12 October 2034 – Langley Air Force Base, Hampton, Virginia

Sabrina shuffled into the house, still in a daze. The sudden end of her career in the Air Force would deny her a pension since she only served fourteen years. More importantly, her dream of flying in space now seemed deader than her career. Tom walked into the living room from the back of the house. He gathered his stunned wife into a hug as she dissolved into tears. He held on to her as the stress of the day – and the past six months – finally caught up to her.

Sabrina snapped awake sometime later. She looked around and discovered she was in the bedroom. She shrugged off the fleece throw and swung her feet off the bed. She sat there for a moment before putting her feet on the floor. She looked at her reflection in the large mirror across the room. Anger swept over her as she tore off the OCP uniform she still wore and threw it into the corner. She wanted nothing more to do with the Air Force or its symbols. She stood there in her sports bra and panties, panting from exertion.

Tom turned from the stove when he heard his wife enter the kitchen. She was wearing a Devens Regional High School hockey t-shirt and sweatpants.

“Hi, honey.”

“How long was I asleep?”

“About four hours?” he answered with a shrug. “I was gonna wake you soon. I didn’t want your sleep cycle to get too messed up.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” She walked closer to the stove. Tom put his arm around her while stirring something in a frying pan. “Whatcha making?”

“Your dad’s shepherd’s pie recipe. I’ve already mashed up the potatoes. It’ll be ready in about an hour.”

True to his word, Tom put dinner on the table an hour and fifteen minutes later.

“Don’t tell Dad, but I think you’ve improved on his recipe.”

“I added some ground chipotle to the ground beef.”

“Chipotle …” Sabrina snorted. “There’s a well-known Irish ingredient.”

“Hey, ‘if it’s stupid, but it works …’”

“You’ve been hanging around my dad too much.”

“I’ve known you since I was three, so, yeah, I’ve been around your dad a bit.” Tom looked at his wife’s attire. “That t-shirt is a little worn out.”

“It’s the only non-Air Force shirt I have that was clean. I haven’t done the laundry yet this week.”

“The first half of your stuff is folded in the spare room,” Tom told her. “The second half’s in the dryer. Let me know what you want me to box up.”

“You’re not wasting any time.”

“Sabrina, we have to be out of the house by the end of next month,” he reminded her. “I want to be done and gone well before that. All we have left to pack is our clothes and the stuff in the kitchen.”

“Just throw all my Air Force stuff in the dumpster.”

“Nope.”

“Tom, I’m serious.”

“Yeah? So am I.” Tom put his fork down. “Sabrina, at some point, you’ll remember the good parts of your career and want some mementos from them. Until Caldwell arrived last year, you were on the express elevator to the top. This is his fault, not yours.”

“Tom …”

“You’re going to believe anything that idiot said? If you are, you don’t have the backbone I thought you did. He’s managed to derail your dreams – temporarily, Sabrina – not destroy them. You must figure out how to pick yourself up again and still find a way to accomplish them! And how to shove your next round of successes up his ass!”

Tom was pissed, something Sabrina rarely saw. He was usually the relaxed, calm, collected one; she could be the emotional one in the relationship. Nothing ever fazed him.

“Since your ‘Air Force stuff’ includes pictures of your friends from the Academy, the Gallardos, and our time in Germany, you’re not throwing any of that out. At worst, we’ll ship it all off to your parents’ house, and they can put it in the basement until you’re ready to look at it again.”

“Tom …”

“No, Sabrina. I won’t let you throw out your good memories because of one stupid asshole and his cronies. We’ll box up our stuff, let the Air Force pay to ship it home to Lancaster, and finally visit your brother and sister-in-law in Texas.”

“Tom, we don’t know where we’re going next,” she reminded him. “Shouldn’t we just get a storage unit?”

“Where? Around here? First, we’d have to pay for it. Second, we’d have to pay someone to move it again. Your parents’ place is still your home of record, so the Air Force will pay the shipping costs there. Your mom and dad aren’t gonna charge us anything to store the stuff, and I think we might be able to afford to have it moved later.”

“Tom, I hear what you’re saying, but …”

Plates rattled as Tom slammed his fist down on the table.

“DAMMIT, SABRINA!” he yelled. “Why aren’t you PISSED? You’ve been moping around the last three months since you understood your career was about to end. Fine, I get that you needed time to grieve about it, but get to the anger stage of grief! What Caldwell did to you is BULLSHIT! Where’s the fire that made you run toward the guns when we were in high school? You’ve been kicking ass since we were kids, but you won’t stand up for yourself now?”

Tom stood and flung his chair to the floor in disgust. His plate slammed down on the counter before he stormed out of the kitchen. Sabrina heard the back door slam shut. Sabrina sat staring at her half-eaten meal. She tried to summon the anger Tom wanted to see, but she still couldn’t find it in herself. She spent the past three months suppressing her feelings, trying to salvage what she could at the end of her career.

Blowing up at Caldwell and his sycophants wouldn’t have done her any good. Even now, while on her month of terminal leave and still technically in the Air Force, she had to watch herself if she was on base.

Numb. She was numb. She conditioned herself not to feel, not to react over the past months, but to take the pile of shit shoveled her way by her current commander and his staff. People she used to feel at ease with and joke with while maintaining a proper, professional relationship had distanced themselves over the same period.

The friends she and Tom had made since being posted to Langley had done the same. She understood why they did it, at least in some regard – those in the Air Force still had careers they needed to worry about. Being associated with her in any way wouldn’t suit them in the long run. Sabrina cleared her place at the table and went to find her husband.

Tom sat at the small table on their postage stamp of a back patio, staring off into the distance. The view wasn’t anything to write about. Other company- and field-grade officer housing. Sabrina knew he wasn’t looking at the landscape, anyway. She slipped an arm around her husband while she crouched behind him. Tom’s hand came up to rest on her forearm.

“I’m sorry, Tom,” she said with a sigh. “I just don’t feel anything right now, not even sadness. I’m just numb.”

“I’m sorry too, Sabrina. I shouldn’t be angry at you, and I’m really not. Caldwell, Singleton, and Hudak, though … they can burn in Hell.” Tom rose and took her hand. “C’mere.”

Tom did something with his phone before gathering his wife into his arms. A rapid, staccato guitar riff exploded from the speakers before a crash of drums. Tom pulled Sabrina into a lively, twirling dance step with the crash. He sang along with the bouncy, driving tune while gazing deep into her eyes in the way she loved.

The song’s third verse was a near match to the first. That was when Sabrina understood Tom’s point behind the dance session. The final chorus pounded that point home.

Hey, don’t write yourself off yet
It’s only in your head, you feel left out
Or looked down on
Just do your best
Do everything you can
And don’t you worry what their bitter hearts
Are gonna say

It just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything’ll be just fine
Everything, everything’ll be alright, alright

The chorus repeated one final time before the song ended.

“You’ve been listening to my dad’s music again,” Sabrina said while smiling at her husband.

“And you’ve been listening to those bitter hearts too much,” Tom countered. Sabrina laid her head against his chest.

“You’ve been pretty busy over the last month or so. I finally noticed that most of our stuff is packed.”

“Yeah, I’m just waiting for them to cut your orders so I can put a copy in each box before I tape them up. The furniture’s not ours, so there’s not much to ship home.”

“I’ll check in with Wing headquarters tomorrow to see when we can expect those orders.”

“Did you give them a copy of the papers you signed at Squadron? I wouldn’t put submitting altered paperwork past Caldwell or his bunch.”

“Yeah. Wing HQ gave me back a copy of it stamped ‘RECEIVED’ with today’s date on it; the colonel signed it personally as I watched. I’m glad you had me go over there and do that.”

“With your other COs, I wouldn’t have worried about it, but … Look, call Alex and see what their schedule is like. See if they can host us for a week or even a long weekend. Let’s get away from here for a little while.”

Alex Knox hugged his little sister when she and Tom entered the small terminal at Rudolph-Kenedy County Airport. Letting her go, he shook Tom’s hand next.

“Hey, guys, how was your flight?” he asked.

“Not bad,” Tom answered, “though I wish we’d gotten the optional lavatory in the PA-47 … I’ll be right back.”

“That’s a pretty sweet ride, Bina,” Alex remarked while motioning toward the small, twin-engine jet on the apron. “What’s it like flying that after all your years in fighters?”

“It’s both different and the same,” Sabrina admitted. “Sometimes, I feel like I’m doing forty on the highway when I should be going eighty. The almost complete lack of engine noise is still weird, but those jets are sweet. It’s a nice change at times. Tom’s almost rated for complex aircraft; he’s just building his hours.” She sighed. “I guess I’m gonna have more time to fly with him now.”

“How are you doing coming to grips with it?” her sister-in-law Adriana asked, meaning the end of Sabrina’s career.

“Still kinda numb, Anna. Tom’s well into the anger stage, but I haven’t even really started grieving, I don’t think. I’ve wanted to go into space for almost twenty-five years, and now that dream seems to be all but gone. At least Alex is still working in that field.” She turned back to her brother. “Can you get me a job?” she asked with a laugh.

“Don’t worry, Sabrina. I have a feeling that things will work out in the end,” Alex replied.

Alex drove off the airport property and pointed the car east. Once past Interstate 69E, the old US Route 77, the empty South Texas landscape opened up before them again.

“Wow, there’s nothing out here!” Tom commented.

“Goes on for miles,” Alex said. “There are miles of these scrub trees mixed with open plains and ranch land. Since they removed all the pumpjacks, that’s about it.”

A large sign appeared in the distance, warning drivers of a restricted area.

“‘Baffin Bay Spaceport, Headquarters of Ad Astra Space Exploration, Ltd. – Employee Entrance. Authorized Personnel Only,’” Sabrina read. “Sounds serious …”

“You’ve got your military IDs. Hand them up. We put your names on a visitor’s list, so we should be good.”

It took another ten minutes before Alex pulled into the driveway of a two-story house. The housing area had been one of the first sections completed on the sprawling spaceport; the subdivision reminded Sabrina of the senior officers’ housing areas on military bases.

“Wow, this place is yours?” Sabrina asked as she stepped inside, out of the heat.

“Well, it belongs to Ad Astra, the company developing the spaceport and the one we both work for,” Adriana answered. “They completed the housing first so everyone would have a decent place to return to at the end of their workday.”

“So much room. The place Tom and I have at Edwards is about half this size.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have three kids,” Alex said, putting an arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“You only have the two, Alex.” Her brother and sister-in-law smiled back at her. “OHMYGOD!” Sabrina shrieked before rushing over to hug Adriana. Tom finally clued in and shook Alex’s hand in congratulations.

“How far along are you, Anna?” he asked.

“Only a couple of months. You’re the first people we’ve told. Not even the parents know yet. The housing office assigned us this place last year when we told them we would be adding to our family.”

“Have you told Matty and Sera yet?”

“Well, yeah, we did tell them. We’re telling you guys now because they’ll spill the secret as soon as they’re home,” Alex laughed.

Later that evening, a dozen other couples from the neighborhood joined Sabrina and Tom on her brother’s back patio. Since it was Texas, a large smoker cooled beside the patio after cooking meats. Guests also enjoyed different Tex-Mex dishes and some from the Mexican Chihuahua region, where Adriana Rosado Knox’s father’s side of the family came from.

All the other guests worked for Ad Astra somehow; there were no stay-at-home spouses. Those who didn’t work in spacecraft development with Alex worked in other supporting fields on the growing spaceport. The mix of different jobs represented kept the technobabble to a minimum and kept the talk focused on the families present. Sabrina found the evening very relaxing.

While enjoying their after-dinner drinks, the other guests raised a cheer when a new arrival walked around the corner of Alex and Anna’s house.

“Hey, Boss!” Alex called out to the newcomer. “Wanna beer?”

“Now there’s a dumb question …” the woman snorted as she pulled a bottle from the beer cooler.

“Sabrina, this is my boss, Beth. Well, all of us here work for her. Beth, this is my little sister, Sabrina. Her husband Tom’s around here somewhere.”

Beth said nothing in greeting. Instead, she flipped something at Sabrina. Sabrina almost fumbled the catch but saw the small object flying toward her just in time. In the patio’s dim light, Sabrina made out the black leather of a flight suit name badge resting in her hands. The stylized, silver-embossed wings reminded her more of Army flight wings than the familiar Air Force ones. The badge bore ‘SABRINA KNOX-JONES’ under the wings, with ‘AD ASTRA CHIEF PILOT’ below.

“Alex tells me y’all’re in the market for a new job,” Beth said. “Got one for y’all if y’all’re interested.”

Sabrina nearly dropped her drink in shock.

“Mark this date down on your calendar, Beth. I doubt you’ll ever see my sister speechless again,” Alex laughed. Turning to his sister, he said, “Beth’s the president and CEO of Ad Astra, Sabrina. We’re at the point where we’re ready to do some flight testing of a single-stage-to-orbit lifter, or we will be very soon. I told her about you being bounced out of the Air Force despite being one of their best test pilots.”

Sabrina blinked a couple of times before turning to her brother’s boss.

“This is unreal! Why would you offer me a position like this? All you’ve likely heard about me is my big brother’s bragging.”

Beth snorted.

“I’ve known about y’all since y’all were thirteen, Sabrina, and I’ve followed y’all ever since.” She chuckled at the look on Sabrina’s face. “After the end of the 2012-2013 school year – y’all’s freshman year at Devens Regional – y’all received the Youth Citizen Foundation’s Integrity Award. Two years later, after that first home invasion, the Foundation sent y’all another letter to assure y’all their opinion of y’all hadn’t changed.”

Sabrina looked at Alex.

“Did you tell her about all that?”

“Like I said, he didn’t have to, Sabrina. At the bottom of the second letter was a handwritten postscript. I didn’t have to convince Dad to let me write that because he was all for it.”

“YOU wrote that?”

“Sure did. ‘Y’all go, girl!’ I meant it then, and I mean it now. I hope y’all’ll help take Ad Astra to new heights.”

The other guests left hours ago. Alex, Anna, Tom, Beth, and Sabrina sat around the dying embers in the fire pit outside on the patio. Sabrina was still shocked by the job offer, so she kept staring at the name badge.

“She gonna be okay?” Beth asked Tom.

“Probably,” Tom shrugged. “Anyway, enough about her. You got a tax prep office around here looking for some experienced help?”

“Sure do. Looking to get on the payroll, Tom?”

“Why should my wife reap all the benefits? Plus, with as many people as you’ll have working here eventually, a place like that will need help every year between February and April, at the very least. That’s what I’ve done at every place Sabrina got stationed.”

“I can introduce y’all to Milt and Clara, the two that run the place, when y’all’re ready.”

“Sounds good. I need to take your chief pilot on vacation first, though. She’s been under some stress lately, and I want her to decompress first.”

“I’d appreciate it if you did. I will need her running on all cylinders when you get back.”

That snapped Sabrina out of her trance.

“Wait, I haven’t agreed to take the job yet!”

Beth and Tom glanced at each other, exchanging smirks before turning to Sabrina.

“Were you even listening, Sabrina?” Tom asked. “They’re getting ready to test a single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft. SPACE, honey. How much do you wanna bet Beth’s already got a name tag for you with the astronaut device on your wings?”

Beth couldn’t hide her smile.

“See? She does! You pass the Karman Line at any point during your test flights, and everybody on the planet will recognize you as being an astronaut. NASA and the Air Force say space starts at only fifty miles up, not the sixty-two Karman theorized.”

“And y’all’ll already have the inside track on being a mission commander for us,” Beth added. “The Air Force was going to be a dead end for y’all regarding crewed spaceflight, Sabrina. The Feds have gutted NASA so severely that they’re going to come begging to ride with us at some point. They barely do crewed missions now, as it is.

“We, on the other hand, have a list of investors as long as y’all’s arm, who understand it’ll take time for us to ramp up things here. Once successful, our experimental SSTO will become the first in a heavy-lift spacecraft fleet, allowing us to build our space station. That station will be the jumping-off point to wherever we want to go next.

“Both y’all take a nice, long vacation. Don’t come back here until after New Year’s unless all y’all’s family will visit Alex and Anna for the holidays. I’m serious about offering y’all that position, Sabrina, and I’m also serious about needing y’all rested by the time y’all start working for me.”

Sabrina and Tom lay side-by-side in bed later that night. She still couldn’t believe the events of the evening.

“Holy shit, Tom,” she whispered.

“Right? I’m glad I told Alex about your troubles a few months ago. How long would Beth have waited before coming to us to offer you the job? If we hadn’t visited, she probably would have tracked us down to do it.”

“Still blows my mind. She told me she even talked to General Cunningham and Grease Wells!”

“And that’s why she offered you the job, Sabrina. After talking to them and a few others, she knew what kind of officer you were and that you weren’t the kind of officer Caldwell said you were. Anyway, where do you want to go for vacation? If we want to be gone that long, we’ve got a month or so.”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “About the only place I want to visit off the top of my head, other than Lancaster, is Colorado Springs; we haven’t seen Helen and Joe in years. And, despite all the bullshit of the last six months, I think I want to visit the Academy, too.”

“We’re clear to head up there right now, now that we’re out of Edwards. Your military ID and my dependent ID will both be valid until your terminal leave ends. We might as well take advantage of that. It’ll make getting into the Academy easier.”

“Right. Why don’t we call Helen and Joe tomorrow and see if a week from now will work for them? We can wander around the country in the PiperJet for a little while before we head home to Lancaster for Christmas.” Sabrina poked her husband in the ribs when she realized she’d missed something earlier. “And when did you learn all that stuff about space and the Karman Line, anyway?”

Tom snorted.

“How long have we been together, Sabrina? Forget that. How long have I known you? If I haven’t learned about my wife’s interests after knowing her for more than thirty years, don’t you think that might constitute a ‘problem?’”

Helen and Joe Gallardo were thrilled to hear from their former sponsor cadet and her husband. Sabrina and Tom would spend a week with them before heading east. The years since Sabrina’s cadet days hadn’t lessened the attachment formed between her and the Gallardos. Helen and Joe were her second set of parents; their girls were the little sisters she had never had.

Helen hugged Sabrina tight inside the general aviation terminal at Colorado Springs Airport on the Friday before Halloween.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you two!” she gushed as she hugged Tom. “Sabrina, I’m so sorry to hear about your career.”

“It’s okay, Helen, I’ll live. How are your girls?”

“Felicity’s good. She likes her company, especially since she’s past the entry-level BS. It sucks matter what you do. Mia’s a two-deg at the Academy already, and I think you remember what that’s like.”

They piled into the Gallardo’s SUV for the ride to the house.

“So, Sabrina, any idea what’s next?” Joe asked from the driver’s seat.

“Kinda,” Sabrina replied as she dropped a flight suit’s name tag in Helen’s lap, the same one Beth Oldham tossed at her two weeks ago, along with an Ad Astra patch.

“OHMYGOD! Are you serious?” Helen squealed.

“What?” Joe asked, trying to keep his eyes on the highway.

“JOE! She’s the chief pilot for AD ASTRA!”

“Well, I will be. Beth told us to take a long vacation and unwind after all the stress of the last six months. We’ll both start working for Ad Astra after the first of the year.”

Joe glanced at Tom in the rear-view mirror.

“You’re gonna be working for them, too?”

“Yeah, they’ve got a tax prep center at the spaceport for the folks who work there. I’ll join them for tax season and see how it goes. Unless I screw up, the owners say they’ve got a year-round spot for me.”

The following day, Colorado dawned clear and cold. When Sabrina stepped outside for her run, a light dusting of snow covered the ground. The sun was already over the horizon, so the dusting would disappear from the pavement soon, but Sabrina would have to watch her step in the meantime. She kept her pace slow, owing to the thin air at seventy-two hundred feet of elevation.

“How’d it go?” Tom asked when she returned. He sipped at his coffee as Sabrina took off her gloves and hat.

“My lungs are on fire! I am not used to the air up here anymore.”

“Well, go get cleaned up. Joe and Helen are taking us out for breakfast.”

The breakfast place was perfect, definitely a step above the chain places. It used fresh, local ingredients and offered interesting interpretations of breakfast classics. Thankfully, none of its interpretations included Rocky Mountain Oysters.

Cadets at the Air Force Academy enjoyed a ‘blue weekend’ this weekend. No inspections, required training, or home football games ate into their two days of downtime. Helen found Mia relaxing in her room when she called her. The youngest Gallardo agreed to meet her parents by the Cadet Chapel in a half-hour. Her parents didn’t mention their guests.

“She sounds happy,” Sabrina remarked after Helen hung up.

“I’m pretty sure she is. As a squadron superintendent this semester, she has much more responsibility than most of her class. But she’s always handled challenges well. She’s playing club hockey, too. She enjoys still being able to play without the much higher expectations of intercollegiate sports.”

“She’s ranked high in her class?” Tom asked.

“Top ten percent,” Joe answered proudly. “She likes the Space Operations track she’s on, too.”

Sabrina and Tom’s IDs got them through the Academy’s gate. Helen and Joe still held valid IDs as members of the Academy’s sponsor program, though this would be their last year as sponsors. Joe parked in the chapel’s parking lot, and they all piled out.

“Sabrina, you and Tom go around the north end of the chapel and come down the east side. Helen and I will try to keep Mia from noticing you as you approach. She’ll be waiting for us at the southeast corner of the building.”

Sabrina and Tom hustled around the gleaming building, watching as Joe swung his daughter during their hug. The sound of Mia’s laughter grew as they approached.

“You guys act like I didn’t just see you two weeks ago!” Mia giggled.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Mia!”

“Crap, Dad, gimme a break!”

“Get used to it, Mia,” Sabrina quipped. “My dad still acts the same way with me, and I’m a bit older than you.”

Mia spun around and nearly tackled her pseudo-big sister.

“SABRINA! Tom!” She stepped back and blinked at the jet-black flight jacket Sabrina wore. “No WAY! You’re working for Ad Astra?”

“Tom and I will start working for them after the first of the year. We’ll move to the spaceport they’re building south of Corpus Christi, Texas. The place is going to be huge! They’re basically building an Air Force base, complete with housing and all the other amenities and services you’d expect on base. Ad Astra also built a small civilian airport ten miles away to support the place and will expand it once the spaceport is finished.”

“Wow, you work fast! Mom only told me about you having to leave the Air Force last week! Hey, hang on!”

Mia tapped the compod behind her ear. It unfolded, deploying its small retinal projector in front of her right eye.

“Squeaky? It’s Mia … Hey, can you sign me out? Some old friends are in town and surprised me over here at the Chapel … Yeah, until ACQ tomorrow night … No, my room’s all locked up … Thanks, Squeaky.” Mia ended the call, and the compod retracted. “Let’s bug out! I don’t have to be back here for thirty-six hours.”

The Joneses treated Helen, Joe, and Mia to lunch at one of Colorado Springs’ outstanding sushi and hibachi restaurants. Their server was not fazed by a customer’s Japanese order, which still amazed the others at the table.

“They probably have someone do that daily,” Sabrina commented once the server departed.

“One of these days, I’ll be able to keep up with you in a conversation using Japanese,” Tom said, shaking his head, “but today is not that day.”

“Anyway, back to this new job of yours, Sabrina!” Mia chirped.

“Honestly, Mia, I don’t know much about it yet. Tom and I now have Ad Astra IDs to access the spaceport after the first of the year, but that’s it. Beth, the lady who’ll be our ultimate boss, said we’d cover everything else once we get back there.”

“‘Ultimate boss?’”

“Beth’s the CEO of Ad Astra,” Tom explained. “She started it herself and built it from the ground up. The spaceport will be the company’s showpiece, but they also have their private test range out in the deserts of New Mexico.”

“But you’re going to be in Texas, where Alex and his family are?”

“I get the feeling we’ll be based there,” Sabrina commented, “but I figure I’ll be flying back and forth between South Texas and Las Cruces.”

“That’ll be two long days each trip,” Joe pointed out.

“I hear a rumor that Beth’s gotten her hands on a half-dozen surplus T-7C Red Hawk trainer aircraft.”

“At least those aren’t older than you are … T-38s or F-5s would have been.”

Flying from Colorado to Massachusetts took four days. Sabrina and Tom were in no hurry, and a storm out of Canada held them up. Neither wanted to fly in swirling, fifty-knot winds. Her parents met them at the FBO in Fitchburg.

“Hi, Mom and Dad.” Sabrina hugged her mother. “Thanks for coming to get us. And thanks for taking all that stuff we sent you.”

“Of course, Princess,” her father replied, getting a hug from his daughter. “You work fast! A new job lined up before the Air Force even stops paying you? Nice!”

“Yeah, kinda lucked out there, huh?” Sabrina glanced at Tom. “We might have to go shopping. I think it’s colder here than it was in Colorado! Are the clothes we packed heavy enough?”

“Should be,” Tom answered. “I made sure to pack the heaviest stuff we had. We might still need to hit a store or two if we’ll be here for over two weeks.”

“And will you be, Sabrina?” Keiko asked.

“We don’t have to be back in Texas until after New Year’s, Mom. We’ll be here for Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

“The family will be happy to see you again at the Christmas party. You both have been unable to attend for several years.”

“Our time hasn’t exactly been our own until now, mostly because of me. After New Year’s, I think our free time will belong to someone else again.”

Driving around Lancaster and its environs was strange for the couple. Most of their childhood and high school haunts were missing, and businesses had closed or moved in the eighteen years since graduation. Devens Regional had a large, new glass and steel addition that housed the science labs.

Enrollment has swelled fifteen percent since the mid-2010s, and the old labs are now used as standard classrooms. Big Steps Day Care was no longer there, and Shirley Police were now using the building as an annex of their station. At least the sign for Fort Devens hadn’t changed.

“Still a Special Operations Command base …” Tom muttered as they pulled into the Chinese restaurant next to the main gate. He pointed to the large red arrowhead and black dagger patch of Army Special Operations Command proudly displayed on the sign.

“The Night Stalkers are still here, too,” Sabrina added as four MH-91 Creek transport helicopters roared overhead. The smaller, winged dagger patch of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment also graced the gate’s sign. “Let’s eat.”

They tried to reach one or two friends who still lived in the area before Thanksgiving but weren’t having any luck doing so. Sabrina and Tom met Alex, Anna, and their two kids at the FBO in Fitchburg two days before the holiday.

“Thank God for charter services,” Alex muttered while hugging his sister. “You couldn’t pay me enough to fly commercial tomorrow!”

“Like you need the money anyway, Mister Smarty-Pants.”

“It’s not like I’m seeing any royalties from the patents yet, you know.”

Sabrina credited her mother with keeping one Suburban when the eight of them piled into it Thursday morning. Sabrina and Tom chuckled at being relegated to the far back of the vehicle. Their nephew Matty joined them there. His aunt and uncle used their Spanish when talking with him during the ride. They would all need to be comfortable speaking that language back at the spaceport.

The ride to her grandparents’ house passed before they knew it. They were glad to get out and stretch after the hour’s ride. Sabrina looked with sadness at her grandfather’s limp, a consequence of his bad hip.

“How are you doing, Grandpa?” Sabrina asked after kissing him on the cheek.

“This damn hip,” he grumbled. “It’s a pain in my ass! And it’s a good thing I’m not still fixing cars.” Joe caught the look on her face. “Sweetheart, I’m old! Like, ‘about ninety-five years old’ old.”

“But you’re my grandpa, Grandpa!”

He patted her on the back.

“Don’t you worry, Sabrina. I’m getting it replaced after Christmas, and those new nanotech gizmos will make me feel okay quickly.” He steered her toward the house. “Come on, your grandma’s been cooking up a storm all morning. She deserves a break to say hi to her family before we eat.”

Sabrina entered the house her father grew up in, laughing at a joke Matty told her. Another guest rising from the couch caught her eye as she approached, and the laughter stopped.

“Hi, Sabrina.”

“Hi, Ryan,” she replied. She stepped over to her other brother and hugged him. Their relationship was still strained, nowhere near as good as her relationship with Alex, but at least it wasn’t a hostile one any longer.

“It’s good to see you. I’m sorry about your career. I know you wanted to go much further in the Air Force.”

“It’s okay, Ryan,” she shrugged. “I’ll be working at the same spaceport in Texas where Alex and Anna are. I’ll be the chief pilot down there when I start. Anyway, who are the young ladies with you?”

“Sabrina, this is Ariel Nagy and her daughter, Summer. Ariel, this is my younger sister, Sabrina.”

Sabrina smiled at the blonde with big blue eyes next to Ryan. Ariel stood a bit shorter than she did – about five-foot-four to Sabrina’s five-foot-eight – and had a friendly, open look.

“It’s nice to meet you finally, Sabrina,” Ariel said while offering her hand. She tried introducing her daughter, Summer, to Sabrina, but the girl hid behind Ariel instead. Ryan snuggled with the almost seven-year-old on the couch to reassure her.

“How’d you meet this character here?”

“I needed something at Bilzarian’s, and Ryan was restocking things in that aisle. Naturally, what I needed was way above where I could reach, so he grabbed it for me. I introduced myself, and that was that.” She looked at Ryan. “How long ago was that now, Sweetie?”

“Three years in May. The best thing that ever happened to me, Sabrina. Other than you decking me when I turned up here a decade ago.”

Ariel laughed.

“I still find it hard to believe you think having your nose broken and losing a molar is a ‘good thing,’ Ryan.”

“I got my sister back that night, honey.”

Ariel sat on Ryan’s unencumbered side and pulled him in for a hug. Sabrina felt a wave of sadness. She hadn’t been very good at keeping in touch with Ryan, unlike she had been with Alex.

Thanksgiving dinner reminded Sabrina of the ones she had here as a kid. Conversation flowed freely across the table during the meal. Ariel and Summer, seated across from Sabrina, proved to be pleasant company. Bright, articulate, and funny, Ariel was a definite improvement over Ryan’s previous girlfriends, and Summer was a delight.

The younger adults chatted in the living room after Matty, Sera, and Summer were in bed. Their parents and grandparents headed to the family room at the back of the house. Ryan sat quietly on the couch, holding Ariel’s hand as she talked with his brother, sister, and their spouses. Occasionally, he shook his head, and a sad look flickered across his face.

“Are you okay, Ryan?”

“I’m okay, Tom,” he sighed. “Your conversation is so far over my head it’s not even funny. Your degree is in finance – bookkeeping – but you’re throwing physics and engineering terms around with the ladies like it’s nothing. If I hadn’t had my head up my ass all those years, maybe I’d be able to offer something useful to the discussion.”

Ariel punched her boyfriend in the shoulder.

“At least you’re not running yourself down as much as you used to!” She turned back to the other young adults. “He acts like he’s a dummy sometimes!”

“Remind me which of us has their doctorate and teaches college physics, again?” Ryan asked. “Hint: it’s not this guy!”

Another punch.

“And who can explain the most difficult home repairs to someone without a clue? What the difference is between different products, and why should someone use one versus the other? Ryan, stop!”

She put her head on his shoulder. Ryan kissed the top of her head.

“I’m lucky I didn’t take you up on your offer to move to Texas three and a half years ago, Alex, or I would have never met Ariel or Summer. I would have missed out on the best things to happen to me. I’m grateful they decided to take a chance on this old derelict.”

“You’re pushing your luck, you know …”

“You love me, and you know it.”

Ariel snuggled closer.

“I do.”

“You might want to remember those words one of these days, Miss Nagy.”

“Waiting, Mr. Knox,” she whispered, wagging her left hand at him, “waiting …”

“I know, honey.”

Sabrina couldn’t help but smile. Her feelings for her brother had changed in the ten years since his return. Ten years ago, she wanted nothing more than to beat the shit out of him, and she did. Now, she found she wanted him to be happy, thriving. Their grandfather convinced Charlie Bilzarian and his son John to take a chance on the recovering addict not long after Sabrina laid him out. She knew the trust had come slowly, but Mr. B named Ryan one of his assistant managers last year.

“Hey, I forgot! Some things for these four are still out in the car,” Ryan said as he turned to Ariel. “Can you come help me with them?”

“Sure,” she replied, following her boyfriend outside.

Everyone in the house heard a shriek of joy a minute later.

“I guess Ariel doesn’t have to wait any longer,” Alex said, raising his beer to his lips.