Moonlight Mist: A Limited Edition Collection of Fantasy & Paranormal)

by Nicole Morgan

  As if summoned by her thoughts, Derrick walked in, carrying one of the large, gray containers as if it weighed nothing. “The captain said you asked for these crates to be brought in here.”

  He glowered at her. Apparently, he hadn’t forgiven the accident in the lounge quite yet. Kyra blushed. The wound was still visible on his head, along with a good-sized goose-egg, but the blood had been cleaned out of his short, dark brown hair at least.

  “What the hell is in this?” Derrick cast a suspicious glance at the metal box as he thumped it down on the counter.

  Kyra hurried to it and keyed in the code to the lock. The latch flipped open with a click, and she raised the lid. Ivy peered over her shoulder and sucked in a breath.

  “What is all this?” she asked. She reached past Kyra and pulled out the topmost item—an appleberry. “Is this actual fruit?”

  “Who’d you rob to get your hands on that much fresh food?” Derrick asked, staring hard at Kyra.

  She flushed even brighter under the suspicious scrutiny. Hastily she closed the crate’s lid. She’d inventory the assorted items—pomatoes, kick beans, cullots, and spices like nutger and clove—later. “I traded fair for it on New Mustique Capital City.”

  “You surely must have paid a fortune,” Derrick said. He looked her up and down with a frown. Kyra squirmed slightly. They both knew she only had one thing to trade. In the settlements, people traded whatever they had—including sex. It was a currency like any other. Nobody batted an eye at such things. But she’d heard that in the more developed worlds, that sort of thing was frowned upon. Which was strange given that every Capital City station had at least one brothel. She couldn’t quite claim to understand the rules of “fancy” society, but apparently, she was already running afoul of them. There was definitely calculation in Derrick’s eyes as he looked at her, judging the worth of her particular trade—and he seemed to find her wanting.

  She bristled slightly, rebelling at the unfair assessment. The merchant could have earned a small fortune selling the produce and spices to a colony like New Mustique, but Kyra had provided a more than fair value in trade. The merchant had left very satisfied with the deal.

  “What are you gonna do with all this, anyway?” Derrick asked. “It won’t keep until New Dominica.”

  Kyra pressed her lips together for a second, embarrassment flooding through her again. But she couldn’t really keep the purpose secret since it would become obvious to everyone shortly. “I… I’m going to use it to practice.”

  “Practice? Practice what?” Derrick asked.

  “Cooking,” Kyra said, peeking up at him to see his reaction.

  “I thought you said you was a cook?” Ivy said.

  “I am!” Kyra replied. “I mean… I’m okay at it. But I want to get a job as a fancy chef, at a nice restaurant or a hotel or something. So I need to practice using fresh food. Fancying up re-con meal kits will only get me so far.” As a chef, a proper chef, there would be no more worrying about where the next meal would come from, no more fighting for a warm spot to sleep, no more persistent ache in the belly. She’d had enough of the hard scrabble life out on the frontier. She wanted wealth, prestige, comfort. She wanted someplace where she was seen as something other than small and clumsy and useless. “I plan to use the next five weeks practicing, using the passengers as taste testers, until I’ve perfected my skills.”

  Derrick harrumphed and shook his head. “Good luck getting anyone to eat anything you make.”

  “I’ll be glad to try it!” Ivy cried. “Anything’s better than re-conned meal kits and protein bars.”

  “Yeah, well, I ain’t nobody’s guinea pig. I’ll stick to protein bars.” Derrick shot Kyra another glare. Then he turned and stomped off, squeezing his broad frame through the doorway and disappearing down the hall toward the flight deck.

  Kyra watched his retreating back with a pang. It was a mighty small ship to be stuck on with someone who was annoyed by her mere presence. It was going to be hard to keep out of his way. She’d hoped once she got out of the settlements everyone would stop finding her so worthless. Apparently, she still had a ways to travel before that was the case.

  Ivy nudged her. “Forget him. He’s always like that. Hunter would have asked the Company to transfer him long ago cause of his attitude, but he’s handy in a fight. If we’re set on by raiders, there ain’t anyone you’d want by your side more than Derrick.”

  Kyra frowned thoughtfully. She still needed to apologize to him for the catastrophe in the lounge. She only had two things to offer—and he clearly wasn’t interested in one of those. She turned to Ivy. “Do you know if Derrick has a sweet tooth?”

  Chapter Three

  Derrick followed his nose. He sniffed again, inhaling the alluring scent of spices and sweetness. He stuck his head into the mess. Ivy half sat on the edge of the large dining room table that filled the space, one foot on the floor, one leg dangling free.

  “What’s that smell?” he asked.

  Ivy looked up. She had a look of rapture on her face. It was then that Derrick noticed the small, half-eaten brown circle in her hand.

  She nodded at a plate on the table, piled high with more of the small brown circles.

  “Kyra made cookies,” Ivy said.

  “Cookies?” Derrick asked, coming fully into the room. He stopped by the table and frowned down at the plate.

  “You’ve had cookies, haven’t you?”

  “Of course I have!” He paused, trying to recall if he’d ever actually had one. Re-Cons had the necessities: protein, starch, and vegetables. Dessert was not generally on the menu. There had been a stall in the marketplace on New Dominica’s Capital City Station selling pastries once, an exotic, unheard of thing for those, like him, not from a First World. He’d just joined the Company, signed on as a rig operator out on New St. Vincent, and had been flush with cash, his signing bonus burning a hole in his account. It was the first—and last—time he’d had the funds to splurge on an excessive luxury like pastry.

  Derrick grunted as he suspiciously surveyed the plate’s contents. “How’d she manage to cook anything without cutting off a finger or burning the place down?”

  Ivy swatted at his shoulder. “Be nice! She’s a little klutzy, but she’s very sweet.”

  “If you say so.”

  Ivy nudged the plate toward him as she snagged another cookie for herself. “Try one. They’re good. And still warm!”

  Derrick hesitated; then, not seeing any reason to turn down free food, he grabbed one. He sniffed the cookie suspiciously, and then, since nothing seemed amiss, took a bite. As soon as it hit his taste buds, he was in heaven. His mouth filled with a combination of soft-edged spices and a sweet, sugary undercurrent that mingled together perfectly. He had to stifle an unmanly moan—he didn’t want to look like he was actually enjoying the cookie. He greedily shoved the rest of the confection in his mouth.

  Ivy reached behind her and grabbed something off the table. It turned out to be another plate of cookies, these pale yellow. She handed them to Derrick.

  “Kyra had to go attend to her chores, but she wanted you to have these.”

  There was a note on top. Warily, Derrick took the plate in one hand, the note in the other. In a plain, simple hand, Kyra had written, “Sorry about your head.”

  Derrick snorted, amused despite himself. He grabbed one of the new cookies off the plate and sniffed it. It was sweet, with a fruity undertone, very different from the spicy scent of the brown ones. He cautiously took a bite. A combination of pungently sharp and softly sweet sensations hit his tongue at the same time. “Mmmmm!” he said.

  “Kyra asked what you liked, and I told her to make something sour like you!” Ivy said, sticking her tongue out at him as she hopped down from the table. “She said those are called lemon drops.”

  “What smells so good?”

  Derrick turned to see Harlan’s wizened head sticking through the doorway. Apparently, the smell wafting through the sh
ip had made it all the way to the bridge.

  “Cookies,” said Ivy.

  “Cooks?” said Harlan with a puzzled expression.

  “Cookies!” said Ivy louder, holding up the plate of spicy cookies.

  Harlan’s face lit up. “Well damn, I ain’t had anything sweet in six months.”

  The old coot tottered stiffly across the room and greedily grabbed three cookies from the plate. Derrick protectively pulled his own plate closer to his chest, just in case Harlan mistakenly thought they were for sharing.

  Harlan had just taken his first bite when Hunter stomped into the room, a scowl on his face. Damn, but there was never anything but a scowl on the man’s face.

  Derrick had crewed for Hunter for two years, and the man was nothing if not irascible. Derrick wasn’t much for talking and socializing, but compared to Hunter, he was downright socialable. Not that Hunter was a bad boss—far from it. The man knew his business, kept a level head in a crisis, and was a shrewd negotiator. But he was as flexible as an iron rod.

  Hunter accepted a cookie from the plate Ivy offered him without a word. While he didn’t seem either suspicious or excited by the cookies, Derrick didn’t miss the quick, critical assessment Hunter gave the cookies, the members of his crew standing in a semi-circle around the table, and the room at large. The man didn’t miss anything.

  “Don’t you have work to do?” he asked the assembled crew, eyeing them each in turn.

  Ivy looked abashed. “Just takin’ a quick break.”

  Harlan, by contrast, met Hunter’s eyes without so much as blinking. “Yup,” he said and dropped into a chair. He turned his gaze to the cookie in his hand, silently dismissing Hunter.

  Derrick had to admire the man; Harlan was too old to give a crap what anyone thought or to take orders. He did as he pleased. Wasn’t like Hunter could space him for insubordination—pilots, unlike roughnecks, were valuable.

  Hunter looked at the plate in Derrick’s hands. “What’s that?”

  Derrick tucked the plate closer, trying to hide it from view. He stepped backward, toward the door, first one step, then another. “Well, I should get back to work, make sure the passengers aren’t breaking anything.” The clumsy girl—Kyra—had probably set something on fire.

  He turned and quickly headed for the doorway. Once he was safely in the hall, he stopped and held the plate to his nose. He inhaled deeply, savoring the sweet, tangy scent of the cookies. Getting conked on the head wasn’t so bad if this were the result. It seemed a small price to pay for this little slice of heaven. He inhaled again and then headed for his quarters. He wanted to enjoy these beauties in private.

  Kyra nervously clutched the straps of the chair’s harness; while docking was much less dangerous than launching, her stomach still flip-flopped mercilessly. Most captains didn’t even require passengers to strap into the flight deck during docking, but apparently Captain Hunter was “by the book.” So here they were, strapped in, with nothing to do but listen to the engines cycle through various speeds and the thrusters fire intermittently as Ivy and the elderly pilot worked in concert to dock them to New Guyana’s Capital City.

  Kyra had thought the tiny, frail old man had been one of the passengers when she’d run into him in the hall. He’d asked if she was the one that had made the cookies and the chicken stew the night before, and when she’d said yes, he’d hugged her, tears of gratitude shining in his eyes. She’d had to pry herself free from his surprisingly strong embrace. When she’d recounted the story to Ivy later, Ivy had doubled over in laughter. “That’s Harlan. He’s the pilot!” Kyra sort of wished she didn’t know their pilot was ancient. It was one of the reasons she was gripping the straps of her harness so tightly as they completed the relatively benign process of docking.

  It was all over in a few minutes. The engines powered down and the intercom crackled to life. The captain’s commanding voice rang out. “Docking complete. Ten minutes until secure seal. We depart at eleven hundred tomorrow. Passengers are free to visit Capital City, but we don’t wait for anybody so be back on time.”

  Around her harness fasteners clicked open as the sound of conversation rose. Slowly, Kyra unfastened the restraint and got to her feet. She had thought she’d spend the short stopover cooking, but with no one on board to eat what she made, it would be a waste of produce. She didn’t have any credits to spend on the station, so there weren’t much point in going into “town.” She wasn’t sure how to spend the time. Frankly, the feeling of being at loose ends was downright… unsettling. She’d never once in all her life found herself not having anything she had to do.

  Aimlessly, she wandered down to the main hanger to watch the other passengers debarking. The stopover here was just to unload some cargo; none of the passengers were permanently getting off, but for all that, everyone sure seemed excited. They’d only been on the Mercy two days, so no one could complain of boredom, and since one capital city was much like another, Kyra wasn’t much sure what the fuss was all about. Sure, each capital city was a reflection of the planet it orbited in terms of amenities, which meant there were some variation, but generally space port was space port. It was always a whole lot of glossy, gleaming hallways populated with people heading to one place or another, none of them fixing to stay put. If you didn’t have money to spend—or something to trade—it wasn’t of too much interest. Two days was too short of a stop over to cable down to the surface. New Guyana was only a settlement anyway; not much to see.

  She was startled by an arm looping through hers. She turned to find Ivy hanging on to her right arm. “You comin’?”

  Kyra shrugged. “I don’t know. I wasn’t really planning on it.”

  “Oh come on, you gotta see the town! That’s the entire point of being out here.” Without waiting for an answer, she stepped forward, dragging Kyra with her. If Kyra wanted to keep her arm, she had no choice but to follow. Vienna fell in step with them.

  “Joining us?” She flashed Kyra a wolfish smile.

  Kyra shrugged. Before she could answer, she was distracted by a movement on the far side of the cargo hold. Derrick was moving heavy crates with ease, the muscles in his arms and back rippling beneath his tight shirt as he lifted. Sweet, merciful heaven but there was something about his effortless strength that was incredibly sexy. Her stomach flip-flopped. She could watch him all day. She tried to swallow but found that her mouth had gone dry.

  Vienna’s smile widened. “If you’d prefer to stay behind…”

  Kyra flushed. “I’m fine.”

  Vienna and Ivy exchanged looks over her head, and Kyra wanted to sink through the floor. Her embarrassment was soon forgotten, however, as the two women led her down the ramp, through the airlock, and into Capital City’s transport hanger. They followed a row of exit lights to the hanger door and stepped through into a bustling thoroughfare.

  New Mustique had been a well-established colony with a growing population, but it was a desolate backwater compared to this. The noise assaulted her first, a solid wave of sound like a fist after the quiet of the Mercy. Merchants hawking wares, loudspeakers blaring station announcements, an endless crowd of voices raised in conversation. It all blended together into a seamless din. New Guyana itself might be only a settlement, but its capital city was a bustling metropolis. Kyra had never seen so many people in one place in her life. Without meaning to, she shrank back and clutched at Ivy’s arm.

  Ivy looked at her in surprise. “What’s the matter?”

  Kyra shook her head. “I never seen so many people.”

  “This?” Vienna said dismissively. “New Guyana is hardly more than a mudhole in the great wide universe. If you think this is something, wait until we get to New Dominica!”

  The two women tugged her forward into the crowd, stepping expertly through the throng. Kyra’s head spun, and she gaped at all the sights as the two women led her down the street.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Oh, just window shopping,” Ivy said. “I
don’t have any credits to spend, but I like to look.”

  They strolled along, past the kiosks and vendor stalls that catered to transports: customs, immigration, law enforcement, mechanics, and the like. Ivy tugged her purposefully down the “street,” following signs that pointed the way to the market. Soon they were among the colorful stalls and storefronts of vendors offering clothing, food stuffs, and the like. Ivy bee-lined for a service window offering hot beverages despite the fact she’d said she didn’t have any money. Kyra didn’t recognize the name of any of the items on the menu; apparently, these were local specialties. She had a little money she could spare, so she decided to indulge herself and ordered an exotic sounding combination of coffee, tea, and steamed milk. She’d only ever had powdered milk, but apparently there were farms on New Guyana as the menu proudly proclaimed the beverage was made with fresh milk. Vienna demurred and didn’t order anything.

  “You know my story,” Kyra said to Ivy as they waited for their drinks. “Now it’s your turn. How did you end up on the Mercy? Engineers can have their pick of jobs.”

  Ivy looked surprised. “A posting to a ship like the Mercy is the pick of the litter. Mid-range transport, moving mostly cargo and Company personnel. It’s not flashy, and we certainly won’t get retired to an Ark or First World, but it’s quiet and relaxin’, so that’s something.”

  Ivy turned this over. Immigration onto First Worlds was strictly controlled; you had to have an in-demand skill to be allowed entry. But engineers were valuable everywhere; surely Ivy could settle on a planet if she wanted. Kyra turned to Vienna, wondering the same thing about her. There wasn’t much call for navigators planet-side, but surely Vienna could get promoted to a better posting than a mid-range transport.