by Audrey Grey
He picked at his collar and then studied her with narrowed, almost-human eyes, betrayed only by the irregular tic of his pupils as they enlarged and dilated. His construction and the attention to detail given to his cheekbones and lips was remarkable, actually. Even the tiny dusting of pores across his cheeks, the threads of silver inside his sorrel eyebrows—two shades darker than his messy, chin-length copper hair—spoke of a highly-skilled maker.
Better than Ailat’s construction, even.
Those fine-crafted lips curled into a smile. Stars, someone must have spent weeks coding that grin to get just the right mixture of amusement and bluster. “Go find something less revealing,” he said, his voice managing to be both commanding and teasing. “You’re on dish duty until we figure out what to do with you. Try not to break anything.”
Dish duty? Probably an unwanted task by the way he gloated as he left. It took all her willpower not to fling an insult after him. But, as long as the chore took her away from his piercing stare and suspicious looks, she’d do it with a smile.
Leo chuckled and began gathering the empty cans into his burly arms, using his chin to hold the trash in place. “It’s not that bad, really. I’ll show you what to do.”
His kindness softened the tightness in her cheeks. He had no reason to be nice to her, nothing to gain. In any other circumstance, she would have liked the handsome mock immediately. But his port flap, hiding just below that strong jaw, was impossible to ignore. And halted any feeling of friendship.
Ailat had been Talia’s closest friend. Her most trusted friend. And that trust was rewarded with betrayal and death. Mocks just couldn’t help themselves. They were treacherous. Even if they were coded to love humans, after spending a life serving them, when the time came, mocks would always side against their makers.
Maybe it was the corruption’s fault. Or, perhaps the droid makers could never quite stamp out the code that made them tricksters and liars. Either way, Ailat’s deception would never be forgotten.
Nor the lesson: Never trust a mock. That might as well have been coded into Talia’s DNA the same way it was programmed into mocks to turn against humans.
Leo stood and jerked his head toward the kitchen double doors. “Ready? I’m about to start breakfast.”
She flashed a demure smile as she stooped to pick up an errant can he dropped, encouraging his goodwill. She’d be the happy, compliant little escort girl. And first chance she got, she’d use his kindness to her advantage and find a way back home.
With the galley lights switched on, Talia could make out every bit of grease and tarnish clinging to the steel walls and equipment. Everything looked ancient, despite having a modern feel. Clamps locked down anything heavy, for whenever the gravity drive malfunctioned, she assumed. All the starliners she’d ever been on didn’t have that problem. But this ship was obviously two or three jump drives away from breaking down for good.
Dishes took forever. Some of the pots were huge, and Leo had to help carry them to the drying rack. Especially since Talia’s muscles, once sculpted from playing the customary sports expected of a high lady at court, were now flabby and malnourished. Could she have been sleeping longer than a week? Impossible. An ally wouldn’t have let the pod slip by longer than that.
After about thirty minutes of scrubbing, lifting, and drying, Talia’s arms and back trembled with the effort, and sweat trickled down her shoulder blades. Who knew dishes actually had to be cleaned afterwards? She remembered the horde of labor mocks that descended on the kitchens after large banquets at the palace, but she’d never given much thought to what, exactly, they were doing.
Still, she didn’t mind washing the flimsy dishes. The work took her mind away from the memories that kept cropping up. The explosion. The fireball consuming the starliner with her family still inside. Her little brother . . .
She shook her head, heavy tresses falling around her face. She didn’t know for sure if they’d been killed. Surely the rebels kept the Starchasers alive. For leverage. Mocks were known for making logical decisions, and hurting her family when they could easily be ransomed for billions of credits made no sense.
Leo served lunch, some bizarre, gummy concoction of browns and yellows she didn’t dare ask the ingredients of or want to eat. Feigning a dizzy spell, she requested a cabin to rest. Not that she had any desire to sleep. She’d been resting for a week. There was no way she was closing her eyes again until it became absolutely necessary.
Dorian, one of the siblings, led Talia through the winding maze of corridors, his thin arms full of what she assumed was her new outfit. He kept glancing backward at her, his curious gaze flickering over her face and hair. Yet, when she opened her mouth to ask if everything was okay, he wrenched around so fast she thought there might be something frightening behind her. But all was quiet.
The crew’s quarters were situated close to the engine. The temperature was warmer here, at least, although her breath still came out in a frosty plume. The engine’s quiet purr stirred the air. Silence was something else she now despised. Just the thought of being alone in a quiet room conjured clammy sweat along her palms. Partial memories cropped up of silence so absolute, so encompassing, it seemed to permeate her bones.
As if the lonely, cold hush of space had wound its way inside her mind—her soul.
Teeth clacking, she glanced over the area as the boy darted in and dropped her new clothes on a fold-out metal cot. The bed was small, softened with a threadbare blue-and-white striped mattress and equally paltry yellow blanket. Just above was a holo-poster of a half-naked woman on a beach, her lithe body shimmering with pulses of light. As Talia moved, the holo-model’s bedroom eyes followed.
“You’re back,” the holo-girl crooned. “Lie down a while. Get comfy.”
Stars above. The boy’s wide green gaze switched from the poster to Talia, as if he couldn’t decide which was more fascinating.
Turning her back on holo-girl, Talia inspected the rest of the chamber. Shelves lined the walls, filled with someone’s things: a pile of folded navy uniforms, a toiletries bag, two pairs of heavy, large boots.
Only one person on this ship could fit into those massive shoes. Leo.
“Is this Leo’s room?” she called over her shoulder, even though the heavy aroma of musky cologne confirmed it. Last thing she wanted was to steal his cabin. Or sleep beneath his holo-girlfriend. Gross.
But the boy lifted his bird-boned shoulders in a shrug and fled, a mesh of multi-colored wires stuffed into his back pocket the last thing she saw of him. Sighing, she turned and closed the door loudly enough for the boy to hear. Then she quickly traded her damp dress for the outfit provided—a royal-blue jumpsuit that smelled of boy and clean-ish socks. The pant legs dragged the floor, so she folded both hems over twice, pulled her hair into a tangled knot, and then put on a faded pair of boots.
Grandmother would have a stroke if she saw Talia now, but options were limited, and she had no intention of staying here or going out there in something wet.
The hallway was clear when she cracked open the door. Holo-girl, perhaps sensing she was about to be left alone again, tsked behind Talia.
“Go back to sun bathing,” she trilled. Once she was sure Dorian was gone, she slipped into the hallway, leaving holo-girl whimpering behind a closed door. Hopefully the crew would still be eating and she could enter the main bridge alone. From there she could use the com to search for Coalition ships and send a distress signal.
Hardly breathing, Talia slinked down the hallway, irked that she had to skulk in the first place. Like a criminal. As if she should be ashamed of trying to reach her allies. There was no shame in a princess trying to get back to her people.
A brittle laugh drifted from behind her, turning her muscles rigid. Talia whipped around to find the pretty girl from earlier. Lux leaned against the wall, arms crossed over her chest. Her navy uniform clung to her curves and highlighted her small waist. Thigh-high leather boots graced her feet and made her look
at least six inches taller. Although her lips were pulled into the semblance of a grin, her eyes speared Talia where she stood.
Talia held out her hands, more from shock than anything, and forced a stilted laugh. “You scared me.”
“Where you going, flesher?” Each word from the mock girl’s lips was laced with suspicion.
“Little girl’s room. We do that sometimes.”
“Never heard an escort talk like you before.”
“You haven’t met the right ones, then.”
Pushing off the wall, Lux vaulted across the floor and stopped inches away from crashing into Talia. Talia flinched but held her ground as the girl performed an inspection, prowling in a loose circle until she made two full turns. Compared to the short girl, Talia was a giant, but she didn’t feel that way. She felt tiny, helpless.
Maybe the two blasters weighing down the waist of the girl’s tight pants didn’t help. Or the daggers gleaming from the sheath pockets along her high-collared jacket.
“Look, I don’t know what you are,” Lux began. “But I know what you aren’t. Not an escort. Not as helpless as you put on. And not telling the truth. All those things mean nothing to me. You can have your secrets. But . . .” She leaned in close, the harsh yellow lights above slanting across her face and illuminating the pale gold inside her green eyes. It would be so easy to believe she was human. “You hurt my crew, or you do something that results in their pain, and I’ll toss you.”
Talia’s lips twitched in preparation of a smile—but Lux wasn’t joking. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I promise.”
That much, at least, was true. Although if getting off this ship and to safety meant someone got hurt . . .
“Good. Then we won’t have any trouble.”
A shutter reverberated through the ship, sending Talia to her knees. She threw out her hands, catching herself before she face-planted against the wall. Another shock wracked the ship as alarms blared all around. Lux steadied herself against a doorframe, her eyes stretched wide. Lights flashed as the power wavered and then died. The growls of the engines turned to whines before they gave way to silence.
All at once, Talia drifted into the air, as if some unseen force was lifting her. Her hair spread out on either side of her face, and she tried unsuccessfully to tuck the loose strands behind her ear.
“Get to the bridge,” Lux ordered, her voice firm and decidedly unafraid. Then again, she didn’t seem the type to scare easily. Pushing herself off the doorframe with her boots, she swam through the air with the grace of a ballerina. Her black leather jacket floated around her like a cape, reminding Talia of a character from one of those really old cartoons the earthens loved so much.
Talia swallowed as she shot through the air after Lux. They navigated the halls in near darkness. Unused to weightlessness, Talia bounced off the walls. The stillness of the massive ship became a vice around her chest, squeezing tighter with each loud beat of her heart. Scenes from her cruiseship after it was attacked filled her mind. How she was tossed repeatedly into the walls. Those hadn’t been stunning blows, but still.
To combat the quiet, she began to hum. Something Ailat taught her to do—no, don’t think about her. Talia quickly tried to chase her former friend from her mind, but Ailat clung there anyway. Chipping away at the wall she’d built around her heart.
Still, the humming worked. As her body calmed itself, her muscles loosened, and she found she could spin through the air as if she was underwater. Moving became so easy she pushed off the bottom stair of a rusty stairwell and rocketed into Lux at the top. The two girls somersaulted into a wall.
As Lux righted herself, she shot Talia a look that could penetrate steel, muttering about fleshers being clumsy.
But behind Lux’s withering expression hid worry; her bronzed skin had gone the color of summer clouds, her full lips pressed thin. As they bounced and glided through the dead ship, the truth dangled in front of Talia: Someone had hit their vessel with maimers. Warning shots that would briefly disarm her long enough for the offender to board.
Who would do that? Why? These were rebels . . .
Talia halted mid-air as if she’d been slapped.
She was being rescued.
Chapter 13
Will
The Odysseus went quiet. The rumbling purr of the gravity drive, the growl of the main engine, all of it. Just dead. Will swiveled his captain’s chair to the port screen. His old destroyer ship, the Athena, loomed over their flank like a specter of death.
Stars, she was gorgeous.
He clenched the arms of his chair. Behind the starscreen of the Athena, hiding behind the reinforced metal hull and his old crew, stood Xander.
That should be me.
Xander probably felt like a god. Will always did as he surveyed the ship of whatever poor idiot was sweating in their jumpsuit trying to devise a doomed escape plan. With the might of the Athena behind him, he’d been unstoppable.
Why hadn’t he seen her? Obviously she’d been cloaked, but he should have been watching for her. He should have known Xander would come back once he discovered the empty pod.
Will ground his teeth until his jaw ached as he waited for the ship to power back up. If it wasn’t for the flesher girl distracting him, he’d have noticed.
“They took out our shields,” Leo growled. He was strapped in one of the bucket seats along the wall, the frayed orange harness tight against his chest. “We’re sitting ducks.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Will said. He blinked at the console, refocusing on the three columns of controls. The backup engine had kicked on immediately, generating enough power to pump out oxygen and keep the heat just above freezing. But another direct hit from the maimers would take that out too.
That was what he would do. Knock out the crew and wait until they lost consciousness before boarding.
The only reason they hadn’t yet, he assumed, was the girl. They needed her alive. Perhaps she retained valuable information on the human Alliance or knew too much.
Whatever the case, he wasn’t about to give her up to Xander now that Will knew she was important.
Lux ducked inside the bridge and propelled off a table into a flip, landing softly in her nav seat. She flung an irked look back at the flesher, Ailat, who scrambled into the chair beside Leo with much less grace. An excited flush pinked her high cheekbones. Did she think this was a good thing? If Xander got his wish and claimed her, she’d be thrown in a tiny cell—or worse. Given to the Athena’s crew for sport.
Lux finished locking her harness in place. “Captain, tell me you have a plan.”
Will frowned at the blinking buttons and switches that would determine their fate. “Working on it.”
“They’ll be boarding soon,” she added.
As if on command, two blips blinked on the radar screen, heading directly for the Odysseus. He scratched his chin. They’d have a boarding crew of at least twenty. Which meant it would take them at least five minutes to disembark.
Think, Will.
The main power was still disabled. Manually turning it on from here was impossible, but not from the engine room. The problem wasn’t starting the engine, though. What would happen afterward would be the hard part.
First sign of their main engine restarting, Athena would hit Odysseus with more maimers. The old girl couldn’t withstand another strike. She’d die, leaving the crew completely at the invaders’ mercy. But some of that power could be diverted back into the shields long enough to fly out of range . . .
“Dorian,” Will called, swiveling his chair to face the small mechanic. At fourteen, he was slender and lithe—perfect for fitting into tight spaces—and the best mechanic in the galaxy. If not for also being an unlucky pickpocket, the boy would’ve had his choice of ships. “Think you can get the main engine restarted?”
Dorian flashed a rare grin and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Take Lux—” No, she was needed here. Will eyed Leo, but if Odyss
eus was boarded, muscle would be needed here as well. And Jane’s glitches made her an unreliable choice.
That left the flesher.
Lux read Will’s expression and clicked her tongue. “Nuh-uh. Anyone but her.”
“Final decision.” Will’s tone left no room for argument.
“Fine.” The muscles below her jaw feathered. “Dorian and flesher girl get the engines working, what then?”
“One thing at a time. As soon as the boarding crew arrive, Xander will contact us on the com. I’ll stall him long enough for Dorian to work.” He nodded to Dorian, and the boy popped out of his seat, ready. Then, with a disgruntled sigh, Will focused on Ailat. “Go with him. He might need assistance in the engine room.”
The girl’s mouth parted, as if she couldn’t believe her luck. Then she unclicked her harness and unwound from her seat, biting back what looked like a coy smile. Why the hell did she look so eager? Will frowned, knowing something was off, but there wasn’t any time to dwell on it.
“Go,” he ordered. “And hurry.”
Chapter 14
Talia
This was Talia’s chance to escape.
Escape. The word echoed in time with her heart, so loudly she was afraid somehow Dorian could hear it from where he worked beside her. They were shoulder-to-shoulder inside the engine room, an oval chamber beneath the cargo hold. A chain-link fence encircled the main engine where they worked. Or, rather, Dorian worked and she handed him tools, maneuvering around the tight space. Coolant cylinders rose to the ceiling all around them, making the area that much tighter. Two more smaller engines flanked either side.
To keep from floating off, she wrapped her fingers around the steel links of the fence and kept her boot wedged against one of the cylinders. Steam wafted through the room, leaving her skin damp. Dorian was bent over with the underbelly of the engine exposed, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.