The Disasters

by M. K. England

  Then her gaze flicks down to my lips, back up to my eyes.

  My brain comes to a screeching halt.

  Is she—?

  Her mouth is on mine before I can process her movement.

  My hands lift automatically to thread through the hair I’ve been dying to touch, like strands of silk through my fingers. Her lips are soft and tentative at first, a gentle brush to test the waters, then she breaks away, takes in my stunned reaction, and returns with more confidence. This time, her kiss is firmer, longer, moving toward more, and it’s like a shot of heat straight to my stomach, to my chest—

  A shot.

  Rion.

  I pull away with a regretful groan and lean my forehead against hers.

  “We can’t do this,” I gasp, even as a portion of my brain screams, “No, what are you doing?”

  She pulls back to study my face for a moment, then her eyes widen.

  “Shit, I’m so sorry, I know you and Rion—I shouldn’t have—”

  “No, that’s not . . .” I cover my eyes with one hand and wince. “You’re definitely . . . I mean . . .”

  I should just not talk ever. How can I say this? “I’m bi, so that’s definitely not the problem, and you’re both awesome, but there’s a whole life-or-death thing going on?” Then I remember Zee’s words from this afternoon.

  “This isn’t really the best time, you know?”

  “You’re right, you’re absolutely right,” she says, shaking her head ruefully. “I came here in the first place to tell you everyone’s ready in the mess hall. If Serenity won’t let us land, others may not, either. We’ll be drifting. We need a plan.”

  Case smooths out the wrinkles she caused in my shirt and looks up at me one more time.

  “And if it is Rion, then it’s fine, really.” She sucks in a deep breath and forces a small smile. “But if not, maybe another time.”

  She steps back, gives me a shy smile, and turns down the central corridor with her head held high, hips swaying.

  I watch her go in a daze.

  Holy shit.

  I might be completely cracked.

  Thirteen

  MY HEAD IS STILL BUZZY and light from the kiss when I step into the combined galley and mess hall for our crew meeting. I need to get my brain together before I have to look Case in the eye again, but my lips are still tender and tingling, my fingers hypersensitive where I touched her hair, her waist—

  Okay, not helping. Focus.

  The mess hall is much grander than the medbay. I guess Jace had his priorities when he ordered this ship from the manufacturer. The kitchen half of the space is separated from the dining table by a half wall topped with a long metal countertop. Stools are tucked up under the counter, like a bar, and everything that sits atop a flat surface is lightly magnetized to prevent sliding during maneuvers, right down to the salt and pepper shakers on the metal dining table. The kitchen equipment is nicer than anything I’ve seen, even back on the Rock. Clean and powerful appliances, sleek cabinets, and top-of-the-line pots and pans. Amazing.

  The dining half of the room is occupied by one long rectangular table with four chairs on either side, plus one at each end. Case, Zee, and Asra have taken three of the chairs at one end of the table, nursing metal cups of water and munching on a box of cereal scrounged from somewhere. There’s enough room to host dinner parties here; there’s even a little magnetized flowerpot with a silk flower arrangement stuck in the middle of the table. For some reason, that one little detail makes this whole space feel unreal.

  Rion’s hospital bed sitting at the head of the table doesn’t help with that feeling.

  My chest gives a sharp pang, and I head straight for Rion. He starts to sit up when he sees me, but I push gently back on his good shoulder. His clean sleeveless undershirt is soft under my fingers and wholly at odds with the rest of the crew’s battered and ragged appearance. I study his face for a moment, then look to Zee.

  “Should he really be here?”

  “You try arguing with him,” she replies without missing a beat. “I’m still not entirely sure how I agreed to this.”

  “I have my methods,” Rion says slyly.

  I pull up a chair next to his bed and sit, inspecting the neatly bandaged and immobilized shoulder. There’s no more visible blood; it’s like he’s perfectly healed and the bandages are just a fashion choice. His face tells another story, though; his complexion is ashy, and his eyes are half lidded with exhaustion. Time to get this moving so he can rest.

  I grab the pepper shaker and tap the side of it against the tabletop three times like a gavel before setting it back down on its magnetized bottom.

  “I hereby call this crew meeting of the RSS Manizeh to order.” I feel like I should say something leaderly, like “Status report!” or “Where are we at, people?” What actually comes out is a weak-ass smile and a vague hand-wavy gesture. “So?”

  “Rion is doing surprisingly well,” Zee says, getting straight to the most important point. “There are a lot of really bad places to be shot in the shoulder, but the bullet missed the artery and the bone. A pretty minor wound that could have been a lot worse, to be honest. Probably just a ricochet. I got the bullet out, and he’ll be weak from the blood loss and sore for a while, but pretty lucky overall.”

  I close my eyes and breathe. He’s going to be okay. I didn’t get him killed. This is all too real. Case and Asra surround Zee with a hug from both sides, and I reach across the table to squeeze her hand. What would we do without Zee? She’s completely amazing.

  “Hear that?” Rion says. “I’m fine, so let’s move on to the real stuff. How are we going to deal with this Earth First thing? We’ve burned through a lot of time just getting our shit together. We have, what, a day and a half left? It’s time to take the fight to them.”

  Case leans back in her chair with her arms folded and props one foot on the edge of the table. “Here’s what we know so far. Earth First has shipped some kind of device to all the colonies. They’re evacuating all their people back to Ellis Station so they’ll be ‘spared.’ Whatever the devices do, whatever they want to be spared from—they’re going to do it just after midnight on August fourteenth, UTC. That’s a little over a day away.”

  “And that’s not much to go on,” Zee says as she pours me a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. “There are really only two options that I see. We don’t have our evidence anymore, so we can’t prove anything.” Case winces, but Zee continues on smoothly. “Either we figure out a way to warn everyone, or we hunt down one of these devices and try to figure out what the plan is and how to disrupt it.”

  Asra is quick to correct, as always. “There’s no way to warn everyone. We’d have to plant a message on a dozen different courier ships, hope they all get through without Earth First intercepting it, and hope the people on the ground believe us instantly despite our wanted notices and have enough time to find the devices and do something about them. Even if everything went perfectly, we don’t have the fuel to make more than one jump. If we had some supertransmitter, we could warn all the colonies right now, but they don’t exist.”

  “So our next jump has to count,” Case says. She balances her chair on two legs and stares at the ceiling while she thinks. “The devices would have to go through the major spaceport on each planet, I would think, just like all other shipments.”

  Asra picks up her thread right away. “If we could get access to the spaceport records, we might be able to find where the device on that planet was taken, and steal it.”

  “One problem,” Rion says. “Spaceport security is no joke, from what I’ve heard. Just as bad as on Earth.”

  “True,” Zee says. “But I think we might have an in.”

  My stomach sinks. I know what’s coming. God, why did I open my damn mouth? We were running, and I always babble when I run, and I never thought telling some random stranger about my family would matter but—

  “Nax. You know where we need to go,” Zee
says, her eyes intent on mine.

  I shake my head once, then more firmly. “No. Not gonna happen.”

  Her gray-green eyes are soft, pleading. “We have to. It’s our best chance. It’s everyone’s best chance. There’s too much at stake.”

  I thread my fingers into my hair and clutch hard, yanking at the roots. No, no, no, please. “There has to be another planet close by. Asra can fake us documents, we can—”

  “Faking documents takes too long,” Asra interrupts, studying me warily. “What’s the deal, Nax?”

  My leg starts to twitch and bounce all on its own under the table. I take a long drink of water to stall, then stare into the empty cup. There has to be another way. Anything. Anything.

  But this isn’t something we can screw up. We need the best option, the fastest one. Lives are at stake. Millions. This is bigger than me and my family issues.

  I flop back in my chair and rest an arm on Rion’s hospital bed railing, drumming on the cool metal with restless fingers. “My brother,” I begin, then pause to shove down the surge of mixed, unpleasant emotions the two words bring. Start again. Breathe.

  “My older brother, Malik, works for the spaceport authority on Valen. He’s a security specialist.”

  Case’s chair falls back on all fours with a clang. “Nax, that’s perfect! That’s exactly what we need.”

  A faint brush of fingers against mine draws my attention.

  “So what’s the problem, then?” Rion asks, his voice slipping automatically into negotiation mode.

  I force away my irritation, covering my eyes with a hand to give myself a moment. He doesn’t know what he’s asking.

  “We don’t get along. Not anymore, at least. We haven’t spoken or written in two years. I don’t even know for sure that he’d be willing to hear me out.”

  “What happened between you?” Asra asks. “Would he be on our side, do you think?”

  I guess if anyone would understand brother issues, it would be her, but I just . . . I can’t.

  “It’s complicated,” I finally say. “He’d probably help us, though, if he listened. He’s always wanted to live in the colonies, but he stuck around a few years after high school to help Ammi and Dad.” Until I fucked up, that is. I swallow hard. “He’d want to protect his home out here, for sure. But I can’t completely guarantee he’ll believe me.”

  “Well, we’ll have to come up with a plan B, but . . .” Case catches my gaze and holds it. “This is our best option. We have to take it.”

  “Sorry, Nax,” Zee says, nudging my foot under the table. “But I agree. We have to.”

  The ugly thing in my chest twists and writhes, but I clench my fists, then release, letting the tension bleed out.

  “Fine. We’ll go, I’ll contact him, we’ll try it.” I close my eyes for a second, then look to Zee. “Moving on. Next issue. Please. Supplies?”

  “Zee found a whole box of condoms in the medbay,” Rion says with an eyebrow waggle.

  The others bust out laughing like twelve-year-olds, but the sour feeling in my stomach keeps me from joining in. Zee throws bits of cereal at Rion, and he catches one in his mouth.

  “What? Apparently this ship’s former crew liked to have a good time, that’s all,” Rion says around a mouthful of crunch with his best “Who, me? I’m innocent” face.

  “Medical supplies,” Zee says, steering the conversation firmly back to the practical. “They won’t matter if we don’t stop Earth First, but I used the last of our waterproof bandages on Rion. If we happen to come across a source for supplies, we should stock up.”

  “Or—and I know this is ridiculous, but hear me out—we could just not get shot anymore,” I add. It had to be said. And I’m still feeling salty, so what?

  “That would be best, smart-ass,” Case agrees with an indulgent eye roll. “This box of cereal here is all the food the former crew left on board for us, so we’ll have to figure something out once we’re down there.”

  “Fuel and ammo, we’re screwed, obviously,” Asra adds. “You know where we’re at with that. So there’s just one last order of business.”

  “Which is?” Zee prompts.

  Asra scowls. “There is no way I’m calling this the RSS Manizeh. It’s my ammu’s name, and that’s weird. The ship deserves a new name to go with her new life.”

  “We could just keep it simple,” Rion says, rolling slowly onto his good shoulder to face us. “Call it the ESS Jace Is a Wanker.”

  “It’s kind of a mouthful,” Zee says, one finger tapping her bottom lip. “But it does have a ring to it.”

  “Except we can’t call it the ESS anything, considering the E would sooner see us in jail than in possession of a legally licensed spaceship,” Case says. She makes it a joke, but the thought is sobering.

  “I would love to go down to Earth Command and give those arseholes a swift kick in the head,” Rion says. “They have no idea, none at all. No, better yet, I’d like to have Zee do the kicking. She could probably launch a person into orbit.”

  Zee smirks, but says nothing.

  “It’s true, though,” I say, reaching across the table to poke Zee in the arm. “A swift kick to the head got us off Ellis Station alive, then got us out of Asra’s place after that.”

  “And I think you’ve just named our ship,” Asra chimes in. She traces some words in flowing script on her tablet, then projects them into the air. “The Swift Kick. The Kick, for short.”

  Silence reigns over the table for a long moment.

  “Um,” Rion says finally. “I love it.”

  Case grins and claps Zee on the back. “Me too.”

  Zee actually laughs, a lovely sound. “It’ll do,” she says.

  And it’s so perfect it actually breaks through the heavy cloud of my looming reunion with Malik. Their excitement is infections, and I let myself grin.

  “That settles it, then.” I grab the pepper shaker and bang it on the table again. “I declare this boat reborn as the Swift Kick. We’ll worry about the prefix after we get her stripped down and registered one day, but for now—to the Kick!” I declare, lifting my drink.

  “To the Kick!” the others echo, clinking their metal cups of water together.

  It’s nothing. We’re still drifting in the middle of nowhere, drinking recycled water and eating the stale leftovers we found in the cupboards. But it’s our nothing. And this feels like a moment. I stare into my cup for a few seconds, then look up at the crew. My friends?

  “Okay, sailors,” I say, standing and stretching. “I don’t know about y’all, but I need at least a few hours of sleep before I have to face my brother and all this Earth First stuff. I know we’re pressed for time, but we won’t do anyone any good if we’re delirious. It’s late morning on Valen, so why don’t we take a look at the crew quarters and stake our claims, get a few hours of sleep, and plan to arrive in early evening? Hopefully Malik will be off work then.”

  That name again. I haven’t said it aloud in two years, and now it feels like it’s every other word.

  I receive a chorus of sleepy agreements, so we wheel Rion back across the hall to the medbay and say our good nights to him, then funnel into the hallway. The communal bathroom and showers are directly behind from the mess hall, and the individual quarters are behind the next three doors on both sides of the hallway, six rooms total. Five of the rooms are identical: small but functional boxes with a single small bed, a nightstand, a small desk, and a tiny refresher station with a sink and mirror. The final room is much larger, with one bed big enough for two people, a private bathroom with a sink and toilet, and a larger desk. I have a thought, the kind of thing that would have made Malik crack up laughing before he ditched me, and I can’t resist.

  “Okay, hear me out. I have an idea,” I say. “The five of us each take one of the five smaller rooms. This single bathroom in here is the pooping bathroom.”

  “What the hell, Nax!” Asra shoves my shoulder, bumping my knees against the big bed, and I near
ly let myself fall onto it, but I know I’ll never get up if I do. The temptation to sleep through the next twelve hours and let the others deal with Malik is so strong. Case and Zee snicker behind their hands, though at my idea or at the sight of Asra pushing me around, I’m not sure.

  “Hey, it makes sense, okay? Why stink up the communal bathroom when there’s a separate one right here? Or we can use this as a rec room eventually. Get a projector mounted to the ceiling in here, upload some games, watch vids—it wouldn’t be too expensive, really.”

  I’m babbling, I know I am, but I can’t stop myself. Rec room plans are a much more pleasant thought than the alternative.

  “That sounds great, Nax,” Case says, her jaw cracking with a yawn. “Think I’ll worry about redecorating in the morning. Or . . . you know, whatever five hours from now is. Tomorrow we’ll have to calibrate the day cycle simulator how we want it. Space is confusing.”

  Asra snorts. “Try figuring out how to pray at the right times. Fortunately, there’s an app for that.”

  She waggles her tablet at us as she shuffles out the door behind Case, with Zee right behind. They each disappear into one of the identical rooms and shut their doors with muttered good nights.

  Just like that, I’m alone again. A weird chill crawls up my spine, and I look over my shoulder. Nothing there. I just haven’t been alone while awake since leaving Earth, and the sudden silence is disconcerting. I eye the oversized bed, thinking again about letting myself fall onto it, about how nice it would be to share it with someone. Not fair, though. I should take one of the small rooms like everyone else.

  I’ll go check on Rion one more time, I think. Then sleep. Lots of sleep.

  In my mind, I watch the ship crash over and over. Blood drips. Rion’s, or Malik’s?

  Yeah. Sleep.

  Maybe.

  My next wake-up call doesn’t involve Case’s lips, and I’m not sure how to feel about that. My tablet chimes gently again, and again, and again. I groan and roll over, burying my face in the pillow and trying not to think about some stranger’s dandruff getting all over my face. Or the reason I have to wake up. I’m being cuddled into blissful oblivion by this warm, cushy mattress, and I’d much rather focus on that.