Chapter 8: C: The Luck

Rafaela Donatella finally gave in to a brief bout of despair.

Not because her father and all aboard the SkyWater freighter had been listed as deceased. Not because she'd been left behind at SkyWater station with only two elderly employees for company. Not even because she had just finished comparing the current balance of her personal funds with the current cost of the pieces she needed to repair her mother's ship according to her diagrams.

It was a much more childish reason. She gazed at the screen that displayed her race registration paperwork for a while, before making her way to the galley to get something sweet. She chose strawberry ice cream, since there was no longer any reason to save the supplies here.

Cinderella. It was such a petty little way to attack her, that Rafaela found herself surprised that her stepmother had actually registered her under the name. And of course, it wasn't set in stone. To add insult to the injury, Rafaela could update her own registration information… for a fee.

Her real name was included in that paperwork, of course, buried in layers of anonymity beneath her system ID, if anyone really cared to search it out. But as things stood, Cinderella was the name that anyone looking over the entrants would see, and the name that would be on her ship's beacon. If, of course, she managed to get to the race's starting point with a functional ship.

She hated that she even cared what people called her, but she couldn't seem to stop the wave of depression that the sight of it had caused, even though she knew that she should be rejoicing in the fact that Elektra had been true to her word and registered her at all. She closed her eyes and stuck another spoonful of cold fruit and cream into her mouth and let it melt on her tongue.

"Celebrating without us?" Bellamy asked cheerily.

Rafaela's eyes popped open, and she spun toward the doorway before she fully processed the question. She hadn't heard the older woman approach, and she felt far more startled by that than she ought to. She swallowed and confessed, "Not exactly, more like seeking sugary solace."

"Set your sorrows aside!" Bellamy exclaimed. "We've got a plan and we know how to use it!"

Rafaela couldn't prevent the bubble of laughter that propelled her questioning, "What!?"

Schmidt thumped his way into the dining compartment behind Bellamy and complained, "You already spilled? All of the credit belongs to the great Tyr Schmidt!"

"Even an old man can accomplish something once in a while," Bellamy agreed with a grin.

"Somebody explain!" Rafaela demanded laughingly.

"Space junk!" Schmidt declared succinctly.

Rafaela gave Bellamy a meaningful glance and the older woman explained, "Since we can't afford new parts, we'll use scavenged parts to fix her up. We can buy scrapped pieces that ought to contain the nodes and other stuff we need, and dismantle them ourselves."

Rafaela's head was already shaking before Bellamy finished, and Schmidt insisted, "It's not ideal, but it WILL give you a working ship."

"Even if you could get all the parts we need for free, I probably can't even afford the delivery fee," Rafaela pointed out.

Schmidt and Bellamy exchanged glances, and then Schmidt agreed, "Probably not, but that's why you won't be having them delivered to SkyWater station. Most of the junk in the system falls to the center, and there's no point in bringing everything out here when you have to start from Central anyway."

"And how will we get ourselves and our ship to the center before we have it working?" Rafaela asked with almost morbid curiosity.

"Well now, that's the tricky bit," Schmidt said agreeably.

"It's okay if you decide that it's too risky," Bellamy added. "But we are pretty sure that it will work."

"Won't do for the actual race," Schmidt added. "You did actually get registered, right?"

"I'm sure that Zhou Shu, that old mouse, can push the needed paperwork through as easily as putting a cheese through a grater," Bellamy assured them airily.

Rafaela set down the bowl full of melting ice cream and glared at the pair of them. "I am officially registered. As Cinderella, instead of as Rafaela Donatella," she explained icily. "And you're going to tell me everything in detail."

Their cheerful grins completely ignored the ice in her tone, and the stoney glare in her eyes, as Bellamy announced, "We're just going to mount the scout ship on the repair shuttle and hook the main drive directly to its core system!"

Schmidt rolled the name, "Cinderella," off his tongue a few times before declaring exuberantly, "It's perfect for you lass! And won't everyone be surprised down to their toenails when they find out that our little Cinderella is actually the head of the Donatella family!"

"Hasn't Elektra claimed that position," Rafaela asked sourly.

"Nonsense!" Bellamy snapped. "That woman may now own SkyWater down to the last bolt, but she's only a Donatella by marriage!"

"Ah, thinking of that spoiled Centralite having our SkyWater makes me tempted to leave the water we've collected behind when we go," Schmidt grumbled.

Rafaela's eyes widened. "Were you imagining we could deliver the minimums at the same time? There's no way! We'll be risking our lives just setting a course straight to some Central junkyard with two ships cobbled together!"

"Not just our lives," Schmidt assured her agreeably. "You know that you will be risking your entire future on this race?" he asked with an oddly intense glitter deep within his eyes.

Rafaela lifted her chin. She'd spent a lot of time weighing a very small chance to win the 'Princess Race' against simply moving on to the new sector, where SkyWater had been set up to begin mining before their freighter had vanished. She didn't know what Elektra intended to do with SkyWater, and she didn't like her stepmother or her stepsisters very much, but they were on her family registry.

She had already decided to do her best to keep SkyWater going long before the fate of the freighter and all aboard had been decided, it was just a question of how. If they delivered the minimums, SkyWater might be able to recover slowly on its own. But if one of the Donatella girls could win the 'Princess Race' and bring back that hundred thousand credits, SkyWater could continue far more prosperously.

On the other hand, if SkyWater was dissolved like the corporation that her father had once been heir to; if Rafaela was no longer part of SkyWater and discarded by her stepfamily; then she had very little to lose and a ship to gain. "My future is worth betting on," she stated calmly.

Schmidt's grin stretched his face as he told Bellamy, "A true gambler at heart our Cinderella, a true Donatella like her father."

Rafaela gazed at them both with a shocked expression, when Bellamy agreed jovially, "Of course she is! And blessed with her mother's luck no less!"

"You think that my father was a gambler and that I'm destined to become a piece of space junk myself?" Rafaela asked doubtfully.

Tyr Schmidt laughed like she'd just cracked the best joke he'd heard in a decade, and actually wiped tears from his eyes as he assured her, "That brat came out here to the Cinder sector and sold water to people who live beside oceans! If that's not a gamble, what is?"

Vache Bellamy elbowed him and added laughingly, "And if anyone carried the luck, it was that girl! Ship gets holed between systems, and does she die like a valiant hero? No! She goes on to marry our Donatella almost a century later!"

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