Starflight

by Melissa Landers

  Before he had a chance to page her, Cassia descended the stairs with a limping Kane on her heels. Doran followed behind, navigating the steps blindly while holding a gel pack low on his forehead. The instant he met Solara’s eyes, he did a double take and flinched upright.

  “What happened to you?” he asked, both brows disappearing beneath his hair.

  Solara wished she had a mirror handy because she must have looked spectacular. “I had a close encounter with the shower stall. It’s not that bad.”

  “You sure about that?” Kane asked with a wince.

  “Here,” Doran said, holding the gel pack toward her. “You need this more than I do.” When she refused to take it—because she didn’t want anything from him except an apology—he crept closer in the tentative steps of a man approaching a wounded animal. “Really,” he said. “Before your face falls off.”

  She tried smacking away his hand, but it did no good. Doran persisted until she let him rest the pack lightly against her cheekbone. The cool contact brought an instant flood of relief she hadn’t known she’d needed. It felt so good she nearly forgot why she was angry with him. But not quite.

  “Thanks,” she said, reluctantly moving her hand over his. “I’ve got it.”

  “The captain wants a status report,” Cassia said.

  Renny blew out a long breath. “We need a new propellant cell.”

  “Or…?” the girl prompted.

  “Or we’re stuck at snail speed,” Solara said. “Your two-man shuttle could outrun the Banshee right now.”

  Cassia turned to Renny. “How close are we to a supplier?”

  “At this speed?” he said. “Two months out.”

  Everyone in the group exchanged nervous glances, and Solara imagined they were all thinking the same thing. The Banshee was a transport ship, not a military vessel. With no cannons or propellant, they were easy prey for every band of roaming marauders and shipjackers in the quadrant. Or worse. The Daeva might stumble across them.

  Solara shivered just thinking about it.

  Kane broke the silence with the low voice someone might use to tell a ghost story. “We could go to Demarkus.”

  Renny chuckled without humor. “Are you volunteering for the job?”

  When nobody responded, Solara asked, “Where’s Demarkus?”

  “Not where,” Renny said. “Who.”

  “He’s a pirate,” Kane explained. “Runs the black market in this quadrant. But he won’t do business with just anyone. All pirates belong to an alliance called the Brethren of Outcasts.” He tapped a spot on his wrist. “They wear a brand to mark themselves because pirate law favors their own kind.”

  “And if you’re outside that circle,” Cassia said, “Demarkus is more likely to rob you blind than trade with you. The captain has enough street cred to barter with him, but they had a falling out last year.”

  “Cap’n shot him,” Kane supplied with a grin. “Two slugs, right in the chest. Demarkus didn’t even drop his pistol. Did skew his aim, though.”

  “That’s how the captain lost his leg,” Cassia added.

  Renny pinched the bridge of his nose and peered at the puddle of propellant like he could reanimate it if he stared hard enough. “Demarkus knows our faces,” he said. “He’d probably sell us into slavery—if we’re lucky.”

  Doran sniffed a dry laugh and glanced at Solara. “Except Solara. Not even this guy would mess with someone who looks as scary as she does right now.”

  There was a collective intake of breath from the crew, and then all eyes locked on her tattoos. “You know,” Kane said with a cautious expression, “that’s not a bad idea.”

  “No, I was kidding.” Doran shook his head. “It’s a terrible—”

  “Wait,” Cassia interrupted. She cocked her head, studying Solara with narrowed eyes until her lips curled in a smile. “A sweet, young felon. Cute but combative.” She nodded. “Oh yeah. Demarkus would love her to pieces.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Renny said. “We can’t ask her to get involved. We’ll find another way.”

  “And what other way is that?” Cassia demanded. “There’s no salvage yard out here, and we can’t exactly put out a distress call.”

  No one argued, because she was right.

  Solara didn’t relish the idea of bartering with a bulletproof pirate lord, but like it or not, she would do whatever it took to get the replacement part.

  The crew, however, didn’t need to know that.

  “Let’s make a deal,” Solara said. “I’ll be your go-between with the pirates if you’ll take me and Doran to the Obsidian Beaches.” Doran made a choking noise, but she silenced him with a glare. “And then to the fringe. Just like we originally agreed.”

  Twin lines formed between Renny’s bespectacled eyes as he stared at his shoes, clearly tempted by the offer and hating himself for it. “I’ll have to ask the captain.”

  She shrugged. “Go ahead. But I won’t take anything less.”

  Not surprisingly, the captain agreed.

  An hour later, Solara stood wincing in front of the washroom mirror while Cassia plaited her hair into a facial death grip. The braid’s tightness pulled at the corners of her blackened eyes, resulting in an angry expression that said, Speak at your own risk. A steady rotation of gel packs had lessened the swelling above her cheekbone, but she still looked as if she’d gone ten rounds with a grizzly bear.

  It was a good start.

  Solara stepped back and studied her reflection. A black holster hung low on her hips, complete with two pulse pistols she had no clue how to use. The outside of her thigh showcased a sheathed blade. Its curved edge screamed menace, but she’d probably sever her own artery trying to draw it.

  “Smoke and mirrors,” she said, both palms beginning to sweat.

  “You’ll be fine.” Cassia patted her on the back. “Just don’t smile—at all. And say as little as possible. Whatever price they quote for the cell, offer sixty percent of that. Any more and they’ll think you’re a pushover. Any less would be an insult.”

  “Sixty percent,” Solara repeated while nervous butterflies tickled her belly. She’d never been good at crunching numbers in her head, especially not fractions. And what about pirate law? Until now, she hadn’t known pirates had any laws. What if she broke their rules?

  “Hey, slow breaths,” Cassia said.

  Solara hadn’t realized she was gasping. “Right. Sorry.”

  “If you faint among pirates, don’t bother waking up.”

  Oh god. That was not helpful.

  The washroom door swung open, and all thoughts of pirates vanished. A tall boy walked inside, dressed in black clothes at least two sizes too tight. His cherry-red hair stood in haphazard spikes, and his eyes were heavily lined in kohl. If a rock star had an affair with a circus clown, this guy would be the result. It took a few moments to recognize him as Doran.

  Before a question left her lips, he announced, “I’m your pilot.”

  “You?” she choked out. “No way. You’ll get us killed.”

  “They won’t kill me,” Doran insisted. “I’m worth too much.”

  “But I’m not.”

  “I’ll stay in the shuttle. If the plan works, they’ll never see me.”

  “And if the plan goes south?”

  He gripped both hips. “Look, we both know you can’t fly a shuttle.”

  “I can fly,” she argued. It was the landing part she hadn’t mastered.

  “Like the time you broke my arm in pilot’s ed class?”

  She answered with a glare.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Now, quit arguing and let’s go.”

  He stalked out of the washroom, leaving her with a lump of fear in her throat.

  “You’ll be fine,” Cassia repeated. But this time she didn’t make eye contact.

  Solara learned it was disturbingly easy to summon a pirate. After she and Doran put an hour’s distance between themselves and the Banshee, t
hey cut the thrusters and transmitted the shuttle coordinates to an encrypted radio frequency, along with her name and a request for a propellant cell. According to the captain’s instructions, the pirates would come to her. Now all she had to do was survive the wait without crawling out of her skin.

  “Are you sure you used the right signal?” she asked, leaning over Doran’s arm to check the shuttle dashboard. The piercing scent of hair dye watered her eyes and forced her back into her own space. “They should’ve been here by now.”

  “They’re thieves, not doctors,” Doran said. “They’ll come when they feel like it.”

  She wiped both palms on her pants. “Like you’re an expert.”

  Instead of taking the argument bait, Doran turned to face her. His expression showed no panic, which was beyond unfair. “Calm down. It’s going to be okay.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then why are your hands shaking?”

  She glanced down and saw that he was right.

  “Take a sip of this.” He reached inside his jacket and handed over a flask. “The captain said it’d bring you down a notch.”

  Solara tipped back the flask for a quick pull and forced down a mouthful of liquid flame, nearly retching at the taste. She coughed and pounded her chest. “Thanks,” she wheezed. “If anyone corners me, I’ll breathe on them.”

  “Feel better?”

  “If by better you mean pukey, then yes.”

  He expelled a heavy sigh and reached for her wrist. “Here, give me your hand.”

  “What for?” she asked, eyeing him warily.

  “So I can help you relax. If you try to negotiate with these people while your hands are shaking, we’re screwed.”

  “Help me how?”

  “Just give it here,” he snapped. “Why is everything a battle with you?”

  She grunted and held her free hand in his direction, making sure to display an extra special finger for his benefit. She didn’t know what she expected to come next, but it wasn’t the gentle touch of Doran’s thumbs massaging her palm. Caught off guard, she flinched upright.

  Doran didn’t seem to notice. He watched her hand while rubbing it in alternating circles, soothing muscles that had grown stiff from clenching her fists for too long. “My mother used to do this when I was little,” he said. “It always calmed me down after a bad dream.”

  Solara didn’t know what to say. Doran was holding her hand. In what alternate dimension was that valid? Crazier still, she didn’t hate the sensation. It felt rather delicious, actually. Her whole body responded to the warm contact, coaxing her to relax until she nearly dropped the flask.

  “Sometimes I lied about having nightmares just so she’d do this,” he continued. “I think she caught on because that’s when she stopped.”

  “Are you two close?” Solara asked. “Like with your dad?”

  His thumbs paused for a moment. “No.”

  “Because she quit giving hand massages?”

  “Because she took off. About eight years ago, after the divorce.”

  “Oh.” Solara’s cheeks heated. Her comment about the massages was a joke, and now she wished she could take it back. “Took off, as in permanently?”

  He nodded.

  “Why? Where’d she go?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think my parents hate each other too much to share the same planet. They used to work together—that’s how they met. She was the scientist who invented Spaulding Fuel chips. It was a huge moneymaker, but after the split, they couldn’t stand to look at each other, and my dad ousted her from the company. Then there was the whole thing with…” He trailed off. “Well, I guess she couldn’t handle the reminders, so she left.”

  “Do you ever hear from her?”

  “Sometimes.” Doran moved his thumbs to the inside of her wrist, delicately stroking between the tiny bones there. His voice turned soft in a way that plucked at her heart. “On birthdays and holidays. But there’s not much to talk about anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” Solara told him, and meant it. She knew how it felt to be abandoned. But unlike her mother, Doran’s mom had no excuse for leaving—she had the resources to be a parent, just not the desire. Solara could only imagine how much that hurt. She looked at him with new eyes, and something warm stirred behind her ribs. “I guess we’re members of two secret clubs now. My mom left me when I was little, too. And my dad.”

  Doran stopped massaging her hand and pointed at the flask. When she passed it over, he took a long pull, then winced and coughed. “We need to join better clubs.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “Chess, maybe.”

  He swore quietly to himself and took another swig of Crystalline. Then his voice went hollow while his eyes fixed on a point in the distance. “Don’t freak out or anything, but they’re here.”

  She snapped her gaze in the direction of his, and all the air leaked slowly out of her lungs. Approaching them was the ugliest tank of a ship she’d ever seen, like evil in motion. At least the length of a football field and twice as wide, it probably housed the population of a small town, maybe a hangar of shuttles as well. The battered metal patchwork covering the ship’s hull was proof of combat, and the pulse cannons mounted all around the exterior promised they could dish it out as well as take it.

  She’d expected a shuttle to meet her, not the whole operation. She wasn’t ready for this.

  A computerized voice crackled over the intercom. “Set your controls to neutral and prepare to come aboard.” Doran did as commanded, and their shuttle jerked forward into the ship’s tow beam. Slowly, they closed the distance until a massive rear hatch opened—a dragon’s maw sucking them into the belly of the beast.

  A tiny squeak escaped Solara’s lips.

  Doran took her hand and squeezed it hard. “Look at me.” When she didn’t listen, he physically turned her face. “Before we land, I need to know why you’re doing this. We’re not friends. We’re not even cohorts. So why are you helping me?”

  Even facing him, she could see the hangar in her periphery, a dim, cavernous space filled with mismatched shuttlecraft. Her heart hammered. There was no turning back now. “You know why,” she told him. “If we can’t find a propellant cell, we’re as good as dead.”

  “But you leveraged it in my favor.”

  “So what?”

  “There has to be a reason.”

  She shook her head at his low opinion of her, though after what she’d just learned about him, it wasn’t surprising. If he couldn’t trust his own mother, why would he trust a felon? “That’s where you’re wrong,” Solara told him. “Most people don’t need a reason to be decent. I’m one of those people. You could be, too, if you made an effort.”

  That seemed to get through to him.

  He released her face as the next command sounded from the intercom. “Passenger Lara. Leave all weapons inside your craft and exit with your hands visible. Any aggression will be met with lethal force.”

  With trembling fingers she tossed her pistols and knife to the floor, then took a moment to draw a deep breath as the shuttle floated inside the massive metal holding chamber and touched down. A grinding noise signaled the hatch closing, followed by the whir of heated oxygen filling the hangar. When it was safe to exit, a buzzer sounded.

  “Thirty minutes,” Doran said, unlocking the shuttle door. “And then I’m coming after you.”

  Solara didn’t trust herself to speak, so she nodded and climbed down to the steely floor. She made her way to the front of the enclosure, where two armed men stood guard at the metal door leading to the air-lock. From where she stood, they didn’t look like pirates, just ordinary men from the streets. Except better fed.

  One of the guards, a bald man with a second pair of eyes tattooed on his scalp, pointed at a circle painted on the floor and told her, “Stand there.”

  She did as instructed, and an overhead beam scanned her for weapons. Once cleared, she folded both arms, making sure her conviction cod
es were visible. It worked. She saw the respect in the nearly imperceptible nods of the guards’ heads. For once, her ink was actually useful.

  “Propellant cell, right?” the first man asked.

  Solara nodded.

  “Fifty thousand fuel chips.”

  She pretended to consider his offer while mentally calculating sixty percent. Half of fifty was twenty-five, and ten percent of fifty was five. So thirty? To be safe, she guessed high. “Thirty-five.”

  “Done,” he said. “You can pay inside, second room on the right. I’ll deliver the part to your pilot.” With the press of a button, he opened the door to the air-lock chamber, a small holding cell that regulated pressurization. But when he tried opening the next door, the one leading into the ship, it wouldn’t budge. “Damn thing’s stuck again,” he muttered.

  “It’s probably your hatch sensor,” Solara guessed. She pointed through the window to the control room, where another guard was frowning at the equipment panel. “Ask your friend if the hangar lights are blinking.”

  The bald man cast her a skeptical glance, but he did as she asked. A moment later, he touched his earpiece and nodded. “He says it’s all lit up.”

  “Then your sensor needs cleaning,” she told him. “It’s an easy fix.”

  The man scoffed at her, nodding across the hangar at the enormous hatch while thumbing behind him. “What does the hatch sensor have to do with this air-lock?”

  “It’s a safety feature. Think about it. What would happen if both of these doors”—she pointed in front of and behind them—“were open at the same time as the hangar?”

  The corners of his mouth turned down. “We’d all get sucked into space.”

  “Blown into space,” she corrected. “So the ship won’t let you open the interior door unless it thinks the hangar is sealed.” Leaving the air-lock chamber, she began walking toward the hatch and motioned for him to follow. “And if your sensor is dirty…”

  “Then it sends the wrong message?” the guard said.

  “Exactly.” When she reached the glassy sensor at the other end of the hangar, she found it covered in a greasy layer of filth. She used her tunic hem to wipe the bulb clean and stood back to show the guard.