The sun was setting, a burning orange ball in the distance, and Yelia thought it looked beautiful. She was standing at the edge of the paved landing pad, Bo’s hangar directly behind her.

“Pretty,” a voice said, and the young Zaytarian turned to see Char making his way to her. She smiled and looked back to the sun as he stopped beside her.

“It is. I miss it when I’m out there. Space is so black.”

Char smiled and looked over to her, wondering if he should tell her that he hadn’t quite meant that the sunset was beautiful. He had never been more attracted to someone in his life. He had gotten to know Fib well, working with her so often, and he held her in high regard, and he had to admit she was very pretty herself, but there was something about her younger sister. The blueish green of her skin, the soft purple eyes, and shockingly white hair, it all worked in perfect harmony.

She wasn’t only nice to look at. She was smart, and feisty, and had a biting sense of humor, though she had been so upset lately about her sister that Char had not been lucky enough to experience it more than a handful of times. In all, she was the perfect woman.

“Space can be pretty, too,” Char said finally, and she looked at him with an incredulous look etched across her face.

“How? It’s like turning the light out in a museum. I guess there could be pretty stuff there, but I sure as hell can’t see it.”

“I don’t know,” Char said with a shrug. He looked up and pointed. The sun was nearly gone now, leaving the sky purple, and stars had begun to shine above their head, faint due to the light, but soon they would be strong and twinkling. “Stars are nice. And nebulas. If you look, you can find beauty in anything.”

Yelia looked back to the setting sun but glanced at the man from the corner of her eye. “I didn’t know you were so poetic,” she said.

Char turned to face her. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he said. Yelia smiled, but she quickly forced such a thing from her face.

“Char,” she said, her voice low. She reached over and placed a hand on his arm. She knew there was something between them, something they could both feel. She had known him from her sister, of course. Fib and Char had been partners for a long time. She had always wondered if there was something between the two, and she still wasn’t sure if there was or wasn’t. Since Char had brought Gar back, and her sister had been missing, well over a week now, she had spent so much time with the man that it had been impossible for her to not fall for him, at least to some degree. And, she was pretty sure he had fallen for her, too.

Maybe fallen was too strong a word, but there was something there. Chemistry, a spark.

But what awful timing. Yelia was little more than an anxious ball of worry. She worried for her sister, the only family she had in the world, their parents having died in an accident when they were children. There was Fib, and there was Yelia, and that was all they needed. The younger sister would not rest until she had saved her older sister, or until she knew she was truly gone.

“I know,” Char said, not needing to be able to read minds to tell where the conversation had been heading, so he cut it off before the young woman could even begin. “Let’s save your sister and the girl from Earth.”

“And then... we’ll see?” Yelia asked.

“And then we’ll see,” Char said with a grin. It was good enough for him.

“Hey you two love birds, come on in,” Bo called from behind them, and they turned to see the older Zaytarian standing at the small door to the left of the giant hangar doors, waving to them.

Char bristled with embarrassment at being called a lovebird, but Yelia had not seemed to mind. She offered a quick smile to Char, touching his arm again, sending electric shocks through his body, and then she was gone, turning away and jogging toward the hangar. Char sighed and followed along.

Gar was up and out of the hovering chair, which had been shoved into the corner of the cramped living space. He was standing so he could lean against the wall, his arms crossed over his wide chest.

“What do you have?” Char asked, coming in last and taking a seat at the small wooden table they had been eating at.

“A plan,” Gar said. He then gave the floor to Bo. The big Zaytarian smiled.

“We know how to find our two missing members,” Bo said. “That’s the good part. The bad part is that it is going to be a difficult task just to locate them. We may die before we get that far.”

“How are we going to find them? They could be anywhere.”

“They are anywhere. It isn’t going to matter to us,” Bo said. “Have you ever heard of the Calvers?”

Yelia shook her head, but Char snapped his fingers. “Extinct species, tall things with red skin, horns, basically giant assholes.”

“Giant indeed,” Bo said. “Know anything about them?”

“Built ships, escaped their planet, had a religion they spread throughout the galaxy, they eventually all died, not sure from what.”

“They killed themselves,” Bo said.

“All of them?” Yelia asked.

“Pretty much. They were all very into that religion of theirs, and a certain time came, and I guess it was said that they would leave this world and journey to a higher one. So they helped themselves along. Drank poison, swallowed a slug, jumped off a building. All at the same time, three thousand years ago.”

“So how are they going to help find my sister? And Gar’s lady?”

“Well, that’s the neat thing. They built this massive citadel in space, near their home planet. It’s a funky thing, I saw it once with my own eyes, kind of looks like a castle. Spires on spires, all jutting out in weird spots. There’s this machine within it, it helped the Calvers find their own. I don’t know how it works, they claimed it was mystical, but who knows. I just know it does work.”

“Well great, but they’re dead. How is that going to help us?” Char asked. “Fib isn’t a Calver, and neither is Sarah.”

“No, they aren’t. But the machine didn’t only find Calvers, that’s just what it was used for. A Calver stepped in, and they were shown the way to their blood relations.”

“I can use it to find Fib?” Yelia asked, standing up from the seat she had taken just minutes ago.

“Yes, I think so,” Bo said.

“Why is this just coming up now?” she asked.

“Well, I didn’t really remember about it. Gar and I have been doing research, making sure it would work. The other thing... uh, Gar?”

“The citadel used to be in Calver’s space. Now they’re dead,” Gar said.

“Who owns the space now?” Char asked, an uneasy feeling growing within his stomach.

“Destune.”

A silence filled the room. Destune space was dead space. Literally. The Destune people were mostly dead, brought back to life by machinery and what some called black magic. Highly religious, as well. It made sense that they had decided to call the citadel their home.

“No one goes into Destune territory and comes out alive,” Yelia said.

“That’s true. But we haven’t tried yet,” Bo said.

Char looked to the woman he was beginning to care deeply about, and was impressed when he could see the steely resolve spread through her features. “When do we go?” she asked.

“When are you ready?” Bo asked.

“Now,” Yelia said, and the old, fat Zaytarian smiled and nodded.

“How about in the morning?” Bo asked, and Yelia conceded.

*****

Char woke early in the morning. There was one small window in the living quarters, and the sky beyond was still dark. Char sat up and rubbed his eyes, looking over to where Yelia had been sleeping without even realizing he was doing so. She was gone.

Char’s heart thundered in his chest without warning. Where was she? Was she okay? Had someone come for her.

He laughed a little and forced himself to calm down. It had been so long… the war… that he didn’t know what to do with himself now that things were winding down. Who would have come for Yelia? Who would have taken her? He stood and pulled pants and a shirt on, and then stepped quietly outside.

“Can’t sleep?” Yelia said before he even saw her. He turned around quickly. She laughed.

“Up,” she said, and he craned his neck to see the bottom of her bare feet, swinging inches above his head. She was sitting on the edge of the low roof, lower at the end of the hangar where the living quarters were.

“How did you get up there?” he asked.

“Strength,” she said with a grin, and he jumped lightly to grab the edge of the roof and then pulled himself up to sit beside her.

“What are you doing up here?” he asked.

She grinned again and lifted a clear bottle she had been holding between her legs. A yellowish liquor swirled in the bottom of the bottle.

“Tell me that wasn’t full when you got up here,” Char said, taking it from her and taking a swig.

“Half full. I’m not a total drunk.”

“Just a sort of drunk,” Char teased, grimacing as he swallowed the acidic alcohol before he spoke.

“Yeah, just a sort of drunk. Fib was the one who could really drink.”

“Oh, I know. I saw it firsthand.”

Yelia sighed. “It seems like you got to spend more time with her than I have the last few years.”

“That’s probably true,” Char admitted. “But I’m sure she would have replaced me with you in a heartbeat.”

“That’s definitely true,” Yelia said, and they both laughed.

“I miss her, you know,” Char said. “It’s important that we get her back.”

Yelia smiled. “I miss her like crazy. I keep thinking about this time, it was right after our parents died, I was only seven, and she was eleven, and we were worried we would be separated. We didn’t have any other family, and we were going to have to be given to a foster family, and if they couldn’t find one to take us both, well then, that would be it. I was scared, and I think she was too, but she was trying to be the big sister, trying to be the one to hold it together, so she gave me this rock. It was just a rock, but it was smooth and kind of shiny, and to a small child it looked magical. She gave me the rock and told me that if I ever missed her or wanted to talk to her or something like that, I just needed to hold the rock in my hand and say her name, and she would be able to hear me. She couldn’t talk back, because she only had the one magic rock, but she would hear me.”

“That’s cute,” Char said with a sad smile. Yelia reached into the pocket of her pants and pulled the rock out.

“I still carry it. Everywhere I go.”

Char didn’t know what to say, so he took another drink of the alcohol and watched as the young woman stared down sadly at the rock in the center of her palm. Eventually she cupped her fingers around the rock and slid it carefully back into her pocket. Then she looked at Char.

“I have to get her back,” she said.

“We will,” Char promised.

Silence overtook them, and a howling wind blew through the night, making them both shiver, but neither wanted to leave the roof and go back inside the cramped living quarters. Char looked over to Yelia and was surprised to find she was staring at him. She leaned over then and pressed her lips to his, and he returned the kiss.

As they kissed, their lips parting and their tongues dancing, Yelia reached over and took the bottle from him, setting it off to the side and climbing onto his lap, her knees on either side of his thighs, so that she was facing him.

He was the one who broke the kiss, and then his lips were at her sensitive throat. She tilted her head back and moaned as he nibbled her heated skin, planting wet kisses after each bite.

The heat their bodies made was enough to stave off the howling wind, and when Yelia lowered herself closer to his body, she could feel that he was hard. His thick erection pressing against her crotch, where a warmth had begun and radiated out. If she went all the way, he would go with her. She could tell.

She broke the kiss off, pulling his hair so his lips left her neck, and she climbed off his lap. It was too much. What was she doing? She really did like Char, but she didn’t want to fuck him on a roof. If they did that, she wanted it to mean something more than both of them just coming.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking over to the man, worried that he was mad.

“It’s fine,” Char said with a smile, then reached for the bottle and took a large drink. Yelia couldn’t help but laugh.