Chapter 9

Thalia:

The cabin was lovely, if impersonal. The space had been intended for someone other than Thalia. She noticed the way Havik tensed up the moment she touched the bed. No one got that tense when company set their bag down on the guest bed. So, perhaps someone intimately connected but why Thalia was there, and they weren’t, was not her business.

The only item of any real interest in the cabin was the moisture-sucking plant. The notion of taking that plant that could suffocate you in your sleep and squeeze you dry like a sponge and putting it in a planter to use as decoration was about the most Mahdfel thing she’d ever heard of.

Aliens were so weird.

She held onto the strap next to the comfy chair as the ship departed the station and waited until the computer gave the all-clear. When it became obvious the ship wasn’t going to fall apart and no one would visit her cabin, she unpacked her toiletries.

The temperature was on the warm side but not suffocating. She’d be wearing short sleeves and no layers.

A brief expedition down the corridor led her to the cleansing room. The shower stall was massive, large enough for three people, and spotless. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. With two bachelors on the ship, something horrific that had never been cleaned. Nope. Wear on the fixtures spoke to the ship’s age—ancient—but the scent of disinfectant hung in the air. Her alien shipmates took care of their ship.

In the shower stall, Thalia leaned in close to examine the control panel. There was no helpful symbol of squiggly lines for water.

“You have been in the shower stall for one minute without activating a cleaning cycle,” a mechanical voice said. “Do you require assistance?”

“Yes, computer. How do I activate a cycle?”

A button lit up on the panel. “Press to activate. Additional selections will customize your cleaning experience.”

“Just a basic shower.”

A basic shower was twenty seconds of a cold mist, followed by the computer ordering her to lather up with soap, followed by another mist and a command to wash her hair. The shower dumped what felt like a bucket of cold water on her, rinsing off the shampoo. At the end, another fine mist surrounded her, this one floral and thick, leaving a layer on her skin and hair like lotion. The entire process took less than five minutes and left her feeling a bit manhandled.

At the sink, she brushed her teeth. The weird lotion made her face feel oily and gross, so she washed it off and applied her own face cream.

Under the harsh lighting, she peered closely at her reflection. She was technically twenty-six years old. So weird. She went into the stasis chamber at twenty-three, and her body was still mostly twenty-three. Her hair had grown out, but the dye job hadn’t faded. She was ghostly pale too. The doctors on the other ship had checked her vitamin levels, so she knew it wasn’t a vitamin D deficiency. She just missed the sun. Three years was a hell of a long time to be stuck inside a box.

On the bright side, she had three new seasons of Galactic Queen to binge. Plus, three years’ worth of new-to-her books from her favorite authors.

Back in the corridor, a monster scurried up to her and reared up on its two hind legs. The front four legs waved in the air. A bright cherry red, it watched her with intelligent eyes. Mandibles opened and closed. The segmented tail curled and flexed.

The monster moved forward.

Thalia screamed, rushing back into the cleansing room, and locking the door.

Holy fuck. What was that thing?

Within moments, someone knocked on the door. “Female, it is safe to come out,” Havik said.

“No way. You want to feed me to that…that thing.” Her teasing went too far, and he released the monster to feast on her bones.

“It is a kumakre, a juvenile one. It is too small to consume you.”

She opened the door. Havik held the creature in his folded arms, belly up, and his free hand rubbed the pale pink abdomen. The tail vibrated, creating a rattling sound, and the six legs slowly waved in the air.

“That’s a child?”

“I have raised it from an egg.”

“You’re telling me that’s harmless?” She eyed the stinger at the end of the tail. No longer panicking, she appreciated how the creature looked like a scorpion but not. The proportions were wrong, like the legs were too long and the head too wide, not that she was an arachnid expert. Besides, scorpions had eight legs, and the thing Havik cuddled had six. Six long, thin legs with splayed paws at the end.

“Oh no. It is a wild creature. I retrieved its egg from a poacher and kept it warm until it hatched. It believes I am its mother and will not harm me. When it is large enough, I will release it back to its natural habitat.”

She was wrong about the decorative murder plant being the most Mahdfel thing ever. Cuddling wild baby scorpion monsters won.

“You have a wild animal as a pet,” she said.

“The kumakre is not a pet. They are endangered. It would have perished in the egg without my intervention.” The not-a-pet happily rattled in Havik’s arms while its paws batted at the tip of his braid.

It was cute, in a horrifying way.

Thalia felt certain there had to be a wildlife rescue organization that could have hatched Havik’s egg, but she kept that thought to herself. “Does it have a name?”

“No. It is a wild creature.”

Right. The kama-whatever’s spirit was indomitable and above such petty things as names.

“Wait,” she said. “What do you mean it’s too small to consume me?” Havik’s little pet would totally eat her if it could.

With a twinkle in his eye, he strolled away, not answering her question at all. The jerk.

By the time she crawled into the massive bed, exhaustion made her limbs heavy. She tossed and turned to get comfortable at the end of such a long day, but sleep remained elusive.

Too much had happened.

The day started with her desperate not to be sent back to Earth, and now she had a job of sorts, to hunt down the human traffickers. She was glad to be part of the mission, even if her role was bait. On top of all that, she was on a rickety old ship with two strangers. Anything could happen. What if they weren’t the good guys the warlord thought they were? Hell, how could she trust the warlord? The alien’s crew had rescued her from being a permanent icicle but…

No buts. The Mahdfel’s reputation preceded them. When they gave their word, they meant it. Shit got done. Even if they were a little too rule-abiding for Thalia’s tastes.

She was safe with Havik and Ren. Everything else in her life was a huge freaking question mark, but that she knew with certainty.

Scratching sounded at the door. Probably that kama-thing come to nibble on her while she slept.

“Go away.” She rolled over, determined to ignore it.

More scratching followed by a whine.

“Fine.” She stomped across the room and huffed as the door opened.

The animal looked up at her and rattled its tail, then scurried across the floor, directly into the bed. Standing on her pillow, it turned around in a circle before settling down in a tight curl.

“Not a pet, my ass,” she said. Sitting at the edge of the bed, she arranged the cover to make a little nest for the cutie. “If you stay, no eating me. Not cool.”

* * *

The cold woke her. That, and Lieutenant Stabs’ claws digging into her stomach as he—she? Thalia had no idea—clung to her for warmth.

Groggy and shivering, Thalia found the blanket floating above her and herself floating a good foot above the bed. Startled, she tried to sit up but spun in place, slowly turning like a roast on a spit. She closed her eyes, fighting dizziness. The blanket tangled around her legs. There had to be something she could do.

The straps.

Thalia thrashed her arms until she came in contact with the nylon straps. Holding on for dear life, she stopped her rotisserie spinning and righted herself. She kicked the blanket free and it drifted slowly across the room.

“Computer,” she said. It chimed in response. “What is happening?”

“Gravity is currently offline. Restoring gravity function is advised,” the computer said in a flat tone.

“Ya think?” she muttered.

Worries about gravity coming back online and her slamming back down onto the mattress made sleep impossible. She had spent the last two days in her cabin, being ignored by Havik and Ren, only emerging for food and the bathroom.

If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well try to be helpful. No reason to sit and continue to do nothing. Thalia fumbled to get on a pair of stretchy pants and her shoes. Pulling the shoes on sent her into another rotisserie-style spin.

Not cool. Good thing she didn’t get motion sick.

Her glasses floated above the dresser.

Thalia frowned, knowing she’d never be able to keep them on her face, and when gravity came back, she didn’t want them lying in the middle of the floor, waiting to be stepped on. If they broke, who knows how long she’d wait to get a replacement pair? Those might as well have been the last pair of glasses in the universe, as far as she was concerned. Carefully, she pulled herself across the room, clutching straps and furniture, until she reached the dresser and secured the glasses in the top drawer for safe keeping.

She experimented with moving about the cabin, pushing off walls and aware of how her arms and legs sent her off course. By the time she made it to the corridor, she felt confident enough that she might be of assistance. Sure, the gravity was offline, which was a mechanical problem and she knew nothing about mechanics or spaceships. She could fetch tools and hold stuff, though. Basically, that’s what she did for Doc.

The computer directed her to the front of the ship. The corridor widened into an open space. Monitors and important-looking machines lined the walls, the screens all blurred to her eyes and illegible. In the center of the room was a cluster of four vinyl orange chairs around a pillar. Green stuff bubbled inside the pillar, and the buckle and straps of the safety harnesses, which normally dangled from the chairs, floated above.

Thalia grabbed a strap and pulled herself to the chair. Age had worn the orange vinyl thin. She knew the fabric was probably a super high-tech composite blend of nanocarbon and other indestructible material, but it was glossy and orange, not even a nice orange, like sweet apricots or summer sunsets. This was the deep, burnt orange of tacky nightclubs that forever stank of weed and was sticky no matter how many times you wiped it down.

Vinyl. Totally vinyl.

Floor panels had been removed and were secured attached to the wall. Muttering and clanging drifted from the void below. On his belly, Havik dangled over the edge. One hand gripped the edge while his legs drifted up, along with the length of his braid. His tail flicked from side to side, as if annoyed.

His tail.

“Ohmigod, you have a tail!”

It. Was. Adorable.

Deep red and segmented like a scorpion’s tail, it curled at the end with a barb. Okay, okay. Maybe adorable wasn’t the correct word.

“This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!” She moved closer for a better look.

Havik sat up, holding a wrench. The details of his face were blurry but there was no missing that frown. His lips pulled down, and he seemed to show more of his bottom teeth than usual. She was sure he’d appear quite horrible if she wore her glasses.

“What do you use your tail for? Can you gouge out the eyes of your enemies with it?”

He turned, angling himself, and his tail, away. “Do not…That is not what my tail is for.”

“What is it for?”

His cheeks darkened. A scoffing laugh came from the floor. That had to be Ren.

“How did you hide that thing? It’s massive. I find it hard to believe you were smuggling that in your pants because there’s not much left to the imagination, if you know what I mean.”

Below, Ren’s laughter turned into howls of mirth, and Havik looked like he wanted to smash stuff with the wrench he kept squeezing with his meaty paws.

She didn’t know why she enjoyed poking at Havik so much. He was big, grumpy, and never smiled. Had to be the unreasonable attraction of the Danger Bang. She just wanted his attention, any way she could get it.

One day she’d make him smile. It’d probably be all teeth and snarling, maybe a little terrifying, but worth it.

“Where are your spectacles?” Havik asked.

“I couldn’t keep them in place. I should get a strap or safety glasses if gravity goes out often,” she answered.

“It does not,” Ren said from below, offense obvious in his tone.

“This is a hazardous environment. Return to your room,” Havik said.

“I’m not blind. I just can’t see the fine details or read what’s on those monitors.” Thalia waved a hand to the monitors on the wall. “But I want to help.”

“Are you an astromechanic?”

“No.” She was barely anything.

“Then you cannot help. Return to your cabin.”

She lifted her chin, smarting from the blow of his harsh words. “Come on. I’m small. I can get into places you can’t.” She wiggled her shoulders, miming how she would shimmy through the…whatever. Ducts. Service tubes. And she wouldn’t even need the lube.

That sounded wrong, even to her.

Ren poked his head up. He exchanged something that looked like a high-tech probe for Havik’s very low-tech wrench. Astromechanics made no sense.

“I have a drone to access what is too small for me,” Ren said, before ducking below.

“I can do your running and bring you tools,” she said.

“You do not know the tools’ locations or their description. In the time it took to explain what I needed and where to find it, I could fetch it myself.” Havik said.

“Then let me watch. I want to learn.”

“Why?” His eyes were dark, almost black. The length of his braid drifted out to his left, and Thalia strongly considered strangling him with it.

A thousand reasons. Because she wasn’t useless. Because sitting in her cabin was boring and she had caught up on all the Galactic Queen episodes. Because she needed to make a living. Because this was a freaking spaceship and she knew nothing about spaceships.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno. Maybe I want to do what you do, as a career.”

His eyes narrowed. “And what is it you think I do?”

“Run cargo.” If he was going to be an ass, all he deserved were asshole answers.

“This vessel is too small to turn a profit with cargo.”

“Space cop?”

“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his biceps flexing.

Damn. Unfair.

“Space marshal.”

He did not respond.

“Space cowboy.”

He blinked. “A what?”

“Gangster of love?”

“You are putting random words together that convey no meaning,” he huffed, all teeth and bad attitude, but Thalia saw the corner of his mouth twitch.

This was so much fun. “It’s a song. You know, there’s a surprising number of songs with that title. But my point is that I can help. You clearly need help with public relations. I can’t imagine that,” she wiggled her fingers at his face, “opens a lot of doors.”

The clanking intensified below, followed by cursing. “I have to go down a level. Try not to let your flirting get in the way of this crisis. It’s fine.”

“We are not flirting,” Havik snarled.

She totally was. One hundred percent.

Thalia rested her chin on her folded arms over the back of the chair. “You’re on a secret mission from Earth, right, to catch the human traffickers—”

“Sentient being traffickers.”

“I know how criminals think.”

“Because you are one.”

His words stung, but she refused to let him see that. If he thought being nasty would drive her away, he had the wrong idea.

“If you think you’re not flirting, you are so wrong.” She winked. “Anyway, you can deputize me. That’s cool. I don’t mind starting at the bottom as long as I get a gun.” She mimed finger pistols, complete with sound effects.

His tail lashed from side to side and he growled.

“No projectile weapons! A stray shot could damage a critical system. The consequences could be disastrous.”

“I wouldn’t be aiming for a critical system. I’d aim for a critical organ,” she said, sarcasm dripping off every word. “If you don’t use guns or blasters, then what weapons do you use? I’m guessing you don’t calmly make for the nearest planet for a duel at dawn.”

For a moment, she imagined Havik in the starched cravat and the overly formal clothes of a bygone era, like out of a historical romance, and she really liked that picture. Like, a lot, a lot, especially that red tail peeking out from under a fitted tailcoat. She needed to get him into a cravat, pronto.

“Hand to hand and blades, mostly.” His hand moved to the knife strapped to his thigh, then shook his head, as if remembering that he found her annoying. “Leave. Now.”

“I want to help. Let me help.”

“You are a distraction. You cannot.” What little warmth his voice held vanished. He glared at her with hardened, cold eyes.

The mood in the room shifted. Thalia shivered. She enjoyed teasing him and she thought he enjoyed their verbal sparring. Apparently, she read the situation wrong.

“Fine.” She pushed off the chair a little harder than necessary. Havik had an ex-wife. He didn’t talk about it and she hadn’t asked, but she could understand how his grumpy ass had an ex-wife. “For the record, I’m not useless, I’m not helpless, and I can do a hell of a lot more for you than pretend to be bait.”

Holding out a hand, she touched the ceiling and redirected herself toward the corridor. She underestimated the force of her push and rocketed into a wall. Frustrated, she kicked the panel. Only then did she see that the panel held onto the wall with one loose screw.

The panel wobbled and broke free, heading right toward her at an alarming velocity.

Havik:

This female. She smiled and teased and promised many a delightful distraction, none of which he deserved or desired.

The faster they completed this mission, the better.

She kicked at a panel. It broke free, every edge jagged metal, harboring bacteria her immune system had no capacity to fight.

Unacceptable.

He moved too fast for his mind to question why he identified the hazard and why he disliked the idea of her inevitable injury. This was why she could not be trusted to do more than lure sentient being traffickers into a trap. In an instant, he pushed her out of the way and took the blow from the panel. She hit the wall with a gasp as the panel sliced across his upper arm, cutting both cloth and skin.

Her eyes were wide, and her hair fanned out, dark blonde at the base and toxic green at the end.

“You’re bleeding,” she said, shoving off the wall toward him.

She removed her tank top and tore it in half before he could respond with a gruff, “It’s nothing. I will heal.”

“Off,” she commanded, tugging at the collar of his tunic. He complied, removing the garment. “Hold this here.” She pressed the wadded cloth to the gash. When his hand covered hers, she pushed away. “You might heal fast, but I’m sure gunking up the ship’s innards with blood is bad for our health.”

Nimbly, she collected the droplets of his blood that floated in the immediate area. “There,” he said, pointing up.

Without a word, she placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed, launching herself up. She touched the walls and ceilings to redirect herself and cleaned up the splatter. Spotting a bright red box strapped to the wall, she worked her way across the room. With the kit in hand, she bit her bottom lip and her nose scrunched.

It was adorable. Not that he was studying her face, because he was not even looking at her or the way she wore only a brassiere and her hair floated around her like she was a mythological creature of the water, a dencadiz. Those stories had fascinated Havik when he was young. The idea of so much water that a person could live in it, breathe it, baffled him. He had yet to see the ocean at that point and he studied the illustrations in his book of fables. The dencadiz were beautiful creatures but deadly. They sang a sweet melody to lure people into the water. Sometimes the dencadiz loved the person and they lived together under the water. Sometimes they feasted on the bones of their victims.

He knew which type she was.

Thalia tucked her knees to her chest and slowly spun until her head pointed toward him. She pushed off the ceiling and drifted down. “Give me a hand,” she said.

“I thought this was your first time in space,” he said, reaching for her outstretched hand.

“Never been off the planet before. Those three years frozen in a tube don’t count.”

“You maneuvered quite skillfully,” he admitted. Color rose to her cheeks, a pleasing pink that brightened her otherwise dull complexion.

She opened the medical kit. Straps held the contents in place. Her focus grew intense as she inspected the contents. One by one, she removed the supplies and read the labels.

“That is unnecessary,” he said. “The wound is no longer bleeding.”

“Still needs to be cleaned or you’ll get an infection.”

Havik should have told her that his superior immune system would eradicate any germs as the Mahdfel did not easily pick up infections, but he selfishly wanted her intense gaze focused on him.

“I don’t suppose you know if this is a cleanser. It’s foam. Normally these things have swabs.” She held up a squat white bottle.

“I have never opened the medical kit. I do not know.”

“Right, right. Super soldiers don’t need no doctoring,” she muttered. “Do it for my peace of mind, please.” Opening the cap, she tested a little of the product in the palm of her hand. “Smells like alcohol. Now, hold this.” She shoved the kit into his hands. Grabbing onto his shoulder, she maneuvered behind him and wrapped her legs around his waist.

His tail reached for her.

“Sit still. I’m sure this will sting.”

Havik remained still as she covered the laceration with the foaming cleanser. The bubbles and fizz stung for a second. He kept his eyes focused on the kit in his hands because the female pressed her uncovered chest to his back.

It should not feel pleasant.

He should not enjoy the brush of her soft skin against his, and his tail would remain still, even if he had to chop the blasted thing off.

“Are you a medic?” he asked.

“I didn’t have time for medical school what with all the thievery.” Her voice warmed with amusement.

“But you are familiar with blood.”

“Familiar, yes.” A sterile cloth wiped away the foam. Gently, she applied a layer of gel to the wound and continued to speak. “I was apprenticed to a doctor, I guess you could say. I have no formal qualifications. Mostly I cleaned the equipment.”

“Apprenticeship sounds unusual.” He meant primitive. Advanced worlds had formal education and training, not a relic from the dark ages.

Thalia hummed, as if in agreement. “I sort of fell into it, but it was better than the alternatives.”

“Explain.”

“My mom wasn’t the best. Not abusive but she just wasn’t able to take care of herself and a kid, so I mostly had to fend for myself. It was fine. I made my own food. I kept myself entertained.”

She covered the wound with a bandage, taping it down. In a day, the laceration would be completely healed, and he would not require such covering, but he kept that to himself.

“Then she died in the Invasion. Not from the Invasion, exactly. She got sick. The flu, I think. Lots of people had it. After that, I was on my own,” she said.

“There would be relief camps. Field hospitals.”

“Sure, but let me stress this, I was eleven. I spent my whole life dodging social workers. I wasn’t about to walk into an alien camp. They’d take me away from my mom.” She unwrapped her legs and Havik’s chest hitched at the loss of contact.

Thalia moved to position herself in front of him, her hair fanning out in the zero gravity. He handed his tunic to her. “You will grow cold,” he said.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

“If she required medical attention—”

“Enough with the Monday morning quarterbacking, Danger B.” She slipped the tunic over her head. The fabric swallowed her, but he felt enormous satisfaction seeing her in his shirt. “I don’t have a time machine. Bitching ain’t going to change anything,” she said.

He understood the individual words, but together they made little sense. Why would an athlete on a weekday morning imply she required a time machine? Terrans were odd.

A smudge of his blood marred her cheek, and his blood stained the right sleeve of the tunic. Where it fell on her frame gave the appearance of a scarlet armband. His chest swelled with unreasonable pleasure at seeing Thalia adorned with his blood. An injury sustained in combat would have been better, but he appreciated the way she did not hesitate before springing into action to mend him. His words had purposely been harsh, and she rightfully should have let him deal with his injury on his own, but Thalia had a compassionate heart.

She continued to speak, unaware of the effect she had on him. “So, Nicky took me and some other kids like me in.”

“He sounds charitable.”

She snorted. “He fed us and gave us a roof over our heads. All we had to do was a little burglary. Skinny kids are good for that.”

“That is criminal. Did no one report this Nicky to the authorities?”

Another snort. “I know you aliens are all moral and upright, but no. No one cared, unless we got sloppy and got caught. Then the system wasn’t very interested in, I don’t know, street urchins. Waifs. Anyway, that lasted until I reached the inevitable destination of a kid getting three meals a day and puberty. I know I ain’t,” she waved a hand at her chest, “but it made enough of a difference that I couldn’t climb through windows anymore.”

“Are you referring to your breasts? They seem adequate.”

She blushed a pleasing pink and rolled her eyes. “Adequate. What every girl dreams of hearing.”

“They are small, but they have their appeal.” He nodded, satisfied at his statement.

“Can we not talk about my boobs right now, unless we get to talk about your tail?”

“No,” he said curtly. “No discussing any body parts or attractive features.”

“You were married?”

“Yes.”

“Someone, a human woman, actually married you?”

“Yes.” He did not understand her line of questioning.

“And you talked to her like this? Was she adequately attractive?”

He wanted to explain that Vanessa’s appearance had been strange, yet he found her Terran differences to be attractive. Instead, he said, “What happened next in your tale of woe?”

“Oh. I started working with Doc. He needed someone young to run around for him. I learned a lot watching him and eventually I did basic first aid-type stuff.” She raised her shoulders in a Terran gesture he recognized as indifferent. “No big deal.”

Static proceeded Ren’s warning that gravity would commence in thirty seconds. He advised them to move to a safety harness or hold on. The computer began a countdown.

Thalia grabbed the medical kit and made her way to a fold-out emergency seat. She tugged at the safety harness but floated above the chair and could not position herself. Havik pressed down on her thighs, moving her down and allowing the safety harness to click into place.

“What about you? You’re gonna hit the floor.”

Havik opened his mouth to respond that he would be fine when the computer countdown reached ten.

His chest slammed into the floor, knocking the air out of him. “That was not thirty seconds!”