“You’ve gone soft on me, Stone,” Kirin taunted, released from Stone’s line of sight. “Protecting folks who aren’t your kind, after all the years we’ve spent as your friends and family—is this really how you want to repay us? You want folks spreading gossip about the great Stone, reduced to this?”
“Ye wouldn’t understand, lass. Ye’ve never understood the concept o’ loyalty.” He flashed her a sour look. “Envy ain’t a good color on ye, sweetheart.”
“Don’t you call me that!” Kirin raged.
“Then let me pals go, an’ we’ll be away before ye can say ‘goodbye’—I know that word scares ye to within an inch o’ yer life. Ye never did say that to me, did ye?”
“I was going through some stuff, Stone—you know that.”
“Aye, but ye still blamed me, didn’t ye? Had lasses slappin’ me and hurlin’ a world o’ abuse at me in the middle o’ the street for nought.”
Kirin snorted. “Well, looks like someone didn’t mind the gossip. You teach her that?” Her glittering eyes turned to Lauren, who was skidding along the walkway on her knees, bringing the metal pipe down on the legs of everyone she passed. They crumpled, crashing to the ground like hefty dominoes.
“None o’ yer business what I taught her.”
“How come you never taught me?”
I fought against the pirates who held me, desperately looking to Navan, who was trying to protect Nova as he grappled with two oncoming attackers. Everyone was overwhelmed, and the hands that held me were vise-like. I tried everything: wriggling, writhing, kicking, using every Aksavdo move in my arsenal, but the silver-skinned alien seemed to be made of concrete. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get away.
“I hate to break up the reunion, but would you mind telling us what you plan to do with me?” I asked bitterly. “Are you going to kill me or what?” I had visions of the concrete man crushing my head between his insanely strong palms.
“Relax, it’s nothing as dramatic as all that,” Kirin retorted. “We only want to get ourselves some credits, in exchange for bringing you to the crews you slighted by getting ‘em mixed up in that mess. Not sure what they’ll do with you, mind, but you can rest assured we ain’t going to do you much harm. Depends how long you keep fighting back for, though, I guess.”
“You ain’t changed a smidge, have ye?” Stone shook his head. “Were always about the credits with ye.”
“Says you!”
“Hey, my way o’ livin’ was far more honest than yours. At least I traded goods fer goods instead o’ pilferin’ and robbin’ folks blind. Yer moral compass were always shootin’ squint.”
“Would you listen to yourself?” Kirin grumbled. “When did you get so high and mighty? It’s this lot, making you different. I’ve never seen you like this before.”
Stone shrugged. “A lad can change his ways fer the right reasons.”
“Look, it ain’t personal, Ri,” Kirin said, turning her attention away from Stone. Evidently, the thought of him in love with some other girl was too much for her. “I still like you as a pal, and I don’t hold our last meeting against you. You did what you had to do back then, stealing that book and stuff from me, but you’ve got to understand that that’s why I’m here, too—doing what I got to do. Bringing you in could see us sitting pretty for months and, no offense, but I don’t plan to slog and scrape if I don’t have to. I follow the money wherever it leads, just like Stone here says.” A bitter note tinged her words, as though she hated the fact that he was right.
“And it’s like I said before: go after Ezra. He’s the one responsible for those deaths, not me. I’m nothing but a scapegoat.”
Kirin nodded. “Aye, a valuable one at that.”
“Just forget all of this, and we’ll find a way to bring you some credits—you’re interrupting us at a pretty bad time,” I pressed.
“Not my concern, Ri.” She gestured toward Stone. “Lads, tie him up. I’ve got a sudden urge to take him back with us, but we can leave the rest of ‘em. Knock ‘em out if you have to—we don’t want ‘em following too close behind us.”
A swarm of pirates surged around Stone, ensuring the bandana stayed over his third eye. Soon enough, they had him bound and kneeling. The stunted alien with the lurid pink skin, whom Lauren had battered in the shoulder, was standing behind Stone, holding his head in place, the same way that the rebel coldbloods had done when he was Ezra’s prisoner. He was dragged up the walkway and turned around to face everyone, his gaze flitting toward Kirin with utter disappointment.
As soon as he was on the ground, the remaining pirates shoved Angie, Xiphio, and Navan to their knees, pinning their arms behind their backs. Navan held tight to Nova, keeping her protected in his wing-sling, shrouding her from sight. I knew he could have fought back with greater strength, but his fear of putting Nova in harm’s way had clearly held him back. The only one who was still on her feet was Lauren, who was whirling the metal pipe around in a frightening display of violent dexterity. Even the pirates looked terrified of her. Kirin, however, wasn’t paying her any attention. Her focus was entirely on Stone, who had been forced to kneel at her feet.
“There’s something so satisfying about seeing you tied up like this.” Kirin giggled, sauntering toward him. Leaning down, she brushed the side of his face with her hand, her fingertips coming to rest beneath his chin. “Reminds me of old times.”
“How about you get your slimy paws off him?” Lauren’s icy voice cut through the clamoring cries of the pirates, everyone falling silent around her. “You’ve come here for Riley? Well, that’s your prerogative. But you’re not leaving this place with her, and you can’t have him, either, so I suggest you all get back in your scrappy little ships and hightail it back to the Junkyard before I set a revenge bounty on every single one of your heads and collect the rewards myself.”
Kirin gawped at her. Frankly, I did, too.
“Ah, so you do know how to shut the hell up?” Lauren snapped.
“Who the hell is this?” Kirin growled, flashing a look at Stone. “This can’t be her… is this really your new girlfriend?”
“If you’re going to talk about me, how about you show me some courtesy and do it to my face?” Lauren shouted. “As it so happens, I am the new girlfriend, but I’m also Riley’s best friend. So, if you want to take either of them, you’re going to have to go through me.”
Stone stared at her, his jaw dropping.
“You picked a fiery one, Stone,” Kirin mused. “Then again, you always liked a challenge.”
“Are you just going to keep pretending I’m not standing here?” Lauren fired back.
Kirin was about to answer when another voice chimed in. “We got a baby over here, Kirin.” A gangly alien with a weaselly face and lightly furred, pale orange skin jabbed a clawed finger toward Navan’s chest, where Nova was safely ensconced in his arms.
“What?” Her eyes narrowed.
“A baby. This gray-skin is holding a baby.”
Kirin took a step forward, but Lauren stood in her way, her hands gripping the metal pipe. “You don’t touch the baby, either.”
“Why the hell do you have a baby?”
“You remember me saying you’d interrupted us at a really bad time?” I said, my nerves jangling. I knew how vulnerable Nova made us—she was the ultimate bargaining chip in any situation. There was no way I’d let any harm come to her.
Kirin nodded reluctantly.
“Well, she’s part of the reason why this is all so freaking inconvenient,” I went on. “That baby belongs to Navan and me. She is ours.”
“Yours?”
“Yeah… a lot has changed since we last saw each other, Kirin, but you need to let us go, if not for our sake then for hers. She’s new to the universe, and she needs both of her parents.” I paused, weighing the risks of what I wanted to say next. “I know you can understand the importance of that.”
“I didn’t know she were a mother, Kirin. Not sure I feel right ripping a mothe
r from her newborn. Happened on my planet during the civil war. Our people never fully recovered,” the alien holding me said, his grip loosening as he looked to his boss for what to do. Despite his formidable strength, the silver-skinned alien seemed to have a heart that was firmly set in the right place.
“Let me think, Roodbek! I can’t focus if you keep chattering in me ear!” Kirin barked, casting an anxious glance at baby Nova. She seemed conflicted, seeing something of herself in the hybrid nature of my baby girl. Her parents hadn’t been around; I doubted she’d want to inflict the same struggle on another kid.
Lauren peered at me, her eyes glinting with unspoken words. After years of friendship, there was an almost telepathic link between us—we knew what the other was thinking, and it seemed we were on the same page. A window of opportunity had opened in front of us, but there was no guarantee how long it would last. Kirin’s hesitation wouldn’t last forever, and we couldn’t be sure what choice she would make.
I tilted my head in a subtle nod, giving her the go-ahead. Nova’s reveal was all the distraction we needed.
A split second later, I surged to my feet and sprinted forward, Lauren running just ahead of me, taking out anyone who got in the way as I dived for Stone, ripping the bandana off his head. Everyone froze, though Stone quickly released our friends from his grasp. Lauren clocked the lurid pink alien in the head, knocking him to the ground. With Stone holding the pirates frozen, Navan scrabbled for the box of sweetblood bottles and held it under his arm as he clutched Nova all the tighter. The others picked up the bundles of donations where they’d fallen, and I snatched up the hovering stroller.
Laden once again and free of the pirates’ grasp, we hurried toward the ship, the hatch sliding open to greet us. A strange, sour smell lingered in the air, but the fog from the sleeping grenade appeared to have dissipated. Ronad and Bashrik were snoring away in the cockpit but seemed safe enough, their chests rising and falling steadily. Stone stayed at the edge of the hatch with Lauren, keeping his gaze fixed on the pirate horde, while I reached for Nova and held her to me. Navan pushed his brother and friend to one side and got the vessel in the air. I noticed that Xiphio had followed me and Angie into the cockpit, evidently wanting to be as far from the happy couple as possible.
I felt bad for him, but I couldn’t dwell on his pain now. We needed to put as much distance between ourselves and the pirates as possible, praying they wouldn’t be able to follow our trail once we were pulled through the gateway beside the dying star. However, I couldn’t blame them for running after a valuable reward—it was in their nature. The one person I could blame was Ezra, adding this ridiculous revenge bounty to the long list of reasons I despised him.
Well, that bastard’s judgment day was coming. And I, for one, couldn’t wait to see how the scales tipped against him.
Chapter Thirteen
“Why did they have to show up like that? Why couldn’t they just stay on their crappy excuse for a planet and leave us alone?” Navan barked, pacing in front of the cockpit window. Kirin and her pirate gang had put Nova in danger, and he was struggling to come to terms with it. Both of us were.
We’d put Ronad and Bashrik to bed, letting them sleep off the last of the fog they’d been bombarded with, while Lauren and Angie sat beside Nova, who was safely tucked up in her hovering stroller. Lauren was reading her a story as she drifted off to sleep, the baby content after guzzling a measure of sweetblood. There was enough in the box Namjoo had given us to last several months, at the very least—maybe even stretching to a year if we were careful with our rationing. Xiphio had retreated elsewhere in the vessel, while Stone had made up some excuse about checking his eye. Meanwhile, the Fed ship was heading for the dying star, to seek out the gateway to the Stargazers’ planet, Aeon, but neither Navan nor I could relax.
“You think they’ll come after us again?” I asked.
“Of course they will, they’re pirates! They won’t stop until they have their money, and we can’t afford to have any more delays. Given what’s at stake here, their idiotic revenge bounty might end up having catastrophic consequences for everyone.” He slammed a fist into the wall. “Part of me would be happy to see Ezra and his band of zombies destroy the Junkyard first, for old times’ sake.”
“You don’t mean that, Navan.” I knew what was really bothering him. With Nova in his arms, he’d been rendered virtually helpless, forced to hold back in order to protect her. That wasn’t the way he did things, and I could tell it was getting to him.
He sighed loudly. “No, I know I don’t. I’m just pissed off, that’s all.”
“We all are. But hey, at least we have enough sweetblood to feed Nova for a while to come, and we’re headed in the right direction to fix all of this mess,” I said encouragingly. “I doubt the pirates will be able to follow us through the gateway, and we’ve got a decent head start on them. After all, they don’t have the upgraded engines that we’ve got.”
This seemed to cheer him up a bit. “You’re right. I’m just being a grump.” He moved over to where I stood, dipping his head to kiss me tenderly on the lips. I smiled against his mouth, feeling his hands slip around my waist.
“You’re my grump.”
“That I am,” he murmured, chuckling.
“Well, I might have one thing to brighten up your mood,” Lauren said, pausing before she started the next story. She was putting the book of fables to good use, testing out the tales on Nova, though she’d had no eureka moments as of yet.
“Tell me you found something juicy in there!” Angie replied gleefully.
“Not quite—well, not in here, anyway,” she began. “I’ve been thinking about this replicator that you told us about, the one Lazar created. If we can somehow get our hands on it, once all of this is over, we can use it to replicate more sweetblood for Nova. That way, as long as we still have a sample, we can make her as much as she needs, for the rest of her life.”
I gaped at my friend. “Just when I thought I couldn’t love you any more.”
She grinned. “Hey, that’s what I’m here for. I’m a lifelong lover of puzzles—it’s my job to fit the bits and pieces together.”
“You’re a genius,” Navan conceded, smiling. “To be honest, our girl is the luckiest kid in the universe. I doubt she could have a better bunch of people around her if she tried.”
“Too right, and she’s sadly stuck with the bunch of us!” Angie laughed, while Lauren turned her head to gaze down at the sniffling child.
“What are you reading to her?” I wondered, moving over to sit beside my two friends.
“I’ve been working my way through these fables, but nothing’s jumping out at me,” Lauren said.
“Do you mind if I listen for a bit?”
Lauren shook her head shyly. “Not at all.” She opened the book out onto her lap. “The first few stories were just about planets—in the times when Stargazers were more present in the universe—whose residents insisted the presence of the Stargazers was nothing but a myth and ended up suffering through their pride instead of asking for help. This one looks a little bit more promising, though.”
“Honestly, I’m almost dozing off listening to her,” Angie said dopily. “It is insanely relaxing. Why don’t adults get bedtime stories, man? I would love me a bedtime story, all tucked up with cookies and milk. Perfect evening!”
“You’ll have to test Bashrik’s boundaries on that one,” I replied, laughing.
Navan sat down opposite, eagerly awaiting Lauren’s storytelling. His expression looked almost childlike, making me smile. I’d forgotten how boyish he could be sometimes, when he let his guard down and didn’t have to be serious anymore. It was easy to overlook the fact that neither of us was very old; it just felt like it because of everything we’d been through. I was nineteen, but I felt about fifty.
“Go on,” I urged, wanting to drift away for a while.
Lauren took a breath. “A pink sun rose on the planet of Lantea, a world split into
quarters, each ruled by the hand of one of four brothers. Sandir had the icy tundra to the north, Chiwetel ruled the verdant lands to the east, Qorianka took the changeable western steppes, while the youngest, Eshoek, held the tempestuous southern islands. Although the brothers had loved one another in childhood, maturity had driven them toward resentment and envy. Each longed for what the others had been given by their father on his deathbed, never satisfied with their own gift.
“War ravaged the land, pausing now and then but never ceasing. Blood turned the oceans red, every corner of the globe a battlefield, while the cries of desolate women wailed in every breeze that cut across the world. It was inescapable, the envy of these brothers, though they did not suffer as their people suffered. They gave the orders and their citizens obeyed without question, fearing the wrath of their ruler. The only brother who wielded a blade himself, refusing to ask his people to perform the acts he could not, was Eshoek. He did not like to fight, nor did he wish to go to war, but his brothers gave him no choice.
“Years went by, and the wars got worse, the brothers so consumed with their desire for the whole globe that they lost sight of their quarters of it. They neglected their farms, sending every able-bodied citizen to fight. They neglected their trade, their buildings, their prosperity, their growth. Eventually, three quarters held nothing but misery, famine, and fear. Death reigned supreme. Eshoek, safe on his isles, having retreated from the bloodshed, knew it would not be long before his brothers came for that which he had grown—that which his people had grown. In desperation, he pleaded with the Stargazers, the almighty overseers of the universe, to aid him in his time of need. He knew they had been silent for several decades, having grown tired of the petty squabbles of the universe, but he prayed they might listen to him.”
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