“I don’t want to go to space.” The electrical engineer Odessa had hired several months ago stormed off around the base of the enormous rocket ship that took up most of the hangar. He was headed in the direction of the door.

  Odessa chased after him. “What do you mean you don’t want to go to space?” she called in a tone full of the sort of disbelief one might have if someone had said they didn’t like chocolate. Who didn’t want to go into space?

  “I’m sorry,” he said, not even sparing a glance back. “I thought I could, but I can’t.”

  “But it’s what I hired you for...” Odessa’s voice trailed off weakly as she slowed her pace down, eventually coming to a stop. It was obvious he wasn’t going to change his mind. It had been obvious for some time. She just hadn’t wanted to see it.

  “I’m sorry,” he called back again, not sounding that sorry at all.

  “But you built this thing. You know more about it than anyone.” With a sigh, Odessa turned and looked up at the medium-sized metal shuttle attached to a medium-sized rocket. It was built for five exactly. Every calculation done, every operational plan written, assumed there would be five astronauts on board.

  “They’re your plans,” was the last thing he called out before the door slammed shut behind him.

  “They’re not,” Odessa mumbled quietly to herself. The plans had been adapted from various sets she’d paid a worldjumper to steal from the old world. The humans on the other side of the Splice had been to space already, and over 50 years ago at that. While they were human, just like Odessa was, she identified more with this side of the Splice. Humans might be a minority here, but she’d been born here. A natural, messy, bloody birth, just like any witch. And even though the old world humans had no idea this world even existed. Even though, they’d already been around the moon. Odessa was determined this world would not be left out of the space race. They were just going to have to play catch up fast.

  Departure was scheduled for tomorrow. Where on Earth was she going to find a replacement crew member by then?

  “Problem?” Amanda, their resident pyrokinetic, asked leaning over the railing that separated the lower middle platform of the room from the upper outer one.

  “Do you want to come into space?” Odessa asked before she could consider whether that would be a good idea or not.

  Amanda’s laugh was good-natured and it shook her whole body making her red hair flicker like a flame.

  For a moment, Odessa forgot what she was trying to do and all her problems went away. No one could feel stressed while listening to a laugh like that.

  It didn’t last though. After all, Amanda was one of Odessa’s problems.

  “No,” Amanda said. Her brown eyes sparkled with a love of adventure that contrasted with the word she had just used.

  It contrasted so much that Odessa had to double check she’d heard her correctly. “No?” she repeated in confusion.

  Amanda laughed again. “I haven’t trained for it. You’ve been working on this mission for years and you want to just throw some random on?”

  “You’re not a random.” Once again her mouth beat her brain. Then she shrugged. “Truthfully, you wouldn’t need to do much. The ship is designed for five but every crew member has a backup in terms of skill. Even without the Chief Engineer, skill wise we’re more than covered. It’s just if there was a really bad emergency-”

  “Then you should probably pick one of your other engineers not some back of the woods cowgirl, yeah?”

  Not for the first time, Odessa marvelled at the way Amanda could make a question sound both gentle and commanding at the same time. “I think we’re all cowboys here,” she replied with sigh.

  It wasn’t completely true. A lot of the companies that they’d outsourced work to were extremely competent. Finding engineers hadn’t been too difficult, not with their sponsor, Stella’s connections and money. It was competent astronauts that were proving hard to find, much to Odessa’s absolute bafflement. For some reason, none of the smart people wanted to go into space.

  Her remark got a smile out of Amanda though, which made Odessa feel really happy, until she took a step and tripped over a cat. Her arms shot out to brace herself but all she accomplished was sending a bunch of equipment clattering to the floor from a nearby bench.

  She shut her eyes tight as she braced for impact. When she opened them again she found herself staring and the green-eyed grey moggy named Waffles perched on a knocked over oscilloscope.

  Her first thought despite the cat, was to hope Amanda hadn’t just seen that.

  Red-faced, she sat up and reached out for the instrument, hoping she hadn’t damaged it. It wasn’t that expensive really, not compared to the sort of funding her old-university roommate, Stella, had access to, but while Stella didn’t mind splurging on luxury as long as someone appreciated it, she despised waste. Then again, if Stella really cared about it, she’d have used her psychic powers to keep the medic’s damn cat out from underfoot, Odessa thought bitterly. She knew the anger was just because her elbow stung. Stella couldn’t foresee everything. The moment Odessa acknowledged the reason for her anger was the moment it dissipated.

  It was also, unfortunately, the moment Amanda’s sister-in-law, Cat, and opposite in nearly every way, leaned over the railing and remarked, “The dragons are going to eat you alive.”

  Odessa’s irritation returned in full force. “There’s no dragons in space.” She picked herself up and brushed off imaginary dirt. This room was supposed to be a clean room. That meant no dirt, no eating, and definitely no cats.

  She looked around for Waffles and was pleased to find that after tripping her up he had decided to sit down and start cleaning himself. She picked the cat up.

  “You okay?” Amanda asked.

  Odessa nodded but, still blushing furiously, refused to meet her eyes.

  Amanda had always been great at reading people, so she gave Odessa a smile and turned back to helping computer programmer, Indi.

  It was too bad that the clean room rule didn’t extend to Cats as well as cats. Cat was only here because she was somehow friends with Indi and Amanda, both of whom Odessa needed for the mission. Indi for ground support, and Amanda for the launch. But Cat had turned up anyway and declared herself Indi’s babysitter. Given how easily Indi was distracted, despite basically being a certified genius, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, but Cat wasn’t always the most pleasant of company.

  True to her combative nature, uppercase Cat replied, “Yeah, but they are in the sky. Don’t you remember what happened right before we met and you decided to drive through the dragon mountains? That rocket ship’s got a lot more metal in it than a car.”

  Cat was an excellent mechanic and she knew better than anyone the damage a dragon could do. She was the one who had helped piece Odessa’s van back together after all. Odessa had found her attractive when they’d first met. The woman was all legs and toned muscle with long dark hair and piercing green eyes. But the attraction had lasted until Cat had opened her mouth. If someone had a button, Cat would find it. Odessa had long since learnt that the best way to deal with Cat was often just to ignore her.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I remember,” she said, and with Waffles tucked under her arm she turned her back on Cat, and looked around for Jade, the medic.

  But Cat wasn’t done. “It was all torn and crumpled and melted. And that’s exactly what your spaceship’s going to look like.”

  “Not if we’re fast enough,” Odessa replied, still walking away.

  “You’re too close to the mountains,” Cat called after Odessa, but she didn’t follow.

  Odessa knew there was a risk. But she’d done the math, or at least reviewed it. They should have enough time, assuming they moved quick enough, to open the shielding, conduct the launch and get off planet before any dragons reached them with their metal-melting breath. As for the return, all they had to do was aim for the ocean. Okay, even that was a risk. There was a reason all modern ships were made of wood and not metal. But if they landed far enough out, that too should buy them enough time. Coming back was actually the riskier part, but Odessa was used to that. Before she’d turned to space travel, Odessa had been a full-time adventurer. All of the crew were adventurers in some way or another. Even now, Odessa still regularly went climbing and kayaking on weekends.

  The crew had all been picked for a mix of brains and brawn. And all of them, in some way or another were bat-shit insane, just like Odessa. All except one, and he’d just walked out. Perhaps it was a sign.

  Odessa ignored it. Pickings had been too slim to require sanity. Not looks though, that came as part of the physical requirement. Every member of the crew was fit and certified eye-candy. Jade was strong too. Her witch-born power had given her the strength to bend steel with her bare hands. Plus she had at least two degrees. And she still let her damn cat roam around the clean room.

  Odessa dropped Waffles right on Jade’s work station.

  For a moment Jade looked annoyed, but then she realised it was Waffles. Her eyes widened and she looked under the desk at an empty cat bed, evidently the place where Waffles was supposed to be.

  Jade was tidy to look at. Her long green hair was always neatly braided and kept out of her face. Somehow all her strands were the same length, despite the crazy colour. Odessa wasn’t sure how she managed it. Odessa’s own hair was a vibrant blue, but it was jagged and unkempt. Repeated dyeing had made her strands weak so they often broke, all at different lengths. But Jade’s hair was somehow always perfect. Maybe it was a witch thing?

  It was for Stella, whose blond hair was always the same exact length from her head. Even if you tried to cut it, it just regrew. Stella tended to be an anomaly, even among witches. She was the only witch Odessa knew, who naturally had two powers. That was classified information though. It wasn’t wise to advertise such things in this world. As far as the rest of the crew knew, Stella was just a healer.

  “Shit! I’m sorry,” Jade said as she gently picked Waffles up off the desk. “I thought he was under the desk I swear.”

  Odessa’s annoyance evaporated at Jade’s apology. She hated being mad at people but it was important for the mission’s sake that certain things remained clean and unclogged of cat hair. “He’s not even supposed to be in the clean room.”

  “I know, but he hates being separated from me.”

  “He’s going to be separated from you for a whole week when we go into space,” Odessa reminded her.

  “I know.” Jade stroked Waffles with such love that Odessa couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. “That’s why I wanted him to have as much time as possible with me before the launch."

  Odessa gave in. She leaned against the nearby divider wall with a sigh. “Fine, just make sure he doesn’t roam around. Maybe stick a harness on him or something? Or a mini-cat fence?”

  “I tried that. He got out of everything. You know, the first time he got in here, it wasn’t even cause I let him in. He snuck through when someone else did. He’s a clever cat.”

  “Maybe he could be our fifth astronaut,” Odessa joked.

  Jade paused in her patting of the cat. “What happened to our old one?”

  “He walked out.”

  “Oh, well I suppose that was kind of obvious in hindsight. He was a bit of a stick in the mud.” Jade spoke matter-of-factually and without any venom. She set the cat back down by his bed.

  Odessa crossed her arms. “I just don’t get it. Why is it so hard to find people who want to go to space?”

  “The problem is witches are too smart.” Jade spoke once again in that matter-of-fact tone as she picked up a wrench and began to tighten the bolts of the box in front of her.

  Odessa narrowed her eyes. “And humans are what?”

  Jade shrugged. “No one’s studied it but given we know human bodies are more fragile, would it surprise you if witches were statistically smarter too?”

  Odessa scrunched up her face. The worst part was when she thought of her home village of Witchaven, a literal haven from witches, she couldn’t think of any examples to counter Jade’s remark, not on this side of the Splice, and she hated to lump herself with the old world humans. She’d spent the good majority of her adventuring career trying to prove to an audience on the internet that humans this side could do just as much, and maybe even more than what witches could. Even then, a lot of people had just called it luck. But space travel required more than luck.

  “Well, what does that make you following a human into space?” Odessa asked.

  “Oh, I’m a certified idiot for sure,” Jade replied with a grin. “Life’s more fun that way, don’t you think?” Jade seemed completely earnest in her belief.

  Odessa didn’t know what to say to that.

  Jade tightened another bolt, then she asked, “What’s with you and red?”

  “Amanda?” Jade’s question caught her off guard. “She’s the reason we aren’t going to explode on takeoff.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t talking about that, although I do have some questions there. No I mean you looking at her like she’s the guardians’ gift to the planet. Are you and her a thing?”

  Odessa sighed. Jade was nothing if not direct, at least it was generally in a much nicer way than Cat was. “It’s complicated.”

  But complicated wasn’t a word Jade understood in any context. “Either you are or you aren’t.”

  “No,” Odessa replied, pushing herself up off the divider wall and getting ready to move along. She still had a fifth astronaut to find.

  “Why not?”

  “She’s married.”

  “So?” Jade replied without missing a beat.

  “So?” Odessa paused in her move to leave and gave Jade a confused look.

  Jade shrugged. “Who says you have to have two in a relationship? Either her partner’s a man into women or a woman into women, and I know you don’t mind which.”

  Odessa laughed. “He’s a man and there’s more to attraction than just that.”

  “Is he ugly?”

  “No.” In fact, Amanda’s husband, Sirius, bore an uncanny resemblance in both looks and name to a guy Odessa used to date, that was until he’d been killed falling off a mountain a few years back, and she’d watched it happen. There was just too much of a reminder there. Besides... “He doesn’t like me. Well, I mean, he doesn’t not like me but...I need to find my fifth astronaut.” The crazy thing was, Sirius had been obsessed with space long before Odessa had even been alive. He might have been a good choice if he hadn’t been afraid of flying.

  Jade shrugged and returned to tightening bolts. A moment later she swore. “Oh crap! Stripped the thread again.” She extracted the ruined thread and added it to a suspiciously large pile.

  “What’s in there?” Odessa asked of the box. The majority of the equipment was supposed to be on the ship already.

  “This is the boost converter casing for Carmen’s UV lighting system.”

  “Why’s it so big?”

  “Cause it also contains some backup rechargeable batteries for some reason. I don’t know. Dash designed it. I’m just putting it together.”

  “I thought we already had two backups already?”

  “We do,” a man’s voice said.

  Odessa looked up to see the team’s pilot, Dash, approaching their bench. Dash was tall, with a ripped figure, and perfectly tousled blonde hair. Witches had a tendency to be weirdly attractive as it was, but the astronauts on this team were even more so. Dash had been one of two men on the trip but now he was the only one. He was also their healer, even though Jade was the one with the medical degree. That gave them a lot of value as a team. Odessa had originally been reluctant to take a pair of lovers but Jade and Dash had been together for years and they seemed pretty solid.

  Close proximity living quarters was one of the few things they hadn’t tested yet. Hopefully that wouldn’t bite them in the butt.

  Dash continued, “But I’m using high side FETs and needed a higher voltage anyway so I figured what the hell.”

  Odessa squinted at him. “How much current do you expect gate-driver FETs to need?”

  Dash gave her the same look back. “I thought you were a mechanical engineer?”

  “I am.”

  “Then how do you know so much about circuits?”

  “I’m a practical minded person. Also Stella did elec. She was my uni roomie.”

  “Ah, Miss other Boss.” He nodded thoughtfully. Dash was the only one who had scored perfect marks on the astronaut application entry exam that Odessa and Stella had made them all sit. His university marks and work history had shown a similar high aptitude. Out of all of them, Dash was almost certainly the smartest. He spoke in an opposite way to Jade, considered and thoughtful rather than quick and straightforward.

  “You didn’t answer the question... and are those wire-loop isolators?”

  “Sensitive internals.” Dash remarked. “By the way, there’s a visitor for you waiting in the tearoom.” Then he turned and walked away.

  Odessa gave Jade a questioning look.

  Jade just shrugged. “It looked normal on the inside.”

  But Odessa’s confusion was no longer about the size of the UV box that their fourth astronaut, Carmen required for survival. Instead she was wondering who on Earth was waiting for her in the tearoom, and if it was someone who might want to go into space.