With the fake crystal created and the decision made to use it Drake found himself sitting in his cabin with time to think. He made good use of it. His eyes drifted to the picture of Catherine he’d recently placed on his desk.
His sister was sixteen in the photo, eyes sparkling and full of life as they always were. She was wearing the several sizes too big leather jacket he’d been badgered into buying her.
She’d kept that jacket all through her wandering from ship to ship, sewing a badge into the inside for every ship she travelled on. Drake half smiled at the memories of the messages she’d send him, grinning as she showed off a new patch and told him what ship it was she’d talked her way onto now.
Even as the memories made him smile they drove a spike through his chest. Drawing in
