Dalos XI was one of the few cities that could boast to being as stunning as the stars around it. The capital of colony world, it seemed to consist entirely of glass and light. In addition to being breathtakingly beautiful, it was also famous for having a peerless security force resulting in very little crime, especially for a port-and-trade city. People travelled light years to explore the peaceful, picturesque metropolis. It was the sort of place one could look at and think “we did it, the future is here,” a shining love letter to human civilization in glass and chrome.
“Shit,” Zosha hissed to herself as she crawled through a vent in the anterior security station. “Shit, shit, shit, don’t be a dead end, don’t be a—oh, motherfucker.”
She rested her head against the rough material of her pack, trying to convince herself that she should keep moving instead of just giving up then and there. In the end, the horror stories she’d heard from duct runners back on Lytos about the dangers of staying still too long won over the desire to accept her fate. Carefully, she turned herself around and began crawling back down the tunnel, pushing her bag ahead of her.
“I blame you for this entirely,” she muttered.
“Are you talking to me?” a bored-sounding voice drawled over the comm link. “Because if so, I’d like to remind you that this mess is not my doing.”
“Me being lost in this fucking metal labyrinth is,” Zosha groused. “I wanted to take my chances with a forged ID, but no, you wanted me to do it the hard way.”
“As much as I hate to cast aspersions on your impressive array of unlawful talents, there’s no way you could have gotten yourself an ID capable of fooling even a rookie Sixer,” Spinner replied. “And with my current schedule I couldn’t have gotten you a workable one in time. Chin up, darling, you’re almost out. Take the next left.”
“See, you telling me that the first time would have made this a lot easier,” Zosha said, making the turn. “Honestly, if you’re going to force me into the vents you could at least make sure I don’t get lost. I think I’d rather just get my throat slit by Lan Doro than die in here.”
“Zosha, I am in the process of crumbling a regime,” Spinner said, sounding mildly affronted. “I can’t just drop everything to hold your hand because you picked the wrong man’s pocket. Besides, Lan Doro would never simply slit your throat. With what you stole? He’s going to make you an example. Turn right.”
Zosha grumbled but complied. “Is it too late to hitchhike to some agriculture world and settle down with a nice lumberjack?”
“You’d die of boredom in a week. Alright, see the light? That’s your exit. I’m going to put the cameras on loop until you’re in the clear. On my go.”
While Spinner worked whatever magic he used on the camera, Zosha made sure her gloves were intact after crawling around the vent and reached awkwardly around her bag, multitool in hand. She began to work on the screws holding the vent screen in place, wincing as the electric current hit her. On any other job she’d use an E-pulse to knock out the defense mechanism but she couldn’t risk security noticing that one of the vents was malfunctioning. Even if they assumed it was just a maintenance error and sent a handyman instead of a guard, she was in trouble. Anyone spotting her, no matter who it was, could get her killed. She couldn’t afford to relax until she was out of the system. As it were, she relied on her gloves to take the brunt of the electricity and worked fast. It was difficult because she was working from the wrong side, but she’d had plenty of practice and in short order the screen came loose. She grabbed onto it to stop it from falling and waited for Spinner to tell her to act.
“Okay,” he said finally. “The cameras from where you’re coming out to the port are all on a loop. You need to go fast. Go into the hallway and follow the blue light. You want to be in docking bay 7.”
“Got it.” Zosha was moving before he finished speaking. She pushed her bag forward and it fell out of the vent, taking the screen down with it. Next she wriggled forward until she was only in the duct from her knees down, her feet pressed to the top of the metal chamber as she slipped slowly forward. She took a deep breath and relaxed, tumbling completely into the hallway. She hit the ground palms-first and let herself roll. It was clumsier than she’d like, but nothing felt broken. Grabbing her bag, she dashed towards the hallway.
As promised, there was a blue light embedded in the floor that led visitors towards the docking bays. She ran along it, ignoring the odd looks she was getting from people. She skidded to a stop when she reached the end of the light path, looking around wildly for where she was supposed to be. She couldn’t see any signs and cursed under her breath. Her eyes fell on a lone security guard.
The guards out here don’t check ID, she reminded herself as she hurried towards him. It’ll be fine.
“Excuse me?” she called to him, trying to sound desperate. Given her circumstances, it came naturally.
He turned to her. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
Zosha nodded at him, widening her eyes and biting her lip. “Can you tell me the fastest way to D-7?”
“Sure thing,” he said, smiling at her. “Late to board, are we?”
She nodded again. “I just got so caught up looking at the kiosks in K-Ward I lost track of the time.”
“Happens all the time,” the guard chuckled. “Alright. See the elevator over there? Head towards that, then go down to the second level. The door is pretty clearly marked, you can’t miss it.”
“Thank you so much,” Zosha said as she spun away and made for the elevator.
“Of course! Hope you enjoyed your stay!”
Once she was in the elevator, she took a steadying breath and reopened her comm line to Spinner.
“Alright, I’m almost there. What next?” she asked.
“You want to get onto a ship called the Breakwater,” Spinner answered. “They’re smugglers. I don’t know much about them, so make sure they don’t see you. As far as I know they’re not in the skin trade but tread carefully anyways.”
“Okay,” Zosha said, stepping out of the elevator. The guard had been right; there was a giant glowing seven above a door several yards away from her. She walked towards it. “Well, this is me. Have fun crumbling civilization as we know it, Davy.”
“Zosha,” Spinner said over the line. The softness of his voice made her step falter. “I promise I’ll look into sorting this out. You have my emergency line if anything happens.” By emergency line, he meant personal line, something which Zosha may have been the only person in the universe with access to.
“Thanks,” Zosha said, swallowing thickly.
“And Zosha?”
“Yeah?” she asked.
“If you ever use my real name again I’m going to have you assassinated,” he said gently.
She laughed wetly. “Got it. Alright, time for me to get stealthy,” she told him as she entered the bay. “Wish me luck then fuck off and let me do my job in peace.”
“Good stars and good winds, you noxious hell beast. Don’t die out there,” he told her, his voice as aloof as usual.
“Back at you, you gingery shit,” she told him before cutting the line with shaking fingers.
Getting onto the ship was easy. Smugglers were, for good reason, notoriously protective of their ships. This meant they all had similar security measures in place, usually biometric scans and pass codes, all with one thing in common: no cameras. They couldn’t afford evidence of their own misdeeds, meaning they had to rely on other countermeasures. This would trip up almost anyone else, but Zosha had grown up on Lytos, an asteroid colony of thieves and murders, and had been getting through this type of security for what seemed like her whole life. She was on edge for the whole process, chewing her already abused lower lip until it bled, but she was on board before anyone else showed up in the bay and made her way to the cargo hold.
Luckily, the crew of the Breakwater already had some cargo loaded, meaning there were plenty of crates for her to hide behind. She settled into one corner, making sure that neither she nor her bag could be seen, then took a moment to stretch out. Her back made at cracking sound and she could feel her knees creaking. She settled back, closing her eyes and preparing for a long, uncomfortable ride.
As exhausted as she was from running almost non-stop the past few days, she was too wired to fall asleep. The most she could do was even out her breathing and force her muscles to relax as she let her mind wander. She lay like that for about a half hour, feeling the tension slowly melt away from her body, when she heard the hiss of the door opening and several arguing male voices getting louder.
“…all I’m saying is, if we’d decided to run guns instead of medicine, we’d have already been paid. I could be getting a drink thrown in my face by a gorgeous broad right now,” one complained.
“Well, at least he’s realistic,” another commented, which garnered a few laughs.
“After the cluster-fuck on the Edge we can’t afford jobs that dangerous,” a new voice said. “We’ve been over this.”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” the first voice said. “Annie’s making you soft.”
“I can one hundred percent guarantee that’s the opposite of what Annie makes him,” someone snickered.
The first man gave a pornographic moan. “And who could blame him? God, her ass.”
“Custer.” It took Zosha a moment to place the voice as belonging to the third man who spoke due to the fact it was suddenly much lower and much more threatening.
“What? If you’re going to hog the only woman on board all to yourself, the rest of us should at least get to fantasize about her.”
“Custer.”
“I think,” a new voice said calmly, “that we should get out of here before someone with a badge decides to double check our clearance. Custer, you stay here with me and unload. Captain, if you wouldn’t mind getting ready to take off, I’ll join you as soon as we’re done here.”
There were a few grunts of agreement followed by the sounds of footsteps.
“Seriously, though, it’s not like I’m asking for a turn at her,” Custer grumbled.
“One of these days you’re going to annoy him enough that he sends you on a long walk out of a short airlock, but only if Annie doesn’t beat him to it,” the calm voice said. Zosha decided that it was a rather nice voice, deep and smooth. Listening to it hardly made up for being tucked away behind crates of dubious content, but it didn’t hurt.
“He’s totally whipped.”
“It’s Annie. We’re all whipped.”
“Speaking of, do you think they ever…” his voice trailed off and he made a sound like a whip cracking.
“Not all of us prefer our bedmates fully armed, Custer,” the other man said, sounding slightly exasperated. “Ugh, I need your help with this one.”
The conversation was momentarily halted as the two men grunted, followed shortly by a loud thud.
“Alright, tie those down and then we’re done,” the nice voice said.
“You got it. Also, you smell that too, right?”
“Of course, but avoiding the Sixers takes precedence right now.” The other man made a noise of protest. “Leave it. Captain’s not worried and we’ve got bigger issues.”
“Well if the Captain’s not worried,” Custer said mockingly.
“Get out of here. We’ll talk once we’re out of here.”
Custer grumbled but, if the fading footsteps were anything to go by, complied.
This left Zosha, as far as she could tell, alone in the cargo hold with the man who had a voice that was probably a lot nicer than he would be if he found her. Her skin felt tight and hot and she couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to wait a situation out, or even the first time she’d stowed away, but the stakes had never been this high before. After a few minutes of the sounds of crates being belted down and heavy breathy, a second set of footsteps retreated.
Zosha lay in perfect silence, hardly daring to even breathe, until several minutes without sound passed. Slowly she let herself relax. She was struck by the urge to call Spinner and let him know she was okay but disregarded it immediately. Her suit would protect her if someone scanned for heat or life signs, but that didn’t do shit if someone heard her. Instead she focused on one of the screws in the box she was facing, letting her mind slip into a trance as she stared at it. It was a good way to keep herself from going insane at the wait without being as vulnerable as she would have been asleep.
When she came out of the trance she had no idea what time it was, only that she was hungry. Slowly and quietly, she unzipped her pack and removed one nutri-pack, jabbing the attached straw into the foil. She took a small sip, face pulling into a scowl as the bland, faintly metallic-tasting mush hit her tongue. She let it sit in her mouth for a moment to adjust to the flavor, then swallowed and began to suck down the rest.
She was about halfway through the pack when a set of footsteps approached. Immediately she froze, straw still in her mouth, and listened intently. The footsteps grew loud enough that she suspected whoever had just walked in was only a few feet away, then stopped.
Someone cleared their throat. “Um, hello?” the nice voice from earlier said. Zosha felt her blood go cold. Who was he talking to? Had someone else walked in while she was in a trance? Had they heard her? “I just wanted to let you know that we’re about to eat and that if you’d like to stop hiding, you’re more than welcome to join us.”
The panic that had filled Zosha moments earlier at the thought of someone else walking in while she was in a trance was nothing compared to the all-consuming terror that hit her now. She forced down the wave of adrenaline trying to rise in her and forced herself to think. She couldn’t take on the entire crew in a fight, and taking a hostage was tricky when she didn’t know the ship, but maybe if she could force him out of the hold she could lock herself in, or find somewhere else to hide. The ship had to land eventually, and once it did… well. She had a lifetime’s worth of practice when it came from escaping tricky situations.
“Look,” the not-quite-as-nice-anymore voice said, “I can smell you. Hiding isn’t going to work, especially on this ship.”
Zosha stayed frozen, unsure of what to do next and praying that he’d just turn around and leave. Instead, he sighed and walked up to the pile of boxes she was hiding behind. Undoing the restraints on the stack, he removed the top box so he could lean over far enough to see Zosha, staring up at him wide-eyed with a straw in her mouth.
Distantly, Zosha realized the man was actually very handsome. He had messy chestnut hair and striking gold eyes. He smiled down at her, full lips pulling back to reveal straight, white teeth. If she hadn’t been absolutely terrified he was about to release her into the cruel vacuum of space sans breathing apparatus, she’d have been offering to buy him a drink.
His face scrunched up when he saw the nutri-pack in her hand. “Ugh, waste-paste. Seriously, most of our food was dehydrated at some point but at least it isn’t that shit.” He smoothed his features back into that charming smile. “I meant it when I said you might as well join us, by the way.” He reached his hand down towards her, clearly meaning for her to grab it so he could pull it up.
Zosha was frozen by indecision. He seemed sincere in his offer and his smile looked genuine, but one lesson everyone who grew up on Lytos learned fast and early was that the smiling ones were the ones you really had to watch out for. After a pause, she decided that her best bet was to do what he wanted for now. She was in his territory; if he decided she wasn’t worth the effort of playing nice she was fucked.
Grabbing her bag, she reached up slowly and grabbed his hand, letting him pull her up on top of the boxes and lift her off. He was stronger than she had expected, even after she took in his solid physique. The gold-eyed man gently herded her towards the doors.
After a few steps, Zosha realized the faint whirring sound she had written off as another one of the ship’s noises was actually coming from the man. Specifically, from his pants. She squinted down at them, trying to figure out what it was. Her best guess was prosthetics, but some kinds of braces and under armor made the same kind of sound if you didn’t take care of them enough. The man turned, mouth open to tell her something, just in time to catch her glaring at his crotch. He shut his mouth and raised an eyebrow. Zosha scowled and ripped her eyes off him, focusing on the tunnel he was leading her down instead.
“I’m Richard Chapel, by the way,” he said, sounding amused. “But everyone calls me Rick. And you?”
Zosha remained silent for a moment, deciding what to do. She didn’t want to tell him her name, but her survival could very well hinge on his goodwill. Of course, she could always lie, but he said he found her because he could smell her. Who was to say he couldn’t smell lies as well?
“Zoshanna,” she said quietly. “I go by Zosha.”
“Zoshanna,” Rick repeated, rolling the syllables of her name around his mouth. Zosha tamped down on the warmth in her belly that flared to life at the sound of her name in his low, rough voice. “Pretty name. Now, nobody’s going to hurt you, unless you mean us harm, in which case I recommend going the efficient route and eating a blaster now. Otherwise, as long as you do what the captain says, you’ll likely get off this ship in one piece. Understand?”
Zosha nodded, feeling lighter than usual as her body prepared to flee despite her knowing damn well there was nowhere to flee to.
Eventually, they wound up in what appeared to be a kitchen area. There were several cabinets along the walls and in the middle was a table with various bowls and packets strewn across it. What held Zosha’s terrified attention was the people around the table.
There were three men and one woman. All the men were stocky, which wasn’t unusual for smugglers, but they had golden eyes, which was. Related, maybe, or perhaps they’d had them cosmetically altered as a show of camaraderie. Whatever the cause, Zosha decided, it wasn’t important. The only woman in the group was seated in the lap of possibly the hairiest man Zosha had ever seen. She was slender and beautiful, but her eyes were steely. Zosha assumed this was the infamous Annie.
Rick walked up behind her and clapped a hand on Zosha’s shoulder. He either didn’t notice or ignored her flinch at the contact and addressed the others. “Alright, guys, this is Zosha. I have no idea where she’s from or who she’s working for, but she hasn’t tried to kill any of us yet, which isn’t something I can say for most of the people we meet.”
“So, what,” a man with an electric blue eyepatch said in a bored voice, “we just overlook the fact that she’s a stowaway because she slightly less homicidal than expected?”
“All I’m saying is, I think we should give her a chance to explain herself before we space her,” Rick said, voice casual and smile bright like he had conversations about killing people all the time. Zosha forced herself not to shiver. Always look out for the smiling ones.
“Alright,” the hairy man said. “She’s got five minutes. After that, if I don’t like her reasons, she gets personally acquainted with my blaster.”
Rick nodded and pulled out a chair, motioning for Zosha to sit. She did so gingerly and looked up at him, at a loss for where to begin.
“Alright,” he said, putting his hand back on her shoulder, “the one there with the stick up his ass and an eyepatch is Hyde. The shortie next to him is Dominic. And that’s Captain Ingram accompanied by the lovely Annie. Now, why don’t you tell us how you wound up on the Breakwater.” His voice was as pleasant as ever, but Zosha wasn’t stupid enough to think the last bit was anything but an order.
Zosha took a shaky breath, trying to decide where to begin. “So… Captain Strathmore,” she said finally.
Rick’s hand tightened on her shoulder and Hyde choked. Annie’s spine stiffened.
“Go on,” the captain said, furrowing his brow and rolling his shoulders back.
“As I’m sure you’re all aware, he was a megalomaniac with delusions of godhood, a hard on for the Civil War, and a warship that could make a Taldori cruiser look like an escape pod. And then he died, which was both really great and really terrible because…” she trailed off and gestured incomprehensibly, trying to get her thoughts in order. “…okay, so, I’m from Lytos, right? And we don’t have what you’d call a comprehensive police force at the best of times. But when Strathmore kicked it, a lot of people who didn’t have the balls or blasters to stand up to him suddenly didn’t have anything stopping them from taking a piece of his empire for themselves except each other. And just like that, you’ve got rival factions going at it like pit dogs in every corner of the damn galaxy. For Lytos, it was the Rahm brothers against the pocket of the Bleeding Coffins that was holed up there, but the main body of the Coffins is on Delta so they backed off pretty quick. That was almost the end of that, but then the younger Rahm decides that this is as good a chance as any to launch a hostile takeover, and all of a sudden, everyone who declared loyalty to the brothers—which was every mother’s son on the damn asteroid that knew what was good for him—was scrambling to choose a side and fight or get the hell out of the way. Follow?”
Everyone at the table nodded.
“Alright. So. Everyone’s got to eat somehow, right? And while I’ve got nothing but respect for the girls working in the red light district, I know I don’t have the right disposition to be one of them, and no one respectable wants to hire a street rat, and I’ve got no love for the gangs. So,” Zosha shrugged, “I got good at stealing things. A friend of mine’s an information broker and every so often he’d set me up with a job, but for the most part it was just pickpocketing to make sure I had a roof over my head and food on the table. It was all working out about as well as you could expect from Lytos, but then I fucked up. See, there’s this man named Lan Doro. Greasy, but ambitious. When Rahm the Younger decided to try and take over, he jumped on board and after a little hard work and a lot of backstabbing he made it into the inner circle. Then he gets put in charge of the U4 shipments—you know, Euphoria? Gold powder? Makes you think you’re flying?-- and that’s where things start going downhill for me. You have to understand, I’d heard of Lan Doro but I’d never seen him before. All I knew was he looked like he had something valuable on him, which I guess he did. Not the good kind of valuable, though.”
Zosha paused to wet her lips.
“What did you take?” the captain asked.
“I’m not sure, entirely, but there’s a lot of numbers and a lot of names,” Zosha said. “It’s the kind of thing that could get someone in trouble with the law, even on Lytos, but the real threat to Lan Doro is that I could give it to the older Rahm. It would help him reduce his brother’s influence, but not enough to unseat him entirely, which means that little brother would still be more than capable of making the rest of Lan Doro’s life a living hell. I’ve got no interest in giving the information to anyone, but as long as I have it I could ruin him and he knows it. So my information broker friend helped me hop from Lytos, to Trios, to Dalos XI. From there, obviously, I broke onto your ship and now we’re here.”
“You have an information broker friend capable of getting you through Dalos XI’s security?” Hyde asked, eyebrow raised.
“Kind of. He paid off one of the guards to not red flag my ID,” Zosha lied. One of the many caveats of being friends with Spinner was never admitting to knowing him. Best case scenario, someone would try to get her to contact him for information. Worst case scenario, someone would hurt her to try and hurt him by proxy.
“I wasn’t aware Sixers could be paid off,” Dominic said.
“There’s always at least one in every bunch,” Zosha said nonchalantly. In her experience, it was true.
“So why not just give the information to one of the Rahm brothers?” Annie asked. “Surely, that would get you some degree of protection?”
“Two problems there,” Zosha replied. “The first is getting past Lan Doro. Running from him and his was difficult enough, and that was away from Lytos. On Lytos, he’s got eyes everywhere, or a friend who does. I’d have been dead in the water if I stayed. The second is that it could come back to bite me later. Let’s say I get information to one of the brothers, yeah? Well, if I get the information back to the younger one and the older one wins this little spat, then I’m one of his enemy’s people and I need to be eliminated. Same thing if I give the information to the older one. And either way, I’d be declaring a side, which I wouldn’t want anyways and which would put a target on my back. Running was easier and safer.”
“Huh,” the captain grunted. “Well, you’ve got about a minute left. Anything else you want to add?”
“I, ah…” Zosha searched for the right words that would convince the crew not to kill her immediately. “I’m good a cracking encryptions? And getting through security systems? And, well. I obviously have light fingers. I’d owe you a favor, and I promise I never meant to hurt any of you, I just needed to get out of Dalos XI.” She stopped herself from adding please don’t kill me to the end of that. Negotiating for your life was one of those weird things Zosha had found that it wasn’t good to look to desperate during. There was no way to tell when the person you were telling all about your five sick children would get bored and just shoot you in the head.
The captain scratched his chin and stared at her. “I think this is one of those things people are always telling me to think through.”
Dominic guffawed. “Sorry, lady, it looks like Leo blindly trusting a pretty woman that comes out of nowhere and demands a ride is something that only happens one time.”
Annie smirked and kissed the captain on the cheek. “I say we watch her while she’s onboard and then drop her when we stop to refuel. That way we get rid of her without having to kill her or delivering her into this Lan Doro’s hands.”
“Sounds good,” Captain Ingram said. “Anyone else?”
“I say we space her now,” Hyde said. “That way we don’t have to worry about watching her.” Zosha stiffened.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Rick said. “I can watch her until we get to a depot.”
“Look, Rick, I’m all for you getting your dick wet, but time and place, yeah? I will personally buy you an hour with a nice girl on Gamma, but she,” he said, nodding at Zosha, “is getting of this ship now.”
Rick walked slowly around the table to stand next to Hyde. “I don’t think I like what you’re implying.”
“I’m not implying anything,” Hyde responded, shifting in his seat so he was facing Rick instead of the table and crossing his arms. “I’m saying that not all of us are willing to risk our lives for a nice set of tits. It was stupid when the captain did it—no offense, Annie—and it’s stupid now.”
“Hyde—” Rick began.
“I agree,” Dominic said quietly. “We’re smugglers, not a ferry for girls with notorious criminals chasing them across the galaxy. Besides, we need to lay low after the Edge disaster. You heard her, what happened with Strathmore turned the collective criminal underworld of the galaxy upside down. We’ve been lucky to escape the blowback this far. Putting ourselves in the path of another murder-hungry whack-job, especially for some random dame, is the kind of shit that gets people killed.”
Rick glared ferociously at Hyde and Dominic. It was the kind of look that would have had the worst men in the worst parts of Lytos scrambling for cover. Hyde and Dominic just looked indifferent.
“Captain?” Rick asked, not looking away from the two men.
“I’m thinking,” the captain answered.
“Don’t you think we owe her safe passage, in a way?” Annie murmured to him.
“Two things on that,” Hyde drawled, still looking at Rick. “The first is that is some roundabout thinking that assumes we give two shits what we owe anyone. The second is that if you’re thinking we owe her because of the reason I’m thinking you mean, then I’d like to point out that the blame for that falls on your daddy, and, if we’re talking people in the immediate vicinity, you. We don’t owe her anything. You might owe her something, if you wanna let your guilt complex take charge, but by that logic you still owe us. I suggest you pay it back by getting her off this ship by way of the airlock.”
The captain curled a protective arm around Annie’s waist. “Watch yourself. Annie has more than proven her worth in this crew.”
Hyde snorted. “Hate to say it, Captain, but her doing time on her back for you doesn’t help the rest of us.”
A thunderous look spread across Captain Ingram’s face, and it looked like the only reason he wasn’t jumping across the table at Hyde was the fact that it would displace Annie. Rick looked, somehow, even angrier. Even Dominic’s brow furrowed slightly. Annie, for her part, only raised an eyebrow.
“Hyde, you thrice-damned son of a pox-ridden—”
“I’m ten minutes late to the family meeting,” a familiar voice said from right over Zosha’s left shoulder, “and you all are already trying to kill each other.”
If Zosha had been a little less involved in the conversation in front of her, maybe she would have hear him approach. But she was, and she didn’t. As it were, she found herself in a situation where there was, suddenly, a person who could potentially harm her close behind her in a situation where her nerves were already thrumming with fear and anxiety. She’d stopped getting into situations like this as often once she began to truly excel at thievery, but the scenario was a familiar one, and she reacted the way she usually did. With a startled yelp, she turned in her seat and drove her elbow directly into the mystery person’s groin.
The broad blond man behind her went down with a pained gasp. Zosha had leapt out of her seat and hopped back several feet before his knees hit the ground. The entire room was silent apart from Zosha’s breathing, heavy from shock, and the groans of the man on the ground.
Dominic and Hyde looked at each other for a moment, then turned to the captain.
“Alright,” Hyde said. “She can stay, but only until the depot. After that, if I ever see her again, I reserve the right to break her in half.”
“Fuck… you…” the man, who Zosha assumed was Custer, gasped out.
The captain relaxed. “Good to know you’ve seen the light. Annie, can you show her to Rick’s quarters? I need to talk a few things over with the rest of the crew.”
Annie nodded and slid off his lap. She walked to the door and Zosha followed, stepping carefully around Custer.
“I’d apologize for Hyde and Dom,” Annie said as they walked down a hallway, “but I can’t blame them for worrying about the repercussions of letting you live, so I’ll say instead that I hope you prove them wrong.”
“Thank you, I think,” Zosha said. “Although I’m a little surprised you’re sticking up for Hyde after what he said.”
Annie laughed. “What, the comment about my back and whose sheets it’s been on? I’m more than used to that. If there’s one thing I’ve found that holds true in every corner of the galaxy it’s that when a man gets riled up and there’s a woman involved, inevitably her sex life is going to be used against her. I’m important to this crew and Hyde knows it. God knows those boys have spirit and muscle by the score, but I’m the one that can plan out the best place to apply that. If I was really insulted, I’d make sure to get back at him, but once he cools down he’ll feel bad about it, in his own way.” She stopped in front of a door and started to punch in a code. “This is Rick’s. He and Leo fly this bird in shifts, so he’ll probably be down to get some rest as soon as their little meeting stops.”
The door whooshed open and Annie gestured for Zosha to walk inside.
The room was plain in a way that made Zosha tense. It was all shiny metal and bolted-down furniture. Logically, she knew that all space ships has rooms like this, but on Lytos rooms like this were for people who needed to be able to get a little rough and clean up quick. Apart from a shirt tossed over the back of the desk chair and papers strewn across various surfaces, it was tidier than Zosha had come to expect from a single man’s living quarters. She dropped her pack and kicked it into a corner, then hovered awkwardly, unsure of what to do next.
“So, ah…” she started, more than a little on edge. All the nerves and anxiety and fear had gone from a broad, frenzied tidal wave of emotion to something like a tightrope in a void; it was compact now, and focused, and despite it being smaller then before it was still the only thing she could focus on without losing balance. Less of a bruising pain and more of a precise cut. “What did you mean when you said you owed me? I don’t think I’ve ever met any of you before, and I don’t do much business with smugglers.”
Annie tilted her head one way and then the other, mulling it over. “You said you were caught in the crossfire of an internal conflict caused by the ripples that Strathmore’s death caused,” she said finally. “If that’s true, from a certain way of looking at it, we owe you because we’re the one that caused those ripples.”
It took Zosha a minute to realize what she was saying because of the sheer impossibility of it. “I think I’m interpreting that in a way you don’t mean,” she said faintly.
“If you’re interpreting it as me telling you that we’re the ones who killed Strathmore, then congratulations, you’re on the right path,” Annie said, calm as you please, like she hadn’t just told Zosha she was at least in part responsible for shaking bits of the galaxy apart at the seams.
“I… see,” Zosha said because the silence felt too heavy and she was short on words.
Annie sighed. “It’s like this. My daddy was a gambler. One day he made a very big mistake and lost to a very bad man, and the short version of what happened after that is that I ended up at the altar with Strathmore. I decided to take my chances making a break for it, and Leo and the others rescued me. Strathmore tried to get me back; they stopped him. Permanently.”
“How?” Zosha asked. “Not to cast aspersions on the fighting prowess of your crew, but Strathmore had an army on that ship.”
“And that, I imagine, is what the boys are deciding whether or not to tell you about,” Annie replied. “Now that that’s out of the way, can I get you anything? A change of clothes? Food? You didn’t get a chance to eat while you were at the table, but I’m sure there’s something left.”
“That’s okay,” Zosha said with the awareness that she had just learned something huge and was now having to ignore it thrumming in her mind. “I have nutria-packs.”
Annie scrunched up her face. “Ugh, those things should be a violation of at least twenty human rights laws. Suit yourself, though. I need to go back and make sure my idiots haven’t killed each other yet. Rick will be down soon. And,” she added, her face softening slightly, “don’t worry about him. He’s not about to let you hurt any of us, but he’s surprisingly decent for one of the Breakwater boys.”
Zosha nodded, refusing to let herself believe it. Annie walked back out into the hallway, the door closing behind her with a beep. Already suspecting what would happen, Zosha tried to open the door only to find that she was locked in. She weighed the knowledge that she could break out much more easily that she had snuck onboard against the knowledge that they would only catch her again.
She walked to the bed and sat on the edge, exhaustion crashing over her as the last of her adrenaline wore away. The panic and worry was all still there, but now instead of motivating her to move, to fight, to escape, it just wore her out. She let herself fall back onto the bed. Annie’s retreating footsteps had been audible even after the door closed, she reasoned, so she’d be able to hear anyone approaching. Comforted, she closed her eyes, just for a second.
She floated back to awareness when she felt something nudging her shin. She blinked, frowning, before the memories of where she was and why surfaced. A new wave of alarm swept over her, forcing her completely awake. She held herself perfectly still, eyes wide and locked onto Rick, who was standing by the bed where her legs still hung over the side.
“Hey there,” he said, voice soft like he thought she might run for it. She couldn’t fault him for it; if she thought it would work, she’d have tried it in a heartbeat.
“…hi,” she answered when enough time passed that it became clear he was waiting for some kind of response. He backed away and she sat up slowly.
“I’m sorry for waking you,” he said. “I just have a few things I need to go over with you. After that, you’re free to roam the ship. Although if I were you, I’d stay away from anywhere you think Custer might be.”
“He’s not, like, plotting his revenge, is he? Because I swear that was just a reflex.”
“Well, your reflex is the funniest damn thing I’ve seen in months. Watching Custer get what’s coming to him is always satisfying. I’ll say this, though: he’s got a history of going starry-eyed over girls who cause him significant amounts of pain as a first impression.”
Zosha added that to a mental character profile that was, in her opinion, not to attractive. “God, why?”
“Look, the man’s defining characteristic is ‘masturbates with his robot hand.’ I don’t know why Custer does shit and, frankly, I’m happier that way.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Zosha allowed. “Alright, what did you need to talk to me about.”
“Right. Ah,” he coughed. “You may want to be comfortable for this. Do you want to change out of that suit?”
Something went cold along Zosha’s spine and she stiffened. “Why, Mr. Chapel, that’s quite forward of you,” she said, voice sweet and artificial smile in place. “And here I thought you might be the gentlemanly type of smuggler.”
Rick raised both hands in a placating gesture. “Not like that. I like my women willing and enthusiastic. But this is going to be a weird conversation to kick off a long couple of days, so you might want to change into something less… that.”
Zosha cast a longing look at her bag. “Will you at least turn around?”
Rick made an assenting noise in the back of his throat and turned. Zosha practically ripped her suit open in her haste to get it off. It did its job adequately but not comfortably, and the sooner she was in something that didn’t feel like it was squeezing her to death quite so much the better.
“Alright, done,” she said once she had changed into her more casual clothes. Rick turned around, his eyes lingering on her newly revealed collarbone. She had opted to just zip a jacket up over her bra instead of putting on a shirt and she could practically see his eyes darken when he realized it. It was half a test to see if he was as good as his word and half a ploy. Men tending to be looser with both money and information when they thought they were about to get something they wanted in return, and all Zosha had to do was be the thing they wanted. There was a third reason floating around the back of her mind, but she was waiting until she felt she could trust Rick more before allowing it to influence her.
Rick cleared his throat and dragged his eyes up to hers. “Alright then,” he said, a bit huskier than before, “you may want to sit down for this.”
Zosha raised an eyebrow and sat on the edge of the bed. Rick tossed the shirt that was hanging off his chair into a corner by the closet and took a seat.
“So, I’m assuming you’ve heard of bear shifters,” he said.
Zosha nodded and tried not to speculate on where this was going. “Of course. I’ve never met one, though.”
“Funny story, that,” Rick said, scratching the back of his neck. “Actually, you’ve met five.”
Objectively, Zosha meeting people from a species she had been previously aware existed shouldn’t really compare with the shock of finding out she had accidentally stowed away on the ship of the ragtag crew that had killed the galaxy’s most feared dictator, and yet, somehow, it did. She sat for a minute, processing, until everything whited out into a haze of acceptance that the universe was a vast place with many, many things she could never hope to understand or control.
“That’s wonderful,” Zosha said in a voice that sounded generally like her trying to impersonate herself. “That’s just… wow.”
“Surprise,” Rick said, wiggling his fingers. “Are you okay?”
“I think I might be in shock,” Zosha said cheerfully. “It’s not a thing I go through a lot, but I’ve just received an awful lot of surprising information and it’s been a really stressful few weeks. I expect I’m going to have a truly spectacular meltdown when it wears off.”
“Let me know if there’s something I can get you,” Rick said. “Do you have any questions?”
“Not at the moment. Would it be okay if I just sat here for a moment? Quietly?” she asked.
“Of course. I’ll be doing some paperwork. Let me know if you need anything.”
Zosha took the opportunity to calmly assess the clusterfuck that was, currently, her life. If it had been inadvisable to let the crew of the Breakwater know that she was able to reliably contact Spinner before she had found out about their involvement with Strathmore’s death, now it was inexcusable. Spinner hated politics and never took sides. If he did anything that could be construed as helping her now, it could easily be interpreted as him aiding the others, which would automatically devastate the resources he pulled from Strathmore’s supporters. She was utterly, completely alone, apart from the six people who could kill her as easy as breathing and probably would if they thought it was convenient. In addition to that, she was trapped in a metal can with five men who could track her if she tried to run or hide and who seemed more forthcoming with their information than people who were planning to let the other party live generally were. She tried to organize her thoughts the way Spinner had taught her: what do I need? What do I want? What do I have?
The answers were simply bleak. She needed, as she always had, to get away from Lan Doro. She had nothing that she would be able to use successfully against the smugglers she had inadvertently thrown her lot in with should they choose to attack her. She wanted to be at home, safe, and not worrying about anything other than paying rent. She wanted Lan Doro to die. She wanted to have met this strange, kind man in another place and another time. She wanted an awful lot and felt a dawning fear that she might not get any of it began to trickle through her.
The last time Zosha had thought about something not being fair was the last time she had seen her mother, her back disappearing into the midday crowd. After that, she had walked through life with the knowledge that nothing was fair and that nothing would ever be fair. People lived their lives at different levels and on different scales, with self-preservation as the only common thread linking the whole of the species. It did no one any good to sit around thinking this isn’t fair.
Zosha thought it then. She felt the odd desire to be five years old again and throw herself on the ground, screaming and crying and kicking. She wanted to wail that none of this, not grabbing the notebook, or Lan Doro seeing her rounding a corner, or getting on this ship, was fair, because it wasn’t. Justifications were easy in lives like Zosha’s. She was in this mess because she was on the run, which was because she stole a notebook, which was because she thought she could sell it, which was because she was hungry, which was because that was how her life worked. It wasn’t her fault; she hadn’t asked to be born on that God forsaken asteroid, or to be a street rat. She realized her eyes were beginning to sting.
“Excuse me,” she said in a detached voice. “I think I’m going to have that meltdown now. May I use your bathroom?”
“Of course,” Rick said, frowning in concern. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No thank you,” she said, rising and walking towards the small bathroom. Once inside she locked the door, knelt by the toilet, and waited.
Soon enough, she felt the familiar tugging sensation in her stomach. She bent over the bowl just before the retching started. The one good thing that could be said about nutri-paste was that it came back up easily.
She felt the swirl of caustic, jagged emotions swirl through her veins and rested her head against her hands. She was so tired of all of the running and she would give anything to just stop feeling for five minutes. She had been on high alert constantly since she grabbed the damn book and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take before she went insane. It seemed like every time she turned around there was a new source of anxiety or fear waiting for her.
Her mind started to go fuzzy, like static, and she could feel herself shaking as her breath rattled in and out of her. She curled in on herself more.
“Europa, Ganymede,” she mumbled to herself, listing off the moons of Jupiter. As a child she’d been fascinated ever since she’d stumbled across a book about them. She still had all sixty-three memorized, and reciting them helped her calm down. “Io, Callisto, Amalthea, Ananke…”
Eventually, her breathing evened back out and she felt a little less like making all Hyde’s dreams come true and taking a swan dive out the airlock. She stood on legs that, thankfully, only trembled slightly, and walked to the mirror to check her reflection. She was, as feared, even paler than usual, except for the red, splotchy skin around her eyes. Deciding that it was as good as it was likely to get for a while, she walked back out into the main room.
Rick looked up cautiously as she emerged.
“I’ve got a weird question for you,” Zosha said, looking at a point somewhere over his left shoulder. “How good is your hearing?”
Rick opened his mouth, then closed it again. A hollow formed in his cheek from where he was biting the inside of it. “No one could judge you for…being upset right now,” he said carefully, mouth forming the words like they were glass. “You’ve been through a lot.”
Well, that certainly hadn’t been the answer Zosha had wanted to hear.
“Alright, well, I’ve been dealing with about all the emotions I can handle for the time being, so how do you feel about ignoring that little outburst and pretending everything is fine? Because that’s my plan.”
“That doesn’t sound very healthy,” Rick replied, although he sounded more amused than worried.
“Yeah, well, I’m a prisoner on a smuggler ship full of bear shifters because I’m running from a homicidal psychopath. Why break the streak now?”
“Fair enough,” Rick said, the last bits of concern fading from his handsome face.
“Repression, repression, repression, that’s my motto,” Zosha said with considerably more cheer than she actually felt. “So, what do you do for fun on this thing?”
From the look in Rick’s eyes, he had caught onto the underlying message of what is there I can use to distract myself, but he didn’t call her out on it.
“Watch vids, read, try to lock each other in storage spaces, the usual,” Rick shrugged. “You got a preference?”
“Which one of those will distract you from work the least?”
Rick laughed, warm and low. “Sweetheart, this is all the shit Leo makes me do so he doesn’t have to do it himself. I would love a distraction.”
“In that case, tell me a story,” Zosha said. “You’re bear shifter smugglers, cavorting across the galaxy in search of the next haul. Surely you’ve got a few interesting tales to tell.”
“Hmm… I can think of a few. So, do you know why our girl is called the Breakwater? No? It’s because she can go underwater. Not terribly useful in space, of course, but invaluable if we need to shake someone or hide the ship while picking up a haul on any planet with a large enough body of water. Of course, this is all dependent on everything being sealed up proper. So anyways, there we were on Kitar II, picking up a shipment of what was supposed to be this super rare quail offshoot that rich folks in that system love because it’s the equivalent of just eating a brick of platinum but better tasting, right? But then…” He then proceeded to spend the next fifteen minutes telling her a story of proportions that, even in light of recent revelations, she was disinclined to believe. It involved pirates, an incredibly angry prostitute, and what were, as far as anyone could guess, flying crocodiles that spat poison.
After he finished, she asked for another one. He told her about how he got a scar on his arm, and she responded by telling him about the time she’d broken her leg in two places sneaking out of a house she’d just robbed and ridden home on a street cleaner. They went back and forth and before either of them realized it, they’d spent the better part of four hours talking.
“…and that’s why I’m banned from the lower levels of Catastrophe,” Zosha finished. Rick, finally recovering from laughing so hard that she’d thought he might be suffocating, opened his mouth to say something in response when a crackling noise filled the room.
“Big Bear to Eagle Two, everything alright down there? Over,” a voice that Zosha recognized as the captain’s said from a metallic box on the wall by the bed’s headrest. Zosha, who had sprawled across the mattress about forty minutes in, jerked upright. Rick sighed and walked over to it.
“Captain, the day I call you Big Bear is the day Custer finally rips away my last tenuous hold on sanity, and it will be all the warning you get before I go on a killing spree,” Rick said with the voice of someone who had made that threat before. “What do you need?”
“Aww, Annie doesn’t mind calling me that,” the captain’s static-filled voice responded. Zosha choked and Rick rested his forehead on the wall, sighing explosively. “And I’m just checking to make sure you know you need to be up here in five.”
From Rick’s hushed cursing, he hadn’t. “Be right up, Captain.” He took his finger off the intercom button and turned to Zosha. “Alright, that’s my cue to haul ass up to the cockpit. You need anything else before I go?”
“I’ll admit, I was hoping for another story,” Zosha said, smiling.
Rick shook his head smiling. “What are you, five?”
Zosha tilted her head, then grinned at him. Over the past few hours, she had come to two conclusions. The first was that this strange, tall man with his mechanical legs and golden eyes, would not harm her. The second was that she liked him quite a bit more than she had expected to, given both her situation and the short time she’d known him. Trying for anything with him would be, at best, dangerous. She could practically hear Spinner’s voice in her head, telling her that she was only going to get herself hurt.
Zosha had an absolutely abysmal track record at doing what was good for her.
She leaned back on one arm and tugged down on her jacket’s zipper with the other hand. She stopped about halfway to her bellybutton and rolled her shoulders back to widen the gape in the material a bit.
“I don’t know,” she drawled, running her fingers lightly from her collarbone to the top of her cleavage and back. “Do I look like I’m five?”
Rick swallowed audibly and turned back to the intercom. “Right. So. The button with the red sticker connects you to the whole ship. Green sticker is the cockpit. If you need Annie, yellow’s your best bet, that’s the captain’s room.”
“Red for everyone, green for you, yellow for Annie,” Zosha said. “Got it. Anything else?”
“One thing: if you want to leave the room, the code to get back inside is 2422. Me, the captain, and Annie are the only ones with the code, so you don’t have to worry about the others barging in here. Alright then, I’d better head up,” Rick nodded at her, resolutely keeping his eyes on her face.
“You sure? You look a little tense there,” Zosha teased.
“I have about fifteen seconds to get myself under control before I head up to meet my captain and any of my other crew mates who care to check in. So yes, I’m a bit tense.” Rick said in a measured tone. “I don’t suppose you’re feeling particularly remorseful about that.”
“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Zosha said in the silky voice designed to get past night guards. She lay back down, dark hair spilling over Rick’s pillow, and blinked innocently up at him. “Now, don’t you have a ship to fly?”
“You know, I was expecting a personality change when the shock wore off,” Rick said in a voice that was probably fonder than he wanted it to be, “but I wasn’t expecting you to turn out to be evil incarnate.”
Zosha scoffed. “Please. I am, at best, severely vexing incarnate. Although that does give me something to aspire to, so thank you. Now,” she continued with a stretch before closing her eyes and waving a hand at Rick lazily, “leave me. I must rest.”
“You do remember the part where I told you I can turn into a bear, right?” Rick asked, heading for the door. “Because that’s still a thing I can do.”
“Can’t hear you, sleeping,” Zosha called after him, smile widening as she heard him laugh before the doors closed behind him. She let herself relax completely and waited until sleep claimed her.
And waited. And waited. And waited some more.
After approximately ten minutes of trying and failing, despite her exhaustion, to fall asleep, Zosha gave in and sat up, irritated. Even with the trances, sleep was important. There was only so long she could substitute meditation for the real thing before she started to wear down, and she knew from experience that she was at that point. Every part of her body wanted her to just turn off for a few hours and let herself recuperate from weeks on running, but her brain refused to quiet down. She ambled over the desk, looking for a book or vid collection to distract her until she fell asleep. She found both and, remembering Rick was a single man who often spent long periods alone in this room, opted to go with the books.
She was surprised to see he had actual paper books. While they were common enough ground side, as far as Zosha knew people tended to use digital libraries during long periods of space travel to save room. She picked up a few and flipped through them. They were all action-packed tales of heists and dramatic rescues, which Zosha normally loved; however, it seemed that her mind was too wired to sleep but too unfocused to let her read. She looked over at the intercom and considered seeing if Rick or Annie could get her a sleep aid, then decided they had probably given her enough already. Thirty minutes into her failed attempts to sleep, Zosha gave up. She sighed, then did the only thing she could think of that she actually wanted to do.
Making sure she was zipped up in all the right places, she stepped out into the hallway. Apart from the hum of the ship, it was quiet. She began to make her way to what she assumed was the front of the ship. Luckily, the Breakwater was a small enough vessel that the trip was both fast and easy and she made it without running into anyone.
Rick didn’t notice her at first when she entered the cockpit. Moving quietly was second nature to Zosha, even when she didn’t necessarily mean to do it. She considered alerting him to her presence but decided instead to just look at the man for a moment. His skin was tinted in greens and blues from the lights on the control board as he stared intently at the stars rushing by on the view screen. Neither of them moved and Zosha, for the first time in what felt like years, let herself remain motionless, a moment of perfect stillness in a ship going warp 7. Then she moved forward, intentionally stepping down more heavily than normal to let him know she was there. He startled, then swung around to face her.
“Everything okay?” Rick asked. “The intercom not working?”
Suddenly, Zosha felt embarrassed. Why had she thought trailing after him like a puppy was a good idea? She straightened her shoulders. The time honored strategy of “fake it ’til you make it” had worked so far, might as well keep going.
“Couldn’t sleep after all,” she said breezily. “Figured I’d come up and see what an actual cockpit looks like.”
“Actual cockpit?” Rick asked, smirking. Zosha relaxed fractionally. “As opposed to what, exactly?”
“Fancy club for people who want to rent a boy for a few hours,” Zosha answered. “Never went myself, but I’ve heard some interesting stories.”
“I see,” Rick said. “So, you don’t usually wander around the ships you sneak onto?”
“I’ve never been on a ship long enough to,” she answered, sitting beside the pilot’s seat and looking up at the view screen.
“You’ve never… Zosha, is this your first time flying?” Rick asked, incredulous.
“I know, I just seem so worldly,” Zosha said. The streams of light on the screen were having an almost hypnotic effect on her. “It’s just, my entire life I’ve always depended on being able to get out fast and, as I’m sure you know, that doesn’t work as well on a ship. I was always afraid I would end up trapped. And then everything that happened… happened, and it didn’t really matter anymore.” She laughed at Rick’s sideways glance. “I know, I know. The irony is that it trapped me on Lytos. But hey. I’ll take being trapped on an asteroid over a ship any day. At least there’d be decent food.”
She leaned over, resting her side against Rick’s chair, her head on his armrest. He stiffened for a moment, then placed his hand about two inches away. She closed her eyes. It hadn’t been a fluke, or the emotional runoff of their mutual storytelling. Something about Rick just made her feel… safe.
“What about you?” she asked, feeling herself relax completely. “How long have you been flying?”
“As a passenger? My whole life, it feels like. I’m a legacy smuggler, I guess. As a pilot, six years.” He looked down at Zosha. “You with me?”
“Mmm, yup,” she said, words sleep-slurred. “Tell me about growing up with smugglers.”
“Wow, you really like getting told stories,” he laughed.
“Or maybe I just like your voice and this is my clever ploy to keep you talking to me,” she said, then yawned.
“I think I could live with that,” Rick said softly. “Alright, so, the Backbreaker was about twice as big as the Breakwater and dealt almost exclusively in the Outer Rim. I don’t think I saw a core planet until I was ten, and my mom ended up accidentally kidnapping a shop girl. See, she’d gone in to look for spare parts…”
The combination of the stars rushing past them and Rick’s voice did what reading and breathing exercises hadn’t managed, and Zosha felt herself drifting off. At some point and indeterminable amount of time later, she felt a soft, warm pressure on the top of her head. When she didn’t move away, the pressure began to move down the length of her hair, lightly at first and then with more confidence. Zosha sighed happily and let the feeling of Rick running his fingers through her hair push her that final step into sleep.
She was, distantly, aware of fading in and out of consciousness, bursts of awareness of the glow of the screen and the sounds of the ship and, always, of the feeling of Rick’s hand in her hair.
“You’re gonna wind up outside my door begging to keep her, aren’t you?” she thought she heard someone say at one point.
“She’s not a dog, Leo,” Rick answered.
“Says the one petting her,” the captain snorted. “Anyways, you’re in luck. Annie likes her and, more importantly, Annie thinks she might be useful.”
“Useful how?” Rick asked, his voice suddenly something hard and sharp.
“Ease up. It doesn’t involve giving her to Lan Doro. Annie’s working on convincing the others to see it her way. If she’s successful, which looking back on her track record I’m inclined to think she will be, there’ll be another meeting. Consider this a heads up.”
“And whatever Annie’s thinking won’t put her in danger?”
“No more than she already is. Actually, Annie’s hoping we can solve one of our problems by solving hers. Why, were you planning on finally going on that killing spree if I said yes? Because as someone who’s been your friend for five years and your captain for six, I’m going to feel pretty offended if you throw me over for someone you’ve known for a handful of hours.”
“Don’t be stupid, of course not. But I do think she’s worth protecting.”
“I know the feeling. I’ll call you when Annie manages to glare Hyde and Dominic into submission.”
“She’s not worried about Custer?”
“Since when has anyone ever cared about Custer’s opinion on anything? Besides, he likes her.”
Rick sighed. “I was afraid that would happen.”
The captain chuckled. “Don’t worry, he’s not edging in on your territory. Anyways, I need to go make sure Dom and Hyde haven’t gotten offensive enough that Annie’ll be forced to retaliate. Try not to crash.”
“Fuck off.”
Zosha was aware on some level that she had just heard something important, but she wasn’t aware enough to figure out why it was important or why she should care. Instead she slipped back under.
The next time she woke up it was because Rick was shaking her. She blinked up at him.
“Wusshappenin?” she asked.
“Congratulations, that was almost a real word. I need you to get up now. Annie has a plan.”
Zosha tried and failed to will her legs to work, then looked plaintively up at Rick. He sighed, a warm look in his eyes, and hauled her to her feet.
“How did you manage to escape from a villainous mastermind on your own, exactly?” He asked as she leaned into him, stretching out a few aches and adjusting to being on her feet.
“I wasn’t alone. And Lan Doro isn’t a mastermind. And I am stealthy and amazing,” she told him, forming her words precisely as the fog of sleep slowly cleared out of her mind.
“I mean I’d go with ‘you’re lucky that you’re pretty,’ but sure let’s go with that,” Rick answered. Zosha cycled through reactions to that, from offended to teasing to nonchalant, before focusing on the important bit.
“You think I’m pretty?” she asked with a sleep-drunk smile, batting her eyelashes at him.
“Haven’t kicked you out of bed yet, have I? Or the cockpit, for that matter.”
“’Cause you know I’d kick you in the cockpit if you tried.”
“Almost flawless comeback, that. Points off for there not actually being a pit near my cock.”
“There will be if you try anything, just ask Custer,” Zosha said.
Rick laughed and began pulling her towards the kitchen. “Alright, then, I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”
“Nope, too late, you already told me about the Great Brothel Escape,” she told him.
“And there goes the sterling reputation I’ve spent years polishing,” he said. Suddenly, his face fell. “Zosha, I just want you to know that everything is going to be okay.”
It seemed like a silly thing to say out of the blue, and Zosha was confused until the conversation she’d thought she dreamed came back in fragments. She was suddenly much more awake.
“Oh, God, they’ve decided what to do with me,” she said.
“Yes, they have,” Rick said soothingly. “And they’re going to help you. I need you to trust me. Can you do that, just for ten minutes?”
Looking in those warm, golden eyes, Zosha thought she could trust him for a lot longer than ten minutes. She nodded and followed him the rest of the way to the kitchen.
The others were already sitting around the table when Zosha and Rick arrived, a sense of déjà vu sweeping over her. There were two chairs open across from where the captain was sitting, Annie leaning on his back with her arms around his shoulders, and Rick sat down comfortably, Zosha following suit after a second of hesitation.
“Alright, so,” Captain Ingram began, “the brilliant love of my life has had an idea. I, personally, think it’s a damn good one, and these chucklefucks,” he gestured at Dominic, Hyde, and Custer, “apparently agree enough that they’re willing to consider it. If you think you can do your part.”
The captain looked up and locked eyes with Annie, who nodded. She straightened up, leaning an elbow on Ingram’s shoulder, and addressed the room.
“So, it seems to me what we have here is a thief with a ledger and an asteroid locked in a civil war,” she said. “And, of course, what we’ve always had: our job. It seems to me there’s a way to combine those.
“Stop me, Zosha, if I get any of this wrong. After Strathmore’s long overdue demise, the Rahm brothers split and began fighting each other for control of Lytos. You had the misfortune of pickpocketing the wrong man. Lan Doro, something of a supplier to the younger Rahm, had a notebook detailing the U4 trade he was running. This notebook is now in your possession. Yes? Good. Now, I know all of you know what U4 is and exactly how much you can make smuggling it because we’ve been on the lookout for an opportunity to get in on the game. And this,” Annie said, pointing at Zosha, “is that opportunity.”
“How so?” asked Hyde.
“We know what all three parties involved in this want. Zosha wants to get rid of the notebook and make it out of this safely. We want in on the U4 trade. And the older Rahm wants his brother out of the way.”
“Wait,” Zosha interrupted. “When did Sylas Rahm get involved?”
“We’re involving him,” Annie said, the steel back in her eyes, “because it’s the best way to tie up several loose ends. If we destroy or otherwise wash our hands of the notebook, Lan Doro still wants Zosha dead because he can’t let her live after reading it or give her the chance to tell his boss that he let it be stolen. If we take it to the younger Rahm brother, then we have to go into Lan Doro’s territory and we run the risk of him getting to Zosha before we reach our goal. And little brother already has a supplier.
“But if we take it to the older brother—Sylas, right? I was beginning to wonder if they had first names—then three things happen. The first is that Zosha gets rid of the notebook, but in a way that earns her the protection of someone powerful. I’m sorry, I know you didn’t want to choose sides, but that’s life. The second is that Sylas unbalances his brother’s empire, probably enough to guarantee him victory. As a result of that, I’d wager that either the little brother kills Lan Doro in revenge or Sylas kills him for being one of his brother’s men, which takes care of that. And last, Sylas Rahm, soon to be in charge of one of the most infamous asteroids of iniquity, finds himself without a U4 supplier, but with a crew of smugglers who have already proven their loyalty to him, aided by one of Lytos’ most talented thieves.”
“So what you’re saying is, essentially, you want to use Zosha as a battering ram to get into the U4 trade?” Dominic asked.
“Pretty much. Although I would like to remind you that, hopefully, we take care of her problems as well,” Annie replied. “So, you in?”
“I have a choice?” Zosha asked, because she was still processing the fact that this could work, that she could be free. Under the table, Rick grabbed her hand and squeezed.
“It’s more that we don’t have a choice in letting you have a choice,” Annie said. “You’re the one with the notebook, and this would work best if you were the one presenting this all to Sylas. This doesn’t exactly hinge on you being on board, but it would help a hell of a lot if you were.”
Zosha considered that for a moment, then stood slowly. “I think I need a moment. I’ll be right back.”
She walked out of the kitchen, her feet carrying her back to the cockpit. She sat in Rick’s chair, pulling her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around herself. Breathe in, breathe out.
“Europa, Ganymede, Io, Callisto, Amalthea, Ananke,” she muttered. “Pasiphae, Carme, Thebe, Metis, Adrastea…”
She’d gotten to Hegemone before Rick walked in.
“I’ll be honest, I thought you’d be a little happier about this,” he said.
“I can’t let myself be,” she said without looking at him. “I can’t do this.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “You’ve already come so far on your own.”
“I already told you, I wasn’t alone,” she told him, refusing to let her voice break. “And you mean I’ve already run so far. That’s all I’m good for, you know. Grabbing something I think I can get a decent price for later and then hightailing. And it works, because I’ve always been faster than whoever’s chasing me. But making a stand? I can’t do that. I mean, look at me. I’m all bluster and bluff to cover up the fact that I’m a wreck who can’t even control her own life.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “You should have just let Hyde airlock me.”
“Hey, look at me,” Rick said, kneeling down next to her. After a moment, she complied. “You can do this, and you won’t be alone. You’ll have five bear shifters backing you up. I mean, we took out Strathmore. This is going to be easy.”
Zosha nodded, trying to let herself be reassured. There was still one stubborn little worry that refused to dissipate.
“And then what?” she asked. “I already told you, I don’t want to take sides. I can’t live like that, knowing there might be a target on my back because of who I work for. I’d go insane. The only thing I can think of is to leave Lytos for good, but where would I go?”
Even on the run, she’d always imagined that one day, the dust would settle and she would be able to return to her asteroid. She hated living there, with the stink and the violence and the feeling that she’d never be anything more than she was, but the thought of never getting to live there again was surprisingly painful.
“You’d go anywhere you wanted,” Rick answered. “I mean, you lived your whole life on that hellhole. If you can survive Lytos, you can survive anywhere.”
This was a lie; being able to survive on Lytos meant that Zosha could survive on Lytos, or places like it. It meant she could sleep with one eye open, always on guard. It meant her fight-or-flight response, firmly weighted on the side of flight, had a hair trigger that had saved her life more than once but would never let her feel at home anywhere properly civilized. Rick knew it as well as Zosha did, but it was better than no reassurance at all and she allowed him to lead her back to the kitchen.
Hyde and Dominic looked unimpressed by her reentrance, but she ignored both them and Custer’s smirk in favor of addressing the captain and Annie.
“I’m in,” she told them. “I think you’re crazy for wanting to do this, but I’m in.”
Annie smiled. “Glad to have you on board.”
The next hour passed in a frenzy of planning that consisted mostly of Annie convincing the others they could just shift from the get-go and kill anyone who tried to get in their way and picking Zosha’s brain for information. Once she had drilled everyone’s script into their minds to her satisfaction, she declared the meeting disbanded and told the crew members to return to their duties and Zosha to rest up.
Zosha had the alarming thought that if Annie and Spinner ever met each other, they would either kill each other or take over the galaxy.
The captain and Rick shared a long look that ended in the captain walking to the cockpit and Rick walking Zosha back to his room.
“He’ll fly us in. At warp 8, it should take twelve hours,” Rick told her as he keyed in the passcode to his room.
“Three and a half weeks of switching ships and hopping city to city and asteroid to dwarf planet to space station to get away from Lytos,” she told him, “and twelve hours to get back. It doesn’t seem right.”
“That shouldn’t be new,” he responded. “Annie was right, though. You only got about an hour and a half of sleep in the cockpit, you really should lay back down.”
Zosha couldn’t think of anything else to do, so she fell back on the mattress.
“How are you feeling?” Rick asked her, shoving the papers on his desk into stacks.
“I think I’m actually so terrified I can’t even feel it anymore,” she answered. “You?”
“Eh. A little itchy from anticipation. Concerned about little Rahm’s defenses. Happy that your shit is getting figured out.”
“So is yours,” Zosha pointed out. Rick walked over and sat beside her, leaning back on the headrest.
“Happy about that too,” he said and put one hand gently on the crown of her head. She relaxed as he began running his fingers through her hair again. “Now, get some sleep.”
She closed her eyes, certain she wouldn’t be able to get a wink of sleep, and woke up eleven and a half hours later to Custer yelling over the intercom for Rick to get his ass in gear.
Rick moaned from where he’d passed out beside her and propped himself up on his elbows. They locked eyes and he gave her a crooked grin.
“Let’s go finish a war, shall we?” he said, and for the first time Zosha really, truly felt like this might just work out.
They gathered in the cargo bay. Dominic and Annie were staying behind. Rick and Zosha were splitting away from Captain Ingram, Hyde, and Custer to avoid drawing too much attention and then meeting back up at a rendezvous point after forty minutes. From there on, it was all a matter of getting into Sylas Rahm’s compound.
Rick and Zosha headed out first. She took him down to her favorite sweetbread vendor and they trailed around the marketplace, waiting for the appointed time.
Zosha remembered Spinner haggling with a tech vendor for the only decent monitor in the shop when they were barely in their twenties, his eyes narrow and lips thinned with impatience, and suddenly she missed him so much it hurt. She didn’t want to walk into what might be her death without saying goodbye to him.
She tugged on Rick’s sleeve and told him she’d be right back, then dashed into the nearest bathroom and pulled out her comm. She didn’t think she had time to call him, on the off chance he picked up, and she didn’t want to tell him face to face that, despite all his help, she could still very well be about to get herself killed. The habit to run away was, apparently, not something that could be kicked all at once.
She racked her mind for what to say, aware that Rick was waiting outside, and ended up sending a simple about to do something stupid with the Rahm brothers, watch out for the kickback, and thank you for everything. It didn’t scratch the surface of what she owed him or what she wanted to say to him, but it was better than letting her best, oldest, and only friend find out what she’d done through one of his contacts.
She walked back to Rick, and they killed fifteen minutes wandering before they changed course to meet the others.
Sylas Rahm’s base of operations was underground, which wasn’t unusual. Once the population had grown too much for the surface alone, mining shafts from before the asteroid had been converted for civilization were stabilized and turned into housing. Sylas’ compound was several of these tunnels connected and reinforced. They weren’t getting in without permission, regardless of what the shifter thought, so as soon as they reached the entrance she squared her shoulders and walked up to a guard.
“Hello. I need to talk to Sylas Rahm. Unfortunately, it’s important,” she said, trying not to feel like a child putting on an act.
The guard snorted. “I’m sure. Why don’t you come back later?”
“Look,” Zosha said, “can you at least tell me someone I can talk to that’ll pass on a message to him?”
“Can’t, actually,” the guard said. “Go waste someone else’s time.”
“Look,” Zosha said, patience running thin. “This is something that can help your boss and stop me from getting killed, so if you could please just tell me who I can talk to I’ll leave you alone. If not, you’re going to have to deal with me for a while.”
“Look, sweetheart,” the guard said, and shoved her backwards hard. Two things happened at once. The first was that Rick, snarling, stepped forward to catch her. The second was the almost as soon as Zosha stumbled back, a bullet hit the guard’s shoulder. The six of them stared dumbly at the blood splattering the ground for a second, then everything was screaming and motion. Rick spun to face the direction the bullet had come from, drawing his blaster and keeping Zosha behind him. Custer and Captain Ingram followed suit. Zosha squinted through the fleeing shoppers, trying to see the shooter. Behind her, she could hear the guard yelling into his comm.
Fear shot through her as she saw men in black full body armor pushing through the crowd. There weren’t as many as she’d feared, but more than enough to put a bullet in her head.
“I think they saw us,” Custer said, cackling.
“Not now,” the captain said, voice hard.
The black-suited mercenaries advanced steadily, and Zosha and the shifters dove for cover. Most of the stalls were wood or a plastic material, and a blaster bolt tore a hole straight through the side of one, narrowly missing Zosha’s head. She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Rick jerked her close, putting himself between her and the mercenaries.
“Shifting!” the captain shouted, then tossed his blaster to the side and stood in the middle of the hail of bullets.
It happened in less than five seconds. His skin rippled, then exploded outwards, fur covering the expanding form. A snapping sound and a slick, organic noise could be heard over the report of the blasters and in the time it took to blink a giant, dark-furred bear stood where the captain had been. Zosha stared.
The bear shook itself off, then lunged for the attackers, who, understandably disoriented, scattered.
“Hey!” a voice behind them yelled. Zosha turned to see two new guards hauling their bleeding comrade into the compound, about five others in identical uniforms streaming out from behind them, energy shields flickering to life around them. They began firing at the mercs, who were forced to scatter.
“Go,” Rick commanded.
“I don’t want to leave you,” Zosha protested.
“And I don’t want to see you get shot. We came here geared up to fight. You didn’t.”
“But…” Zosha started, then swallowed around the lump in her throat. She didn’t want to be responsible for his death. She didn’t think she could live with herself.
Rick hesitated, then leaned in and pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. It took her a second to realize what was happening, but once she did she grabbed his shoulder in an attempt to pull him closer. They broke apart breathing heavily.
“I will come back safe,” he promised her. “I want to see that through.”
Zosha tried to say something in return and found that she her throat had tightened and she couldn’t speak. Instead, she pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth and dashed towards the door.
As soon as she was inside, one of the new guards hit the button to close the door. She turned to see that Rick had stood up, skin rippling the way the captain’s had.
“Wait!” Zosha yelled. “The bears are on our side!”
The last thing she saw before the doors closed completely was Rick erupting into his bear form, back to her. She sent a silent prayer to whatever might be listening for him to come through this safely.
“That was the weirdest fucking thing I’ve seen since I started working here,” one of the new guards, a tall blond man, said.
“He’s new,” the other one told Zosha, hauling his injured friend up and looping an arm under his shoulder. “Alright, I’m going to get Davison to medical. Take her to the boss.”
“On it,” the blond said. He gripped Zosha’s arm lightly and began to walk deeper into the compound.
Zosha let herself be led away. Something in her heart wrenched painfully at leaving Rick behind and she told herself he’d be fine. He had to be.
The guard stopped in front of a door and knocked on it three times.
“Come in,” a voice said from inside.
They went in.
Sylas Rahm had grey streaking his temples and cold blue eyes. He sat back in a large padded chair behind his desk, calmer than Zosha thought anyone who had people trying to shoot up his compound had any right to be. The light from the holoscreen on his desk lit him up, making his angles more severe.
“Thank you,” he said, nodding at the guard, who nodded back and then walked out, closing the door.
“So,” Sylas said lazily. “Tell me what all this is about.”
“It started with me picking the wrong pocket,” Zosha started, steeling herself. She told him about Lan Doro’s first barely avoided attack and all the running that followed. She told about sneaking through Dalos XI and onto the Breakwater. About being found. She only left out knowing Spinner, out of habit, and the truth about the Breakwater crew’s genetics.
“…and there’s four of mine still outside,” she said, winding down. “And seeing as they can’t do much business for you if they’re dead, I think it would be best if you tried to keep them alive. Sir.”
Sylas contemplated her, eyes running over her as though she were a passably interesting problem to be solved. “You know, he said you could be a bit pushy. I see he wasn’t wrong.”
Before Zosha could ask who told him that, a very familiar voice sounded from the holoscreen.
“I am never wrong,” Spinner said, sounding as though he had a very large headache. “Hello, Zosha. Next time could you please try to give me more than fifteen minutes of a heads up before you get yourself shot at?”
“Did you pick a side?” Zosha demanded, ignoring his question. “You’ve never picked a side before.”
“You never got this close to being assassinated before,” Spinner responded. “Besides, do you have any idea how hard it’s been to get decent information from Lytos recently? It was time to put an end to this silly spat.”
Sylas raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“Also, I—oh. That’s interesting.”
“What is it?” Sylas asked.
“Well, good news, I think your friends survived,” Spinner said. “Of course, I can’t be completely sure that those are, in fact, your friends. Zosha, do you have something you’d like to tell us?”
“Ah, that,” Zosha said as the door behind her opened to reveal two of Sylas’ guards, one of the black-clad mercs looking somewhat traumatized and handcuffed, and four bears.
Zosha felt something warm rush through her veins as she saw them, looking roughed up but alive. She all but flung herself at Rick, wrapping her arms around his wide neck.
“I am so happy to see you,” she whispered into his fur. He made a deep noise in the back of his throat and pressed his nose against her neck, which she chose to interpret as reciprocation.
“Zoshanna,” Spinner voice filled the room, low and deadly. “I have been out of contact with you for less than two days. Please tell me you haven’t managed to not only find but fall in love with a bear shifter in that amount of time.”
“Well, I mean, it’s a little soon to say it’s love, I think,” she told him. “But he’s really pretty and I like his smile, so it’s probably getting there.”
Rick made what Zosha hoped was a pleased sounding noise.
“Fantastic,” Spinner said, voice practically oozing sarcasm. “Any other bombshells you want to drop on me?”
“Yes, but not right now,” Zosha said, already not looking forward to breaking the news to Spinner that he’d accidentally hidden her away on the ship of the people who took out Strathmore.
“Would you like a private room to, ah, change?” Sylas said with an impressive amount of composure for a man talking to a bear.
The bear Zosha assumed was the captain nodded.
“In that case, could one of you please escort these gentlemen to somewhere where they can shift without being disturbed? I imagine they’ll also need a change of clothes.”
One guard nodded and stepped back into the hallway. Zosha gave Rick one last squeeze before stepping away from him. He bumped his shoulder against her chest before turning and following the guard. Once they were gone, Sylas beckoned for the captured mercenary to be brought towards him. The remaining guard hauled him forward, then pushed him on the ground, one boot at the small of his back and a blaster pointed at his head.
“I am going to ask you a series of questions. You will answer these questions with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ no more and no less. Do you understand?” Sylas asked the merc.
“Yes,” the merc rasped out.
“Excellent. You work for my brother, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you were sent here to kill this girl.”
“Yes.”
“You were told to do this because she stole a notebook that contained information on my brother’s U4 trade.”
“Yes.”
“This information has the potential to end Jackson’s little coup.”
“Well, then. It looks like everything’s in order. Kill him, please.”
Zosha barely had time to look away before the blaster fired.
“Sorry about that. I don’t mean to doubt you, but in this business one should always double check,” Sylas said.
“I completely understand,” Spinner said. “Zosha, you good?”
“About as good as can be expected,” Zosha answered, trying not to breathe in with her nose. Blaster-cooked flesh was one of those scents she could live without.
“Glad to hear it. So. What’s he like in bed?”
“Spinner, oh my God,” Zosha choked out.
“What? I want to know what’s new in your life. You don’t talk to me these days. You just send me messages about your inevitable death that you’re lucky I saw before it was too late. Now, is he the gentle type or the hair-pulling type?”
“This isn’t a conversation I want to have next to a dead body!” Zosha said, trying to keep the hysteria out of her voice. “And I haven’t slept with him yet.”
“Pity. The changing room has cameras. You’re in for a treat.”
“Please stop looking at the naked bear shifters. Please.”
“Well, I can’t anymore. They’re heading back to you,” Spinner informed her primly. “Also, if you wanted to thank me for talking to the delightful Mr. Rahm here, you could ask your boy and the one with the hand where they got their prosthetics done. I’ve never seen any that can shift like that.”
“Will do,” Zosha replied, relieved at the subject change.
Captain Ingram, freshly clad in an extra guard uniform and looking much cleaner than expected, threw the door open and strode in. Zosha, who hadn’t seen him in his element like this yet, had to admit he was much more intimidating on the job.
“Mr. Rahm. Sorry about the mess,” he said, smiling wryly.
“Occupational hazard,” Sylas answered with a dismissive wave. “Your associate here has filled me in on your proposal. I’ll admit, I’m intrigued.”
“You should be,” the captain said as the other shifters filed into the room. Rick immediately crossed over to Zosha and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I’m not prone to false modesty, so I’ll tell you up front that I run one of the best smuggler ships in the galaxy. We’re head and shoulders over the half-rate idiots your brother uses, and I think we’ve already demonstrated our loyalty.”
“Are you okay?” Rick whispered to Zosha.
“I’m totally fine. You’re the one that was getting shot at. Are you hurt?” Zosha asked, smoothing a hand up his side.
Rick snorted. “Don’t worry, the mercs were so bad I almost felt bad for killing them. They were really into the ‘spray and pray’ school of shooting,” he reassured her, pressing a kiss to her hairline.
“Did you know that the standard decorum for most negotiations doesn’t involve feeling each other up in the corner like teenagers?” Spinner drawled.
“Shut up,” Zosha told him, stepping back from Rick fractionally. He dropped his arm from her shoulders, grabbing her hand and winding their fingers together instead.
Spinner sighed. “I break one of my oldest principles and plead your case to a criminal overlord, and this is the thanks I get. Such a thankless child.”
“You’re half a year older than me,” Zosha muttered as the captain arched an eyebrow.
“Well, thank you for your intervention, Mr...” the captain trailed off, carefully addressing the holoscreen.
“Spinner,” Spinner said. “And you’re Captain Ingram. You’re turning out to be much more interesting that I expected.”
The shifters stiffened and then, almost simultaneously, turned to look at Zosha. Rick’s grip tightened on her hand.
She grinned sheepishly. “So, ah, you remember that information broker friend I mentioned?”
“I do,” the captain told her in an even tone. “I do not, however, remember you telling us that it was one of the most feared people in the galaxy.”
“Stop it, I’m blushing,” Spinner said.
“How can we tell he’s the real deal?” Hyde asked, eyeing the holoscreen suspiciously.
“You can’t,” Spinner informed him. “Your talents are useful, but not enough to find anything useful about me and honestly, that’s not your main concern right now.”
“Right. My apologies, Mr. Rahm,” Captain Ingram said.
“Think nothing of it,” Sylas said with what would have been amusement if he were the type of man to have emotions. “Please, tell me a bit about your work.”
As the captain launched into a sales pitch, Zosha looked tentatively up at Rick. Instead of the anger she had been afraid of, all she could see was affection tinged with exasperation.
“Surprise?” she said guiltily.
“That’s definitely what you are, yes,” he said. “Why didn’t Spinner just take care of this earlier? He certainly has the influence.”
Zosha shook her head. “He can’t afford to take sides. It could affect the quality of information he receives. Me running was easier for both of us. I feel horrible about involving him in all of this. I’m just trouble for everyone who helps me, I guess.”
“Sounds about right,” Rick told her warmly. “You’re worth it, though.”
Hyde snorted but didn’t say anything.
“Glad to hear it,” Zosha murmured, clenching her hand tighter in Rick’s to stop it from shaking. Understanding filled his gaze and he turned to his captain.
“Leo, I think it might be best if I took Zosha back to the ship,” he said.
Captain Ingram glanced at Sylas, who nodded.
“Alright. Make sure you fill Annie and Dom in,” the captain told him.
“Yeah, be sure to let Annie know that she was wrong. Killing our way in totally worked,” Custer snickered. Everyone ignored him.
“Comm me when you’ve rested a bit, Zosha,” Spinner said. “I think you owe me an explanation.”
“Will do,” she said and let Rick pull her out of the room.
The guards they passed looked at them suspiciously but did nothing to hinder them, and soon they were back out in the open air.
Zosha looked around at the devastation in the market and felt the guilt twist in her stomach. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but several stalls were obliterated and bloodstains covered the ground. Zosha didn’t want to think about what had happened to the bodies.
Rick squeezed her hand. “If you want to blame someone for this, blame Lan Doro, or the Rahm brothers. You didn’t know what would happen.”
“That doesn’t make it not my fault,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Think about it like this: more people would have died if the conflict between the Rahm brothers had continued. You all but ending it here stopped that.”
“I know. It doesn’t feel like that, though,” she told him.
They walked in silence. Zosha kept her eyes on the ground and her hand in Rick’s. After a moment, he huffed out a laugh.
“Did I tell you about the time I had to hide in a tree for six hours because Custer pissed off a contact so bad he sent his personal army after us?” he asked.
Zosha felt something warm and fluttery worm its way into her stomach. “No, no you did not.”
By the time he finished the story, Zosha’s smile was small but genuine.
“So, what do you guys usually do after something like this?” she asked.
“Me personally? Get drunk as hell. Why, what did you have in mind?”
“Life-affirming sex,” she told him. “But getting drunk works too.”
Rick stared at her for a moment, then swept her up in a bridal carry. She shrieked with laughter, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“I like your idea better,” he said, walking purposefully towards the ship.
“Glad you see it my way,” Zosha said, giggling.
The door to the cargo hold lowered as they approached, Annie standing at the top of the ramp and waiting for them.
“I’m guessing things went well,” she said.
“Yup,” Rick told her cheerfully as he walked by her. “Sylas Rahm is on board, the captain’s negotiating for work in return for the notebook now, and Zosha’s information broker is Spinner, and yes, I do mean the ‘occasionally crumbles regimes for profit’ Spinner. Also, I’m off duty for at least the next two hours.”
“What?” Annie all but shrieked after them.
“Ask Leo about it!” Rick called back at her, turning down the hallway for his room.
He shifted Zosha to one arm to punch in the access code to his room. She pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, then nipped the spot where her lips had been. Rick moaned and lunged into the room almost before the door was open.
He took three steps forward and then tossed Zosha onto the bed. She bounced once, giggling, and then he was on top of her, sliding his hands under her shirt and pressing open-mouthed kisses down her neck and along her collarbone. She arched up, pressing her breasts against his chest and hissing in pleasure.
“God, I’ve wanted you like this since I first saw you,” he said into the hollow of her neck.
“What, you mean when you found me hiding in your cargo hold with a nutri-pack hanging out of my mouth?” she asked breathlessly.
“I don’t think you realize how you look in that suit,” he said. “God, no wonder you never get caught. They’re too busy staring at you to do anything.”
A laugh bubbled out of her. “It’s just a suit.”
“It’s so tight,” Rick told her, thumb skimming along the underside of her bra. “I just wanted to rip it off of you.”
He slid one hand down and squeezed her ass. Zosha moaned, then tugged at his shirt.
“Okay, naked, we need to be naked right now,” she told him. He pulled away and shucked off his shirt, then went to work on his boots.
Zosha pulled her own clothes off with record speed and had gotten down to her underwear when Rick pushed her back onto the mattress. He kissed her, wet and hot, before sliding down the mattress to take one nipple into his mouth. Zosha let her head fall back with a breathy groan and slid one hand into his thick hair. She wrapped her legs around him and he put one hand on her thigh, the other on her waist.
Zosha relished the warm weight of him pressing her down. She felt deliciously caught, safe in his grip.
Rick tugged at her nipple with his teeth, drawing a gasp out of her, then kissed his way down her body until he reached the band of her panties. He looked up at her, golden eyes bright and cheeks flushed. Thumbing at the elastic over her hip, he raised an eyebrow. She nodded at the tacit question and he lowered his head to mouth at her through the cotton.
Zosha practically squealed at the feeling, gripping his hair with both hands as her legs clamped involuntarily together. Rick pulled back to press a kiss to the inside of her thigh and sucking a bruise into the pale skin there before moving his mouth back to the damp fabric and working Zosha into a babbling mess.
“Rick, please please please, oh my God,” she gasped out, not knowing what she was begging for but knowing she needed it.
Rick moved away to tug her underwear off, then nudged her legs apart and pressed his tongue to her swollen, dripping slit.
Zosha nearly howled at the sensation, her brain whiting out. Her world narrowed to his mouth. Distantly, she realized that the room definitely wasn’t soundproof, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Rick ran one finger teasingly over her entrance, then slipped inside her. He flicked his tongue over her hypersensitive flesh and gave her a moment to adjust before adding a second finger and working her open.
Zosha lay back, sobbing for breath already, and taking in the feeling of him on and in her. Stars danced across her visions as her blood turned to fire. She could feel her climax beginning to build and she tugged at his hair until he pulled back to look up at her.
“I’m ready, I want you now,” she told him, somehow managing to get the words out despite the fact her brain had long since turned to mush.
Rick jackknifed up her body, settling between her legs. Zosha gasped as she felt his erection press against her thigh, hot and solid. He kissed her and she opened her mouth to him, tasting herself on his tongue.
“Can I?” he asked her, running a hand up and down her thigh.
She nodded frantically and forced herself to relax as he reached down and lined himself up with her.
The initial stretch of his cock inside her seemed to force all the air out of the room. She stared into his eyes, irises just a golden outline of his pupils, blown huge and dark. He hovered over, muscles tight, letting her adjust. After a moment, she rolled her hips experimentally, making them both moan.
He began to thrust into her, slowly at first and then harder as she locked her ankles at the small of his back.
“You’re so good,” he groaned into her ear. “You feel so good.”
Zosha just whined in response, well past the point of coherent speech. The heat in her stomach had turned to electricity and she could feel her orgasm begin to spark.
Wrapping one arm under Rick’s shoulder and the over his neck, she let herself fall apart under him, pleasure arching her back and pressing her flush against him.
She let her head fall back as a river of white fire swept through her veins, burning through everything that wasn’t the feeling of Rick rutting into her or the heat of his skin.
She came back to herself slowly, sparks of pleasure almost too intense to handle flickering to life as Rick continued to drive himself into her oversensitive body.
“Shit,” Rick muttered as his hips stuttered. He tucked his face into Zosha’s neck as his rhythm broke down, fucking her hard and fast. He pulled out of her with a groan and reached down to stroke himself. Zosha felt something warm splash across her belly and Rick collapsed on the mattress beside her.
They stayed like that for a moment, breathing heavily, sweat gleaming in the artificial light.
“So,” Zosha started when she got enough breath back to speak. “Worth fighting a squad of mercenaries for?”
Rick chuckled and leaned over to press his lips to hers.
She curled into his side and ran her fingers over his stomach, feeling the muscles flex under her touch.
“Come with us,” Rick said. “Leo will let you. You’re a fantastic asset. Annie’s fond of you and the others will get used to it. I don’t want to say goodbye to you yet.”
Zosha considered it. She thought about the asteroid where she’d lived her entire life: all of its flaws and all of its strengths. About the neon lights she’d grown up under. She thought about never seeing the place that held all of her memories again.
She thought about her future in the stars.
“I’m in,” she said softly.
She and Rick stared at each other, grinning like idiots, until the intercom crackled to life.
“So, uh…” the captain’s voice said. “You done in there yet?”
Zosha was too blissed out to be mortified, so she just turned her face towards the pillow and giggled. Rick kissed her cheek and reached over her to press a button on the intercom.
“Just teaching her how to fire a gun, Captain,” he said in a tone that implied he was referencing something. Someone snickered on the other side of the line.
“Well, put it back in the holster, cowboy, some of us are trying to work. And not vomit everywhere. Shut it, Custer,” he added when the cackling grew louder.
“Understood,” Rick said and dropped back down on the bed.
He pulled Zosha to him and wrapped an arm around her waist. She smiled, leaning on his broad chest and tracing her fingers lightly over the seam where the metal of his prosthetic legs met flesh.
“Does it hurt?” she asked him.
“Nope. Feel free to keep groping me,” Rick answered. “So, how does it feel to be an almost-official member of the Breakwater?”
Zosha’s grin threatened to split her face in two. “It feels perfect.”