by Dixon, Ruby
"We had to bail out early," I tell him lamely. "Work came up. You know how it is."
"I see."
"Please don't be mad at me," I whisper into the comm receiver. "I need you to be my friend."
My computer panel buzzes. It's a visual communication request from the Fool. Kef me. "Accept," Sentorr says flatly. "If you want to talk to me, that's how I want to do it."
"I can't," I tell him, panicked. I could go get my holo and flip it on, but they look grainy and unnatural in visual comms. The holo's meant to be a visual distortion and it doesn't carry through over the airwaves. He'll know I'm a phony immediately. "I can't, Sentorr. Please."
"Because you're ugly?" The hardness in his tone softens. "You let me be the judge of that. Send me a direct feed and we can talk face to face. I don't care what you look like. I never have."
He would if he knew I was human. At least then we'd be the same species. I wouldn't be disgusting in his eyes, barely sentient. "I…" I want to tell him that it's what I want, more than anything. But my throat locks up. "I can't."
Sentorr makes a frustrated sound. "I love you, Zoey. Don't be like this. Show me who you are. I won't care."
"Love?" Hearing the word startles me. It's not a mesakkah expression. "First time I've heard that word come from blue lips."
"It's a human expression."
"Guess they're not all bad, huh?" I can't resist twisting the knife, just a little.
"Not all bad, no." He sounds thoughtful, not revolted.
I waver. I should show him my face. Get this over with. Show him why I can't be the woman he wants me to be. It'd end things between us, but in a way, it'd be a blessing, wouldn't it? I wouldn't be stringing him along any more. He'd be free to move on to someone else…except I don't want him to keffing move on to someone else. Still, he deserves the truth. My hand hovers near the visual feed button on my control panels.
A red light pings off to one side. Distress beacon. Asteroid.
"I have to go," I tell him quickly, taking the coward's way out. "There's an incoming distress call from a nearby asteroid. I'll call you back, all right?"
"Do what you must, Zoey," Sentorr says abruptly, and then hangs up.
I stare at my terminals in shock, ice in my veins. That was so sudden. Does that mean he's abandoning me and our friendship?
A split second later, my personal comm channel shows up with a message. Even as the distress signal pings again, I click on my private comm.
I'll be here waiting. —S
Warmth floods through me again, and I smile even as I answer the distress call and send an alert to wake up my sleeping brothers.
SENTORR
I'm thoughtful as I stare at my monitors. There's star charts and fuel logs on every screen, but I don't see them. I'm lost in thought, my focus on the female half a galaxy away who's answering a random distress call—probably so they can rob whatever ship is stranded nearby—and yet won't send me a single visual communication.
It's strange how Zoey can be so bold about some things and so very shy and frightened of others. She speaks more plainly than any mesakkah woman I've ever met. She's unafraid and even downright crude in some of her mating talk, and half the time she instigates our sexy late-night conversations, which tells me she wants them just as much as I do.
But she won't show me her face.
The bridge's doors chime. "Iris on bridge," the computer calls out a split second before the human woman pads forward. She's wearing one of Sentorr's tunics wrapped around her body, his loose pants flapping on her slender legs. Her normal blindfold is gone and the scars over her eyesockets are glaringly bold against her pale face. "Can't sleep," she tells me, even as she yawns and moves unerringly toward Alyvos's station. "Bad dreams."
"It's Alyvos's job to make sure you don't have them," I say absently as I turn back toward my monitors. "But you're welcome to keep me company."
She chuckles lightly and I hear her sit down. "He needs his sleep. I've kept him up for the last three nights. I thought I'd have pity on him tonight and just stay awake until I pass out from sheer exhaustion. What's the news?"
"No news," I tell her, crossing my arms and glancing over at my screens. "All's quiet."
"That's boring," Iris says in her gentle voice. "How are you doing? You seem unsettled today."
I glance over at her, turning my chair to face in her direction. She has her hand on her chin and her face is tilted toward me, intently listening to my body language. "Do I?"
"Yes. Your movements are harder than they normally are. Jerkier. You seem tense."
Funny how Iris is the most perceptive one on the ship and she's blind. No one else has realized what I've been struggling with, and for the first time, I spit it out. I need to talk to someone about Zoey, because she's got me utterly turned inside out. "I…I've met someone."
"I knew it!" She sits up, her smile growing wider. "I told Alyvos there was a reason you were on the bridge all the time. You talk to her here? It's a long-distance thing, yes?"
Long-distance? It's an unusual term to describe what we have, but apt. "I suppose you could call it that. She's on another corsair ship."
"Ah. Is that why we rushed to 3N? Alyvos was wondering about that." Her expression is bright with interest. "I won't say a thing if you don't want me to, but I was curious. I thought it might have something to do with a woman, given that you were hiding up here all the time."
"Not hiding," I bluster. It's not that I don't like spending time with the crew. I just value my quiet more than the rest of them. "I enjoy being up here. I love this ship. It's not all due to her."
"I love this ship, too," Iris says. "But I've heard that everyone finds it crowded lately."
"Mm." I keep my answer vague, because I don't want to hurt her feelings. The truth is that when Fran arrived, it felt like an extra. Then Cat arrived, and things felt a little tighter, but Cat was small and always cleaning up after Tarekh, so it wasn't egregious. But when Iris arrived, it felt as if the ship hit capacity. More than capacity. We're always tripping over each other and it's rare that you can enter a room and not encounter at least one other person. The Fool's a great ship but she's not built to hold seven people on a regular basis. It's one reason why I'm on the bridge so much—nights here are the only quiet place on the ship.
I don't want Iris to feel as if she's a burden, though. Fran would ignore any such suggestion. Cat would fight you over it. But Iris? She's so sensitive and sweet that she would take it to heart, and everyone on the ship's protective of her. "It's just taking a little getting used to," I finally say. "I'm sure we'll manage." For all that I'm not a fan of having that many humans on board, I don't want them to go, either. Iris is a good companion and she makes my friend so happy. Cat's amusing and she loves Tarekh fiercely…and she's small enough to fit into the narrowest of pipes and clean the Fool from the inside out. And Fran? She's practically an extension of Kivian himself…except sometimes I think she's got more of a business mind than he does. Our captain's easily distracted by fashionable clothing.
No, even though I've dragged my feet over each and every addition to the crew, they're family. I know what it's like to be lonely, and when I see the happiness in each of my friends, I don't begrudge them their mates.
It just makes me want Zoey more. Zoey, who won't even send me a video communication of herself.
Iris straightens. "Oh. I'm not interrupting you and your girlfriend right now, am I? By being here? I didn't think about it."
I shake my head, then remember she can't see and feel like a fool. "It's fine. She had to go anyhow. Distress signal."
"There's a lot of those lately. When you talk to her again, tell her to avoid the asteroids." She tucks Alyvos's tunic tighter around her body and leans back in his chair, picking up his earpiece.
"Wait," I call out before she can put the earpiece in. "What's this about asteroids?"
She tilts her head, the scars on her face obscene and blatant against her skin. "You h
aven't heard? Didn't you get the message I sent to everyone's inbox?"
The humans have odd terms for personal communications. I know what she's referring to, and I'm ashamed to admit that I've been letting mine pile up over the last few days. I've been so frustrated and turned around with Zoey and my race to 3N to meet up with her that I've ignored everything else. "What's going on with asteroids?"
"There's a group of szzt pirates on the prowl. They're staking out asteroids and sending out distress calls, and when the ship arrives to help them out, they disable communications with a jammer, then murder the crew and strip down their ship for parts. It's happened at least twice lately at other stations. It's all over the news out at Guarda XIV."
Guarda XIV? That's a water-moon colony in this system…and remarkably close to 3N. I feel a cold chill go down my spine, my tail twitching at the thought. Didn't Zoey say they were getting a distress call from the nearest asteroid? Of course, they're a corsairing ship themselves, so they should be fine. No doubt they'd turn the tables on any pirate waiting for them and end up robbing THEM.
Still. I grunt at Iris to let her know I heard her, then turn to my monitors. It's only been a few minutes since I heard from Zoey. If they're answering a true, legit distress call, she'll be busy for a while. Even so, I type out a quick message to her. Be careful out there. Word is that there's pirates sending out bogus distress signals in this system. Watch your backs.
I watch my panels for a moment, waiting, holding my breath.
A moment later, the response I'm dreading arrives. SIGNAL JAMMED, the screen reads. NO CONNECTION TO RECEIVING SHIP.
Kef.
Kef me. I type furiously, slamming my hand over the nearest star chart to bring it active. "Iris, wake the others and tell them that the Little Sister's in trouble. I'm turning us around." I pull up the last known signal of the Little Sister, tracking from Zoey's last message to me.
When I see Guarda XIV pop up on the screen, my gut feels like a block of ice.
"I'll get the others," Iris says, and leaves me to my station.
4
ZOEY
"We are definitely up a kef creek without a keffing paddle," Kaspar says from his hiding place across from me, his blaster cocked and ready to fire.
I don't correct him on his bastardization of that particular Earth saying. I mean, he's not wrong. We are totally fucked at the moment. I knew piracy was a dangerous profession, of course, but I never thought I'd end my days on a gods-forsaken chunk of asteroid to some szzt bastards who want to pirate OUR pirate ship.
"I should have known better about the distress signal. Oldest trick in the keffing book," I tell my brothers.
"Don't blame yourself," Mathiras says. He's at my side and constantly keeps trying to tuck me behind him so he can block their shots with his body. Of course, I don't want him to die for my sake, so I keep sneaking under his arm and returning fire. "We all thought this might be easy prey."
"We need a distraction," I tell them. We're pinned behind a cluster of rocky formations on the asteroid's surface, and the only thing keeping us anchored to the rock itself are our grav boots. I'm breathing so hard that my helmet's fogging with my nervous panting, though. My brothers are totally calm, unlike me.
Kaspar even seems to be enjoying himself. He looks over at us and gives a wild grin. "We could try throwing Adiron at them. When they're knocked down by his overfed body we can make a break to get back to the ship."
At his side, Adiron shoves Kaspar good-naturedly. "Or we just wait because we know your impatient ass is going to race out there and get into a fistfight." Kaspar just shoves him back.
"We're not throwing anyone and we're not getting into fistfights, you two idiots," Mathiras says in a tired voice. "Let's just get back to the Sister and we can figure out our plans there. Zo, how are you on oxygen?"
Shit, I guess he hears my panicked breathing. Well, that and humans respire slightly faster than mesakkah. I keep forgetting that part. I check my breather's filters and I'm a little distressed at the readings. "I've got ten minutes, maybe more."
"No good," Mathiras says, watching the cluster of crates across the surface of the asteroid. Those were crates we'd found abandoned on the surface, and thinking that the ship in distress had offloaded its cargo, we'd started to take it on our ship.
Dumb. The szzt pirates caught us unawares and nearly blew a hole through our heads. Kaspar managed to fling a few of them aside and Adiron created enough cover fire for all of us to sprint over to our current hiding spot. Of course, we're about a hundred yards away from our damned ship, and pinned down.
"Try to send the Sister another remote command," Mathiras tells me. "See if we can get her out from under them, at least."
I pull up the ship's remote system controls on my wrist-comm. It blats at me angrily, just like it has for the last while. "They're still jamming us."
My brother grunts. "We'll think of something."
A shot zings out through space, making a whining noise as it zooms past, and Adiron grabs Kaspar by the collar, flinging him backward again. "Lean in, big brother."
"What if I rushed them?" Kaspar asks, a daring glint in his eyes.
"What if they shot a hole through your stupid head?" I counter. "What then?"
"You could have my oxygen filters," he tells me with a wink.
"I'm going to shoot a hole through your head," I mutter, even as another shot sizzles past. Kef it, this is just stupidity. "They're going to keep us pinned down until we run out of air and just help themselves to our gear."
"You got a better idea?" Adiron asks me.
"I wish."
"We'll think of something soon," Mathiras says, and Kaspar's practically itching to get out there, but he waits for the plan for once.
“We have to,” I agree. “We—”
My personal comm chirps.
Everyone stares at me. I hesitate, because it’s such a random, screwball thing to happen in a life or death situation. It can wait, of course. We’re under fire and dangerously low on oxygen and—
The personal comm chirps again.
“You gonna answer that?” Adiron asks.
“Don’t you think we’re a little busy?” I hiss at him, even as the aliens across the way fire a few blasts in our direction once more, and we automatically duck.
“Might be important.”
So’s surviving, but when the personal comm chirps again, I glance down at it and tap to see who’s sending messages. It’s Sentorr. I feel a sharp stab of regret that I’ll never get to talk to him again, because there’s no way it looks like we’re coming out of this alive. Another heavy rain of blasts hits the rocks and debris explodes in the air on us. We all duck, covering our helmets, and I feel a sting in one of my grav boots. I look down and there’s a shard of rock sticking out near my ankle. Suddenly, it throbs and pain shoots up my leg.
I suck in a breath and reach down to grasp it, to pull the palm sized rock “stake” out of my leg.
“Don’t touch,” Mathiras warns me. “You’ll break the seal on your suit.”
I whimper, because I can feel blood starting to fill up in my boot. “I think it hit a vein. A big one.”
“Just a little longer, Zo,” Mathiras says, and looks over at Kaspar, who nods. Oh no. I know that look. That’s the “we’ve got one last chance to save the day” look and it’s going to involve a lot of risk for my brothers.
Before I can tell them not to move forward with their new plan, my comm chirps again.
“Will you just keffing answer that?” Mathiras snaps.
I tap it impatiently, even as the szzt shoot at us again, and the rocky cliffs creak and groan. That’s…not good.
“Zoey?” Sentorr’s voice echoes, tinny, in my helmet.
“Now’s not a good time,” I bark back. The moment they realize my personal comm is on a different band than the ship, they’re going to jam it.
“Take cover,” he calls out, and then hangs up.
What…
I look up just in time to see the pale white underbelly of a ship fly low overhead, her guns descending. Mathiras curses aloud and in the next moment, he tackles me.
Sonic booms surround us as Sentorr’s ship opens fire on the enemy. Rocks fly into the air around us and the low gravity of the asteroid makes them bounce away and smack against our thin suits. After that, it’s deafeningly quiet.
I don’t know how long I’m stunned and dizzy, but eventually I manage to smack Mathiras’s heavy arm that’s on top of me. He floats up slightly, and I realize he’s lost the seal on one of his grav boots. In the next moment, Kaspar snags him by the belt and thumps him back down to the surface of the asteroid. I try to get to my feet, my ankles throbbing from the tight clasp of the grav boots. My head’s ringing and I’m half deaf — I can’t tell if my comm is chirping at me again or not.
All’s quiet down on the surface. I look over at Kaspar, and his lips move inside his helmet, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I tap the side of my helmet and nothing but static comes through. Shit. I’ve lost communications. I point at my helmet and make a hand gesture indicating I’ve got no signal, and he nods agreement, then points at something in the distance.
Off on a nearby cliff, the Fool has landed. As I watch, three big mesakkah—judging by the horn compartments for their helmets—bound off of the cargo dock and slap down to the surface as if magnetized, their grav boots kicking in. They hop from rock to rock, moving steadily downward, and I get to my feet, dread in my stomach as I realize what’s happening.
We’re being rescued.
Which is awesome.
Except I’m still human and now there’s going to be no hiding it.
I try to stand up and the throb in my ankles—especially the one boot—feels worse. Wincing, I hobble forward as Kaspar—ever the risk taker—comes out from behind cover and moves up, gun in hand. The air is filled with dancing bits of gravel that bounce back and forth like a mini meteor shower, and I push them aside as I move behind cover once more. I don’t know if we’re safe or not, but when Adiron follows him, it’s a good sign.
