Chapter 13
Thalia:
The crew was less than warm with their greetings.
“Captain brought in another stray. This one won’t last a week,” a human man with a rough salt and pepper beard said. He looked like he fought hard in the battle of life but still lost.
“Please, question me some more,” Sue said, silencing the man with a look. “Dray, give her Paadric’s old cabin.”
Dray, the other Sangrin male who had been at the bar, asked, “Do you have luggage or something?”
“What you see is what you get. I didn’t have time to pack a bag before I was asked to leave the ship,” Thalia said, trying to keep her voice light. She wanted the smuggler crew to underestimate her because you never question the motive of those you think of as harmless. If anyone questioned her, she’d have to spin a lie, and making up lies on the spot was harder than people thought.
She forced a sunny smile on her face, channeling every harmless and hapless thought possible.
He recoiled, a disgusted look on his face. “You’re in luck. Paadric also didn’t have time to pack a bag and he was on the scrawny side. If you don’t mind blood, what’s in his cabin is yours.”
“Delightful.” A dead man’s closet. Yo ho ho.
He marched her down a narrow corridor, shoulder to shoulder, and watched her carefully from the corner of his eyes like she was a prisoner and he expected hijinks. “How’d you know how to do that for Naston?”
Great. Questions.
Thalia shrugged. “I was apprenticed to a doctor. I picked up some things.”
“You’re a medic?”
“Fuck no. I was like the orderly. I followed a drunk doctor around and kept the exam room smelling like disinfectant rather than booze.” A lie, but remarkably close to the truth.
Dray stopped in front of a cabin door. He covered a keypad with his hand but made no move to unlock it. “What kind of ship has its own doctor? You military?”
“Does anything about me look like I’ve been in the fucking military?” Thalia held up a lock of her vivid green hair. God, she was sick of that color. She should go for something boring, like purple.
“Your mouth sounds like it.”
“I’m sorry, I already did the job interview with Sue.”
His top lip curled. “Sue gets emotional about the males she’s fucking. I don’t know you, and I don’t trust how you just happened to be there when Naston needed you. It’s very convenient.”
Thalia rolled her eyes. This asshole right here.
“I didn’t order him the murder-berry beer and I didn’t pour it down his throat,” she said. She hated all this posturing. She got her fill from Nicky’s crew. Every new guy had to prove he was the biggest and the baddest. The dimmer ones viewed her as weak and thought they could gain some credibility by swinging their dicks around.
Words could not express how incredibly short-sighted it was to antagonize the person responsible for stitching up injuries. She never had to say anything, but Doc always forgot to give those particular assholes numbing agents and did a sloppier-than-usual-job with plenty of jabs. Usually they figured it out.
Experience told Thalia that Dray was not the kind to figure it out on his own.
Havik never had to posture or threaten her. Even when she poked and teased and she could see the frustration boiling inside him, he never tried to intimidate her into submission. Maybe that confidence came from being an uptight, law-abiding goody-goody or maybe it was just from being the biggest, meanest-looking guy in the room. If anyone knew the mean-looking red bastard doted on a giant pet scorpion, the scandal would ruin his reputation. Then again, he kept a giant scorpion as a pet.
The thought of Havik carrying Admiral Stabs around in his arms like an infant brought a smile to her lips.
Thalia hoped she hadn’t made a mistake by joining Sue’s crew and she hoped there was more Havik for her on the other side of this.
“Is this for your vision?” The asshole plucked the glasses right off her face.
Rude.
Thalia grabbed them back, aware of the smudges he left on the lenses. “I needed them for distance. You gonna open the door or are we just going to keep staring at each other?”
Dray huffed but pressed the pad, speaking the code as he entered it. “Remember it because I’m not going to come back and unlock your blasted door.”
The narrow cabin boasted a bunk on one side and a desk on the other. A stale funk of unwashed sheets hung in the air. Paadric, whoever he had been, had not been a tidy person.
“Charming,” Thalia said, tossing her backpack on the bed. “Is there a medical bay or something?”
He pointed to a red box on the wall. “That’s all you’ll need for your doctoring. What was the name of the ship you were on?”
“Nunya,” she said.
“Nunya?”
She dragged a finger across the surfaces and frowned at the trail left in the dust. “Yeah, none of ya business.”
“What about—”
“Fuck!” She kicked a chair out from the desk and tossed herself down. Hard plastic and unforgiving, the chair felt about as comfortable as Dray’s heavy-handed interrogation. “You want my life story? Fine. Once upon a time, there was a small-time crook who taught a little orphan girl to pick pockets. But that guy was a hypochondriac.”
“What’s a hypo—”
“He worried he was ill all the time, so he hired an old drunk as his personal physician. I just kept Doc from choking to death when he passed out. Sometimes I assisted him with patients. Then Doc got himself killed and our boss didn’t need me anymore.” Thalia could still taste the splatter of Nathan’s blood. No matter how much she scrubbed out her mouth, the metallic taste lingered. Hoping Dray didn’t push the issue, she did not want to explain how she was sold at auction and somehow cool working with smugglers known to deal with human trafficking.
A nasty expression settled on Dray’s face, like he thought he had the upper hand. “So, you couldn’t fuck your way into his good graces like the way you fucked the doctor?”
“For the love of—” Thalia sprang to her feet. She jabbed a finger in the center of Dray’s chest. “Doc Mitchell was my friend. My best friend. He was a flawed man, but he didn’t fuck underaged girls.” She hadn’t known him to have a romantic or sexual relationship with anyone. That just didn’t seem to interest him. “But if you’re so insecure that you need to convince yourself that the only work I can do is on my back, go right ahead.”
“I think you’re an empty-headed bitch,” he snarled, knocking her finger away.
“When it’s you gasping for breath on the ground, I just might remember I’m an empty-headed bitch and oopsie.” Twirling a lock of hair around her finger, Thalia’s voice increased in pitch, becoming bubbly and babyish.
“I’m watching you, human,” he said, stretching out the word like an insult.
The door slid shut behind him. Thalia slammed her hand down on the control panel and locked it.
She had never shot anyone before, but she hoped that asshole would be the first.
Further exploration revealed the cabin to be as miserable as she first thought. The dead man’s pants fit her if she rolled up the cuffs and cinched the waist with a belt. The tunic could be altered with the needle and thread kit she kept in her backpack.
She stripped the bed and found a cleansing unit in the shared facilities down the hall.
Not knowing what duties Sue expected her to fulfill, she reasoned that the captain would let her know when it was time. Until then, she set about taking in the tunic on the sides, so she didn’t look so scrawny. Then again, being underestimated could work in her favor.
“Hey ho, it’s a pirate’s life for me,” she sang under her breath.
Havik:
“Are you working on that thing again? You don’t even like watching films.” Ren held a bowl of noodles in one hand and an eating utensil in the other. He barely paused between bites to speak.
The internal components of the holographic projector spread across the table. Stabs lay curled in Havik’s lap, his mandibles absently chewing on the end of Havik’s braid. He tolerated the occasional tug as it was preferable to Stabs chasing that obnoxious ball.
“It is nothing. I simply upgraded the graphic processor, added more memory, and installed a new cooling system because the old fan was insufficient,” Havik said.
“Simply.”
Havik frowned. The whine of the fan diminished enjoyment while watching films. He did not see how it was unreasonable to want to enjoy using an entertainment device in the manner for which it had been designed.
Ren shoveled in another mouthful of noodles. “This flavor that Thalia ordered is rather good. Spicy poultry. Did you know that Terran poultry is descended from ancient megafauna, what they call terrible lizards? Now they are domestic livestock, and delicious.” He tilted back the bowl and drank the broth. “We should get one.”
“No, we should not,” Havik said, only half-listening.
“Don’t you want a terrible lizard? Admiral Stabs needs a playmate.”
“The ad—” Havik stopped him before he inadvertently acknowledged the fictitious rank. He removed Stabs from his lap and set the creature on the floor. “Stabs does not. And if this poultry is livestock, he will consume it.” The kumakre was a predator, after all.
Ren discarded his empty bowl and retrieved Stabs’ ball from the counter. Havik had placed it there because the noise the ball made when attacked incited the kumakre to attack again. He had concern that Stabs would play until the point of exhaustion.
“The kumakre is a beautiful predator and you bought him a toy,” Havik said.
Ren shook the ball and the bell rang. Stabs scuttled toward Ren, rearing back on his hind legs. Ren threw the ball out of the common room and down the corridor. It bounced off the wall with a hard ping before rolling on the floor.
Stabs took off, his claws scrabbling on the floor, no doubt digging into the surface for purchase.
“That is an insult to Stabs and yourself,” Havik said, disgust in his tone.
“He needs to practice hunting, since you claim you will release Stabs back into the wild.”
“I will.” Havik frowned. The kumakre had been his companion for years now. While he told himself that Stabs was not a pet, that assertion grew harder to believe now that the kumakre had a name and toys.
Ren did not need to state his disbelief. The wry look on his face said it all. “I will check the tracker signal while you play with the projector you care nothing for.”
“The flickering lights hurt Thalia’s eyes,” Havik muttered. Already compromised and requiring her to wear corrective lenses, he did not wish to further damage her eyesight.
“You have completed several such projects.”
Havik turned his attention to the circuit boards, ignoring Ren. Years of accumulated dust coated the older tech pieces. He dipped the boards in tubs of solvent and carefully brushed away the grime.
It meant nothing that he wanted to make the ship more comfortable. He did not do it for Thalia. That was a ludicrous notion. He had lived aboard the ship for two years and had already completed the major projects that kept the ship habitable and them alive. Now he had time for the smaller, quality of life tasks.
The bell jingled, growing louder and Stabs ran toward him. With his claws, the kumakre climbed his way up Havik’s leg and dropped the ball in his lap.
“No.”
Stabs’ tail rattled.
“This is demeaning to us both. You are a mighty warrior of the sands.”
His mandibles opened and closed, tasting the air, and his beady eyes glistened.
Havik could not refuse that face anything. “Once. Do not make this a habit.”
He tossed the ball down the corridor. Stabs dug his claws in before launching himself, the barbed tip of his tail scratching. Havik remained unconcerned as the kumakre was too young to have developed a potent venom, even if his skin did tingle from the scratch.
He returned his attention to the holographic projector. One day, when enough time had passed, he might admit that he upgraded the projector to please Thalia. When she returned to him—and he would do everything in his power to make that happen—he wanted to see her smile and know that his actions put it there. He would not admit this desire to Ren. He barely admitted the truth to himself.
On a small tablet screen, her favorite film played. The boring version too, not the more exciting version with slaying the undead. No fighting, no chases, and zero explosions, because he wanted the meaningless noise of Terran chatter because it reminded him of how she snuggled into him as they watched. Playing the film to fill the silence made her feel closer.
He missed Thalia. The ship was empty without her constant chatter and questions.
Stabs returned with the ball clutched in his maw. He stood on his back legs and scratched Havik’s leg, begging.
Havik sighed. “This is beneath you,” he grumbled before throwing the ball.
He missed Thalia and it worried him. In all his grief, disappointment, and then fury at his father’s betrayal, he never missed Vanessa. Not once.