Chapter 9 - Under the Same Stars
One year later.
The Pacific coast at Cape Flattery was raw, ancient, and breathtaking.
The cliffs rose two hundred feet above the crashing gray foam of the ocean, carpeted in dense, emerald moss and towering Sitka spruces that bent against the fierce salt winds blowing in from the open sea. A rugged, unpaved trail—a path of exposed roots, jagged shale, and steep mud inclines that the National Park Service warned was impassable for standard wheeled equipment—wound its way out to the westernmost point of the contiguous United States.
Moving up that trail, setting the pace for a group of twelve children, was Nova.
Her tenth birthday had arrived not in a sterile, manicured garden with golden balloons and caterers, but on the edge of the wilderness.
The *Valkyrie* was no longer a prototype. It had been modified with solar-recharging panels integrated into the rear fender flares, and its carbon shell bore the honorable scars of twelve months of relentless exploration—scratches from the red rocks of Moab, dust from the high passes of the Cascades, and salt spray from the Pacific.
Behind her was a convoy.
Six other children, all seated in foundation-issued *Valkyrie* units of various bright colors—fire-engine red, electric purple, safety yellow—were navigating the rocky trail with ease, their laughter echoing through the ancient canopy of cedar trees. Behind them walked Juny, Frank, and a dozen parents whose faces held none of the anxious, weary exhaustion that usually marked the caregivers of disabled children. They looked relaxed, smiling, watching their children lead the way instead of being pushed from behind.
And beside Nova, her boots caked in thick coastal mud, her denim jacket now decorated with embroidered mission patches from NASA, the National Park Service, and the Marin-Elena Foundation, walked Sky.
Sky was an inch taller now, the hollows in her cheeks filled out by twelve months of home-cooked meals and security, but her slate-gray eyes still carried the same fierce, brilliant light.
"Ten yards to the overlook!" Sky shouted back to the convoy, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Watch the root on the left! It’s slick!"
Nova touched her controls. The *Valkyrie* elevated four inches, its independent track modules stepping over the massive spruce root with effortless fluid motion, and rolled out onto the wooden observation platform at the edge of the cliff.
The world opened up before them.
The vast, endless expanse of the Pacific stretched out to the curved horizon, painted in deep violet, burnished gold, and fiery orange by the setting sun. Below them, harbor seals barked on the sea stacks, and the spray from the breaking swell drifted up like a fine, cool mist against their faces.
Nova brought the machine to a stop at the safety railing.
Grant walked up behind her, placing his hands gently on the headrest of the chair. He looked different than he had a year ago. The permanent, razor-sharp tension that had once lived in his shoulders was gone, replaced by a deep, weathered peace. He wore an old fleece pullover, hiking boots, and jeans that were as muddy as Sky’s.
"Mission accomplished, star girl?" Grant asked, looking down at his daughter.
Nova reached up and placed her hand over his. "Mission accomplished, Dad."
Sky stepped up to the railing beside them, resting her elbows on the weathered timber. She looked at Nova, then pulled a crumpled brown paper bag from her pocket.
Grant smiled. "Sky, don't tell me you brought another schematic in a grocery bag."
Sky rolled her eyes with the dramatic flair only a ten-year-old sister could muster. "It’s not a schematic, Dad. It’s cake."
She reached inside and pulled out two slightly squashed cupcakes with thick blue frosting and edible sugar stars—the exact duplicate of the design Nova had drawn for her ninth birthday.
Sky handed one to Nova and kept the other.
"Happy tenth birthday, Nova," Sky said softly.
Nova took the cupcake, her hazel eyes reflecting the brilliant, dying fire of the sunset. She looked at Sky, then reached over and bumped her shoulder against Sky’s arm.
"Happy sister day, Sky."
Behind them, the other children rolled their machines onto the platform, their voices rising in a joyful, chaotic chorus of awe as they looked out over the ocean. Parents hugged each other; cameras clicked; someone started singing an off-key rendition of the birthday song that was quickly drowned out by the roar of the surf below.
Grant stepped back a few paces, letting the children have the front of the platform.
He looked up into the clearing sky. The first stars were beginning to appear through the twilight—brilliant, cold, and ancient—the same stars Marin had loved, the same stars Elena had mapped, the same stars that had once seemed impossibly far away from a little girl sitting alone in a quiet house behind an iron gate.
The chairs in that garden a year ago had been empty.
Grant looked at the circle of children gathered around his daughters at the edge of the continent—laughing, fearless, unstoppable—and realized that those twenty-eight empty chairs hadn't been an ending at all.
May you like
They had simply been the room the universe had cleared to make space for the right people to arrive.
Nova tilted her face toward the sky, the wind whipping her dark hair across her cheeks, her hands steady on the controls of the machine that carried her, ready to take her wherever she chose to go next.
