by Layla Nash
Trazzak shook his head and poured himself more of the Xaravian liquor, wondering how much he needed to hold back to help de-rust some of the vents near his quarters. Another simple chore to take care of that night, but at least something that helped make him feel like he’d made some small improvement on the ship. Some days it was the smallest of things, but Trazzak always tried to improve the Galaxos every day.
He started a list in his head for the next day, pondering how much time they’d have on their hands while repairing the Galaxos’s hull, but blinked as a sandstorm blew through the sliding doors and landed right next to his table. Jessalyn stood there, hands on her hips, wearing her bulky uniform once more and with her hair back in that ridiculous braid. Before he could stand or offer her a chair or do more than frown, she threw a pouch onto the table in front of him.
“I pay for my own things, thank you.”
The books. Trazzak didn’t touch the pouch, which rattled with tokens as she shoved it at him again, and leaned back in his chair. “What’s that?”
“You paid for my books. I don’t know why, and I don’t care.” Color stained her cheeks as she faced him, mouth puckered even as she forced each word out. “I buy my own books, Second Officer. I don’t need your help.”
His head tilted as he studied her. Trazzak wondered why she didn’t use his name, since she’d certainly never used ranks before. More mysteries to add to the woman with all the secrets. “Well, on the contrary, since your research seems like it will benefit the Galaxos and the rebellion, we will fund it.”
Which was all bullshit, of course. He just wanted to get under her skin. And buy her something. The more he thought about it, the more he enjoyed the idea of buying her things. As confusing and prickly as she was, he wanted to make sure she had enough of everything.
Jessalyn spluttered and stared at him, at a loss for words for the first time that he could remember, and Trazzak hid a smile behind his glass as he sipped. He reached for another glass and slid it across the table to an empty seat, tipping some of the liquor into it as he glanced at her. “If you want to yell at me, you have to drink.”
She scowled, entire face red, and just stood there. Trazzak poured himself more as well and wrapped up some of the meat in a leaf of pickled cabbage, dunking it all in red paste before inhaling it. He should have bought crates of it from the spaceport. Maybe they could make a quick trip back to Xarav to fill the hold with more of the delicacies.
Jessalyn abruptly yanked the chair out, sat, and picked up the glass of liquor. Trazzak opened his mouth to warn her about the strength of the drink but was too late as she took a gulp and immediately spit it back into the glass.
He smiled and studied the drink as she coughed and croaked, gripping the table as she pounded her chest, and Trazzak handed her a cloth so she could wipe away the tears streaming down her cheeks. Jessalyn cleared her throat several times before she managed to speak. “What the hell is that?”
“Xaravian liquor — distilled in the sands of Xarav.” He lifted his glass in a toast before swallowing all of it. “Also used for taking the rust off ships.”
Jessalyn winced, then sniffed her glass of the amber liquid. “It smells like... Ouieyou thermal springs. Awful.”
Trazzak shrugged. “It’s an acquired taste.”
He didn’t look at or touch the pouch of money, hoping she would take it with her when she got tired of him and stormed out. But Jessalyn didn’t look like she planned to run, instead staring sightlessly across the empty cafe. Trazzak waited. She looked like she had a great deal on her mind, and none of them were comfortable thoughts. So he sipped his drink and picked at the delicacies, wishing he’d bought more and a better variety so he could tempt the Earther with more Xaravian cuisine.
She took a deep breath and picked her glass up once more, though she only took a little sip. Jessalyn cleared her throat and coughed, shaking her head. “Einstein’s mustache, man, how the hell do you drink that?”
Trazzak studied her, trying not to smile more, and nudged the plate of stinky cabbage over to her. “We’re raised with it. Surely you have something similar on Earth?”
“Not anything that bad,” she said. “Maybe paint thinner, but that would kill you if you drank it.”
He nodded along, pondering other things, and finally asked, “How long have you been an information officer?”
Which caught her mid-sip — and she spat out the liquor once more. Jessalyn stared at him, struggling to maintain a normal expression, but he could see the panic in her eyes. He waited for her to deny it, maybe, or threaten him with death if he didn’t keep his mouth shut. But she said nothing, and time stretched until she really couldn’t deny being a professional spy. Still he waited.
Jessalyn’s hand shook as she retrieved the glass, not looking at him as she took a deep breath. “Why do you think that?”
Trazzak frowned at a red and puffy cut on the back of her hand, wanting to examine it, but instead concentrated on the vulnerability in her expression. She looked afraid and a little lost. He didn’t like it. “Little things. You know a little bit about everything but you’re an expert in nothing. You speak a lot of languages but pretend not to, and I doubt even Isla knows how much you understand. You hide in plain sight. Somehow you can disguise yourself into looking plain and not particularly interesting, when such a thing should be impossible for a woman as beautiful as you are.”
Jessalyn smiled with only half her mouth and took another sip, a little deeper that time. “I’ve just had a varied career, that’s all.”
“You’ve had too many posts not on a ship for you to be a real Fleet officer,” he said, shaking a finger at her. Trazzak refilled his glass and added a little more to hers. “But that’s typical for an information officer.”
“How would you know?” She looked away as she asked, though, and her skin paled even more than normal.
Trazzak figured it was only fair play to offer a secret of his own, since he started uncovering too many of hers. “I trained to be one. It’s easy to recognize another.”
Jessalyn snorted, her smile spreading into something like a smirk. “Now I know you’re lying. The Alliance doesn’t train barbarians in intelligence. It’s just not done.”
“True enough,” Trazzak said, not letting himself be baited. “That’s how it is now. But ten years ago the Alliance ran a pilot program with Xaravians, since the Fleet desperately needed information out of the barbarian planets and thought they could corrupt Xaravians easier than the rest of them.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You’re shitting me.”
The Earthers had the strangest turns of phrase. Trazzk wasn’t sure what that meant, since translating it into even Low Xarav left him with a few disturbing mental pictures. He nodded sagely instead, as if he caught her meaning. “It didn’t go as they planned, of course, and after a few iterations, they terminated the program. They tried to terminate all the Xaravians who went through, but luckily we saw it coming and retreated to Xarav until the Alliance gave up trying to kill us.”
Jessalyn shook her head. “I highly doubt – ”
Trazzak rolled back his left sleeve to show her the deep scars along his bicep and forearm. “They tried to kill us because we knew too much about how they do business, and it meant we could identify others who had been trained similarly. Which we can.”
She frowned at the deep scars, twisted and burned in the knots of his muscles, and sank lower in her chair. She propped her elbows on the table and covered her face, and a slight hitch in her breathing worried him. He didn’t like the look of that cut, either. The stubborn Earther had been keeping too many secrets too long, and it was starting to show. He poured more liquor and sat back. She needed someone to talk to, and clearly her Earther friends weren’t listening. He didn’t mind being a sounding board, especially as she scrubbed her hands over her hair and long tendrils escaped from the braid. Trazzak remembered how to listen, and not just from that damn Alliance training.
Jess
He might as well have punched her right in the stomach. Jessalyn felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room when Trazzak asked her about being an information officer. At least no one else was in the room to overhear. Everything in her wanted to deny it, to make counter-accusations, and get the hell out of there. But instead none of her limbs worked and she just sat there. Staring at him. Unable to speak or move or do more than blink.
Even the liquor didn’t help.
She hated that he knew so much about her already, without even trying, and she knew nothing about him. Trazzak remained a cipher among all the Xaravians, who were generally upfront about being barbarians and rebels and pirates. But Trazzak was thoughtful and quiet and watchful — in a word, dangerous.
The quiet ones always were.
Jessalyn leaned on the table for support as the room tilted. That Xaravian liquor messed with her head more than any other drink she’d ever had, and Jess spent most of her career conditioning her liver to handle the diplomatic cocktail circuit without losing control.
She cleared her throat and studied the table in front of him, though she played with the bracelet she almost always wore. Her mother gave it to her before she left for the academy, and it had a small compass on it, so Jess could always find her way. “How did they train you?”
“Almost the same way they trained you, I’d expect.” Trazzak offered her some of the nose hair-curling food, but Jess held up her hand. She didn’t want to be sick all over the table and insult him even more than she probably already had. The Xaravian retrieved a glass of water from the drink station behind him, and put it wordlessly in front of her. “Lots of secrets, lots of lies, a few betrayals.”
Jess sipped the water and rubbed the back of her neck. Yep, that sounded familiar. Particularly the betrayals part. “We spent most of our time writing reports.”
“We pretended not to be able to write.” Trazzak chuckled and drank a little more. “They bought it, even though we all had to submit applications to get into the training. Pretentious Alliance assholes.”
Her eyebrow arched and she almost couldn’t hide a smile, even as her head started to ache. “Is that why you left?”
The alien leaned back in his chair and stretched, the solid wall of his chest bulging as he flexed. His long hair swayed, and the bones and beads clicked in an almost-familiar pattern. Jess never thought she’d get used to hearing barbarians and their bone-laden hair. Trazzak put the cap back on the bottle of liquor. “Nah. I wasn’t cut out for it.”
“Really?” Jess glanced down at her hand as it twinged, and had to bite her lip to keep from cursing. The cut from the Xerxh’s knife was all red and puffy, with red streaks tracking up her arm from the inflammation. She definitely needed to see Maisy for a bit of ointment or cream or something. “Couldn’t take the stress?”
She wanted to gloat — the big scary Xaravian couldn’t hack it, and she’d done the job for over a decade. Typical. Big tough male thought he could do anything. At least he admitted he wasn’t cut out for it.
“That wasn’t it.” Trazzak’s eyes creased at the edges as he watched her, a hint of amusement in the silver flashing gaze. “I got through the training and the first assignment, but it wasn’t long before I figured out the job wasn’t something that would get me where I wanted to be in life. The implications that kind of work had for my friends and family...”
He shrugged, running his nails along the raised scales on his arm. “Never trusting anyone, never being able to share with anyone... It struck me as a terribly lonely existence.”
Jess blinked, sitting back, as his words struck home like an arrow in her heart. Once again he’d gutted her with just a few words. A lonely existence. Exactly what she felt with each passing day. Isolated and alone. No one to talk to, no one to trust, no one to be with. Just Jessalyn and her work — which she couldn’t tell anyone about. Ever.
The silence stretched too long and she felt self-conscious as she caught Trazzak watching her, the amusement having turned to sympathy. He was too observant for a barbarian. He’d learned too much from that Alliance training. She considered sending a warning report back to the Minister to let him know the rebels used the Alliance’s training against them. Jess should have laughed at Trazzak’s words, brushed aside any thoughts of loneliness, and stormed out.
But instead other words snuck out, soft and small and even... hurt. “There’s a lot people don’t understand. About the work.”
“It’s easier to remain alone, isn’t it?” Trazzak played with a small fork, spinning it on the table until Jess couldn’t take her eyes off it. The whole room faded in and out, and she suddenly felt cold to her very bones. Something wasn’t right at all.
Jess couldn’t stop herself from talking. It had been so long since she’d had someone to talk to, even a barbarian would do. “I never questioned what we did. It always seemed like we were on the right side of everything — revealing dissidents, identifying traitors, undermining trade deals. All in service to the Alliance. And then last year... It became very clear that something wasn’t right. I reported my concerns to the Minister, but they told me...”
She trailed off, shaking her head. The response still stung. She’d served well and faithfully for over a decade, in some of the worst parts of the universe, without question and without complaint. And when she raised concerns over how they treated some informants, the Minister told her to put her head down and work, that no one wanted to hear about her informants.
Trazzak nodded, leaning forward on the table, and his hand came dangerously close to touching hers. “They only serve themselves. The moment someone — anyone — questions them, it’s a threat. You’re a threat to them.”
She tried to smile, though there wasn’t much amusement in her anymore. Jess rubbed her eyes, not surprised at the moisture gathering on her lashes, and sighed. “Not so much anymore. They put a bounty on my head.”
“I thought all of the crew had – ”
“They have normal bounties,” Jess said. She absently pulled out the tablet from the Xerxh and tossed it onto the table, flicking at the buttons until the notification of a new bounty appeared with her face on it. “Not me. The Ministry is very... focused on making sure I can’t do what you did and escape to fight another day.”
Trazzak’s face swam in front of her, and his cool skin touched hers as he caught her hand. “They will not get you.”
“Nathan and all the ones like him... They’re true believers.” Jess’s thoughts raced and she tried to remember if she should have told the Xaravian about it or not. “If they knew a hint of what I thought — how I doubted the mission — they would have called me a traitor and turned me in.”
“Nathan?”
The room tilted and spun and she blinked to clear her vision, but it didn’t help. Trazzak frowned and reached for her other hand. “Jessalyn?”
Jess shook her head and tried to speak, but her tongue swelled until it filled her mouth and she couldn’t breathe. Something definitely wasn’t right. Trazzak muttered a curse as he touched her hand, then held it up so she could see the cut. “What is this? When did this happen?”
Jess couldn’t remember, and everything slid into wobbly sounds and bright lights and nothing made sense.
Trazzak
Trazzak wondered if perhaps she’d had too much to drink as Jessalyn swayed in her chair and blinked as she tried to focus. Then he saw her hand and the inflamed cut, and the red streaks that radiated up her arm. It reminded him of Mrax’s medical books on poisons and venoms. Whatever it was, it didn’t look good, and neither did she.
The gray cast to her features unnerved him; he knew Earthers weren’t supposed to look like that, regardless of how few colors showed in their fragile skin. So he scooped her up in his arms and strode out of the mess.
Jessalyn protested feebly and tried to stab him with something small and high tech from up her sleeve, but her grip was too weak to hold onto it and the shiv stuck in his a
rm, just barely planted between his scales. Trazzak didn’t mind. He managed to pull it free and stuck it in his pocket to study later. He squeezed her closer and barked orders at one of the young Xaravians he passed in the hall, needing to summon the Earther doctor as well as Mrax.
It felt like an eternity until he shoved through the doors of the sick bay and surprised the little Earther doctor, her eyes wide as she saw him and backed into an open cabinet. Trazzak put Jessalyn down on one of the empty beds. “Oxygen. She needs oxygen. Her throat is closing.”
Maisy blinked but her medical skills kicked in and she moved fast to get equipment set up around Jessalyn as the cultural attaché nearly flopped onto the floor. The doc tried to get answers out of her as she shoved Jessalyn back into the bed and tightened restraints around her wrists, and Trazzak focused on the refrigerator section where Mrax kept the antivenom. It had to be there. They’d resupplied the last time they went to Xarav, to help Vrix propose to his prickly Earther. There had to be antivenom.
Maisy growled and cursed at Jessalyn as she struggled to slide an isolation sleeve up her arm to prevent the poison from spreading to Jessalyn’s heart, but Trazzak feared it was too late. Mrax slid through the doors, looking around. “What’s the emergency?”
“Poison. In the girl.” Trazzak smacked the side of the cooler compartment. “We need the antivenom.”
“Do you know what kind of poison?” the Earther doc demanded. She practically sat on Jessalyn as the patient struggled weakly to get up and tear off the sleeve. “That makes a difference, you know.”
Trazzak scowled at her. Before he could say anything, Mrax shoved him out of the way, toward the bed, so he could dig through the cooler himself. “Help pin her down. The more her heart pumps, the faster the poison spreads. Keep her calm.”