by Kait Gamble
“Of a sort. Anyway, I told him I would go through with it. But once the party was upon me, it was just too much. I couldn’t breathe. I knew I had to get out of there.”
“Sounds like my first marriage.” Everhard’s laughing voice came through the coms, making everyone join in. Even Kateryn tittered a little.
“Sounds like you were having quite the anxiety attack.” Meri’s usually implacable face softened.
“I was. I think I still am.” A nervous laugh burst from Kateryn. “I ran out of there like a frightened little rabbit. I knew Father would be angry but I packed up everything I could carry and took off.”
Bam shook his head, making his facial implants catch the light and gleam. “Not the smartest thing t’do, miss, if I may say.”
“I realized that when I found myself completely lost and without a friend in the world to turn to.” Her lips twisted ruefully. “Then, after a few months of living on the streets of London, I met him.”
Why was she expecting that particular twist in the tale? Aurelia sighed and waited for her to continue.
“He was handsome, rough around the edges and the complete opposite of every male my father ever introduced me to.” She blushed when she noted the avid faces around the table. “I thought I loved him.”
Aurelia fought the urge to rub her temples. “Go on. What happened?”
“He was the bastard you shot with the electricity.”
The picture was crystallizing.
“Let me guess. He told you everything you wanted to hear and got you on his ship, only to find out every single thing he told you was a lie?”
“Right down to his hair color.”
Aurelia groaned. “I’m glad I shot him, then.” The girl had gone through much and came out of it relatively unscathed. She was impressed, and a little curious. Auri knew she could wheedle the information out of her sooner or later, but she could tell there was more to the tale than Kateryn was letting on.
“As am I. Anyway, you know how I got here. I made the call to my father just before you docked with your ship. I told him I was being held on a ship and sent him the coordinates. I’m sorry, but I think he might think you were the ones who took me in the first place.”
“Wonderful! So now we’re gonna have his Lordship up our backsides for something we haven’t done!” Bam slammed the table with his metal fist, making Kateryn jump.
“I’ll just call him back and tell him that you rescued me.”
Everhard’s voice crackled over the intercom. “I don’t think that’ll help. We’ve got company.”
Aurelia levered herself off the wall. “Find out who it is.” She turned to the rest of the men. “Keys, please take our guest to the spare cabin. Meri, Bam, come with me.”
She caught Keys’ attention as he herded the girl from the room, waggling her brow. He nodded, though she knew she was in for an interrogation, judging from that scowl.
* * *
Aurelia dashed to the bridge just in time to see Everhard punch the coms screen. Luckily for the screen, he didn’t use his full strength or it would have been obliterated. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s like our long-distance communications system is malfunctioning. I can’t hail them. But a scan shows that it’s a Castleton ship.”
“Cargo?”
He shook his head. “Enforcer class.”
“Fantastic.”
“So what do we think we should do?”
“How far are they?”
“I’d say they are about two hours away.”
Auri stared at the monitor. “Are they headed this way?”
Everhard shook his head. “No.”
“Okay.” Auri sat down on the arm of Everhard’s seat as she reached over and started entering a set of commands into the console. She leaned close to his ear and whispered, “Keep this running. And tell me what comes up.”
“Where is that mind of yours going?” Meri crossed his arms and leveled his unnerving stare at her.
Auri tapped her ear and circled a finger at the room. If Kateryn had managed to sneak around the ship or onto the bridge, she might have left a few goodies behind. “Just keep your wits about you. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.” She arched a brow at the men as she looked at them, willing them to play along.
Understanding rippled through the group.
Bam dropped himself into the navigator’s seat. “If we run now, we could stay out o’ reach ’til we can hide in one o’ the busier systems.”
She received murmurs of agreement from around the room. “Very well. We run. Where to?” Aurelia took a quick look at the charts on the screen. “Europa? Ganymede?”
Meri piped up, “Might I suggest Io?”
“No! I’m not going to that hell hole!” Everhard released the yoke and slammed himself back in the seat to look at them. “You just want to go to that freak of a moon just to see what new freaky thing the engineers have done to it.”
“Your vocabulary is growing by the day, Everhard. I’m impressed.”
“Shut up, old man.” He grabbed the controls again. “I’ll go anywhere but there.”
Aurelia was about to intervene when Bam stepped in. “It makes sense. All the activity on the surface would hide us easy.”
There was more grumbling from Everhard to accompany his grudging assent. “Fine. Io it is. But if I get set on fire again, you are all going to pay.”
The group broke into a flurry of movement and soon they were on their way toward the Jovian System. With the amount of colonized moons orbiting the outer planets, it would be next to impossible to find a single ship.
Keys led the girl down the hall, surreptitiously checking she was close behind him as they moved through the ship. She was tiny, giving him the impression that she was very young. The story she told them made her seem even younger. And dumber.
Did women really fall for something so stupid?
He shook his head and kept walking. He didn’t question Aurelia choosing him to walk her to the spare cabin. The others looked like they were about to lynch her for sneaking onboard. All except for Everhard. It was his nature to flirt with anything with breasts and he couldn’t be trusted not to try and get in her knickers, especially when she’d already admitted her naiveté. Keys was sure he and the others would have to run interference until she was safely off ship.
Aurelia wasn’t that great with people, which was probably why she’d opted to stay on the bridge. That and the fact that her mind was better suited for strategy than for small talk. Not that he was much better. So he stayed silent as they walked.
It also gave him the chance to try and figure out what was going on. He wasn’t sure if the others noticed, but he saw the way Aurelia looked at the newcomer when she announced her name. She had no clue who the girl was, which struck him as strange, considering the Popkiss and Castleton families ran in the same circles.
The rest of the men may have missed her expression, but surely they noticed her pacing. It was a dead giveaway. He had noted over the years that the speed of her pacing indicated how furiously her mind was working. The slow, pensive stride she was doing earlier indicated she was mulling something over.
Apparently, it wasn’t something she was about to make a snap decision about. He snuck a look at the girl. She took no notice of him as she openly gawked at the ship interior.
The girl may have thought she had free run of the ship, but in this case appearances were far from reality. Meri made sure that every inch of the ship was monitored. There wasn’t anything she could do that they wouldn’t notice.
Keys made a mental note to pull Auri aside soon and find out what was going on in her head.
His long strides ate up the distance quickly, despite his attempts to walk slower than usual in deference to Kateryn’s substantially s
horter stride. When they finally arrived at the cabin, he opened the door for her and tried to appear as nonthreatening as he could. “Here you are.”
“Thank you, mister…” She waited a beat but when he didn’t respond, she continued, “I’m sorry. What do I call you?”
Keys felt heat creep into his cheeks. It had been a while since he’d been in polite company. “Apologies.” He took her hand and shook it delicately. “Cadeyrn Keelan Alloway. You can call me Keys.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Alloway.” She tugged her hand from his grip and studied him for a long moment before she wandered into the small room. Turning a slow circle, Kateryn appraised her temporary home. “This is a fine ship. Is it yours?”
“No.”
Kateryn looked around the room again and he was sure she was looking for another topic of conversation. Keys started edging toward the door.
“The crew seems like an interesting mix.”
She didn’t know the half of it. He smiled tightly.
Kateryn sighed and smoothed her ruined skirt. “I’m sorry I’m being a pain. You must want to get back to the bridge.”
“No, I apologize…again. As you can imagine, we don’t engage in much polite chitchat on the ship.”
The sunny girl reappeared. “I understand. How long have you been out here?”
“For a while now.” The truth was it had been five years, the last time he checked. “I’m sure you’d like to get…tidied up. There’s a wash closet across the hall. I’m sure the miss will send you some clothes.”
Kateryn said nothing for a moment as she appraised him. “You really respect her, don’t you?”
Keys wasn’t comfortable with where the conversation was going. If Aurelia was anything, it was private. “Of course. Without her, none of us would be alive.” He cursed himself for letting that much slip.
“Really? She saved all your lives?”
He shifted from foot to foot; he didn’t think he should tell the story to a near stranger. “Yes. Now, if you’ll excuse me. If you need help just flick this switch—” he pointed to the intercom, “—and shout for me. You’re free to visit the kitchen and common area. But I wouldn’t recommend wandering beyond that. The others might not take too kindly to that.”
Her face lit up, despite his warning. “Thank you.”
Keys wasn’t sure what made her so happy, but he didn’t ask. He wasn’t in the mood for a conversation. He put up his hand in a haphazard wave and closed the door behind him as he hurried back to the bridge.
* * *
When Io came into view, the group stared at the screens in awe. The engineers who designed the colony had created a massive, complicated network of gleaming metal, all with the goal of using the moon’s natural geothermal emissions as a power source. The power was fed via pipes into the towers that comprised the colony, giving the moon the look of a glittering pincushion from a distance.
Aurelia couldn’t get her head around the physics of it, but the result was mind-bogglingly intricate and beautiful in effect. “Good choice of hiding place, Meri.” She was sure the man was trying his damnedest not to press his face up against the window like an eager child.
He buzzed with excitement when he turned to answer her. “I’m glad you approve, my dear.”
Only Everhard stayed in his seat, grumbling all the while about crazy technology and playing with fire.
“Io, huh?” Keys sauntered into the room and joined the group at the screens. “Incredible.”
“We figured it would be the best place to go.”
The comment earned another grunt of dissention from Everhard.
Keys ignored him. “It makes sense.” He stopped to stand next to Aurelia.
Auri looked up at him. “Is she okay?”
“As good as she can be at this point. She could do with some clean clothes.”
Aurelia bit her bottom lip; she’d forgotten that detail. “I’ll sort that out. We should have something that will fit her around here somewhere.”
“She’s also quite the chatterbox.” He turned to her, presumably to study her reaction. “Just thought I would warn you.”
“Lovely.” She really didn’t want to get into long conversations with the girl. “What did she ask you?”
Keys shrugged. “This and that. How long we’ve been out here. How we all met. That sort of thing.”
That brought Aurelia up short. Stunned, she looked up at Keys. “You told her, and she hasn’t barricaded herself in the airlock yet?”
“Of course I didn’t tell her. I’m not stupid.”
“She’ll find out sometime, y’ know.” Bam leaned back in his chair and stretched his good arm. “And then you can be sure we’ll have our share o’ hysterics.”
“That’s not for certain.” Meri didn’t look convinced even as he said the words.
“O’ course that’s what’ll happen. How else would a woman of good breeding react when she finds out she’s on a ship w’ prison colony escapees?”
Chapter Three
It took Auri nearly an hour to sort through the clothes from the crate, as well as the sizable stack they’d acquired over the last few raiding trips they’d made. She hadn’t had the chance to go through them yet and made the most of it now, sorting out things for herself and the others as she went.
Kateryn was a little smaller and seemed to be more interested in expressing her feminine side than Aurelia.
Aurelia ran her fingers over the delicate material of the dresses she’d found. They were quite lovely. There had been a time that she never wore anything but the finest fabrics and the latest fashions. It seemed like memories from a different lifetime. She couldn’t even remember the last time she wore a dress, since it seemed stupid and impractical out here in the deep dark of space. Even more inane to wear such frippery while hijacking a ship.
She put them aside and pulled out a pair of plain trousers and a plain button-down shirt. They would do. If she’d learned anything about living on a ship full of men, it was that their interest didn’t need much provocation.
In this case, Aurelia thought it best if the girl stayed out of notice.
Aurelia picked up the small mound of clothing and, hoping she’d remembered everything Kateryn would need, headed off in the direction of the cabins. “Hello?” Aurelia tapped on the door with the toe of her boot. “Kateryn? I’ve brought you some clothes.”
The door flew open and a blonde whirlwind pulled her inside. “Thank you! The bed sheets were beginning to look like a viable clothing option if you didn’t get here soon.”
It was then that Aurelia noticed Kateryn was naked. Her eyes immediately dropped to the pile of clothes as she placed them on the bed. It was purely a gut reaction after living so long in tight living conditions. “I hope the clothes are acceptable. It’s all I could find that would fit you.”
“They’re wonderful!” Kateryn hurried to tuck the towel around herself and started rummaging through the pile. From the expression on her face, they were not exactly what she would have liked. But to her credit, the girl chose quickly and without complaint.
Now that she could see Kateryn without having to imagine what she looked like under a layer of grime, Aurelia did her best to try and remember if she knew her from somewhere before. She wasn’t a Castleton of note, if she was one at all. And since the Castleton ship ignored them after her supposed distress call, Auri was pretty sure this girl was lying.
But why?
Mind whirring with the possibilities, Aurelia started toward the door.
“Please don’t leave.” Kateryn slipped into the clothes as fast as she was able and darted between Aurelia and the door. She raked her fingers through her hair. “I wanted to talk to you a little while.”
Aurelia shrugged. “I can’t think what ab
out.”
Kateryn smiled hopefully. “A little girl talk, perhaps?”
Aurelia had been floating around in space for the past few years with nothing but men as company. Everhard was right when he said he wasn’t sure she would even be capable of “girl talk” now, if she ever could in the first place. From a young age she had been more interested in swordplay than wordplay.
“Sure.” Aurelia’s stomach clenched a little at Kateryn’s excited expression. “I must warn you, I’m a bit rusty.”
Whatever else Auri was going to say was wiped away by the big hug Kateryn engulfed her in. The chagrin on her face as she pulled back told Aurelia that the hug was an impulse she realized might have been a bad one. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“That’s fine.” Aurelia stepped out of reach. “So, what did you want to talk about?”
“I just wanted to thank you for rescuing me.”
“No need. You rescued yourself.” Auri knew this would be a good time to get some more information out of her. “How did you manage to survive with those…with them for so long?”
There was a quick grimace Auri caught before Kateryn answered.
“I saw to their…needs.”
Auri’s stomach dropped. “I’m guessing this went beyond cooking and cleaning.”
The expression on Kateryn’s face said it all.
Lips pressed together, Auri processed the information. “I’m sorry to hear that. We all do what we must to survive.” There were a few things she’d done that she wasn’t proud of.
“It’s like you and your men, I gather.”
The girl couldn’t be more off the mark. “It’s not like that with us.”
“I suppose not. After you saved them all, I don’t suppose they’d make a slave of you.”
“Something like that.”
Kateryn stared at her, putting her hands up apologetically. “I’ve offended you, haven’t I?”
Looked like question time was over for now. Auri shook her head. “It’s okay. You haven’t. But I’ve got some things I have to take care of. Rest well.”
“Thank you, for everything.”