Jewel 16x -

“I know what she is,” Lira said.

“And now it’s in your bay,” the merchant corrected. “For a price that’ll clean out your family’s credit for three generations.”

Sixteen times standard.

She had never been happier.

Lira tapped her knuckles against the viewport of the salvage bay. Outside, tethered in the blue glow of dock lights, hung the most beautiful disaster she had ever seen. The Jewel 16X was a courier racer from the last age of sail-by-wire, a single-seat dart of carbon-ceramic and old luck. Its nose was sharp enough to split a photon. Its engine cowling was scarred with the black roses of micrometeorite strikes. One stabilizer fin had been replaced with a patch job that looked like a welded biscuit tin. jewel 16x

“You know what sixteen times safety means? It means the inertial compensators are a polite suggestion. It means if you sneeze at the wrong angle, your organs will redecorate the cockpit. It means—”

She took the Jewel out on a shakedown run through the Graveyard—a field of ancient colony pods and broken freighters. At standard thrust, she handled like a nervous horse. At twice standard, the stars began to smear. At four times, the Graveyard turned into a blur of rust and shadow, and Lira laughed—a wild, terrified sound—because she understood why the other six had died. “I know what she is,” Lira said

The merchant shook his head and left her there, floating in the dark, the Jewel 16X humming beneath her like a second heart—dangerous, impossible, and hers.