by Cheree Alsop
“I’ll have something made up special for you, Officer Day,” he promised.
The thought of food made her stomach growl.
“Thank you,” she told him.
When the door to the bridge slid open, Devren and Tariq were the only two on deck.
Devren smiled. “Tariq told me he ran into you.” He nodded appreciatively at her clothing. “You look ready for combat.”
“The uniform was a bit torn after Malivian…” Liora let her voice fade away.
“His name won’t be mentioned here again,” Devren said. “I’m grateful for what you did for my crew. You are free to go whenever you’d like, and you have a place here for as long as you want to stay. Welcome aboard the Starship Kratos, Officer Day.”
That brought a smile to her lips. “Thank you, Captain.”
Tariq snorted. “I never thought I’d hear a Damaclan call you captain.”
Devren shrugged. “I could get used to it.”
“I’ll bet you could,” Tariq replied quietly. He refused to meet Liora’s gaze.
Devren pressed a button on his console. “Officer Duncan, report to the bridge.”
A few minutes later, the officer appeared at the door. “Yes, Captain?”
“The sooner we take off, the better chance those surveyors have. Also,” Devren glanced at Tariq, “I hear we’ve made a few enemies. Let’s not give them time to retaliate. Tell the crew it’s time to leave.”
At Duncan’s announcement, crew members entered the bridge.
“Jarston saved you three some haffot stew and peach cobbler,” Hyrin said as he took his seat.
“With fresh cream,” Officer Shathryn echoed. “We won’t have any more of that until we return from the mission. You’ll want it while it’s cold.”
“Thanks for letting us know,” Devren told her.
“On my way,” Tariq said. At Devren’s look, he grinned. “What? You expect me to let fresh cream go bad? You’d better hurry or I’ll eat yours, too.”
Devren’s dark eyebrows lifted at the challenge. He glanced at Hyrin.
“I’ve got it, Captain. We’ll call you if anything goes wrong. Currently, the path to the Arizona transporter is clear. We’ll make the jump and it’s smooth sailing from there.”
“That’s an optimistic outlook,” O’Tule pointed out. “There are hundreds of things, and maybe even thousands, that could go wrong right now. You need to be prepared for the bad as well as the good. I’m not so sure optimism is the best thing for a pilot to have.”
Hyrin gave her a smile that said he was used to her rants. “Peach cobbler has a way of making me optimistic.”
“I’m going to tell Jarston not to give that Talastan any more cobbler,” O’Tule said loudly to herself. “It could be bad for all of our health regardless of his culinary skills. The best thing would be for the rest of the cobbler to be eaten without delay and—”
“Dibs,” Tariq called without waiting for O’Tule to finish her rant. He shoved Devren to the side and darted through the door.
“Hey,” Devren shouted. He took off after his friend.
Officer Duncan met Liora’s gaze. “The best kind of captains are those with a sense of humor.” He winked. “You might want to catch up before they end up eating yours, too.”
Liora walked down the hallway with a smile on her face. She couldn’t remember ever smiling so much in her life, yet being aboard the SS Kratos with a crew that treated each other like family, and who seemed to include her in that family even though she had only just met them, made smiling seem like the right thing to do.
She paused in the doorway to the mess hall. Devren and Tariq sat at a table eating cobbler like it was going extinct. A big bowl of whipped cream sat on the table between them. They scooped spoonsful like kids, spreading it on their cobbler before taking huge bites. Both men had it all over their faces.
“So this is what it looks like to eat in a mess hall,” Liora said.
Devren sputtered and Tariq merely watched her, his smile gone.
“Grab a spoon,” Devren invited.
Liora crossed the room and picked up the extra spoon waiting on the table. True to his word, Jarston appeared with another bowl of cobbler.
“Thank you for saving our lives,” the cook told Liora when he set the bowl in front of her. “There would be fewer of us aboard the Kratos right now.”
“Is that true?” Devren asked, watching her with interest. “Tariq said it was a coincidence that they ran into you there.”
Liora glanced at Tariq. He studied his cobbler.
The intercom buzzed.
“Officer Tariq, your assistance is needed in the medical wing.”
“What’s going on?” Tariq asked.
“Officer Bonway nearly amputated his finger performing repairs in the engine room,” came the answer.
Tariq rose. “I’ll be right there.” He took another big bite of cobbler, then rushed from the room.
Devren turned his attention back to Liora. “You’re not getting off that easy. What happened on the Gaulded?”
She lifted her shoulders. “I happened to be changing a few floors above when I heard the commotion. I just have good timing.”
“If good timing means flying from four flights up to clobber the Gauls barring our escape, then yes,” Jarston replied from the kitchen with a hint of good-natured sarcasm. “That’s good timing.”
Devren sat back and crossed his arms. Jarston took it as his cue to close the windows to the kitchen.
The captain gave Liora a straight look.
“Why did you save my crew?”
“They needed it,” she replied without looking at him.
“Liora.”
She kept her attention on her cobbler.
“Officer Day, look at me.”
Liora set her spoon down. When she met Devren’s gaze, the want to understand nearly broke through the walls she kept around her emotions. She closed her eyes.
“I shouldn’t have come back here.”
“But you did,” Devren said gently. “So this is where you should be.” He was quiet for a moment, then he said, “Liora, I trust every single crew member aboard my ship. I need to know I can trust you, too. What brought you back here?”
Liora met Devren’s gaze. “I’ll show you.”
Devren nodded.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
Liora brought up the memory she wanted. Her breath caught in her throat as she pushed it to Devren. His hands gripped the edges of the table.
“I’m sorry,” Liora whispered.
Gunfire was everywhere. Liora hid beneath the blankets in her mother’s house. Screams and cries for help sounded from the cement paths of the village. The living pulse of fire showed beyond the curtains as it devoured their neighbor’s home.
“They’ll destroy everything,” Chief Obruo shouted from their kitchen.
“We can stop them,” Liora’s mother argued.
“Not like this,” Obruo replied. “Not without losing everything of value to us.”
“We are Damaclan. We’ll fight back and rebuild.”
“We don’t have to fight back. We can sacrifice one life for many. That’s the way it has always been,” Obruo said.
“But not her.”
“She has the blood,” Obruo pointed out.
“But not your blood,” Liora’s mother replied.
“That’s why she’s got to go,” Obruo argued. “She’ll tear us apart, Tenieva. She’s already done it.”
Liora covered her head beneath the blankets.
“Don’t make me go, don’t make me go, don’t make me go,” she chanted over and over, pushing it toward them.
Chief Obruo burst into the bedroom and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her from the bed. “Enough with the mind tricks!” he shouted. “Take your black magic and rid this place of evil!”
He pulled her kicking and screaming from their home. Liora glanced back once to see her mother standing in the
door, tears streaming down her face and her arm outstretched.
“Help me, mother!” Liora cried.
“I’m sorry, baby,” her mother called in a sob.
“Accept our sacrifice!” Obruo yelled.
His Damaclan tattoos stood out in stark contrast amid the flames and fire. Blood and carnage lined the cement and tile paths of the village. The dark shadows, the nameless ones, raped and murdered. Liora glanced the body of a boy she knew sprawled beneath a land cruiser. She turned her head, burying it in Obruo’s side.
Chief Obruo dropped down to his knees next to Liora. He grabbed her arms tight and forced her to look at him.
“Liora, your clan needs you.”
“You said they’re not my clan,” she replied, her voice shaking.
The chief shook his head. “Damaclan blood runs in your veins. Even though it isn’t pure, we raised you as our own. You completed the training.” His hand touched the fresh tattoo on the side of her neck. “You are worthy. Go protect our village from the shadows.”
Liora’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m afraid.”
A shriek pierced the air. Flames began anew on the far side of the village.
“If you don’t go, the clan will be lost,” Obruo said.
Liora turned slowly. Glass crunched beneath her bare feet. Obruo gave her a little shove in the direction of the screams.
“Save us, Liora. Repay your bloodright.”
Liora walked numbly between the burning houses. The clan had always praised themselves on simplicity and beauty. The paintings along the sides of the gray houses melted in the flames. Liora knew how the paintings felt.
Shadows with red eyes and clawed hands raced ahead, tearing apart the only home she had ever known. Liora wanted to cry, to stop, to run, to do anything other than keep walking, but the chief had told her to go. She was the chosen sacrifice. If they accepted, the clan would be saved. But what about her?
A shadow rushed by close enough that Liora felt the pull of its black mass against her skin.
“Take me,” she said as she had been taught.
The shadow slowed and turned. Ice ran through Liora’s veins when its demon eyes met hers. It made a little sound, a half-shriek, half-whistle, and hundreds of shadows surrounded Liora.
Claws dripped the blood of her people as they circled her. She could smell the carnage on them, shadows without form, but with a hunger so great it showed in their bared fangs and reaching hands.
“Taste,” one of the shadows whispered.
“Taste,” the word rippled through the rest of them like a summer breeze rustling the grass.
“Taste.” The word sent a shiver down Liora’s spine.
Fangs flashed and sunk into her throat opposite the tattoo. Liora screamed and struggled at the pain. It shouldn’t have mattered, it shouldn’t have changed things. Yet the shadow reared back, its fangs slick with black instead of red.
“They tried to trick us,” the shadow shrieked, its voice so terrible Liora had to cover her ears.
“They tried to feed us half-blood,” another said.
“They have sealed their fate.”
“No!” Liora cried.
All of the shadows looked at her.
“I-I’m the last one,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m the last initiate. The rest of the girls are gone.” She bit back a sob. “You’ve taken them all. I have to be enough.”
“So sad,” one shadow said.
“Impure,” another echoed.
“Her bravery shall be her only salvation,” a third whispered, its clawed hands brushing through her hair.
“End this.”
The word of the final shadow sent them back through the village. Liora was frozen to the ground as she watched each villager be killed and every home destroyed. Tears streaked her face when the two suns rose and revealed her mother slain in front of the biggest home. The shadows had left, and instead of taking the clan’s final sacrifice, they had left her as the only witness.
Crew members burst into the mess hall.
“I told them you were here!” Hyrin exclaimed.
“We’re so glad you came back!” O’Tule said. She gave Liora a huge smile. “You’re a crewmate, which means now you’re our sister. We can’t lose sisters; we have to look out for each other. It’s one of those things that comes along with being sworn in, you know?”
Liora stared at her, not sure she understood the words the woman said.
“Yes, we need another girl aboard; the testosterone gets a little overpowering,” Shathryn told her with a kind smile.
“You’re the one with the gun obsession,” a man with a large mustache pointed out.
“I like guns more than I like men, Sicily,” Shathryn replied with a wink. “They’ve never let me down.”
Liora blinked, still caught in the tail end of the push. Her thoughts were torn between the past and the present. A glance at Devren showed the same. Maybe she had revealed too much. She didn’t know why she trusted him.
When Devren’s gaze met hers, she knew why. There wasn’t judgement or pity on his face. All he showed was understanding and kindness.
“I’m sorry,” he mouthed beneath the commotion of his crew.
She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she settled for a nod.
He took a breath as if centering himself and turned to the others. The smile that touched his lips at his crew’s raucous descent into the cafeteria let her know how he felt about the members of the SS Kratos. They were a family, a noisy, chaotic, slightly dysfunctional one, but a family just the same, and he had invited her to join it.
“Did you like the cobbler?” Straham asked, his eyes bright. “Jarston makes it best.”
“It was amazing,” she replied.
“I heard that,” Jarston called from the kitchen. “She can stay.”
“Do you hear that?” Hyrin said. “You know what that calls for, right?”
“Kratos oil!” Straham and Sicily called at the same time.
“What’s Kratos oil?” Liora asked.
A volley of groans and chuckles went around the table.
Devren smiled at her. “I’ll leave you to your initiation.”
“What initiation?” Liora asked. She watched him walk from the room. “Don’t leave me with them!”
“You’ll be fine,” he called over his shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” O’Tule said as soon as the door to the mess hall shut. “We’ve all done it. You have to be initiated as a new officer. It’s a tradition, and tradition can’t be ignored. It’s the glue that holds us all together, and glue is very important because, well,” she paused, then concluded, “It holds us all together. It’s a tradition.”
“Tradition!” Jarston called from the kitchen.
He burst sideways through the sliding door as if unable to wait for it to open all the way. There was a cup in his hand balanced on a white platter. Dark liquid coated the sides.
Jarston set the cup in front of Liora with a flourish.
“Kratos oil.”
Liora eyed the cup suspiciously. “Am I supposed to drink this?”
“Drink, drink!” Straham called. The others took up the chant.
Shathryn winked at her. “It won’t kill you, hon. We’ve all survived it.”
Liora picked up the cup. The liquid inside was thick and sloshed in one piece. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed.
“Don’t sniff it, drink it!” Hyrin said, his sideways eyelids blinking rapidly in his excitement.
Liora put the cup to her lips and took a deep gulp.
“That’s good!” she said in surprise. “What is it?”
Jarston grinned at her. “Real earthling chocolate with a dash of swarthan honey and a single drip of oil from our good ship. I keep it for special occasions.”
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever had,” Liora said. She drank the rest down.
“Initiation complete!” Hyrin called.
A cheer went up through
the crew members. Liora couldn’t help the smile that touched her lips at their enthusiasm. Everyone patted her shoulders.
“The Kratos doesn’t get new crew members easily,” O’Tule said. She gave Liora another big smile and said in her clipped way, “When we do, they become family, and family is priceless. I don’t know what I’d do without my family. We’re a team, a group, we fight for each other and we make sure everyone is taken care of. You can always use more members to your family, you know?”
A warm feeling settled over Liora as O’Tule continued her rant about the importance of being one of the crew members. She didn’t fight it. As much as she was afraid of settling into life aboard the Kratos, for the moment, it felt good to belong somewhere.
Shathryn touched Liora’s hair. “Did you do this yourself?” she asked.
Liora met the humanoid’s questioning gaze. “It was in the way.”
“Hmmm,” Shathryn said, her tone showing her distaste. “Did you do it with a blunt knife? It looks like a zanderbin’s been grazing here.” Light sparkled in her purple eyes. “I think I can help with this.”
“Oh, yes!” O’Tule said. The small woman danced around as if she couldn’t contain her excitement. “Let us, please! Shathryn is amazing with a pair of scissors, a force not to be trifled with! Let her take over and you won’t even know what happened to you.”
“She did this for me,” Sicily said, smoothing his mustache with two fingers. “I’d trust her if I was you.”
Liora didn’t know exactly what she was being asked to let them do, but she couldn’t deny the enthusiasm on both women’s faces.
“Alright,” she gave in.
Shathryn and O’Tule steered her out of the cafeteria and up the hallway to the living quarters. Liora was taken to a room with paintings all over the walls that matched those on the corners of the halls.
“You did those?” she asked Shathryn.
The purple-haired woman shook her head and pointed at O’Tule. “Those are this little lady’s creations. Beautiful, aren’t they?”
O’Tule smiled as Liora ran her hand over a highly detailed scene of a moondu grazing with the rings of Saturn in the background.
