by J. M. Page
What had she gotten herself into coming aboard this ship?
She looked up and realized she still didn’t have the faintest idea how to get back to her room. A fresh wave of despair clogged her throat and she sucked back her tears, refusing to give in to hopelessness.
You’re not giving up the first night, she told herself, pushing forward. You wanted an adventure. You wanted a chance to find the truth. Now toughen up and roll with it.
It was that little pep talk that made her feel somewhat better, but what made her feel much better was recognizing the hallway and the door to her room.
Mara expelled a sigh of relief and stepped into her private room. She was thankful she wasn’t being forced to share it with someone else. Maybe things weren’t totally hopeless after all. She was tired and still in shock from all the newness, but those were both things fixed by a good night’s sleep.
Sleep would do her a world of good, she decided, crawling onto the small-yet-comfortable cot.
Tomorrow, she’d make herself useful and prove to herself — and everyone else on this pirate ship — that she belonged.
When Mara next awoke, she had no concept of what time it was or how long she’d been asleep. She got up, took a quick waterless san-shower, and put on the same clothes she’d arrived in. She made a mental note to ask about crew uniforms and when she could get one.
Then, she braved the giant ship, miraculously finding her way to the dining hall without incident. Maybe it was just the exhaustion that had made the previous night so difficult. She was going to be alright after all.
Once she arrived in the dining hall and gathered her food, Mara realized she must have gotten up later than everyone else. The huge room was nearly empty, only a few people left clearing their plates and leaving for the day’s work.
As she wound through tables and chairs, Mara garnered a few strange looks and a few outright glares from other crew members. Was this how they treated new people? Or people that slept in too late? Or was it just her?
She tried to shrink down in her seat, focusing on the food in front of her. At least there was one good thing about this morning already — the Captain didn’t make an appearance. Thank goodness for the small miracles. She didn’t know what she’d do if she had to face him now. Thankfully, she didn’t.
After she finished her meal and deposited the dishes in the proper receptacle, Mara stood in the empty dining hall at a loss. She didn’t know where she was supposed to go or who she could be any use to. Still, she couldn’t sit idly by and do nothing. She was supposed to be working off a debt and that was awfully hard to do without any work.
Mara wound her way through the belly of the ship, trying to find something to do and failing miserably. Before she knew it, she’d stumbled into the heart of the craft — announced by the deafening hum and familiar smells of machinery. She stepped through the doorway and felt like she was transported to another world where everything was ten times bigger than she was used to.
She’d never been on a ship this size, never even seen one on their travels. To be inside of one, to be right next to the engines, was kind of insane.
“Sleeping Beauty!” someone shouted in her direction. Mara didn’t expect them to be talking to her, but when she craned her head around one of the cooling tanks, she spotted a familiar head of crimson.
“Delta?” she called, remembering her tour guide from the previous day. Delta was an odd character who hadn’t said much but still managed to seem friendly and welcoming. Also, she was the only person Mara knew on this whole ship besides the Captain himself.
Delta took a few long strides toward her and gave her a quizzical look. “Lost again?”
Mara frowned. Again? Did everyone know what happened between her and the Captain last night?
She shook her head. “No, just looking for something to do. To help. No one gave me an assignment or anything.”
Delta’s soot-smudged face crumpled into an expression of intense thought. “You think you could be useful here?”
Mara nodded. “I have engineering experience,” she said, nearly snatching her hand back when Delta grabbed her by the wrist.
“Oh, you do?” Delta pressed, turning Mara’s hands over in her own, rubbing her thumbs over rough spots on Mara’s palms, verifying she had callouses to prove her mettle.
Mara nodded again. “I’ve been keeping my dad’s junker in the air for the past decade.”
Delta’s dark eyes sparkled with something unspoken, but she dropped Mara’s hands without a word. Mara wasn’t sure if Delta believed her or not, she was difficult to read.
“There’s a hydrogen leak over there,” Delta said, thrusting a thumb over her shoulder. “We’ve diverted the flow, but someone’s still gotta patch it. Think you can manage that?”
Mara’s head bobbed up and down excitedly and Delta looked like she was reconsidering based on the girl’s enthusiasm. Mara decided to tamp it down a little. “Yeah, no problem,” she said, trying to seem a little more nonchalant. She couldn’t help it if she was excited to prove she wasn’t worthless.
Delta set her loose, going back to barking orders at other crew members while Mara gathered her supplies and tools and set to work. She’d done about a million patches on Bertha over the years and it was nothing she couldn’t handle.
She even knew the special protocols for patching a hydrogen leak specifically and just knew how impressed everyone would be with her handiwork.
It took hours — the pipes on this ship were as big around as Mara herself and she needed to check the entire section to make sure the big leak was the only leak. Finally, after working in the hot steamy engine room for what felt like forever, Mara was able to step back and admire her work.
It was one of the cleanest patches she’d done, completely sealed around all the edges, nearly seamless with the rest of the pipe. It was good work.
From across the big room, she caught Delta’s eye and threw her a thumbs up.
“You good?” Delta shouted back over the roar of engines. Mara swiped sweat from her brow and nodded, giving another thumbs up. She was already exhausted and didn’t know if she’d be able to shout loud enough to be heard.
Delta turned to a control panel and pressed a few buttons before hesitating, glancing back at Mara with a skeptical look.
Then she was walking over the bridge to Mara’s side. “Before we turn the flow back on I need to inspect it,” she said.
Mara frowned, a little offended, but bit her tongue. “Sure. It’s a solid patch job, though.” Maybe her voice was a little more hostile than necessary. She wasn’t used to her skills being doubted.
Delta shrugged, not saying anything, and got up close and personal with Mara’s handiwork, a frown creasing her forehead.
“You said you’ve done this before?” she asked, her tone unimpressed.
Mara’s ego deflated in an instant, but she was certain this was good work! “Yeah, old Bertha’s always needing something patched or plugged.”
Delta managed to look slightly horrified and completely dubious all at once. “This might work on your ‘dad’s junker’ but there’s no way this flimsy scrap is gonna stand up to the pressures we push through on a ship this size.”
“But—” Mara started to protest.
“Do you realize what could’ve happened if I just turned it on, on your word?” Delta’s tone grew sharp, her voice raised.
Mara still looked at her patch in horror, thinking it was totally fine. How could she be so wrong? Even still?
She wasn’t the only one looking at it now, though. All around them individual conversations dwindled and died.
“I—” Mara struggled.
“We’d all be space dust!” Delta said, her admonishment echoing amongst the sounds of the ship’s machinations.
Mara wanted to sink back into the darkness and disappear. She felt all the eyes in the engine room on her, judging her, laughing at her. Delta seemed to realize it, too, and took a deep breath.
“Four… three… two… one,” she muttered under her breath, her eyes closed as she counted down. She sighed, opening her eyes again. “Okay, it’s okay. It’s fine. Just… Go find something else to do. It’s fine. Eddi,” she said, turning to a scrawny guy covered in red scales. “I need you to patch this up properly please.”
Just as she said that, a bellowing horn sounded throughout the ship and Delta groaned, dropping her forehead to her hands. “After lunch, I guess. Grub time everyone!”
All at once crew members dropped their work and headed out of the engine room toward the dining hall. Delta sent Mara an apologetic look before she left with everyone else and Mara just stood there in shock for another moment.
How could she keep being so wrong about everything? She expected to do a good job, to prove her worth, but it only did the opposite. Now how could she ever recover? It was pretty much worst-case scenario as far as first impressions went. At least they weren’t space dust.
She shuffled after everyone else, the light gone from her stars. She felt like a total failure, but surely there was something on this ship she could do to be useful.
At the very least, a full belly should help her feel somewhat better.
By the time Mara got to the dining hall and had her food, she realized what a flawed notion that was. Unlike at breakfast, when she’d been late and the place was mostly empty, the dining hall was packed full of crew members now, not an empty seat in sight.
She meandered through the tables, looking for a seat, but all she found were whispers and laughter as she walked by and tales of her failures continued to spread. Mara wanted nothing more than to crawl into a dark hole and forget any of this had ever happened.
Hopelessness was so tempting since she’d joined this crew. It was far too easy to think everything was awful and the whole thing was a mistake. But Mara wasn’t one to give up that easily. She couldn’t be. She decided to ignore the murmurs and take another look around.
Then she spotted it: a long table at the front of the room with plenty of open seats. Even a long stretch of vacant chairs where she could sit without being next to anyone else. It seemed too good to be true, but it was her best hope, so she made a beeline for it.
It was only once she was past the other grouping of tables that she spotted the person at the head of the long table — the Captain, with the black-and-silver man at his side.
The Captain looked directly at her, and Mara had to wonder how long he’d been staring at her like that. She stopped in her tracks, nearly dropping her tray of food in surprise. As much as she wanted to look away, their eyes locked and he held her there, her mouth dry, her heart racing, and her brain screaming at her to run! None of it did anything to help the situation.
She was frozen, held by that captivating yellow gaze, and there was no escape.
Chapter Five
Torak
“Then we’re heading to Radeos-Alpha…” Sande drolled on, his musical voice turning to background noise without any conscious effort on Torak’s part.
A ripple of commotion flowed through the dining hall — heads turning, whispers and laughter erupting in a well-defined path through the crowd. Torak followed the path and spotted her — Mara — walking through the offensive display.
Every table she passed there were whispers hidden behind hands and bellowing laughter as eyes followed her around. He hadn’t heard any reports to know what she’d done to deserve the treatment, but something in him felt… guilty wasn’t the right word. It couldn’t be. Torak of Basniel did not feel guilt.
Besides, he was sure she’d earned the mockery. His ego still stung from the night before when she’d thrashed him so thoroughly. Mara had stood up to him in a way that not many would have the courage to do.
It was utterly useless of course. She’d read the entire situation wrong and been completely off-base about the whole thing, but he’d never gotten the chance to explain it to her. She didn’t stick around long enough and he thought it better to not hold her prisoner to tell her.
It didn’t matter, really. Let her think what she would. Everyone else already made assumptions about him. Why not her too? He wasn’t as concerned about her misunderstanding. The big takeaway from that encounter was that she wasn’t afraid of him.
She stood up to him, fire and venom, without an ounce of fear because of what or who he was. To be perfectly honest, it intrigued the hell out of Torak, who was used to being shunned and feared simply by virtue of his race. She may not like him, but she didn’t cower from him. Normally, that would anger him — his reputation was tantamount — but with Mara, it just interested him.
Sande still spoke, but Torak didn’t hear anything he said.
“Are you even listening to me?” Sande probed, his melodic voice turning irritated.
Torak whirled, focusing his attention on the other man. “I’m going to invite her to sit with us,” he said.
Sande gave him a puzzled expression, then followed his line of sight to Mara, stiffening at once. “With the officers?” he asked, incredulous.
The implication whisked right off Torak and he shrugged. “Why not? She has to sit somewhere.” Why couldn’t he tear his eyes from her?
Torak’s best friend sighed, pinching the bridge of his long nose. “Torak, I mean this with all the kindness in the galaxy, as your friend, your brother, and your First Mate: let this one go. Leave her alone. She is pleasing to look at, I understand,” he said, herding off Torak’s arguments. “But she’s never been away from home. Never been in a crew like this. You should not expect much — if anything — from her.”
Torak had to suppress a little growl at the suggestion he couldn’t have her. He didn’t know what it was that made him so… possessive, but it also propelled him to do idiotic things like he was about to.
So what if Sande thought it was a bad idea? That was Sande’s job. To tell him he was doing something stupid. And it was Torak’s job, to ignore Sande when it was something he really wanted.
Her eyes met with his and held there for a long stretch of time before Torak waved her over. Mara tried to look around, to look like she hadn’t seen him or the gesture, but he knew better. Torak narrowed his gaze in a challenge. A silent ‘I am the Captain and you will obey’ look that she couldn’t ignore.
There was no mistaking the slump of defeat in Mara’s shoulders as she picked her way over to the Officers’ Table, and no mistaking the searching look in her eyes that said she was looking for an escape.
“Sit with us,” Torak said, gesturing to the seat next to him.
Mara looked at the chair as if it were covered with poisonous barbs and then glanced down the long table with officers interspersed along its length.
“Thanks,” she said with a brisk nod. She turned and picked a seat far down the table, where there was no one on either side of her or across from her for a few seats in every direction.
Torak’s temper began to bubble. Why did she have to be so difficult? Why couldn’t she behave like a normal crew person? And why couldn’t he look at her like one?
Sande chuckled beside him and it only made Torak’s anger hotter. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Sande said, sounding smug.
Torak said nothing. He finished his meal and his drink within the next ten seconds and shoved off from the table in a great surge of energy.
Who did this girl think she was? And why did he care? Why did he ever think this was a good idea? Why did he delude himself into thinking she could be different than the others?
His angry outburst drew eyes from all corners of the dining hall, but Torak didn’t care. He just stalked off toward the flight deck, leaving the curious glances and thoughts of amber-eyed beauties behind him.
Chapter Six
Mara
The whole lunch debacle wasn’t even the end of Mara’s troubles that day. She didn’t know what exactly she’d done to make the Captain so intensely angry, but everyone sensed it as he stalked out of the dining hall. And ev
eryone turned to her.
She’d only been on board this ship for a little over a standard day and already she’d caused a whole host of problems for the crew and herself. If Mara couldn’t find some way to make herself useful, she didn’t know what hope there was for her mission to find the truth. If she kept being a nuisance, surely the Captain would just drop her off at the nearest outpost and wash his hands of her.
Mara’s stomach twisted at that thought. What would she do then? Where would she go? She wouldn’t know her way home, she didn’t have a cred to her name, and she didn’t think she could rely on the kindness of strangers to get her through a difficult time.
No, if Mara wanted to ensure her future on this ship, she’d have to prove to everyone that she belonged and could be helpful.