She left me with a Bomber Jacket

She left me with a bomber jacket and a memory wiped A.I.

 She bumped her forehead to mine and stared into my eyes. Her arms wrapped around me, and I could feel the cold wind of the spaceport blow right through me. I shuddered, and she pulled me closer. She pulled the jacket tight and zipped it up till it was right under my chin.

 It was an oversized Jacket passed from the Captain of the Merry Charter and then to her; the jacket was a mantel, and it was mine now. 

 The Merry Charter was behind her at full sail with a hyper-speed engine silent and waiting for her to board. 

 She pressed the Holo-disk, the interface of the A.I., into my hand. She closed my shaking fingers around it. Holding my hand tight in both of hers.

 My fingers were gloved, but even then, I could feel the ice on hers. The feeling of the ice, of the cold vacuum of space, was never terrible at the spaceport till you were staring at the void through the viewing glass.

 Yet, here in the heart, the port, next to the docked ships, the hustle and bustle of both loading and offloading, engines of fire humming and smoke curling all-round. I've never felt colder.

 She smiled at me, a grin that I've seen a million times over and a twinkle in her one-eye that had me both wanting to stay in her arms and wanting to run far away. 

 She pulled something out of her bag on her hip. 

 A heart-shaped box. 

 It was old and worn and bought from a shop that prided itself on selling true-as-can-be earth relics. It was a gift from the late Captain of the Merry Charter, Captain Lilly "Cigar" Lander; Captain gave it to Daisy, and like the Bomber jacket, Daisy was handing it off to me.

 The name Daisy Starboard was carefully etched from a professional hand onto the lid, and right underneath it was my name, Caster Odder, in a greenhorn's hand.

 "Don't open it till I'm gone, okay?"

 It wasn't a real question, but I nodded anyway. 

 She tucked my flat cap more securely around my head and messed up the bangs that escaped it. 

 We stayed like that for a moment or more. Her hand in my hair and my hand clutching a disk and an old wooden box.

 A loud horn sound came from a crackly speaker that was right above us, 

 She looked over my shoulder at the speaker, narrowed her eye, and took a step back. 

 "You look after her, okay?" She tapped the disk. "And remember, look into the box later."

 I nodded, but she had already turned around and disappeared into the sea of Star Sailors. And all the others that were running to their ships. 

 The whirling of stationary engines and the opening of the giant hangar doors were near-deafening. Lights flashed all around in all different colors, and loading ramps were pulled in or up by their Sailors. Still, it didn't compare to the silence of when the Hanger doors were truly open, and the void of space and its expanse was for all to be seen.

 I was safe in the loading area with the people there to say their goodbyes and watch ships go. I was safe behind glass thicker than Spacer Suit and railings to keep people from falling onto the glass. I was safe behind the glass as the Merry Charter flew away with my last surviving crewmate.

 I was safe, and she wasn't.

 The loading center was lonely. There were hundreds around me, but none were who I wanted; who I wanted was gone. There were hundreds who were shouting, crying, and cheering. I, like Daisy, turned around and walked away, disappearing into the crowd. I had a box to open. 

 I opened the box when I sat down at the visitor center's café. 

 I was in a booth seat in the corner of the café. The café was nearly empty with all the ships gone, all but the old man flirting with an even older woman at the help desk and a young woman eating a tart a few tables away.

 I ordered small water, sat the box on the table, and tucked the A.I. disk into my Jacket pocket. I popped the lock at the pointed end of the heart with shaking hands and carefully pulled the lid up on old hinges. 

 The inside was a soft fabric covered in lint and the smell of old flowers. There was a sack almost the same size as the box itself to one side, and to the other was a patch with a folded-up paper underneath it. 

 I went for the sack first. 

 I pulled the napkin holder from the other side of the table to me and poured the sack out. It was full of fresh candy - The Captain's favorite candy, Daisy favorites, my favorites. The smell of chocolates blended with the scent of the old wildflowers once housed in the box. 

 Daisy was notorious for making homemade candies from different recipes from all over. Some of the Chocolates were from Saturn, the last human colony in that arm of the Milky Way, and others were from the space station around in the sun Rigel. One recipe from Saturn was my favorite, a thin donut shape with mint on the inside and chocolate with pink sprinkles flavored strawberry.

 Daisy's was the cherry-covered chocolate, also from Saturn. But Captain's was odd, a chocolate-covered red sun orange with spiced whiskey from Proxi B. It took Daisy years to get the right flavor of the whiskey and the right twisting tang of the orange. I haven't had these in years. She stopped making them after Captain left us. I hadn't thought to get any nor wanted to.

 All the candies were slightly miss shaped, and I could feel something hard in them when I touched them. 

 Daisy had a bad habit of baking things into her candies. 

 There was a good reason we didn't usually let her into the galley most of the time. Finding rings in my chili the hard way wasn't the best experience. 

 The patch was the flag of the Merry Charter Crew. There were nearly twenty of us who wore this blue, black, and gold patch; now, there are only two. 

 I picked up the paper, and a picture fell out. There were three people, me, Daisy, and Captain, and right behind was a just newly bought Merry Charter. It was in mint condition. The crow nest was in one piece, and its Rocket boosters were a shining copper, ready to go and fly, and a massive bow tied around the mainmast.

 Daisy, with both her eyes, was wearing the well-loved, well-worn Bomber jacket and with her arm tossed around my shoulders. Captain was in mid-jump with a smile on her unscarred lips and her brand new pea coat flying around her. I was nearly a full head shorter than them but smiling brightly in my oil-stained overalls.

 We were young, happy, and with no fear. 

 We had no idea, not a thought to what was to come to pass. No inkling or care for the future.

 We learned what fear was, though, and sadness and the wrinkles and white hair of stress were all too noticeable. We learned everything we knew, all of it, the good, the bad, everything, at the very knees of the dark expanse of space. 

 I outgrew the overalls in that month. It took a year for Daisy to grow into her jacket and less than that for Captain to grow into her coat. 

 God, we were such children. So bright-eyed and happy.

 I picked up a piece of chocolate, One of Captain's, and popped it into my mouth before unfolding the paper. 

 I bit down only to hit something hard. I stopped chewing and pulled out the hard thing, a tiny little square. A chip.

 A microchip.

 I looked at the letter.

 The words: I'll be back, in Captain's hand. Turn on the disk.

 Under it was a string of coordinates and the Captain's birthday. 

 Before getting the A.I. disk, I stared at the birthday numbers and the chip; I wiped off the chip and opened the chip reader. Then I popped open the touchpad and slowly typed in the numbers with trembling fingers.

 12/20/3042

 The disk whirled with life, and a soft blue glow emanated from it. A holo-Form appeared in the blue light, and from where I sat the disk on the heart-shaped box was a miniature form of the Captain!

 Captain stretcher her arms like she just woke up, and her Pea coat fell around her. "Ah, It's good to be back!" She turned me with her kind but scarred smile, "How ya doing, Cas?"