by S. J. Higbee
I passed a trader’s eye over the ratty stalls. Everything on display would’ve gone straight into our ship’s recycler. The food canisters were filthy without the benefit of even the most basic steri-scrub. And the water on sale might have shown blue on the pacs’ purity scales, but the readings must have been blixed, because that cloudy stuff wasn’t fit to pass your lips. Even the powdered water looked like sweepings off a shower-stall floor.
If we hadn’t come down here, I’d never have known this place existed. How many on Shooting Star know about it? This is what I joined the ship for. My heart was thudding with a mixture of fear and excitement. This was a hundred times better than trailing around the overpriced shops on Trader Level with a grumbling chaperone.
Though the people were a shock. There were no shades of yellow, brown, black, or white here – everyone’s skin was grime-grey. All wearing rags pockmarked with holes which only showed more scabby tatters, or dirt-scurfed flesh. I’d tried to blend us in. We were all in scut-gear with worn overalls and battered workboots. But we stuck out like a supernova on a dark night. Mostly because we were clean and well fed, while everyone here was stick-thin. Even the kids.
The Cap always says we English merchanters take care of our own better than anyone else. What if he’s right? Because I couldn’t recall seeing any children in this sorry state back in New London.
Sonja gave some creds to a pathetic, sunken-cheeked toddler sitting on the trash-covered floor and in no time flat we were mobbed by a bunch of snot-nosed kids. None of us could resist their pleading, so we handed out all our shore-leave cash. Of course, one of us should’ve kept an eye out for trouble. But we didn’t. And when the children scampered away, I looked up to see we were now ringed by another group. Far more grown-up and dangerous. I recognised their tattoos from the Pre-Dock Briefing, which marked them as one of the outlaw dregger gangs infesting the lower reaches of Space Station Hawking. My friends closed up behind me.
“Rock steady, now,” I muttered, trying for friendly eye contact and receiving hard stares in return.
Someone shouted something I couldn’t catch. Whatever it was passed for wit down here, as it was followed by an explosion of noisy laughter and a fusillade of crude comments from the rabble clustered around the graffiti-covered alco-bars that lined the square.
“Need to blue-shift our bods back up to Trader Level,” muttered Alisha, treading on my heels.
“Easy.” I needed to close down this conversation before my companions talked themselves into doing something stupid. Like being the least bit afraid. These dreggers will smell fear quicker than a miner probe can tag a seam.
“Makes you feel all warm’n fuzzy, does it? Handing out your pocket-change to our nippers?” snapped a pale-faced girl.
I raised my hands, palms out. “Hey, no harm meant, miss.”
“For sure,” Jessica added, solid at my side.
The dreggers closing in looked even more sullen. A man snaked his rank-smelling arm around my shoulders. “And where d’you call home, flower-face?”
Don’t stiffen. Remember to smile. He’s human, same as me. Even if he doesn’t smell it. “Service Level,” I lied. “Reckon we’ve taken a couple’ve wrong turns.” I had to breathe through my mouth at the blasts of foul air he exhaled.
“I could put you right. For a price.” His grin looked like something out of a horrorholo.
“Thank you, but I’m sure we can find our own way back.” I tried to ease away.
His arm stayed firmly across my shoulders. “Nah. We can’t have you girlies wandering round here. Who knows what might happen?”
A tow-headed teenager welded to Bilge-Breath’s other side sniggered.
“We can take care of ourselves.” Jessica didn’t hide her irritation as she jostled my elbow, plunging her hand into her jacket pocket. “You gonna bounce this prodder off the walls with your ninja biz?” she breathed in my ear. Sonja and Alisha bunched up behind her, facing outwards, immediately defensive.
I tried to quell their twitchiness with a quick shake of my head. The Cap will break orbit if he hears we drew our weapons down here. Or start a fight we can’t win.
“You wouldn’t’ve come zoo-gazing down here in the first place if you an’ your up-swept friends weren’t so prodding stupid,” snapped Pale Girl.
An answering mutter of agreement rustled through the gang and the knot in my gut tightened.
Coming Soon From Griffinwing Publishing
BREATHING SPACE
SUNBLINDED: BOOK 3
CHAPTER ONE
I surfaced to find him nuzzling my neck, his stubble rasping my skin, sending shivers down my back. I breathed in his smell, musky and comforting. “Mm...”
“Morning, sweetheart. Just going for a shower.”
I rolled over to face him, light-headed with happiness. “Morning…” Still half asleep, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. A soft, gentle kiss, recalling memories of the urgent, passionate versions last night, after we’d made up.
“Got you a coffee,” he mumbled, after coming up for air, his expression soft and open.
I groaned, recalling the early morning planning meeting I’d scheduled. “Don’t know which idiot decided to work through brekkie. Remind me to fire her.”
He twirled one of my curls around his finger, lifting it away from my eyes. “You work too damn hard. Let me help.”
And here we are again! I bit down on my frustration, wishing he would leave it. “Let’s not do this.” Not when we’ve just stopped fighting. I was tired to my marrow of it. Fighting with Thomas… Operation Prosper… Restormel… George’s constant jabbing… I waited for him to snap. Or storm off to the bathroom, hard-faced and angry.
Instead, he pulled me close. “I really can help with all of this.ˮ
I stroked his back, feeling the knit of his bones and muscles across his shoulders, finding it easier to speak into his chest. “Though not now. There’s stuff going down…” As he tensed I hurried on, “Don’t you see? I’m protecting you! It all goes wrong – for any reason – and you don’t know a thing about it, then no one can claim you’re the leak.ˮ And even admitting there’s a leak is more than I should be saying.
“I know I haven’t been here all that long and you probably don’t want to hear this,” Thomas’s voice buzzed against my face resting above his heart, “but there’s some big problems here. Remember I was…”
I mouthed the words along with him, “…Coms and Tactical Officer on the Shooting Star.”
I yawned and gently pushed against him. “I’ve got to get going, or I’m gonna be late.”
Which merely changed the direction of his nagging, “You’re constantly tired, these days – hardly a surprise given the insane hours you work. You need to cultivate the art of delegation. Your tantrum over the duty roster, for instance…ˮ
I need to know exactly who is s’posed to be guarding the apartment and when! And you casually reorganising the roster without telling me isn’t good enough. I pulled away from his embrace and sat up. “I do! I’ve a solid team around me, but right now…” Right now, we’re running Operation Prosper to flush out the mole in our organisation and haul Eddy to a halt. Which means there aren’t enough hours in the day, given everything else that also must get done. Though I couldn’t tell Thomas any of that. Because my title – Chief – was a bad joke. The Council really ran the Peace and Prosperity Corps. And George, my Number Two, was increasingly pulling The Council’s strings, these days. I wrapped the sheet around my fingers.
When Thomas and I first got together over Christmas three months ago, George had declared himself delighted that I’d finally found happiness – before persuading The Council to pass a No Confidence Motion in Thomas. Claimed his pitching up at Restormel when he did, some six months earlier, was ‘too convenient’. Shook his head over Thomas having served under my stepfather, despite Eddy never having stepped foot aboard Shooting Star. These days, George was always mentioning the fact that Eddy
was my half-brother.
“Right now, there’s a pile of dross going on I can’t talk about.”
“So you keep saying. All that means is you don’t trust me.”
I winced at the hurt in his eyes. “I’d tell you in a heartbeat if I could. But with George breathing down my neck…” I untwined the sheet from my fingers. Are these secrets going to strangle our love for each other?
“Maybe you should find time to sit down and talk things through with him. He is also concerned about you.”
Far too concerned over every move I make, as it happens. I blinked. “You’ve changed trajectory. Last time his name came up, you were all for me to bounce him out’ve the P’s.” An impossibility, given our history. I took a breath, trying to shut out the image of Norman’s dying gaze.
Thomas shifted. “Him and me had a chat. Cleared the air.”
“Watch your back, then. George is at his most dangerous when he’s smiling and calling you friend.”
He ran a finger across my shoulder, making me shiver. “Maybe you don’t understand where he’s coming from.”
I pulled away, feeling the familiar wash of hopelessness as I tried to make him aware of how exposed he was, without telling him anything. “I do. Only too clearly, as it happens. Be careful around him is all I’m saying.”
“You worry too much, Lizzy.” Yet another Thomas-refrain that had begun to grate.
It was a solid relief when my alarm started bleeping. “Better check my coms.” I moved to retrieve it.
Instead of heading out for his shower, as I expected, Thomas knelt back on the bed and gently took me in his arms. “I’m sorry, beautiful. Didn’t mean to start all this bilgecrud the minute you opened your eyes. I know you’re out’ve your depth, right now—ˮ
What! I’m not—
Before I had time to react, Thomas fastened his mouth on mine. It was a good kiss. And so was the lovemaking that followed it…
We finally surfaced, giggling together like naughty children, as he told some stupid joke. Thomas had a fund of very silly puns and wordplays, which I don’t suppose were really all that funny, but they always made me laugh.
“What about saving time and showering together?” he suggested, kissing my nose before rolling out of bed. “Seeing as we’re both running behind…”
“That breakfast meeting I’m s’posed to be having will be turning into a working lunch if I don’t warp out of here at lightspeed. And no. While I love the idea of sharing a shower – you’re too gorgeous and I’m too late.” I scrambled out of bed, scooped up my com, along with that day’s uniform I’d laid out the previous night. Though I noticed my com was running Silent, I didn’t think too much about it as I’d been known to turn it down in my sleep. After all, if anyone really wanted to contact me, they could always get the guards to hammer on the door.
You do need to make him understand how things really are. No matter how much fun it is tangling the sheets with him, you can’t keep using that stuff instead of talking to him. Jessica, former best friend and ghost, abruptly surfaced to give her verdict with the force of a bad migraine as Thomas disappeared into the bathroom.
I know. But not right now. I massaged my forehead and went looking for a pain patch, knowing from hard experience that trying to power through such a headache wouldn’t end well.
And if I were you, I’d sit him down and get to the bottom of this George-is-not-such-a-snake business. Cos we both know he is. So what’s he playing at, making nice with Thomas? Jessica didn’t tend to back off once she got her teeth into a notion.
Later, okay? I can’t think straight with my head pounding so. I’d finally tracked down a patch, which I was still fiddling with when Thomas emerged after his shower.
He hauled on his running gear. “Not another bad head? Here… sit down.”
“I need to get going. The Committee will think I’ve gone into cryo stasis at this rate.” My protests were half-hearted as he whipped my com out of my hand and dumped it on the bed. “Sit down. They’ll cope without you for another handful of minutes.” His kiss on the top of my head belied his bossy words and his fingers were gentle as he massaged the tension knots in my shoulders and neck, easing down the nagging pain.
I was still drifting in a state of relaxed torpor after his ministrations, when he bent down and kissed me. “I’d better redshift outta here. Those clueless newbies can hardly wipe their sorry arses without being shown how. See you later. Let me know if you can’t make dinner.”
Another flashpoint, as Thomas had waited over one cooling meal too many while I was engrossed elsewhere. “I promise. Have a good day, lover.”
“Take great care, sweeting.”
I’ll remember the expression on his face as he blew me a kiss before leaving, till my dying day.
*
I closed my eyes as Thomas’s smell lifted off my skin under the stream of steaming water, determined to savour the next few moments, as this would probably be the highlight of the day to come.
As if on cue, my com pinged. It was George.
“Good morning!” For once, I really meant it. There had been a dreary succession of dire mornings recently and I was still buzzing that today had started so differently. “What can I do for you?”
“When you can spare the time, Chief, I need a word,” George’s tone could have frosted lava.
“What’s the problem, Number Two?” I leaned on his title more than necessary. The only excuse he has for using that tone is if we’ve lost a ship, or— Mother Earth – don’t say we’ve lost a ship! I raised my voice over the roar of warm air, as the auto-dryer started up. “George?”
“Not now, Elizabeth. We’ll meet in your Ready Room in fifteen.” George managed to sound even gloomier. An achievement for such a sour man.
I hauled on my uniform; ran my fingers through my curls; smeared some gloss over my kiss-chapped lips and made for the door. Please don’t let it be a lost ship.
