The Stars We Steal

by Alexa Donne

  “What’s wrong with her?” Carina shrieked. Evgenia’s dead weight pulled her down and back, despite Carina’s wrenching her up by the armpits. My sister wilted back against the wall, and I rushed to help them both.

  “I don’t know!” Together, we lowered Evgenia to the floor. I tried fanning her with my hand, but it did nothing to stop the beads of sweat crowding her brow. Something was very wrong.

  Then, suddenly, her eyelids fluttered open.

  “What happened?” she asked groggily. “Why am I on the floor?”

  “You fainted,” I said. She groaned, clutching one hand to her head and the other to her stomach.

  “I don’t feel so good, come to think of it. I should maybe lie down.” Evgenia grimaced. “Not on the floor, though. I’d prefer a bed. Beautiful woman optional.”

  If she was joking, she had to be half okay, I figured. I laid a hand on her forehead—she was warm, but not burning hot. But then she kept clutching her stomach.

  “Do you feel like you’re going to vomit?” I asked, fishing for a diagnosis. I was no medical professional, but I’d seen food poisoning before.

  “Definitely maybe a lot,” she replied, clinching it.

  I lowered my voice, ducking my head so only Carina could hear. “There’s no time to take her all the way back to the Sofi. She’s probably going to start vomiting, among other things, very soon.”

  Carina wrinkled her nose in clear disgust but jumped into action, nevertheless. “We’ll take you downstairs to our quarters,” she said, and we helped Evgenia back on her feet. With the two of us supporting Evgenia’s weight, we managed to half walk/half carry her to the lift, but Evgenia rallied at the doors, pushing me back out into the hallway with her limited but not insubstantial strength.

  “No, you have to take your turn with Elliot. Carina can take me.”

  Still lucid enough to wing-woman. Amazing. Even so, I was reluctant.

  “No, I should go with you,” I said, trying to cross the threshold. But Evgenia slammed her hand against the lift hold button.

  “You have to operate the console, remember?” Evgenia insisted. “Please, stay for me.”

  Unfortunately she was right—the system would automatically bring Klara and Elliot back into the airlock, but I was the only one who could open the safety partition and shut everything down. Still, I lingered until the door closed, then stood there a minute, contemplating following along after them anyway. I should have enough time to get them settled—fifteen minutes, right? Or, I reasoned with myself, I could go down as soon as they got back, forgoing my turn. Elliot probably wouldn’t say yes to accompanying me, anyway.

  The lift zipped away, and I found myself alone in the near darkness. The night settings were on, the usually stark-white ship interiors a flat almost-gray with the brightness turned all the way down. It was eerie. Sterile and ghostly.

  A loud sound, a snap like flesh against metal, made me jump. I turned, seeking out the source of the sound, but it did not repeat itself. I crept back the way we’d come, toward the bridge. And there, when I closed my eyes and concentrated on listening, I could hear the muffled rise and fall of someone speaking. Clearly we’d been too swept up in our own crisis to hear the captain, still holed up on deck, and she did not sound happy about something. I hovered outside the open doorway, wondering at the fact that she’d not engaged the automatic close function. Guess she wasn’t used to having company up here this time of night and didn’t expect anyone to be listening in.

  “I don’t care what you think. That solution is untenable.”

  There was silence for a minute, Captain Lind clearly listening to a response. Then: “I’ll not succumb to idle threats. This is my ship.”

  That certainly piqued my interest. Who was threatening Captain Lind? And about what?

  “Well, you are entitled to that opinion. Good evening.”

  The captain cut short the obviously tense conversation, and I suspected that whoever had been on the other line might not have been quite done with it themselves. Captain Lind was a conversations-end-when-she-wants-them-to type of woman, however.

  I was left with silence and a sudden foreboding. With her no longer distracted by her off-ship communication, there was no way for me to make my way past the bridge without her noticing me. While she might have thought me faultlessly reliable on the best of days, Captain Lind would not take kindly to my eavesdropping. I had to be careful.

  With great care, I craned my neck around the bridge door to see if the coast was clear. She had her back to me. But then she spoke.

  “I’m afraid my patience has worn thin. You’ll need to be more forthcoming with me.”

  I jumped back, heart stuttering in my rib cage, even though it was impossible for her to have seen me, been addressing me. The captain had hailed someone else. I used the opportunity of her new distraction to dart past the doorway. Once on the other side, I couldn’t help but continue to listen in.

  “I’ve tried being nice, but now the Olympus is breathing down my neck, and—”

  A loaded pause.

  “Blackmail is a strong word. Think of it as a business opportunity. We can discuss more in person. I’m nearly done here.”

  The conversation was clearly wrapping up, so I made haste to slip away. I knew my aunt could be stone cold, but I never imagined she’d resort to petty blackmail. If she caught me, who knew what she’d do? Returning to the maintenance hold, I found my heart beating unnaturally fast. Between the emergency with Evgenia and my aunt’s suspicious calls, I was on edge. Then it got worse. The communications channel was still open and on speaker, so I got a full stream of Elliot and Klara’s conversation.

  “You did not!” Klara shrieked with laughter.

  “I absolutely did! Stripped off right there and jumped into the freezing water.”

  Elliot naked where and how? Now there was no way I could turn off the comms.

  “Totally sober?”

  “One hundred percent,” Elliot confirmed.

  “Why would any ship want to simulate snow, ice, freezing water? We came all the way up here just to avoid that.”

  I could hear Elliot shrug in his suit, mic picking up everything, even the way his glasses clinked against his helmet. “They say it’s a way of staying connected to their roots. It’s a tradition. When you come of age, you jump into the freezing water naked. Everyone does it.”

  “But I’d wager most of them do it full of vodka. You just enjoy getting naked; admit it.”

  I could practically hear the wink in her tone. Klara was flirting with him, hard.

  “I wonder how much time we have left.” That was Elliot again. Klara’s reply came a moment later.

  “I can’t believe I never took you out here with me before. You were here the whole time, but we never really hung out, socially.”

  “I don’t expect princesses to hang out with the help.”

  “You weren’t the help,” Klara was quick to correct him, and now the flame of rage warmed my insides. Just a few weeks ago, she was stubbornly referring to him as the valet! “Besides, you’ve changed a lot since then. We all have.”

  “You haven’t.”

  “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

  I wanted to know as well. Elliot remained coy.

  “I hear you’re looking for a husband. That’s new.”

  “I have my eye out, but I’m not looking too seriously. I have high standards.”

  “That I knew,” Elliot said, tone annoyingly neutral. Was that about her advice to me? Idle flirting?

  “And what about you?” Klara volleyed back. “Tell me what you’re looking for. Maybe I can help.”

  There was a long pause, some heavy breathing that I thought was Elliot.

  “Doing pirouettes to escape my line of questioning, huh?” Klara laughed.

  “Just enjoying our time out here.”

  “Hmm,” Klara hummed, then grunted. Whatever she did impressed Elliot.

  “Showoff.”
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  “I’ll start you off!” Klara said breathlessly. “You want someone tall.”

  “Or short,” Elliot countered. “No preference.”

  “Blond?”

  “No preference.”

  I hated that I couldn’t see them, couldn’t read his body language. Also, was it just me or was Klara describing herself? The next adjective did nothing to dissuade me of that notion.

  “Beautiful, of course—and don’t you dare say ‘No preference,’ you liar.”

  “I’m not that shallow,” Elliot defended himself. “I care more about who someone is. Their personality. I want someone practical and kind and smart and funny and loyal—”

  “You want someone like Leo.”

  My heart shot up into my throat. Elliot said nothing. Klara let him hang. I checked the timer. They had less than a minute before the automated system would pull them back.

  “If you think I want Leo, then why are you flirting with me? You’re her cousin; doesn’t that violate some kind of code?”

  It was maddening how he didn’t actually answer her question, but I pumped the air with my fist at how Elliot threw her flirtation back in her face. He saw it as well as I did—the hypocrisy.

  Klara didn’t respond right away, and I could only imagine her sour expression. But then she hit back. “You said yes to her sister at speed dating; isn’t that violating some kind of code?”

  The system started to beep, cutting off whatever reply Elliot might have had. It was pulling them back in. Hastily, I switched off the comms speaker so they wouldn’t know I’d been eavesdropping.

  I plastered on a smile as twin spacesuits came into view of the airlock.

  “Have fun?” I chirped once they’d touched down on the deck and the airlock had closed.

  “Oh, yes,” Klara said, shaking her long hair loose from her helmet.

  “Where’s Evgenia and Carina?” Elliot asked.

  “Evgenia got sick,” I said, moving over to them to help them out of their suits. “Carina took her down to our quarters.”

  “She didn’t vomit in here, right?” Klara wrinkled her nose.

  “Uh, no.”

  “We should go check on her,” Klara said, suddenly curiously concerned with Evgenia’s well-being. Elliot paused, brow wrinkling.

  “Wait, someone needs to go out with Leo. It’s her turn.”

  He spoke to Klara about me like I wasn’t standing right there.

  “I’m fine,” I interjected. “You can go. Don’t worry about me.”

  “See? She’s fine.” Klara grabbed Elliot by the arm and tugged him toward the door.

  Yep, I was totally fine. With the way Elliot allowed himself to be led away, with how he’d utterly failed to read the disappointment on my face. He used to be so good at reading me, and now . . .

  I was left to silence.

  My feet carried me, up from the console, through the open safety partition, and over to the window. I stared out into space, black and sparkling. I wanted to scream into the vacuum, feel my lungs burn, the sound dying before it left my throat.

  But, no, I wasn’t going to wallow in self-pity. I came up here to space walk, and so that’s what I would do. I didn’t need anyone to go with me, let alone Elliot. With that, I programmed the system for ten minutes to start once I manually triggered the outer airlock, then went inside the bay to get ready.

  I did find one benefit to tandem spacewalking—having someone else to help you into your spacesuit was a boon. It took me ages to climb into the bulky costume, contorting myself to find the zipper to close myself in, struggling to bend over to retrieve the helmet. And as I was half bent over, I realized I’d left the second suit in the middle of the floor. I’d have to secure it to the wall before I could go anywhere. Just as I was trying to gain purchase with my awkwardly gloved fingers, there came a rapid tap, tap, tap on the glass behind me.

  I whipped around to find Elliot on the other side of the partition, mouthing something I couldn’t quite hear. He was gesturing at me and the other suit. He must have left something behind.

  With an annoyed huff, I signaled to him to hold his horses. The external comms were off, so he couldn’t hear me. It would take a moment to unscrew my gloves so I could unlock the door with my bio-signature. Finally I managed it, and as the door whooshed open, I addressed him, not without significant annoyance in my voice.

  “What did you forget?”

  “Forget?”

  “Yeah, in here. You must have forgotten something.”

  I turned around and tromped back over to the second suit. Might as well secure it more easily now that my hands were free.

  “Leo.”

  “Come on in. Not like I was almost dressed and ready to go.”

  “Leo.”

  The force in Elliot’s voice, the bemused consternation, made me turn. What did he want?

  “I came back for you,” he said.

  And it was like all the air had been sucked out of the room.

  Fourteen

  “Sorry, what?” I blinked at Elliot, a bit dazed. I would have pinched myself, if I had had any available skin I could reach.

  “I came back?” he repeated. “I felt bad leaving you like that. Came to my senses once we reached the lift.”

  “It’s not a big deal.” I played it off casually, like my heart wasn’t thumping so hard in my chest that I could hear it in my ears. “Didn’t even bother me. As you see, I was going to go out on my own.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “No, the maintenance crew does it all the time. Solo missions, and all that.”

  “Yeah, but that’s during the day, when there are people around. I really don’t mind,” Elliot insisted. He made a move to grab the second spacesuit, but I yanked it back.

  “Elliot, I don’t need your pity. Go have fun.”

  “I’m trying to. Out there.” He gestured beyond the airlock window. “I want to go. Leo, it’s not a big deal. Stop being a martyr.”

  And just like that, any pretense of romantic intention evaporated. This was Elliot ribbing me like an old friend. He knew me too well.

  “Fine.” I gave in, handing over the suit. “You can help me with my air canister.”

  Soon we were both suited up, the crackle of the active comms in my ear as we floated out the open airlock and into the glittering black. The sight of unfiltered space took my breath away; I reached out my hand, as if I could collect stardust in my palm. It had been too long since I’d done this, years since Klara had called for a space-walk party and deigned to invite me. Well, she hadn’t invited me to this one either, technically. It made my dance with the stars all the sweeter.

  “How long did you program it for?” Elliot asked, launching right into a somersault.

  “Ten minutes,” I said, doing not much more than a twirl. I never liked going head over heels. One turn felt like the beginning of something uncontrollable, like if I weren’t careful, I would spin endlessly and be lost to the stars.

  “Too bad. I could stay out here forever.”

  “You always had that wanderlust,” I remarked. I paddled with my arms, swimming out as far as my tether would take me. The gentle tug of pressure as I reached my outer limits was reassuring. I wouldn’t float away. “Did you really jump in a freezing lake naked? You would never have done that here,” I mused without thinking.

  “Were you listening in on my conversation with Klara?”

  On instinct, I turned, seeking Elliot out, even though he remained loud and clear in my helmet. He’d ceased all gymnastics and had his arms crossed over his chest, a good fifty feet away from me. Were it not for the pale gray of his suit, he’d have been swallowed up by the vastness all around. We were tiny, compared to the endless expanse.

  “It wasn’t on purpose,” I said. I deployed some compressed air, pushing me closer to him. I was too far out, tether or no.

  “Uh-huh.” He did another somersault. “And there are a lot of things I’ve done since you last sa
w me that I would never have done before. Jumping into a freezing body of water without any clothes on is just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Was that supposed to be a pun?”

  “A bad one.”

  “Okay, so you jumped in a lake. What happened next?” I floated close enough to see Elliot’s face behind the thick glass of his helmet. His breath had partially fogged up his lenses.

  “I proved myself cool enough for the Russians. Evgenia swooped in, took me under her wing. I became one of them. Honestly I’m amazed the Scandinavian doesn’t have a weather room like the Saint Petersburg. I’ve heard the Lady Liberty has a rain room.”

  “The Swedish aren’t as metal as the Russians,” I said dryly. “Maybe the Finns, though.”

  Elliot laughed, the deep timbre triggering a sense memory. Tucked up warm in his bed, some wry comment I made setting him off. The rumble of his laughter tickling my cheek against his bare chest. I experienced a full-body flush, suddenly wishing I had a frigid pool of water to jump into.

  “How desperately do you want to clean your glasses right now?” I asked instead, deflecting. Only it made him laugh again, which didn’t help much at all. This was getting perilously close to feeling romantic, even though I knew it wasn’t. Elliot was mending our friendship. I was chasing dreams like starlight.

  “You know me too well,” he said. “I’m so close to ripping off my helmet.” Then he grabbed me by the hands, shocking my heart up into my throat. “Let’s make the most of our time. Just floating out here is boring.”

  It was like dancing. Elliot pushed against my hands, sending each of us flying back, him into an easy spin, me fighting the momentum so I wouldn’t end up ass over elbow. And he laughed at me every time for my stubbornness. Then we found our way back to each other and started over.

  There was a metaphor for our relationship somewhere in there. I tried not to think about it.

  “Listen, Leo,” Elliot started, tone somber and serious. I’d floated away from him, testing the limits of my tether again. I turned, pumped my arms and legs to swim back closer. But he spun away, allowed himself to drift. “It’s easier to say this if, uh, we’re not looking at each other,” he said. “It’s about Carina.”