Darius, Charly, and Shiro began to argue about what the ship should be called, whether it was a boy or girl, and what color to paint it, as they gathered around the ship in Warehouse 23A, bundled up in their winter clothes.
All of them, including Odeon.
Holly paid attention to the Yasoan while the others bantered. He was more reserved than usual. A hollow ache throbbed in Holly’s heart every time she looked at him.
Of course the experience changed him. Of course it had. Even though he denied that anything had been done to him, the fact that it had happened would leave a mark.
From moment to moment, Holly wasn’t sure what to do or say to him. Did she beg him to tell her? Did she continuously apologize for having lost him, for having failed at her first attempt to rescue him? Was she supposed to repeatedly ask for his forgiveness until he got cheerful and returned to his old self?
She recognized that behavior in herself—it was controlling. Wanting him to be the way she wanted him to be. That was unfair. It was something an insecure person did to manipulate others and turn them into furniture that outfitted their life, that served them.
So she let him be. Occasionally she stood beside him and hoped that he could feel her in that seventh-sense way they shared. Maybe her presence fed his soul. That sounded egotistical if she thought about it, but she thought it because that was how he made her feel. He brought good things into her life. He was almost a soulmate—whatever that meant. He was more than a lover, more than friend. His soul—or whatever it was that animated flesh—was cut from the same cosmic energy as hers. The bond they shared was invisible to the eye, felt only between them, in some kind of matrix of current that connected all living things.
Odeon resonated with her.
She had to lose him to realize it. And his absence had been a void in her heart. Having him back made that even more clear. And it was this connection, this echo of his emotions that spoke to her and communicated that he wasn’t OK.
But, he was here.
For now, that would do. In time, perhaps he would open up about what happened and about what he needed to find his balance again.
She touched his arm. He looked down at her, his normally brilliant eyes a shadow of what they had once been. A faint smile tilted the corners of his lips up.
“Holly Drake,” he said. “You’ve started your fleet. Are you happy with it or are you still in turmoil?”
She swallowed the emotion that his question stirred in her. Of course he worried about her. It was just like him to remember the things that were important to her, even after whatever hell he’d been through.
She felt like a selfish jerk.
“No turmoil, Odeon. This is right. And having you here is also right. It’s correct.”
He blinked as though confused. “Correct?”
“I don’t know what it means. Just that it fits. Things fitting together. Friends, together. Recognizing someone’s place in your life and being thankful for them. Appreciating what they give you. All that stuff.”
“Yes. I understand. I missed you, my friend.” He’d lost weight. His cheeks were gaunt. His lavender skin seemed faded, perhaps sickly.
“Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Without saying it.”
He took a deep breath and looked back at the ship. His silver hair fell around his face, touching his shoulders. “I’m happy to be here. To be seeing this new phase beginning for the crew.”
“Me too.”
“Drake!” Darius said. “It’s too cold here. We’ve seen the ship. Let’s get back to the Bird’s Nest and have some drinks. We need to have a welcome home party for Odeon!”
She exchanged a look with Odeon. “You OK with a party, Odeon?”
“A small one perhaps. That would be nice.”
* * *
Things felt… almost normal, back at the Bird’s Nest.
Torden had locked the doors of the Surge Club and brought a tray of mixed drinks up into the office. Charly ordered some food from the staff and sat at her desk, barking orders at Torden to bring her the first drink after he placed the tray on the coffee table.
“I think Charly wants to hire a new bartender,” Torden said as he took a drink to her side.
“What? No I don’t.”
“You must. Because I’m about to quit.”
“Ah, I see.” She stood up and gave him a long, lingering kiss. “All better?”
“She’s evil,” Darius said.
“It works, Darius. Right, Torden?” She dropped her hand to his chest and traced it down to the waist of his pants. He grabbed her hand, and smiled.
“It just got really hot in here,” Darius said. “Get a room!”
“Don’t tease me, woman,” Torden said. “You might not like where this ends up.”
“Oh, I think I’d like it. A lot.” Charly grinned and kissed him again.
“Get—”
“A room, we know, Darius.” Holly got a drink off the tray and sat down on the sofa near Odeon. “Iain, have a drink.”
“Is that payment for flying your ship?”
“I somehow doubt that’s enough, but yes. If it helps.”
“We can discuss payment later,” Iain said. He caught Odeon’s glance at him and cleared his throat. “Not that any sum of money or… other goods or services could ever compensate for what it means to me to have brought Odeon home.”
“We couldn’t have done it without you.”
A pounding from below interrupted the levity. Torden separated from Charly and went to see what it was.
Shiro and Darius began to argue again about what the ship should be called and Odeon leaned forward and selected a drink from the tray, immediately taking an experimental sip.
“Very good.”
Holly nodded. “Cheers,” she said, clinking her glass to his.
Torden marched up the stairs and paused in the doorway. “The DJ is here. Should we open the club back up?”
“Go for it. We’ll come down and listen,” Charly said.
Torden nodded and vanished again. Darius followed, muttering about getting some food and needing a musical pick me up. Holly continued to sip her drink and glance back and forth between Odeon and Iain.
“This party seems to be picking up,” Iain said. “Charly, could you come with me to the kitchen? This drink’s going straight to my head.”
“Yeah, let’s go. I need a snack too.”
Charly carried her drink to the stairwell and waited for Iain. He got up, gave Holly a meaningful look and touched her knee on his way past.
And now she was alone with Odeon.
“That was very obvious,” Odeon remarked.
“It was.”
“Well, Holly, it’s good to be home. I missed this place. I missed you, and the crew.”
There was no hint of accusation in his voice. He said it matter-of-fact, like he’d simple been away on an extended vacation.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to get you.”
He was silent. The silence made it worse, but at least she’d gotten the words out.
He finally looked at her. “You have a ship.”
“We have a ship.” Somehow she managed to say that, despite the fact that he ignored her apology. She’d said it. That was all that mattered.
Music drifted up the stairwell from the main floor of the club. Holly took a breath. It wasn’t personal. Odeon was struggling. She could be patient.
She took a long drink from the tall thin glass. Her communicator buzzed in her pocket as emotion swirled in her gut from her apology not being acknowledged by Odeon. She pulled out the communicator to distract herself. A message flashed across the small screen.
“Magna may be gone. But he returns,” it read.
The source of the message was unknown. A chill flashed up Holly’s spine.
“Intentionally cryptic,” Holly said, handing her communicator to Odeon.
He read the message. “Yes. It is. You got your ship just in time,
Holly Drake.”
“Our ship. And we’ll need a few more.”
“I’m here now. And I learned many secrets. I think they’ll help you.”
She smiled, a warmth beginning in her solar plexus. Odeon would come around. He would come back to her, all the way. And they’d be stronger than ever. That was her hope, and here was the first sign of it.
Voss, of course, sent the message. It was so nice of her to give a warning like that, so Holly could prepare.
And, well, it sounded like the woman was in the mood for some chess.
Let the game begin.
* * *
THE END
* * *
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1
“That’s it! Lower her in, boys! Careful, careful!” Watson Wolfe called.
He raised his hands, pantomiming with them as though he’d be able to guide the figurehead onto the nose of the space zeppelin from where he stood in the coastal shipyard.
He leaned forward and gripped the banister of the scaffolding with one hand as the crane holding her lurched and the old figurehead began to sway and tug against the lines and braces holding her. “I said careful! She’s priceless!” he shouted.
“Oy! stop calling me boy,” the crane driver called.
Watson glanced up at the woman and scowled.
“Use a more appropriate term and maybe I’ll be careful with the old girl.”
Watson cussed inwardly. If he shouted her down, she’d likely drop the damn antique just to spite him, and he wasn’t going to fly across the aether of space without his figurehead. She’d protect his ship, no matter what the alien Centau race thought of him and his superstition.
They were partially to blame for his superstition, being the ones who’d educated him on the dangers of space and wormholes. Monsters, for the love of god. Ages, humans had gone believing that the lore about space monsters was preposterous—something that defied science and reason.
And yet they were out there, drinking the aether, riding its streams and supposedly preying on ships. The Centau had only alluded to what the monsters did, precisely, with the ships. But he would be damned if he’d find out by being naive. If there could be monsters in space, anything was possible. Which meant this talisman against the darkness could possibly do something, anything, against them.
And who cared if it didn’t? The statue was a damn work of art. He was going to have the best-looking ship of the entire fleet.
He bit his lip as he watched the workers—mostly men, hence his usage of the term boys—grab the braces and pull the beautiful feminine statue onto the nose of the zeppelin. She was an angel, with her arms and wings thrown back. Silvery and ivory white, with the wind riding in her hair. He’d found her in a museum storage room, forgotten, and the ship she’d graced long ago dismantled for the wood and other materials, salvaged to build and outfit the vast fleet of zeppelins that would take the voluntary colonists across the cosmos to the 6 Moons. Much of what was used came from decommissioned cruise-liners, due to ancient seafaring vessels primarily being too water-logged and damaged to use.
But if those old boats could be rehabilitated, their scraps were used as well. Watson was fairly certain that the only captain who wanted a figurehead was himself.
The workers continued securing the figurehead to the nose of Watson’s zeppelin, Fortune’s Zenith. As he stood on the scaffolding, watching the process, his heart swelling with pride, a voice at his side suddenly spoke, disrupting his proud reverie.
“The fleet leaves in three days. Yet you focus on the most extraneous aspect of your ship.”
Watson closed his gaping mouth and grimaced, glancing up at the tall Centau, Con Taimois, who had come to stand beside him. The complexion of the male Centau was light brown. A humanoid like Watson, he could have passed for an ancient progenitor that divided off some forgotten human ancestral line. Perhaps even more recent than distant. The alien’s hair was shocking white and tight to his skull, and his eyes a dark violet.
“Did you bring me a manifest?” Watson asked.
Con pulled a handheld v-screen from within his bright green robes and handed it to Watson without moving his steady gaze from the ship. He suppressed a shiver at seeing the spider-leg length of the Centau’s fingers.
Watson flicked his gaze back out to the shipyard feeling the doubt again about what he was doing. Beyond the cradle holding the massive zeppelin—the passengers would ride within the steel, reinforced body, unlike the historical zeppelins and airships of Earth’s mighty past—an array of other ships were also in the process of being finalized. It was an inspiring sight. He clenched his jaw—a bear’s ass he’d be left here on Earth while thousands of colonists took off for greener pastures and adventure.
How many alien races were out there, in the stars, and how many of them weren’t peaceful like the Centaus? Watson planned to take his chances with the Centaus—with their advanced tech they could protect humans from unfriendly aliens. Because . . . because he suspected that word was out that the sentient race on that one blue rock in that one solar system were kind of weak, perhaps? Well, he didn’t intend to find out the hard way.
Watson dropped his gaze to the manifest and glanced over the list of passengers who he would ferry to the 6 Moons beginning in three days. He swallowed, digesting that bit of information. Tomorrow the passengers would start bringing their possessions. It was beginning.
An exodus.
“Sometimes you almost convince me, Con, that you’re not an evil civilization out to trick us. But, it doesn’t help that your name is exactly like a word in my language that means to deceive, old boy.”
The list of passengers included families. Almost all of them, in fact, were families. Word on the street was that the Centaus wanted to populate the 6 Moons with other productive races. Though Watson still hadn’t met any of the other races who would live there, he’d heard from people who’d heard from friends that they weren’t Cthulhu-like, ugly beings.
Thank god for that. Despite their oddities, he didn’t object much to the Centaus. The hardest aspect of dealing with an alien race was simply finding a way to relate to them. That was an issue he could live with. What he couldn’t live with? Being forced to exist in harmony with sentient jelly fish or squids.
“My crew isn’t on this list,” Watson said. “They need to be on there. In case something happens.”
“What could happen with your statue protecting you?” Con asked.
“If I didn’t know better, Con, I’d think you were making a joke. Not very hilarious, but a worthy effort.” He let the v-screen drop to his side. “My crew. Let’s add them to this list.”
Con was always preternaturally still. His movements were stately and regal, and he rarely smiled. At the moment, he looked down his nose at Watson and then gave a slow tilt of his head. “We shall. After I inspect the inside of the ship.”
“Fine with me. It’s built to your specs, after all. Well, with all my frivolous human flourishes thrown in.”
“Centau flourishes are usually a necessity disguised as beauty. The wood that you outfitted the interior with and the other decor is very unnecessary when metal suffices,
but I understand that it is what you consider beauty and comfort,” Con said as he followed behind Watson across the scaffolding to enter the ship through a passenger doorway in the hull.
“Metal’s got no warmth,” Watson muttered under his breath. “You need wood, contact with the living. Or at least something that once lived.”
He suddenly found himself thinking about wood as being a dead thing—tree carcasses—and surrounding himself with it like some kind of psychotic tree butcher.
As they entered the ship, he shook his head to derail the weird train of thought. It made absolutely no sense. Of course using wood was normal and not inhumane. What sort of fool—
The thoughts were cut off as workers from the construction crew began reporting to him and Con. The two of them strode through the ship and Watson became absorbed in ticking off the first batch of final checks in preparation for departure in three days.
2
Watson looked over the v-screen in his hands, then back up as Con walked away. Dusk crept into the corners everywhere and deepened them with an almost tangible darkness. The cacophony of the shipyard never faded despite the hour. Voices rang out, mixing with the clanging, jarring sounds of construction and hard labor as crews raced to put the finishing touches on the zeppelins. The smell of cooking meat wafted beneath his nose as the food carts rolled in and stoked their grills to feed the shift workers. It mingled with the odors of grease, metal, and the salt of the ocean as the nightly sea breeze picked up.
Standing beneath the hull of Fortune’s Zenith, Watson touched the box on the screen next to the line reading “Figurehead,” checking it off. The inspector had come by earlier and approved the addition, and then Con had also given his approval.
Watson knew he was grinning like an idiot. The path ahead of him was fraught with danger. He was aware. But the figurehead—Cassandra, he was calling her; and did that make him a fool? It probably did. Not to worry, he was used to being foolish—represented everything that mattered on this journey. She was the embodiment of light and understanding. She banished the foes of the void. She was a piece of human history that he’d carry into the new world where humans were just another race on several teeming rocks of dust circling planets and suns, where gods and demons were dead.
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