by Delia Roan
“What shut down?”
Gymari waved her hand. “Just report down to the Left Hall. Told them I’m sending my best worker.”
Best worker? Mara breathed in deeply and sat up. Gymari noticed!
“Don’t be late,” Gymari said, turning away.
“Wait! Who do I ask for?” But Gymari was already gone.
Mara stared at the plate of food in front of her. Sewer pipes. She didn’t think anything could be worse than the laundry dust, but the thought of mucking out alien sewage systems made her breakfast lurch in her stomach.
Her belly still roiled when she left the galley. She took a moment to orient herself. The Left Hall. She bit her lip. Even after a week, she didn’t know half the areas of Haven. Clearly the Left Hall should be on the left. She spotted a slouchy alien turning to the left of her. If anyone has a hang-dog expression about cleaning up sewage, it’s that guy.
Without a word, Mara followed the alien down a side tunnel. As they walked, Mara began to sweat. She rolled up her sleeves, and undid the top clasp of her overalls. Certain areas of Haven were always warmer than others. In fact, last night, she had tossed aside her blanket.
Foot traffic petered out the further they went, and soon, only she and the stranger walked down the hallway. The walls began to close in, and the lights grew dimmer. Mara rubbed her damp palms against her thighs, aware of how quiet it had become. To her horror, the alien began shooting glances over his shoulder at her. In a panic, Mara dove down the nearest corridor and walked briskly to the far end.
She strained her ears to hear if the alien followed her. When she peeked over her shoulder to check if the slouchy alien had followed her, she tripped over a pair of feet sticking out of the wall.
“By the moon,” snapped the owner of the feet, his head encased in the pipes at the side of the corridor. “Watch yourself!”
“Sorry,” Mara stammered out. “I-” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes widened. It can’t be.
“It’s about time you showed up. Hand me the wrench.”
Mara bit her lip. It is. Heaven help me.
“Wrench,” he repeated. “Hand it to me.”
It’s him. It’s Syrek.
As if hearing his name in her mind, he stuck his head out of the hatch and stared up at her. For a moment, their eyes were locked, her brown ones lost inside his jewel-like ones. Her breathing seemed unnaturally loud in the silence of the tunnel. Even on his hands and knees, covered in grease, he made her heart jump. She wasn’t sure if it was fear or something else that made her want to turn and run.
He slowly sat back, resting on his heels. He looked her up and down, and she felt herself straightening under his gaze. The top half of his work overalls was unzipped and tied around his waist, leaving his skin bare. The swirls of gray continued down his neck and across his broad chest. Even from this distance, she could tell his skin wasn’t smooth, but slightly textured. Her fingertips itched to run along his muscles and feel for herself.
“I need it,” he said. “Are you going to give it to me?”
His suggestive tone snaked around her like ropes, locking her in place. “P-pardon?”
“The wrench,” he said. “It’s over there.”
An open toolbox sat on the far side of the corridor, beside a plastic bottle of water. “Oh!”
Mara dove for it and began scrambling through the tools. She tried to remember what a wrench looked like, but nothing in the box resembled the vague notions she had of a TV mechanic’s tools. While her hands moved through the objects inside, she felt Syrek’s eyes boring into her back.
Time stretched out uncomfortably. Finally, she dropped her head and rested her hands on the sides of the case. “I-I don’t know what it looks like,” she whispered.
“It has blue stripes along the side,” he said. She expected him to mock her, but his voice was flat, like he had tested her and found her wanting.
Bitterness bit at her as she returned to her searching.
“This?” She held up a cylindrical tube with a gear system on one end.
“Yes.”
It took all her strength to hand it to him, but he took it with a single hand, and tossed it casually before sliding back into the hatch.
Mara took a moment to appreciate the curve of his backside and the way the stitching on the seams of his pants strained. She averted her eyes, focusing instead on the wall in front of her. She tugged her overalls into place, and clenched her hands in front of her. Her ears burned, and her chin wobbled.
Should I go? It’s clear that I can’t help him.
Yet Gymari had said she was sending her best worker to help Syrek. She couldn’t let Gymari down.
More than that, she couldn’t let Dannica down. Working her way up in the ranks was all she could do to work toward freedom.
Mara took a deep breath.
I can use him.
“What else do you need?” she asked, trying to keep her words steady.
Syrek froze in the pipes for a moment, before resuming his efforts. “I’ll need a pan. Gonna have some drips once I get this infernal pipe loose.”
The toolbox didn’t contain a pan, but it did contain a lid. She crouched down beside him and slid it under his arm. “There.”
“Good.” His fingers brushed hers when he took it, and a jolt traveled up her arm and shimmied down her spine.
She scurried back to her position beside the toolbox. Her hand burned where he had touched it, not just from the surprising physical contact, but from the heat radiating off his skin.
He’s on fire.
She studied his sturdy back, watching the muscles work as he struggled with the pipes inside the hatch. Thin strips of lighter bands crisscrossed his back. At first she thought they were part of his markings, but then the truth dawned.
Scars.
“You’re staring.”
“I’m not.” The words slipped out before she meant to speak.
“My father,” he replied, as if he were remarking on the weather. It took her a moment to make the connection.
Her childhood hadn’t been perfect. Her father had divorced both Mara’s mother and his next wife before Mara had turned six. Benevolent neglect, yes, but beatings? That level of violence was foreign to her. Suddenly, she was grateful that her father traveled on business trips for most of the year.
Lost in her thoughts, Mara jumped when Syrek cursed. “What’s wrong?”
Syrek backed out of the hatch and threw the wrench down the hall. It clanged and bounced before settling on the floor. Syrek sat on the floor cross-legged and wiped his face on a dangling sleeve. “I can’t reach the valves.”
Mara wrapped her arms around her legs. There didn’t seem to be a proper response to that.
Syrek leaned against the wall. The grease had mixed with his sweat, streaking his skin in darker smears of black. Although she hadn’t seen him in a week, he looked different. Worn.
He’s pushing himself hard.
Her father had pushed her to work harder through his sharp tongue. Had Syrek’s father used a lash of a different kind to motivate his son?
Which one cuts deeper, I wonder?
She handed him the water bottle.
“My gratitude,” he muttered, before he drank deeply. With a sigh, he recapped the bottle. “I shall have to order Hatcher to send one of her children to finish the job.”
Children? Mara straightened. “You want to send kids in there?”
“They are used to this kind of work.”
Mara shook her head. “No. I can do it. What needs to be done?”
He raised his eyes to her. “It will be no bother to them.”
“They’re children,” she said. “I can do it. I’m small.”
Again his eyes flicked over her body, and her cheeks warmed. “You are not that small.”
“Smaller than you,” she said, raising her chin. He brushed his thumb along his lip, watching her fa
ce. She met his gaze, and even though her knees wanted to knock together, she kept her head up. “Let me try. I can do it.”
He rolled to his feet in a fluid motion and bowed, extending his hand to the hatch. “Go right ahead, my lady.”
Mara rubbed her hands against her thighs. She crawled forward and peered into the darkness of the hatch. “What do I do?”
Syrek crouched beside her and began describing the mechanisms inside. She needed to find a valve and turn it.
“To the right. Not the left, the right.” He handed her a pair of vice-grips. “Got it?”
“Simple enough,” Mara said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.
Syrek handed her a flashlight and she crawled into the hatch. It was a tight fit, but she inched her way forward. The heat was stifling inside. She blinked sweat from her eyes until she spotted the valve. She tried to close it by hand first, but hissed when the heat of the valve scorched her fingertips. It took all her strength and weight leaning onto the vice-grips, but she closed it.
She emerged from the hatch, her face flushed from heat and triumph. Her braid had come undone, and her hair flopped into her eyes, sticking to her skin.
Syrek leaned against the far wall, studying the toolbox. A flash of guilt on his face made her wonder if maybe he had been studying her ass as she crawled back out. But no, that couldn’t be. When he looked at her, his eyes were cool and calculated.
With a gleam in her eye, she placed a hand on her cocked hip and brandished her tool. “Done!”
“Excellent,” he replied, stepping closer.
The intensity in his gaze made her fumble the vice-grips. A smile curved his lips with a sensuality that made her knees tremble. He came close enough for his breath to brush the stray strands of her hair.
“There is one other task you must perform for me.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
SYREK
The human maintained the distance between them. When Syrek slowed, so did she. When he sped up, his long strides carrying him further away from her, she broke into a trot, and then a jog to keep up. With every step, his irritation grew, until he came to a dead stop in a busy corridor and spun around.
She cowered back, caught unawares by his motion. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion, but her eyes remained cautious and wary. Closed off, like she had shut a door between them.
He had savored her when she emerged after dealing with the coolant valve. Her face had captivated him. The flash of triumph, that heat and passion written in joy. It was gone the instant he had neared her.
He wanted it back. Suns take him, he wanted it back. Some irrational part of him wanted to see her light up again. He needed to see her light up again.
To be the reason she lit up.
“You,” he growled, ignoring the curious eyes surrounding them. “You’re bothering me.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, dropping her head.
“Either walk beside me, or meet me there.”
She raised her eyes to him, studying his face. “I don’t know where we’re going.”
He stepped to the side, making room. She joined him, and they set off back down the corridor at a more reasonable pace. Her breathing remained fast, though.
The sight of Syrek walking with the human made others pause and stare. When Syrek glared them down, they instantly resumed examining the dirt under their nails or checking their shoes were fastened.
The gossipmongers will enjoy this.
But with her by his side, he found he did not care. He slowed to a stroll, taking advantage of the narrow corridors to brush his shoulder to hers. The contact sparked heat along his arms, making the back of his neck tighten with anticipation.
He shot a glance in her direction, and his heart sank. Her braid had unraveled, and her hair hid her face from his view; however, her hands were tightly gripped in front of her, the knuckles white.
He had miscalculated. He should have asked her to walk beside him, not snap orders at her like she was a hired hand. He was uncertain what exactly she was, but she wasn’t one of the grunts he kept around for dirty jobs.
“How are you enjoying Haven?” The question surprised both of them.
She glanced around. “I haven’t seen much of it.” There was a long, awkward pause before she spoke again. “It’s… big.”
“Hautk built.” He was on firmer territory now. He gestured to the walls of the ship. “An original flagship from the Hautk fleet.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s… something.”
He plowed on. “She was built during their bid to control the universe. Capable of yearlong travels without stopping to resupply. Haven is — was — completely self-sufficient. She is one of the rare ships who has been logged crossing all of the major galaxies.”
“Is that so?”
He was losing her interest. “They conquered many planets with Haven’s might. Her weapons are known as world destroyers, capable of decimating civilizations. Which she has done. Haven is centuries old.”
“Really?” She clasped her hands behind her back and gawked like a tourist taking in the sights. “I could barely tell.”
Embarrassment coiled around his throat, cutting off his words. They walked along one of the older sectors, and rust lined the walls. Grime stuck to the corners, despite the cleaning crew’s nightly visits. They passed a wide window revealing a section of the gardens, but the view was obscured by scratches to the plastic.
Despite the wear and tear, he believed Haven remained powerful. The decades could dull her sheen, but they could never take away her full glory.
I could still fly this ship all the way to the heart of Ennoi Territory and Ennoi Cadam would piss themselves with fear.
If the accursed weapons were functional.
She must have seen the flicker of shame in his face, because she changed the topic. “What was that stuff we were doing in the pipes?”
“Rerouting coolant.” His answer was curt, but he was more annoyed with his reaction to her than by her question.
“Oh.”
They walked on in silence and Syrek’s discomfort grew. For a brief moment, he viewed his home through her fresh eyes rather than his clouded ones. Haven needed work and resources to refit her to her former status.
I’m working on it.
He opened the door to his quarters, praying that Clez hadn’t set another trap for him. To his relief, his room remained empty, save for the pale glow of the habitat wall. The human hesitated in the doorway, but stepped through.
When the door shut behind him with a click, she jumped, and turned to face him.
“Stay there,” he commanded, before striding off to the bathroom.
He was gathering laundry when he heard her gasp from the other room. “Oh! This is amazing!”
There were only two events in his room that could inspire such words, and unfortunately, he didn’t have her under him in bed. That meant she had noticed the habitat wall. With his arms full of clothing, he returned to his bedroom.
As expected, she stood before the habitat wall, her eyes locked on the square windows. The far wall of his room was lined in glass, partitioned off into individual cubes. Each cube held a single plant specimen from a different planet. The cubes mimicked the native environment in which the rare organisms grew.
The human leaned closer, peering into one of the glass containers that held a delicate purple and red flower. “It’s so beautiful. What is this?”
He dumped the clothing in the corner and approached the wall. He knew exactly what plant she viewed, but he couldn’t seem to look away from her face. The wonder in her expression pinned him just as easily as the specimens in the habitat containers captivated her.
“Rift Crocus,” he said. “Found in lush forests on Ethera.”
“What about this one?”
“Algae from the Gas Seas of Pleggra-13.”
She turned to him and smiled. “You collect plants
?”
He blinked. He had never thought of it that way. “My father did. I inherited his collection. I have added a few of my own. The Ibure Orchid, for example.” He pointed to a window.
“The pink one with the gray swirls? Why did you pick that one?”
He paused, taken aback by the question. He debated lying, but in the end, he couldn’t think of a suitable fib. “It reminds me of my sister. And my mother.”
She watched his face for a while. “You miss them?”
“Yes,” he said, feeling a pang of guilt at the number of calls he had ignored from Cyndrae over the past week.
“I miss my mom, too. And my dad, I guess.”
Her tone made him believe that maybe she did understand how much he missed his family. That she might even understand his complex feelings when it came to his parents and sibling. Her eyes were warm, even awash in the pale light.
They invited him.
“It’s hard to be away from the people you love,” she whispered.
He found himself stepping closer. “It is.”
“Plants are cool,” she said, turning back to the windows.
Just like that, the spell she wove broke. Syrek blinked in confusion. What is happening?
“I always wanted to study botany,” she said. “But Dad said…” Her voice faded out. Her brow creased when she spotted a tank containing rocks. “What’s supposed to be in this one? It’s empty.”
He took a deep breath. “Dormacks from Ooorash. Watch.”
When the light flicked off, she inhaled sharply. “Wh-”
“Patience.”
But she waited. Slowly, the dormacks emerged, their delicate tendrils flaring out as they opened. The algae glowed in the dark, pale orange, and they swayed in the thick liquid of their tank.
She gasped in delight, and the sound shot straight down his spine and low into his belly, where an ache began to grow.
Her indifference to Haven seemed at such a contrast to her glee at seeing these plants. She flitted between hot and cool, and somehow, he wanted her to look at him with as much fascination as she gave the plants.