I was homesick. Homesick for Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America, Earth. Homesick for my little round hut in Ka-lik’et. I was even homesick for my windowless room in the mutacorpathy hospital—or Zuran’s windowless room, for that matter. All I wanted was to be somewhere comfortable and familiar and safe.

Instead, I was standing on the market walk while I waited to be summoned and sent into space.

Edie was next to me, chattering my ear into deafness. When I’d arrived in the city that morning, she had flown out of the infirmary and thrown herself at me so hard I toppled over.

“You’re back! You’re back!” she screeched, making my molars hurt with the sheer shrillness of her voice. I managed to untangle myself from her and stand up again, and she looked around on either side and behind me with a wrinkled brow. “Where’s your boy?”

Hearing Zuran referred to as a “boy” made me laugh out loud. “He’s just outside the city,” I told her. “He’s helping to prepare a ship.”

Her eyes widened, and she bounced on the balls of her feet excitedly. “Ooh, does that mean you’re back to stay?”

“No,” I replied mournfully. “Not yet, at least. I’ve got to go on a mission.”

“A mission? What are you, a secret agent all of a sudden?” she joked, making a face.

I laughed again, but this one wasn’t as genuine. I was too nervous to be in a properly good-humored mood. “Not exactly. A secret agent would probably be more glamorous than this.” She tilted her head with interest, and I knew she was going to ask for more details, so I just headed her off. “Zuran and I have to get onboard the Novai mother ship.”

It was her turn to laugh now. “What?” she giggled. “You can’t be serious.”

“I wish I wasn’t,” I said honestly.

“What do you have to do that for?” she demanded as she slammed her hands onto her waist and jutted a hip out with attitude.

I wasn’t at liberty to tell her everything, so I tried to keep my answer as vague as possible while still managing to satiate her need for gossip. “The Council thinks we need to talk to the captain. Zuran was assigned because he’s an IAO, and I was assigned because I’ve been working on the task they recruited me for. We need some information, and we’re hoping the Novai in space have it.”

Her light eyes gleamed. “What kind of information?” she asked eagerly.

Shaking my head, I chuckled, “You know I can’t tell you that, Edie.”

“Oh, come on! You’re going into space; it’s not like anyone’s gonna know,” she begged.

“Nope.” I shook my head again and then smiled brightly at her. “But, the good news is I’m free to hang out with you until they need me. Unless you’ve got to get back to the infirmary, of course. I don’t mind entertaining myself, if you have to—”

“Girl, knock it off,” she chided. “You know I’m not going anywhere near that infirmary as long as you’re here. I feel like we’re those friends who were tight all through high school and promised to stay in touch during college but now we only see each other once every few years because we made new friends and life went on.”

I narrowed my eyes with faux offense. “You’ve made new friends? I’m that replaceable to you?”

She rolled her eyes and said, “Shut up. I can’t just hang out by myself all the time, you know. The hairdresser on the other side of the colony, Octavia, is pretty cool and I’ve spent some time with her, but otherwise, I’m alone.”

“What about the Corporal?”

Her face lit up. “Oh, yeah, him too. But that’s a given.”

I asked her then what she wanted to do until I was called away, and she insisted we leave the colony so she couldn’t be called back to the infirmary. Now, I found myself on the market walk where the last time I’d come back to Ka-lik’et, I’d been dressed like an A’li-uud hooker and terrified I’d never see Zuran again. The mystery and whimsy of the booths was lost to me; the only thing I saw anymore as I looked down the line of tables and silk canopies and merchants was the seedy underbelly lurking beneath the outwardly pleasant sight. And I was acutely aware that, somewhere below my feet, was the den of criminals and outlaws.

“…I guess, but I still think a real date would be nice for once, you know?”

Edie had been rambling about her relationship with the Corporal for almost twenty minutes straight. I’d thought I was paying good attention, but I realized I’d let my mind wander and had no idea what she was saying. I tried to play it off.

“Yeah, dates are good,” I said absently.

“Yeah,” she agreed stoutly. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m expecting too much. I mean, we are basically building a whole new civilization here. We’re like the pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. I’m pretty sure they had more important things to worry about than dates, right? But sometimes a girl just wants to go out. Have you had a real date with Zuran yet?”

I smirked with so much wry amusement that Zuran would’ve been proud. Our relationship thus far had been packed with more action than most people would ever experience in a lifetime. We’d watched an Elder die at his brother’s hand, been relocated to the middle of nowhere to battle a mysterious disease, snuck out of the middle of nowhere and into Ka-lik’et only to barely escape Albaterra’s worst criminals, testified in a trial before the entire Council. And now we were being shot into space to meet with a notoriously temperamental race and tell them their people were dying in our care. I almost felt like a “real date” would be too boring for us.

“No, we haven’t had the chance to do that,” I admitted. I wasn’t nearly as bothered by it as she was.

“Don’t you think—”

Edie’s words were cut off at the knees by a terrible, gut-wrenching scream. I didn’t even realize the scream was mine until a hand closed around my mouth and muffled the sound, and my whole body was wrenched backward against something very large and very rigid.

“Hello, laaka,” a very slimy, very familiar voice said in my ear. I felt something cold and sharp slide flush against my throat. “I hope Zuran has found another female to entertain because you are mine tonight.”