by Lili Zander
One bedroom. One bed.
I push that thought away; it’s not a complication I need right now. I make my way into the cockpit and set Naomi down on the copilot’s chair.
Bast. I’ll have to buckle her in for takeoff. How is she going to react? They’d strapped her down on a table when they’d experimented on her. Is this going to bring back memories from that time?
“Naomi.” She’s awake, but she doesn’t seem to be aware of her surroundings. She’s staring blankly in front of her, not reacting to anything. “We have to take off. Can you fasten your safety gear?” I nudge her hand toward the buckle. Her fingers close around the square metal fastening. “That’s it. Now slot it in place.” I wrap my hands around hers, guiding her. “Good. Let’s do the next one.”
When she’s done, I sit in the pilot’s chair and strap myself in. “We’re headed to the Wekat Exchange,” I tell her as I ready the ship for takeoff. I don’t think she’s listening, but from experience, conversation helps. Kadir, Ruhan, Mirak, Sixth—the four of them would talk to me all the time after Koval’s execution. They never left me alone. When I was hurting, they were there for me. They cared for me. I don’t remember very much about those early days—I was drowning in my nightmares—but when I came up for air, I heard the soothing murmur of their voices, and I knew I wasn’t alone. “It’s not far. Just one short wormhole jump. We’ll be there in nine hours.”
I keep my voice relaxed, but inside, I’m not calm, not at all. I’m desperate with worry. This reaction is bad. Naomi is not doing well. The damage the scientists did might never heal.
If only I’d found her sooner…
“Wipe her memory,” I’d snarled at the team of healers when I brought Naomi back and it became apparent how deep the damage was. “The Zoraken have done mindwipes for hundreds of years. You did that for the other human. Why will you not do it for Naomi?”
“Because it didn’t work,” the chief healer had retorted. “We have hundreds of years of research on our brain chemistry, but the humans are a different species. There are many similarities, but the mind wipes don't work on them the same way as they do on us. Tanya Sinclair kept getting retraumatized every time she saw a scientist. In the end, we had to send her away to her own world. And that’s not an option anymore. The Triumvirate patrols blew up one of Kelek ab Rahni’s ships. The crew—all twenty of them—are dead. The smuggler refuses to take the risk any longer.”
“Tanya Sinclair is safe, and Naomi is on her own,” I’d snapped. And I’m the most selfish bastard in the universe, because even though it would be the best thing for her, I don’t want Naomi to go. “So, what’s the plan? You won’t wipe her. You can’t send her away. What are you going to do?”
“Might I suggest that you start with patience?” Mala had replied pertly. “Naomi Knoll will get better with time and effort.”
It’s true—she had been getting better. She went exploring on her own. She went for a run outside the rebellion compound. She kissed me.
But the kind of damage she sustained takes years to fix, not months, and now, she’s run into a setback. The sirens, Taman’s appearance in her apartment—they’ve retraumatized her, and jolted her off course. To put her once again on the road to recovery, she needs a nurturing, stable environment.
She has no business going to Noturn. She’s not well enough. She needs to see the healers; she shouldn’t be with me.
The engines flare to life, their low hum drowning out the faint background clamor of the klaxons. Mirak has already programmed the route into the nav computer, so all I have to do is sit in front of the monitors and let the autopilot do its job. I keep talking to Naomi through the takeoff. The instant we’re free of Bestea’s atmosphere and it’s safe to move, I’m out of my seat.
Naomi is still not saying anything, but her color is better, and her breathing is more even. “Our conversation was interrupted,” I tell her with a small smile. “Shall we get something to eat and continue listing out my favorite things? It’s just a food-syn on board, I’m afraid, but the programming has been updated recently, and it should include an assortment of human foods.”
She hears me this time. She replies with a small nod that leaves me weak-kneed with relief. I lead the way to the galley. “What do you feel like eating?”
“Soup?”
Caeron, yes. She answered my question. “Sure. Let me see.” I fiddle with the syn and read out the unfamiliar words. “Tomato, chicken noodle, clam chowder, or black bean.”
“Tomato, please.”
I punch the right buttons, and a bowl of soup materializes. I carry it over to her, giving the contents a dubious look. It doesn’t smell poisonous, but the dish is a very peculiar shade of red. Humans can be strange sometimes. Why would they drink something the color of their blood?
I make myself a bowl of gugni and sit down opposite her, my thoughts troubled. The woman I met in the park earlier today—that woman’s eyes had followed every drone. She’d been fascinated by the food stalls, and she’d been eager to explore. Not so now. Spice-laden steam rises off in waves from the gugni, but Naomi doesn’t even notice.
We eat in silence. She eats slowly, almost as if she’s forgotten how to swallow. When she’s finally done, I place both bowls in the recycler. “We should both get some sleep before we reach our destination.”
She nods obediently. She needs the rest and I’m glad she isn’t arguing with me, but I also don’t like her compliance. I want the real Naomi back. The woman who teased me about my favorite color and my favorite food, the woman who stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips across mine…
Will you stop thinking about that kiss?
I lead the way to the bedroom. She’s not talking again, and so I rummage through her bag and pull out a sleep shirt. I hand it to her, and she stares at it blankly, and so I help her get changed into it.
I’ve seen Naomi naked before. In the early days, the healers had worked frantically to save her, and I’d been in the room because Mala, the healer in charge, had insisted that my presence was helpful. When I looked at her, my only emotion was terror that she wouldn’t survive.
This time, when her jumpsuit falls to the floor, I notice her as a woman, and I hate myself for it.
Her figure has filled out. Her ribs are no longer showing. Her breasts are soft and round. Her nipples are the most delectable shade of pink-brown. Her body is all lush curves and touchable skin.
Stop that. I mutter a curse at myself under my breath because she’s obviously in distress, and I’m a lecherous asshole who is trying hard not to stare at her. Averting my eyes, I slide the sleep shirt over her head, make her lie down, and tug the blankets over her. I turn the lights down to dim, and then turn to leave. “I’ll be in the cockpit,” I murmur. There’s enough space there that I can stretch out on the floor.
She sits up. “You’re leaving?” There’s an edge of panic in her voice, and her expression is distressed. “Please…”
“You want me to stay?”
She nods.
I close my eyes for a long moment. This situation hasn’t been easy from the start, and it doesn’t get any easier with each passing day. “Okay. I’ll be right here.”
I climb into bed. Naomi under the blankets, me stretched out stiffly over them. She laces her fingers in mine and closes her eyes. In less time than I would've thought, her breathing evens out, and she falls asleep.
Just as it has every single time she touches me, the rathr disappears.
And I tell myself what I always tell myself. What I’ve told myself the first time she touched me. What I continue to tell myself every single day.
It doesn't matter.
An hour later, I’m beginning to doze off when my comm vibrates.
Naomi’s sound asleep. She’s let go of my hand and she's lying on her side facing away from me, cocooned in a blanket.
I silence the comm and slide out of bed, moving silently to the door. Entering the galley, I answer the call.
> It's Zunix, who, like Dariux, used to be a spy before he was exiled. “Where are you?” he asks. “Are you okay? Is Naomi Knoll with you?”
I frown. “Didn’t Taman tell you? Yes, she’s with me. We’re on our way to the Wekat Exchange, which is where we’re supposed to meet the Cindifin shuttle. Why? Has the plan changed?”
“No.” Zunix sighs in relief. “The plan has not changed. Dariux wanted me to check in with you. He would have done it himself, but he's busy putting out a few fires of his own.”
I go around Zunix’s projection, pull out a bottle of Vabrian from a cupboard in the galley, and pour myself a glass. “One of those fires better be figuring out how the Empire found Bestea.”
“Oh, trust me, it is.” Zunix’s expression turns grim. “We had drone cameras recording what they did. Ru’vi herself landed on Bestea.”
I suck in a breath. Ru’vi is the Spymaster of the High Empire. Lennox is the High Emperor, nominally the most powerful person in the Zorahn Empire. But I’m more concerned about the Spymaster, who hides in the shadows and accumulates power. “Why?”
“Our best guess—she’s looking for information on Tarish.”
I start to ask another question, and then remind myself I don’t care. I can’t afford to care, because when that happens, people get hurt. People die. Koval was executed, as were thousands of Draekons. “Did everyone get away safely?” I ask instead.
“Yes. We were lucky.” He grimaces. “Replacing the headquarters will be expensive.” He clears his throat. “Ah well. We’ll hunt for spies and plan our countermeasures. In the meanwhile, you have your mission.”
“About that,” I interrupt. “I have a problem. Naomi Knoll cannot travel to Noturn. She's too fragile.” I can’t protect her. “She'll get in the way.” If something were to happen to her, I would never be able to forgive myself. “She’s in no condition to participate in this mission. We’ll arrive on the Wekat Exchange in a few hours. You can’t be too far away. Have a shuttle meet us there to take her back, because she can’t come with me.”
Zunix shakes his head at once. “Sorry, I can't do that.”
“Do not fuck with me, Zunix.”
“We've already updated your cover story,” he replies. “We spun a story about your whirlwind romance. Told the House of Cindifin you couldn’t bear to be apart from your new bondmate for three months. Everything’s all set up. Everyone’s expecting a couple. After all that, if you show up without Naomi, people are going to ask questions. They’ll start digging into your identity.”
“You don't understand,” I snap. “She is a liability.”
The words are out of my mouth when I see a shadow under the door.
Kashrn.
Naomi heard me.
This isn’t good. This is very bad. I want only good things for Naomi. I want her to be safe, and I want her to focus on her recovery. Hurting her feelings isn’t part of the plan. Bast. “Fine,” I tell Zunix. “I have to go.”
I cut the call and run my fingers through my hair. It’s too late to wish I’d activated a cone of silence before talking to Zunix. Naomi’s heard at least some of my conversation, and I need to face the consequences. Bracing myself for her wrath, I open my mouth. “Naomi, I know you’re there.”
She throws the door open with a crash. She enters the galley, her eyes ablaze. Ignoring me, she threads her way around the table to the food syn and punches the buttons with violence. “Don’t mind me,” she says, her voice cloyingly sweet. “I’m just here for some tea.”
“You heard my conversation with Zunix.”
Her back is stiff. “I don’t want to discuss it.”
“Naomi,” I begin. “You don’t understand. I—”
She whirls around. Her cheeks are flushed, and her expression shows barely contained rage. “I don’t understand? Do not insult my intelligence, Danek. Don’t you dare. There’s nothing to understand here. Your words were perfectly clear. You think I’m going to be a liability. Well, cry me a fucking river; I don’t care. I volunteered for this mission, same as you, and I’m going to do it to the best of my ability. If you had any concerns, you should have talked to me, not gone over my head to talk to Zunix. You undermined me, and you treated me like a child. And guess what? I’m still on the mission, and you’re going to have to deal with that. So suck it up, buttercup, and put on your big boy panties.”
Some of her words don’t translate. I don’t know why we’re talking about underwear. Probably an idiom, which the implants sometimes understand and often don’t. “You fell apart when the klaxons sounded. I was worried about you.”
“You were worried,” she says mockingly. “Gee, I’m so sorry I inconvenienced you. Do you know how the scientists woke Cassie and me up? With sirens, just like the ones today. Then they’d torture me. So what if I fell apart today? It doesn't mean I'm going to fall apart all the time, and it certainly doesn't mean I'm a liability.” Her hands are clenched into fists. “Are there going to be sirens waking us up every day on Noturn?”
“Naomi, I just think—”
“Answer my question.” There is not an ounce of give in her expression.
“No.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “Well then, I doubt we’re going to see a repeat of today’s incident.”
I open my mouth to try and explain, and then shut it. Naomi is right—I am undermining her. She’s been tortured almost to the point of death. She’s in a strange universe. She can’t go back to her home world. She’s surrounded by people that don’t speak her language. She’s trying to make the best of a terrible situation, and she’s trying to move forward. For Naomi, going to Noturn is an important first step.
And I called her a liability.
I am such an asshole. What does it matter that she’s safe, if I’ve made her feel like shit? “Naomi, I’m sorry.”
She stares at me for a long moment. “When do we arrive at the Wekat Exchange?”
I look at my tablet. I must have been asleep for longer than I thought, because we’re closer to the exchange than I expected. “We’ll jump out of the wormhole in an hour, and we’ll land an hour after that.”
“Good. Dariux sent me instructions. When we land, I need to go to a boutique.”
“What?”
“A clothing store,” she repeats. “Where I’m going to buy a crapload of expensive dresses.” She gives me an evil smile. “See, I’m on my honeymoon, and grey jumpsuits aren’t going to cut it. You can follow me around and carry my parcels. We are going to pretend to be head over heels in love with each other, because unlike you, I’m going to set my feelings aside, put on my big girl panties, and do whatever it takes to make this mission a success.”
She’s still furious. I can’t say I don’t deserve it. “Expensive dresses in the Wekat Exchange. Got it.”
She stalks out of the room, teacup in hand, slamming the door shut behind her. I stare at it, my emotions mixed.
It bothers me that I’ve hurt Naomi’s feelings.
But the fury she’d shown? That’s the most emotion Naomi’s displayed since I’ve met her.
I know trauma, intimately and well. Rage is a whole lot better than numb indifference.
She’s getting better.
8
Naomi
I stalk out of the galley and head back to the bedroom, Danek’s words echoing in my ears. She’s fragile. She’ll get in the way. She is a liability.
You know he’s not wrong.
Last night is a blur. I remember bantering with Danek at the park. He’d plucked a drone out of midair, his reflexes cat-quick, and he’d offered me a sugary fried treat. It had been delicious. Then the klaxons had started to blare.
After that, it all goes blank.
My tablet is inside my duffel bag. I have no memory of packing it. I pull it out and access the cameras in my room. The cameras had been a compromise between the healers and me. After a month of living in the hospital, I was ready to discharge myself and go back home. Not th
at I had a home, of course; I am a very long way from Earth. But I was ready to leave the ward, leave the medicinal, antiseptic smells of the place behind, swap out the hospital bed and the wall of monitors for a comfortable couch, and start anew.
They gave me another psych eval. I failed it. The healers hadn’t wanted to discharge me. I think they thought I would harm myself. Not consciously, and not deliberately, but when I panicked, I lost track. I disassociated. They didn’t want to be responsible if something happened to me.
Alice helped me negotiate a solution. I would have cameras installed in my apartment. If I went for two months without incident, they would be removed.
For the first time ever, I turn on my tablet. Mala—the healer responsible for my care—had told me that I could access the camera feed through the device. I fiddle around until I find last night’s recording. Then I start to watch.
I’m packing my stuff. There’s a knock on the door, and then it slides open. I whirl around. It’s Taman, the friendliest of the scientists, the one who apologized to Cassie and me for what they did to us. Taman looks stressed, probably because of the imminent attack, but he gives me a friendly smile. “Hello Naomi,” he says. “I'm the evacuation coordinator for this block. I’m doing the rounds, making sure everyone is evacuating, and knows where they need to go. Your berth is on the Vestra.”
Last night, I’d heard none of that. I hadn’t heard his explanation. I hadn’t seen his smile. I’d just panicked.
I watch myself on the screen. My face is blank with fear. I scramble backward. My legs hit the bed. I’m freaking out, and poor Taman has no idea why. “Naomi, what’s the matter? What’s going on? Can you not understand me? Is your translator not working?”
I don’t remember any of this.
Then, on my tablet, Danek appears, looming in the doorway. He takes stock of the situation and intervenes, sending Taman on his way before reaching out to me. “Naomi,” he says reassuringly. “I’m here. I’m safe. Nobody will hurt you while I live, I promise you.”