Brian had practiced docking with Hope hundreds of times, and with Gabe’s help, he brought the shuttle in with no more than a small bump at the very end.

What he hadn’t prepared for was the crowd of people surrounding him once they’d supervised the stowing of the energy and cleared all the medical checks.

Hope brought them out of the sterile, quiet clinic into a giant mess of people who immediately surrounded him, hugging, cheering, and back-slapping.

It wasn’t just his family and his netball team—it seemed like half the ship had shown up to greet them once the medical people gave the all-clear.

The crowds mobbing Gabe and Lu were almost big, and even Tori got lost in a sea of people. She looked like she was trying to shrink into herself, p...

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