She looked up at his masked face. “I’m acting like a baby.”
“No, you’re not. You’re a badass warrior chick with scars.”
The ride down to the bottom of the Beer Can was quick. She followed the others out, trying not to see the spots where Steve and Vlad had died on the floor. Then they stepped through the door and into the LO Arch with its creepy, flickering lights.
She feared she’d be stepping into her nightmares, but the space was crowded with people she knew. More than that, it had been transformed. Someone had strung white fairy lights along the shelving to mark the occasion, the sight of it putting a lump in Samantha’s throat. Everyone knew how Patty had loved fairy lights.
“You okay,skat?”
“Yeah.”
People moved together toward the entrance to the ice tunnels.
Samantha tucked her arm through Thor’s, needing his reassurance, not just because they were walking through the ice tunnels, but because of what they were about to do. The LO Arch crew had created a shrine for Patty, carving it out of the ice walls of the tunnel. Tonight, they were dedicating it to her.
When Samantha saw it, she gasped. “Oh!”
Somehow, they’d connected a short strand of fairy lights to electricity, the lights making the ice glisten. A plaque of recycled metal was frozen into the ice above the shrine, Patty’s name, the dates of her birth and death, and the words “Daughter, Friend, and Astronomy Badass. Rest in Peace” engraved in it.
“What do you think?” Thor asked.
She blinked back tears. “It’s perfect.”
Ryan called out to everyone, box still in his hands. “Get as close as you can. Keep each other warm. It’s hard to fit fifty-one people in this space. Let Samantha and Thor through. I’ll try to speak so you can all hear me.”
Ryan talked about how much people loved Patty and shared what most people didn’t know—that she’d realized someone was trying to hack the satellite and had taken that information to Delaney. “Patty is a hero. Samantha, do you want to take over?”
Samantha scooted into his place. “A lot of Patty’s stuff is in the Skua area. Some of it will go to her parents. But I saved some things for her shrine.”
Ryan tilted the box so she could see inside.
She drew out the framed photo of the Milky Way that had the words “You Are Here” written on a little tag in Patty’s handwriting. She held it up, swallowed hard. “This was on Patty’s wall when we were in grad school together. She brought it with her last winter, too, and now it will stay here.”
Samantha set it in the back of the shrine, then reached inside the box for Patty’s coffee mug. She held it up for everyone to see, her throat too tight to speak.
Ryan took over. “It says ‘Astronomers Do It in the Dark.’”
“It was her favorite mug.” Samantha set that inside, too.
“I’ve got something.” Lance threaded his way over to her, a bottle of wine in his hand. The charges against him had been dropped, and Samantha had forgiven him. “It’s a bottle of wine that she bought for me. I can’t drink it without her.”
Lance set it into the shrine, too.
“I’ve got something to add.” That was Jason.
“This ought to be interesting,” someone muttered.
Jason nudged his way through the tightly packed bodies and held up what looked like a plastic snake. “I printed this with my three-D printer and painted it. If you can’t tell, it’s a cobra. I thought it belonged here because it was the Cobra team who found Patty’s killer. They should be a part of this, too.”
“Hell, yeah!” someone called out.
Ryan nodded. “Thanks, Jason.”
Jason handed the plastic snake to Thor. “Maybe you should do the honors.”
“Thank you.” Thor set the plastic cobra next to the mug.
Tears streamed down Samantha’s face, though no one could see them because of her mask. “Thanks, Jason.”