Katie paced back and forth in front of the airlock hatch in the Falcon 8’s cargo hold and kept checking her phone. She was going to fly. As soon as Zakota’s lazy butt got down here. No, she couldn’t call him lazy yet. He had three minutes until his five hours were up. After that, she could call him lazy.

Though she supposed she shouldn’t. He’d agreed to show her around one of the shuttles, and if she did well on the flight simulator, she might even get to fly it. It sounded about as glamorous as driving a parking lot shuttle at the airport, but she would take it. It was a chance to control a spaceship—and her destiny—if only for a short time. And she would get to see some of the Zi’i warship. Indi, Tala, and Angela had all been over there, but Katie had been cooped up on the fire falcon almost the entire time since being kidnapped from Earth. She had major cabin fever.

“Hi, Katie,” someone spoke from across the cargo hold. Not Zakota.

It was Angela, her blonde hair back in a braid, her homemade floral dress whispering about her calves. The burly, dark-skinned Treyjon walked beside her, and one of the four-hundred-pound svenkars sauntered along on her other side.

The leather-skinned predator narrowed its eyes at Katie and rumbled, as if to say she wasn’t supposed to be there. And technically, she wasn’t. She had Zakota’s permission—sort of—but not the captain’s.

“Hello,” Katie said, eyeing the creature warily.

Treyjon was probably the one she needed to watch warily. He was a lieutenant, the same as Zakota, but if their military rank worked like hers back home, whoever had held the rank the longest would be considered the senior officer, and Zakota seemed younger than Treyjon. Mid- to late-twenties, maybe. A few years younger than she was, if she was guessing right. If Treyjon was the senior-ranking officer, he could keep Zakota from taking her to the Zi’i ship.

Of course, for all these two knew, Katie could simply be getting some exercise. Maybe she should do some stretches to make it look like she’d gone for a jog around the ship.

“Whatcha doing?” Angela asked, as the odd trio approached.

“Hanging out.”

“We’re going to the other ship to practice tracking stuff with Lulu.” Angela waved at the svenkar. Though the creature walked on four legs like a dog, its head was level with hers. “Apparently, we’re all tubed up again.”

“Hierax is already supposed to be over there,” Treyjon said, looking at a panel on the wall by the hatch. “Yup, everything is secure.”

“Is it true that all of us women are supposed to get off at the station we’re going to?” Angela asked Treyjon.

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

“Even the women who have been helping out on the ship? Like Dr. Tala? And me?”

“You don’t truly want to fly into a war,” Treyjon said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “It’ll be a space-based war, most likely, so the svenkars won’t have a job unless our ship is boarded. You’ll be better off staying out here, in a neutral system.”

“What happens if… you don’t come back?” Angela asked quietly.

Katie shifted her weight. She had been so busy thinking about her chance to fly that she hadn’t considered that.

“You’re the only ones who care about us,” Angela added. “Would anyone from your government even come out to get us if your ship blew up?”

“Our ship’s not going to blow up,” Treyjon said. “Hierax would be personally affronted if a screw even fell off.”

Angela slapped him on the chest. “Be serious.”

He pulled her closer and rested his chin against her head. “The captain will make sure the government knows you’re at the station before we go into battle.”

“What part of that is supposed to be reassuring?” Katie asked. “This is the same government that wanted to keep us on your planet and assimilate us into your society without ever letting us go home, right?”

“It’s not my planet,” Treyjon said. “You’d have to learn to hunt with a spear if you were assimilated on my planet.”

“Treyjon,” Angela said, frowning up at him. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, and I know you think nothing will happen to you, but I can’t help but worry about… possibilities.”

“I heard a rumor that the captain told his mom about Dr. Tala and the rest of you and asked that she take care of things if anything happened to him.”

“The captain’s mom?” Angela asked dubiously. “She’s gotta be like seventy or eighty.”

“So? Her husband was a force to be reckoned with when he served, and I understand she wields a trekking pole like a spear.”

Lulu’s head came up, twisting back in the direction of the corridor leading into the cargo hold. Her leathery tail twitched, more like that of a cat than a dog. A very large cat.

Whistling came from the corridor. Rather than gradually increasing in volume, as if someone had been whistling as they approached from far away, it started up abruptly and at full volume.

A second later, Zakota strolled in with a pack over his shoulder and a stunner on his belt. His black fatigues were pressed, his face shaven, and his head gleamed. Katie couldn’t tell if he shaved it or if he was a baldie through and through. He did seem young for that, his broad shoulders and thick muscular arms certainly not a sign of old age. He reminded her of a young Dwayne Johnson. He was fit for a pilot, though that seemed true of all the Star Guardians. She’d witnessed many of them spending hours on the gym equipment in the rec room before all the craziness had started.

Katie looked at her phone. He was on time. Huh.

The whistling faltered when Zakota noticed Treyjon—or maybe it was the svenkar that made him pause. Lulu displayed upper and lower fangs while her tongue lolled out, and drool dripped onto the deck.

“Aren’t all the Zi’i cleaned out of the warship by now?” Zakota asked

“Probably,” Treyjon said. “I had Tank and the rest of the males over there earlier for a thorough check. But Lulu likes it over there.”

“It does smell like an animal den.”

“We’re going to practice tracking.” Angela held up a big tuft of fur dangling on a string.

Katie hadn’t noticed the thing before—it looked like roadkill.

“Appealing,” Zakota murmured, and then his eyes brightened as he shifted his attention from it to her. “Angela, isn’t it? You’re fond of the svenkars, yes?”

“Yes…” Angela looked at Treyjon. “Should I be wary?”

“Around Zakota? Absolutely. Ten drachmas says he tries to sell you a charm.”

“Nah, not a charm. Just a trinket. I haven’t had time to bless this gorgeous pup.” Zakota pulled out the roll of wood and ivory carvings that Katie had seen earlier. She snorted, wondering if he would try to foist off that one that looked like a mammoth with a giant penis. Trunk, her ass. It had been hanging down between its legs.

But it wasn’t the big-peened mammoth that he pointed out. He touched his finger to an ivory carving that looked a lot like Lulu.

“Oh, a svenkar.” Angela clasped her hands together. “She’s beautiful.” She touched her fingers to her chest, as if she could already imagine the carving as a pendant dangling there.

Treyjon’s eyes narrowed. “How much?”

He should have been pleased with Zakota, since the distraction meant Angela wasn’t obsessing about him being blown up.

“Well, I understand the Gaian women don’t have a currency that the rest of the galaxy recognizes, so I guess it has to be a gift.”

Treyjon’s expression shifted from suspicion to surprise.

“You’ll have to find a chain,” Zakota said, handing it to her, “but there’s already an eyelet for it.”

“Beautiful,” Angela repeated, accepting the carving. “Thank you.” She showed it to Lulu.

The svenkar licked it.

Zakota’s brows rose. “Is that approval?”

Angela wiped the drool off on her dress. Treyjon shook his head and tapped the controls on the wall. The hatch released with a hiss and swung open to reveal the airlock chamber. Another hatch on the far side, one that would usually be closed, stood open, leading into an accordion tube that stretched to the warship.

Zakota returned his scrimshaw kit to his cargo pocket as Treyjon, Angela, and the svenkar headed into the airlock. Zakota extended a hand, offering to let Katie go ahead of him.

There was enough room for two to walk abreast so she waited and timed her step with his. She wondered if he would comment on the gift and point out how magnanimous he’d been. Since she’d only seen him trying to sell those things, she was suspicious of his motives. Had he wanted to impress her? She couldn’t imagine why. He hadn’t made any overtures toward her, not like that Lieutenant Commander Varro. He and a couple of the other horny Star Guardians made daily appearances in the rec room, showing off their muscles and trying to schmooze the women. Maybe Zakota had been walking to the cargo hold and had heard Angela voicing her concerns, and he had wanted to distract her. If so, that was nice. Though she wasn’t sure she was ready to label him as nice. He was a little too used-car-salesman-like when he tried to push his so-called charms.

“What do you do with the money when you actually sell them?” Katie asked, following the others through the tube and into a hold on the warship.

“Spend it on booze and women.” Zakota winked at her.

“More like his mom spends it on booze and women,” Treyjon said over his shoulder as he and Angela walked off with Lulu.

Zakota frowned after him. “My mom doesn’t like women.”

“No argument on the booze?”

“She’s not a drunk. She’s—” Zakota broke off, this time frowning at Katie. “The shuttles are that way.”

He pointed to a corridor, not the one Treyjon and Angela were taking. It was one of three options leading from the area, a space that wasn’t as large as the cargo hold they’d left on the Falcon 8.

“My mom’s not a drunk,” Zakota told her, as if she would care or judge him for it.

Katie shrugged. “Mine is.”

His mouth dropped open. Apparently, that was not the answer he’d expected.

Before he could respond, if he intended to, Chief Hierax stepped out of a corridor, a toolbox in hand.

“There you are, Zakota,” he said. “I’ve been checking over the two shuttles to make sure they’re spaceworthy before we foist the women in them. Uh.” He looked at Katie. “Does the captain know about that?” He pointed at her.

“Smooth, Chief. She has a name.”

“It’s not That?”

Zakota squinted at him. “Did you really get a woman?”

“Shocking, isn’t it?”

“Incredibly so. That should be proof that my charms do indeed bring luck and various other fortunes. Were you carrying the woman-attracting one at the time?”

“No.”

“Proof that its powers are so great that they could assist you even from back in your cabin.”

“No doubt. You didn’t answer my question.” Hierax quirked an eyebrow at Katie. “Did the captain say she could come over here?”

“He didn’t not say she could come.”

“Lieutenant…”

“Look, I’m going to show her a shuttle.”

Hierax scratched his head. “Is that a penis euphemism?”

“What? No.” Zakota gaped at him. “Since when does your brain work like Ku’s, Chief?”

“Sorry, I’ve been trying to get better at detecting that stuff. It’s not my strong point.”

The two men stopped looking at each other. They also made a point of not looking at Katie.

“Is this a weird and awkward conversation for anyone else?” she asked.

“Yes,” Zakota said, as Hierax said, “No.”

After a pause, Hierax changed his answer. “Yes.”

“Can we just go to the shuttle?” Katie asked. “I’m eager to get my hands on it.”

Hierax looked at her.

“That’s not a euphemism,” she explained, in case he was thinking of asking again. She’d heard he was a genius, but apparently, it was in a very narrow field that had nothing to do with interacting with human beings.

“This way,” Zakota said, waving for her to follow.

“I need you up on the bridge soon, Zakota,” Hierax said. “I’ve been doing a little tinkering to tie in the weapons firing capabilities to the helm, and I want you to make sure a good pilot could handle both at the same time. I’m also settings things up for when I’ve got my new special weapons finished.”

“I’ll be there shortly, Chief.”

Hierax let them go without further comments.

Zakota gave her a wry look. “At least he forgot about questioning your presence here.”

“I don’t see why Angela should get to come over any time she wants to train her giant dog while I’m cooped up in the rec room.”

“Angela is on the payroll. She’s kind of an honorary Star Guardian.”

Katie almost tripped. “What? Why?”

The words came out whinier than she intended. If Angela wanted to help train drooling monsters, that shouldn’t matter to her.

Zakota shrugged. “She impressed Treyjon, and the captain, too, I guess.”

“I could impress the captain if given a chance.”

Too bad he fled any time she tried to talk to him. He definitely needed to see her skills in action. If she could show Sagitta that she could fly, maybe he would have the power to get her invited to some spaceship flight academy somewhere.

Her step slowed as she considered the thought. Did she want that? She wanted to go home, didn’t she? Back to her job and her cabin in the woods?

Of course, that job seemed rather boring in comparison to traveling between the stars. And lonely. In recent years, Katie had often found herself missing the camaraderie of the military, of having fellow pilots to bullshit with. She’d also missed having a mission. A purpose. Something more meaningful than flying mapmakers around the Southwest. More than once, she’d questioned why she got out. Oh, she’d hated having to yes, sir everyone, especially the idiots, but the simple lifestyle and the challenges had suited her. She loved flying under any circumstances, but having a purpose made it more satisfying. A part of her envied Zakota because the purposes out here seemed more black and white than the ones back home. The Star Guardians fought criminals and defended their home territory from invaders; they didn’t get involved in other people’s wars, at least from what she’d seen so far. She doubted Zakota ever had to quietly question whether his unit was doing the right thing.

“It at least seems that he should give other women a chance to use their skills out here if they want to,” Katie said, pushing her mullings aside. “Why does Angela get to train svenkars, and nobody asks me if I want to fly?”

“Mishandling a svenkar doesn’t cause a ship full of people to crash.”

“It just gets you eaten?”

“Painfully, I imagine. But it doesn’t get those around you eaten. We have to go down to get to the shuttle bay.” Zakota waved toward double doors at the end of the corridor. An elevator? “There are thirteen decks on this big ship.”

Katie wrinkled her nose. The ship’s odor had grown stronger since they left the airlock tube, and she was starting to understand the jokes she’d heard about the signature Zi’i aroma. It reminded her a lot of kimchi, but the scent of wet fur mingled with it, making it seem like an animal’s den. She wondered if the smell of humans bothered the Zi’i. Probably not if they liked eating humans. Maybe the Star Guardian ship smelled like bacon to them.

“Is your mom really a drunk?” Zakota asked as they stepped into the elevator, the doors sliding shut behind them.

She looked at him, surprised he’d brought it up again.

She debated if she should tell him more. It wasn’t any of his business. At the same time, she had been the one to bring it up. Granted, it had been somewhat flippant and not premeditated. But she was fairly indifferent to her mother and her childhood these days, and making jokes wasn’t that hard.

“Yeah. For as long as I can remember. She lives in a trailer in South Phoenix, same place we had when I was a kid. She works about four different jobs a year because she always gets fired from them. We’ve got nothing in common, and I don’t talk to her. My sister and I—we’re only a year apart in age—left as soon as we could. She joined the Marines, and I enlisted in the Navy. Anything we could do to get far, far away.”

“Did your mother try to get you to stay?” Zakota asked.

“No, she barely knew we were there by then. She did—does—drugs too. Mick—Michelle—and I pretty much raised ourselves. The neighborhood was shitty, and scary at night. I wanted out of there from the time I was old enough to know there was a world outside. The idea of being stuck there forever scared me into getting good grades, and I kept going to school after I enlisted, and I got a degree. I wanted to be able to fly, and you had to be an officer for that.”

“You always wanted to fly?”

He asked it as if he already knew the answer. Was that odd? He barely knew her. But then, she wasn’t exactly an enigma.

“Yeah, I guess I did. We weren’t that far from the airport when I was a kid. I used to climb up on the roof of our trailer and lie on my back and look up at the night sky. The stars and the planes landing.”

Zakota touched a bar-shaped button, and the doors opened. Katie hadn’t realized the elevator had stopped. The doors led right onto the shuttle bay, an open, oblong room with two craft parked at the far end. Several other slots were empty.

She eyed the shuttles curiously as she walked out. If she’d been expecting something from Star Trek, she would have been disappointed. The strange dark craft looked like black fangs, the fronts and the backs touching down, the middle slightly curved. A strange design, she thought, and not particularly aerodynamic with that gap on the bottom. But what did aerodynamics matter in space? There wasn’t anything out here to cause friction. A Rubik’s Cube ought to fly as well as an arrow.

“I don’t think a paint job is going to make those look like anything but Zi’i shuttles,” Zakota said dryly, following her toward the closest one.

“Where’s the door?” Katie didn’t see a hatch or even a porthole. There wasn’t anything like a windshield, either.

Zakota walked up and put his palm on a panel that blended in perfectly with the black hull. “Hierax changed it so Asan’s and my handprints will open it.”

A faint buzz sounded, and a hatch swung out, hinging open from the top.

“The door is fang-shaped,” Katie observed.

“The Zi’i are an interesting species. Do you usually sit down when you fly airplanes?”

“Yes.”

“The Zi’i don’t.” Zakota stepped past her, and orangish lighting came on inside.

Katie wrinkled her nose again as she followed him. “The odor is more concentrated in here.”

“Yeah, maybe you can borrow Lieutenant Asan’s air purifier if you’re going to be in here with the hatch shut. Unless that was defiled too.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

Zakota laid a hand on the high control panel or dashboard or whatever the appropriate term would be. It was in the nose of the fang—could fangs have noses?—and almost five feet off the deck. Katie was five-foot-seven. She could see the controls and reach them, but she felt like a toddler trying to reach things on the kitchen counter.

“Am I going to have to stand on a box?” she grumbled.

“That gel square is what’s used for navigation. So far as Hierax and I could figure out, the shuttles don’t have an autopilot or computer assist, so everything is manual.” He gave her an assessing look.

She couldn’t tell if he thought she might back down if she found out how daunting everything was or if she had a booger hanging out of her nose.

“That device over there is ours and is tied in with the helm,” Zakota said, nodding toward a box sprouting wires to the side of the console, “so you’ll get warnings and alarms in Dethocolean.”

“Does it make a difference? Both languages would have to be translated for me.” Katie touched the chip in her ear.

“Dethocolean involves less growling. The first time I piloted one of these during the war, the abrupt barks and yips sounding in my ear startled the snot out of me. I spun around, looking for an attack from behind.” Zakota waved at the side of the console. “Hierax’s device also has integration for the Zi’i flight simulator we found in the database. It’s set up now so we can understand and practice on it.”

“When you say device, you mean that black box with the wires sticking out of it, right?”

“Correct. There hasn’t been much time to make things pretty. Though the chief will be offended if you don’t stroke it and proclaim its merits if he walks in.”

“I’m beginning to think all Star Guardians are weird.”

“Don’t say that to the combat guys. They’re very proud of their carefully cultivated auras of deadly ferociousness.”

“What about the helmsmen?”

“Oh, we’re all freaks. Is that not true for pilots on your world?”

“Well, not all of them. I’m normal.” Katie looked at his face. “Did your eyebrow just move?”

“I don’t think so. Anyway, the simulator will guide you. Enjoy your time before the other women get shunted over here.”

“Wait.” Katie lifted a hand as he turned toward the door. “You said… I mean, I thought you might show me a few things and that we could actually fly.”

“If you can pass the simulator test at the end of the practice runs, I’ll let you be my co-pilot on the trip to ferry the women over to the station.” There was a hint of a challenge in his smile, like he didn’t think she could figure out how to turn on the simulator, much less pass the test at the end.

She scowled at him. “If I pass the test, I want to do something a lot grander than sitting on my hands while you fly us around.”

Not even around. Shuttling people from a ship to a station sounded like the most boring job imaginable. She used to fly fighter jets, damn it. Why wouldn’t anyone give her a chance to show her skills? If someone loaned her a ship, maybe she could even be helpful against those Zi’i invaders.

“Like what?” he asked warily.

“At least let me fly the women over.”

A fantasy jumped into her head that involved stealing supplies, knocking Zakota out, and flying all the women back home without help from the Star Guardians or anyone else. Sadly, she suspected the shuttles weren’t capable of traveling that far. And she’d also heard that some kind of computer chip had to be installed in a pilot’s brain to allow navigation through the wormholes. Too bad.

“That would involve flying in and out of the shuttle bay here and on the station,” Zakota said. “Takeoffs and landings are tricky, especially in alien ships.”

“All of the ships in the galaxy are alien to me.” She gritted her teeth, annoyed that he didn’t seem to think she would have a knack for any of this. She’d landed jets on aircraft carriers at night in storms, for God’s sake. How much harder could this be? All she had to do was get familiar with the controls. “Fine,” she said, realizing her statement hadn’t done anything to sway him. “Then you take her out of the shuttle bay, and you dock, but let me fly in the space between the two.”

Which would probably be about as exciting as watching paint dry, but at least she would be at the helm of a spaceship. Even if it was a space shuttle. That was something. And who knew? Maybe the station would be attacked while she was flying, Zakota would be knocked out, and she would have to save the passengers by expertly flying them to safety.

“If you pass the simulator test,” Zakota said.

She wondered what he would think if he knew how many of her fantasies involved him being knocked out. He actually wasn’t a bad fellow, so she felt a little guilty. It wasn’t his fault he stood between her and her dreams.

“Deal.” She stuck her hand out, barely resisting the urge to spit in her palm first—the guys at the office were bad influences, especially Gary and Sam. They were old enough that she would believe them if they said they’d been the original cartographers making maps in Arizona before it became a state.

Zakota looked down at her hand, and she realized she hadn’t seen the Star Guardians shaking hands with each other. They all did that somewhat intricate salute.

He seemed to catch on, however, because he clasped her hand, his grip neither gentle nor overly firm. His hands were surprisingly calloused for the space equivalent of a desk jockey. His palm was pleasantly warm against hers, and she found herself noticing the corded muscles of his bare forearm. He wore his fatigue jacket like the other Star Guardians, with the sleeves rolled to the elbows and buttoned there, leaving bare their ubiquitous tattoo, the wing-shaped ship flying through a gate. She met his eyes—they were a deep dark brown, the irises blending in with the pupils, and they seemed far more serious than she’d expected. He was always so flippant, almost goofy as he tried to sell his trinkets to people. She hadn’t expected seriousness or any hints of depth.

“Do I say deal back?” he asked.

“Huh?” Katie realized she’d been staring at him and that they were still clasping hands. “Oh, yes. And we shake.” She shook his hand once and let it go.

“Good luck with the simulator.” He smirked, the seriousness gone from his eyes, and offered an abbreviated salute before heading for the exit.

“I don’t need luck,” Katie called after him.

She wished there was a way she could challenge him, show him that, with a craft she was familiar with, she could fly as well as he could. If not better. But she needed that familiarity first, so she resolutely turned back to the controls, vowing to take the simulator seriously, even if this was just a shuttle.

As she eyed the height of the console again, she grumbled, “I am, however, definitely going to need a box.”