by Ashley West
He didn't want to see it again.
Instead he made his way down to The Skip.
It wasn't safe in the pleasure district, not anymore, but he was armed, and he was mad, so if any lurking Fremeri wanted to try him, they were more than welcome.
Hamara was already there, deep in a cup of something inky and black as the Void, that Cress didn't even want to touch. He ordered something lighter and sat down next to her.
"What did Her Imperial Majesty have to say?" she asked.
"About what you'd expect," Cress replied. "She wasn't happy."
"Well, we knew she wouldn't be. I can't believe they all got away."
She was talking about the Fremeri, of course, and the fact that they hadn't even managed to capture one of them. The one who had killed herself--at least Cress thought it had been a female--had sparked something of a trend, it seemed, and two more had followed. The only other one they had been able to grab had managed to slip away, using whatever cloaking method they had at their disposal.
All of that running around and they had nothing to show for it. Not one thing.
"How do they do that thing that they do?" Cress wondered aloud. "We scanned them, and they didn't have any tech on them."
"Who knows?" Hamara answered with a morose shrug. "Does it matter now?"
"Of course it matters. We're gonna have to tangle with them again, you know. May as well get ready for that, and knowing how they do the stuff they do could be a big advantage for us."
"It's camouflage."
Both members of HIMA lifted their heads at that. Soran, the bartender and owner, was standing there, watching them. Cress colored at the realization that they had just been sitting there discussing official HIMA business in a cantina full of civilians. Just wonderful. What a perfect end to a terrible day. Night. Whatever.
"Camouflage?" Clearly Hamara didn't care about the implications of this discussion. Or she had had too many of those drinks to notice what she was doing.
"Hamara," Cress hissed. "You can't."
"Hush," she snapped. "This is Soran. She'd know anyway. What do you mean by camouflage?"
Soran smiled, and Cress thought, as he'd always thought, that she was very pretty. "Just what I said. Have you ever seen a desert snake?"
Hamara frowned. "Yes, a few."
"So you know how they change their colors depending on their environment, then. If they're on sand, they turn sand colored, if they're on greenery, they turn green. If they're in water, they seem to disappear. Does that sound familiar?"
They got there at the same time.
Hamara smacked herself in the forehead. "I can't believe I didn't figure that out," she said. "They're reptilian, of course they can disguise themselves."
"Would have been nice to know that before we went charging after them," Cress said, giving Soran a sharp look.
She shrugged one shoulder with a smile. "I don't work for HIMA," Soran said. "I can only answer questions I'm asked."
Hamara grumbled, but Cress was plotting. At least he'd have something to tell the Empress.
"Is it true? The rumor?" Soran was asking.
He looked at her. "Depends on what the rumor is."
Soran looked around, clearly understanding that maybe this wasn't something she should just blurt out. "About Silas."
Cress and Hamara exchanged glances. Hamara shrugged. "She'd find out anyway," she reasoned, and Cress nodded.
"We don't know where Silas is. The Empress thinks..." He trailed off and then leaned closer. "The Empress thinks that maybe he's been taken by the Fremeri."
Hamara sucked in a breath, and Cress realized he hadn't actually gotten around to telling her that part yet. Ah, well. No time like the present.
"Not Silas," Soran said, shaking her head emphatically. "He wouldn't get himself captured. The Empress should have more faith in him than that."
"I'm only repeating what I heard, Soran," Cress insisted. "And, for obvious reasons, you're not to repeat that."
She shot him a dark look. "I wouldn't. Silas is...he's something of a symbol. It won't do to have people think he's been captured or worse. If I hear anything, I'll let you know."
The way she said it made it clear that she wasn't talking about letting HIMA in general know. She'd give her information to either him or Hamara directly, and Cress breathed a sigh of relief. With Soran's ears out for information, they were bound to find something out.
He and Hamara didn't stay at the cantina for much longer. Cress was bone tired, and Hamara was well on her way to being drunk. He escorted her from The Skip, careful to take the back ways to the area of the city where most of the members of HIMA and their families lived. It was more dangerous to go this way, but it was better if they didn't run into the pleasure seekers, stumbling out of other cantinas and gambling dens and pleasure houses. Too many questions, not enough answers, and Cress didn't want to talk to anyone.
"He'll be fine, you know," Hamara mumbled as she leaned into him.
"What?"
"Silas. He'll be fine. He's...well, he's the Captain. There's a reason he got a promotion in the first place. The Empress trusts him to get out of these kinds of situations."
Cress didn't understand how she could talk so eloquently when she was that drunk, but whatever.
"I know," he said. And he did. Silas was...one of his closest friends. Silas had been in the Army for longer than he had, but not by much. They'd been in the same training class, and faced all the same obstacles, and even though they rarely said words like that to each other, Cress knew that he meant something to Silas, too.
As long as there was a chance that Silas was alive, and Cress would continue to think that there was until he saw proof otherwise, he wouldn't give up on him.
"The Empress wants me to put together a group to search for Silas," Cress said softly. "I'm not sure if I should lead it."
"Why wouldn't you?"
"I could be needed here. If this kind of thing keeps happening..." He didn't have to clarify what he meant for Hamara. Children getting drained of blood, Fremeri wandering around hidden. It was enough to start a panic, enough to start a war, and if that happened, everyone would need to be here to help defend Gathra.
"The Fremeri aren't that powerful," Hamara said with a shrug. "They're just scavengers."
"You think so?"
She nodded. "I do. They just want to pick off the leavings and the small game. We can crush them." She rambled on as they walked, speaking of the might of HIMA and how they had put down bigger threats than the Fremeri before. She was so sure that they were just scavengers, the last of their kind, trying to cling to some semblance of relevance.
More than anything Cress wanted to believe that she was right, but now... Now he wasn't so sure.
Chapter Five: Strange and New
Having a houseguest wasn't something Katia was used to. She was used to guests in general, of course, since she ran an inn, but having one in her home, especially one who didn't seem to understand much at all about Earth or humans to begin with was very, very strange.
The first morning that she'd woken up to find Silas in her bedroom, hunting for the source of the 'battle alarm sound' had shaken her, and she'd spent fifteen minutes explaining about alarms and cell phones and had almost been late for work.
She had learned that apparently his kind didn't really need alarms to wake up because their bodies had adapted to rise with the sun anyway.
So that was fascinating and all, but she was sure she'd spent all of Sunday with a strange look on her face.
Sunday was one of her favorite days at the inn, though. They always had brunch at ten-thirty and then a high tea at four, and all of the guests were invited, regardless of how much they'd paid for their room.
Jerry did an amazing omelet, and an even better tea service, and she loved presiding over both of them.
But this Sunday found her confused and distracted, something everyone who worked for her commented on. Katia supposed that was fair.
She was usually the one who had her head on straight and knew what she was doing. She was usually the one correcting other people’s mistakes instead of having them correct hers.
And she didn’t think it was smart to explain why her head was in the clouds, but she was also pretty sure that she had cause to be spacey. Ha.
There was an alien in her house.
An actual alien.
People had been debating the existence of life on other planets for years now, and the amount of strange sightings and unexplainable events had nearly doubled over the last couple of years, but she hadn’t expected this.
This was confirmation in a big way, and it was sleeping on her couch at night.
Or attempting to, anyway. Silas was so tall that his feet hung over the edge when he laid down. He insisted that it wasn't a problem, that he was just happy to have a place to sleep at all, but he didn't look comfortable.
Her entire house was too small for him, really, but there wasn't anywhere else for him to go. She wasn't going to just pawn him off on someone else, and after hearing that his ship had crashed and he'd had to pull himself from the rubble before she'd found him near her home, she knew he didn't have anywhere else.
So it was either her house or...or The Lily, she supposed, and turning a seven foot tall alien man with blue skin loose on the guests of her inn seemed...like a really bad idea.
So he was staying with her.
Katia would have been more concerned about leaving him in her house alone during the day while she was working, but he honestly seemed more preoccupied with how he was going to get back to where he belonged than stealing from her, so she wasn't that worried about it.
"Hey."
Katia jumped as Ava came up behind her and snapped her fingers. She'd been staring off into space, trying to think of something she could do to make Silas more comfortable or just to help him at all.
"Ava, you scared me," she said, turning to glare at her. "What?"
"You've been out of it all day," Ava said, and if Katia didn't know better, she would have thought that she was concerned. "What's up with you?"
"Nothing," Katia replied. If she just came out and told Ava the truth, she was pretty sure her friend would try to have her committed.
"Oh, please. There is something going on, and I know it. You didn't do your little happy wiggle thing before you poured the tea earlier, and you do that every Sunday because you just love pouring tea."
Ava was right on both counts, and Katia made a face at her. "Stop watching me when I pour tea."
"Stop trying to change the subject."
She knew good and well that there was no way she was going to put Ava off. The woman was like a bloodhound when it came to gossip or trying to get information, and the minute she even scented that there was something to know, she wouldn't stop until she found out. So she had to tell her something.
"I just...I have a house guest for a while, that's all. I've been going over the stuff I need."
"A house guest." Ava arched an eyebrow and then searched her face. Katia fought to keep her look neutral, passive. "A male house guest?"
"What?"
Ava grinned. "You heard me. If it was just your mother or something you would have just told me when I asked the first time. But you didn't, and you tried to pretend like there was nothing happening. Meaning you're embarrassed."
"Oh, and because I'm embarrassed that automatically means it's a guy?"
"Yes," Ava confirmed. "Yes, it does."
"That's crap, and you know it." Katia rolled her eyes and moved to help take the tea trays back into the kitchen.
"You say that, but you haven't denied it," Ava said as she followed.
"Okay, fine. It's a male house guest. But it isn't what you think."
"No?"
"No. He's not...we're not..." Katia sighed. "There's nothing going on between us. He's just crashing at my place for a while."
"Who is he?" Ava wanted to know.
"Just. Just a friend. Someone I know from college," she lied. "He's in town for a while, and his travel plans got messed up, so I'm offering him my couch for a bit until he figures things out."
She could tell that Ava was starting to believe her, but she braced herself for more questions all the same.
"Why can't he stay in a hotel?" asked Ava. "Or, you know, an inn? Considering you run one."
"It was late when he got in," Katia said, and she wasn't even lying. Not really. "And he'd already come a long way."
"I still think you're hiding something."
Katia huffed. "Well maybe it's none of your business, Ava. Did you ever think of that? Just because I have someone staying with me, doesn't mean you get to pry into my personal life like this."
"We're friends, Katia," Ava said, looking taken aback. "Or I thought we were, anyway."
"We are friends. But sometimes you need to learn when to let things go." She turned away before Ava could reply, putting down her trays. "Jerry, I'm leaving now. I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Bye, Ava."
"Bye," Ava said, sounding as stunned as she looked.
Katia felt bad about how she'd spoken to her, but honestly, she didn't know what else she was meant to do. Ava was her friend, but she was also a busybody, and she knew that if she told her the truth, it would spread, and either people wouldn't believe her and would think she was crazy, or they would believe her and everything would get chaotic and weird.
Plus, she didn't know if Silas wanted people to know he was on Earth, and she didn't want to be the one who blew his cover, if he had one.
Honestly, she didn't know much at all about what Silas was doing on Earth. She knew that he had crash landed here, and she knew that he was supposed to be letting his people know about some threat, but other than that, she had no idea what his plans were.
They hadn't talked all that much the night before, really. He'd woken up that afternoon and then had immediately gone out to find the wreckage of his ship. Apparently after wandering for a while, he'd been unable to retrace his steps back to it, and had come back to her house in defeat and didn't speak to her again.
It had been an awkwardly quiet night, and Katia was a bit miffed at getting the silent treatment in her own house, but she still didn't really know how to talk to this man who wasn't even from her planet.
"What do you do?"
It was the first question that greeted her when she came through the front door that evening.
Silas was standing there, and—oh god— he was shirtless.
His bandages had been removed, though, and the wounds seemed to already be healing. Katia was reaching out to touch one that was already fading to shiny scar tissue before she caught herself and curled her fingers into a fist and pulled it back.
He was so...muscular. And so well put together. And she realized that she was standing in the middle of her entry way, practically ogling the alien man who had crash landed and somehow ended up in her yard. Katia shook herself. Hard.
"What?"
"You said you were going to work. What do you do?"
"I...run an inn."
"An inn."
He didn't sound impressed, and Katia bristled.
"Yes, an inn. I know it's not as fancy as being a member of the military, and the Champion of whatever it is you're the Champion of, but it's what I've wanted to do my whole life."
"Why?"
The question brought her up short.
"What?"
"Why?" Silas repeated. "Why was that what you wanted to do? I don't say that to judge your profession, of course. I'm only curious."
"Oh." Katia blinked, still feeling like she was on the back foot with him and unsure of what he was really asking. She needed a cup of tea.
He followed her into the kitchen and watched as she went about boiling the kettle and measuring out her loose leaf peppermint. It was a ritual that always calmed her down, and surprisingly enough, not even Silas standing there, watching her curiously, could take the relaxation out of it.
> Silas didn't ask his question again, either. He just stood there, letting her do what she needed to do, and when she had a steaming cup in her hand, she leaned against the counter and sighed softly.
"It's not some great story, you know," she said. "I can't stand here and tell you that I always felt a calling to be in the hospitality business. I just..." Katia shrugged. "When I was a kid, my parents took me and a couple of my cousins on a trip up the coast. We stayed in this bed and breakfast when we got there, and it was...I dunno. It was wonderful. Everything was neat and decorated and the people who ran it were so nice. Every day we went to the beach, and that was fun, but the best part was coming back to the B&B at the end of the day. The owners had lemonade and iced tea waiting for us, and cookies for us kids. We showed them our seashells that we'd collected, and it was like being away from home, but still being in a place that felt homey, you know? I never forgot that."
"And you wanted to give that to someone else."
Katia smiled at him. "Yes, exactly."
"You do your job because you love it." He said it with a certainty that surprised her. It wasn't that he knew her, because he didn't, but clearly that he knew what it felt like to love what you did.
"Yes," she said again. "I do."
He was looking right at her, and they held eye contact for a several seconds. At least until Katia noticed and then blushed darkly. "Um," she said, and then wanted to kick herself. "How was your day? I noticed you didn't destroy the place."
Silas gave her an arch look. "Were you worried?"
"Maybe a little. I didn't think you'd know how to use any of my appliances or anything."
"I don't," he said. "Because they're primitive."
"They are not!"
"They are," Silas insisted. "Compared to what I'm used to.
Katia supposed she couldn't argue with that since she had no idea what his technology was like. "Okay, fine. I'm still glad you managed. Do you...have any idea how long you'll be staying?"
A cloud seemed to pass over his face, and Silas sighed. "I don't. I need to get off of this planet. I need to warn my people about what's coming for them. I need to find my ship and figure out if there's anything I can salvage of the communications devices."