotionally disengaged. He was there, in the moment, ready to do his part as a member of this woefully short-handed team. But the rage fueling the last two years of firefights–interspersed with periods of training for more firefights–had dwindled, flickered out.
    “Coms check,” came Captain Merit’s voice