Alliance: An Intersolar Alien Romance, Book 6

13

“Seeding complete, Cap’. Stormfront forming eighteen klicks out from drop point at seventy-four degrees,” one of the Mummer’s crewmembers called out.

“Good, good,” Traveler mumbled, rummaging through a tall column of compartments set into the wall.

His crew was small, serious, and didn’t bat an eye at us or the eccentricities of their captain. But I wasn’t really paying attention to them either. A week after leaving Huajile, Fásach, Safia, Misila, and I stood together, staring out at Yaspur’s lavender and tangerine horizon.

Rosy had no memories of approaching the moon, at least none that I had inherited, and I felt a pang of sorrow for her. It was beautiful. All those rosy pinks and orange sorbet hues. A leafy sea of dark pink and maroon covered nearly the entire moon, laced with veins of bright turquoise water.

All except for the tidally locked cap, eternally cast in the shadow of its toxic water planet, Big Blue. An eerie teal darkness veiled the tundra and its ring of mountains and black forests, all drawn by the immense gravity of the moon’s parent planet. It was so different from the warm orange light that bathed the jungles and glistened on larger bodies of water.

Misila held onto Fásach’s leg with worry as the Mummer approached the freezing maw of doom that would turn us all into [reference] popsicles…

Popsicles?

I bit my lip, amused and trying not to giggle. My originator must have hated the cold. I wondered if I would too.

“What’s funny?” Misi asked, glancing up at me from around her father’s leg.

“Just thinking about popsicles,” I said with a smile.

Fásach scritched her little spires with his claws. “Why don’t you two go watch closer up? I’m sure the pilot won’t mind.”

“Thanks, Para,” Safia said, taking Misi’s hand. They bounded down from the observation deck and smashed their faces against the panoramic view of the moon with gasps of excitement.

“Aha!” Traveler slid a cartridge out of the wall marked with even rows of little buttons. He walked his fingers across their surfaces until he found the one he wanted and pulled it out of its slot. “Roz, you sweet little bit, come here.”

I joined him, and he dropped the tiny thing into my hand with a cocksure smirk. It was a red copper pill with tarnished splotches that looked like smears of iridescent oil. I turned it over in my hand, feeling the draw of a magnet inside its shell but unable to discern its function.

“What is it?”

“That,” he said, tapping my collarbone, “is a dongle for a S-Ion Slab4.”

“Wow,” I said with wide eyes, turning it this way and that to catch the light. “I… don’t know what that is…”

“Dongle is an old word for a tech tuner,” he said dismissively, waving his hand.

I smiled sheepishly. “I mean I don’t know what a S-Ion Slab4 is.”

Fásach leaned over me in awe, but his vitals were anxious and fluttery. He took the little copper dongle as if it were a precious stone while Traveler explained.

“Bogs charge just like you, dolly. Military-grade units are issued a sodium-ion suit or intercasing solar backup for expeditionary assignments.”

“But why?” I asked, blinking at the golden dongle pinched between Fásach’s fingers.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Traveler crossed his arms. “Charging pods don’t exactly grow on trees. Besides, sentinel mode sucks for perimeter defense.”

“This is too much, Trav,” Fásach said, holding the dongle out, jaw muscles bulging as he clenched his teeth. His nostrils flared and he huffed a breath when Traveler didn’t move to take the little pill back. “You haven’t told us what all of this good will costs, and we’re only a couple turns out from the drop point.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Traveler said, his deep glare set in stone.

“Don’t lie. I know this stuff isn’t free—”

“Dolly already paid.”

[Warning] A thick, leaden silence smashed the space between the three of us, making it hard to breathe. Fásach’s ears snapped, his hackles standing on end. Big huffs of air pumped through his lungs like a hunting dog on the scent, ready to snap his teeth in Traveler’s direction. And when I put my hand on his outstretched arm, the muscle was as taut as quivering steel.

“It was nothing,” I lied gently, glancing between them. I patted his arm, trying to lower it, but he refused. When I looked back at his face, his ears were flat, horizontal pupils flattened to slits as he stared at me in shock. I swallowed hard.

[Warning] He knew I was lying.

“What did he ask for, Roz?” he growled low in an effort not to make a scene that would reach the girls’ ears. I pulled a little more forcefully on his arm.

Traveler chuckled. “Trust me, you aren’t a big enough buck to take me down on my own ship. So does it really matter? I can exact whatever price I want, and you can’t do anything about it.”

“Tell me the price,” Fásach clenched. I opened my mouth to tell him, but the captain beat me to it.

“Small potatoes. Truly.” He shrugged, and a maniacal glint caught his gold teeth as he smirked. [Warning] “I just asked for her to give me everything she’s got. And would you believe it? Opened up for me right there in the hallway. She didn’t even say fuck yo—”

Fásach smashed the back of Traveler’s head against the open compartments in the wall, canisters and doors making a racket as their rails clacked and contents jostled from the force. The captain burst into laughter, holding his gut with both matte black hands.

“I gave him a copy of my code!” I yelled, wedging my way between Traveler’s neck and Fásach’s jaws before he could snap. His upper lip quivered with a menacing snarl as I pushed back on his chest. “That’s all! And it wasn’t for Captain Traveler. The Mummer wanted to talk to it once we’re gone.”

“Small potatoes, see?” Traveler said with gleeful amusement. “Ah man, this has been great. I’ll miss you, you know that? I mean, I’ll miss Roz more, but—”

Fásach shoved the captain away again, then ran his claws through his tresses. His fur sprayed open like a mohawk beneath his palm, a finger longer than it had been the day before.

“Stop being fucking helpful!” he growled, pointing a black claw in Traveler’s face. The bog smiled.

“Aww, you’re welcome.”

I pressed the dongle to the magnetic plate behind my ear as Traveler directed and attuned my systems while he walked us through our plan of approach. They’d targeted a large relay station south at seventy-four degrees from the polar cap rather than a direct descent, which would act as a shield from its radar and give us a course to follow. The tundra itself was too cold to snow anyway, and the entire ice sheet was a comms dead zone. Too much magnetic interference from Big Blue.

“Will you be okay?” I asked Fásach.

He didn’t seem all that confident when he responded, “Yes. I should be fine. My homeworld has a strong magnetosphere too. I’m more worried about the girls.”

Both our eyes strayed across the hologram of Yaspur’s topography to where the girls were leaning against the thick viewshield near the pilot’s station, twisting this way and that with childlike excitement.

“There’s no way for us to get closer?” I asked Traveler, but the captain shook his head with a negative series of clicks in his throat.

“This is the safest according to the Mummer. We can’t get any closer without a covert elite up our asses. And if you’re worried about the vital pods, they can last months.”

“Why can’t we just hail the colony?” I asked.

“I can’t let the Mummer get near it. Security risk.” Traveler tried to move on, rotating the hologram to highlight a section of our suggested route.

“Why not?”

The captain cut me with a sharp stare that melted into a smirk. “An old friend is the pilot on that covert ship in orbit. If she sees me, she’ll shoot me down and ask questions later. I know it’s the long way around, but at least the only real threat you have to worry about is Sizzle. Just scream my name when he tries to eat you, and you’ll be fine.”

Before I could press again, Fásach’s thick palm wrapped around my wrist and gave a gentle squeeze. I let the topic drop after that. Whatever Traveler’s reasons for not getting close to the colony, they were his own.

But they definitely didn’t involve a pissed off pilot.

“Come, we’re getting close. Time to tuck the little ones in for the journey and suit up.”

Traveler sauntered away, calling the girls over, and Fásach leaned into my ear, his hot breath tickling my curls. “How big of a deal is it that you gave him your code?”

“Oh…” A nervous lurch twisted my gut. “Well, it felt unnatural, but I was happy to pay. And the Mummer is nice. I think they’ll take good care of it.”

Fásach bowed his head with a slow exhale. “Alright. I trust your judgment.”

Safia and Misila had spent their nights and naps sleeping in their pods, but their vitals were still elevated as we stood above them in the cargo bay. Fásach held them each to his sides while the pods warmed up.

“I want my stuffy,” Misila said, her little talons kneading a hole into the leg of Fásach’s pants.

“I’ll give it to you a little later, okay?” Fásach soothed, a chirrup in his throat. Misila’s mandibles quivered, close to crying.

I knelt down between the pods and extended my arms with a smile that felt the same as the ones the teachers in the colony used to greet the children on steamy jungle mornings.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I cooed to Misila first. “I have to charge every night, and it’s not so bad. And when you wake up, you’ll be somewhere new and exciting.”

“Renata?”

“Probably. Or maybe the jungle! Wouldn’t it be fun to see all those pretty leaves up close? If you sleep in the pods for a little bit, you get to miss the cold part.”

“Will we see flowers?”

“Definitely. I remember a lot of them in the colony. There’s also a river.”

Misila gasped. “Of water?!”

“Yep!”

Her cute, bifurcated mouth shut tight, wide eyes glistening. She gave me a hug and I kissed her brow plate before she crawled into her pod with determination. Once she was settled and nibbling on one of her talons like a human child sucking their thumb, she waved at her sister. “River, Safi! Think of the river!”

Safia let her dad push her forward. She gave me a hug that wasn’t nearly as excited as her younger sister’s, and said in my ear, “I’m scared.”

Fear… It was one of the reactions I could still turn on and off in my systems. That, and pain. I didn’t need to feel the negative things if I didn’t want to.

But everyone else here had no way of turning it off. A blip of music popped up in my LMem. Music that my father would play, that always made me feel comforted and at home. “If I sing you to sleep, will it help?”

Her mandibles fluttered, and I helped her into her pod as I uploaded the memories and prepared my speakers.

“Okay, I’m ready,” she said after fastening her own harness.

[Retrieving…] I smiled serenely, opened my mouth, and reggaetón blasted out of my speakers.

Everyone jumped. Safia raised her arms in surprise, and both sisters’ mandibles splayed wide in a gaping look of shock.

The heavy electronic bass and snapping snare drum mixed with male voices rapping in Spanish had always been like coming home to Rosy, even when she was very small. Anywhere she’d heard reggaetón, she’d felt safe and excited. It helped her sleep and relax, to feel hope and happiness. Exactly what Misila and Safia needed.

Like magic, they burst into laughter. Fásach too, even if he was trying to breathe through it instead of giving in. I smiled with pride.

“Did it help?”

“A lullaby, Roz!” Safia complained with a huge grin. “Like for sleeping? Not for dancing!”

I blinked. “That was for sleeping.” I frowned at Fásach. “You didn’t like it? Maybe I remembered it wrong…”

Fásach’s ear twitched, a lopsided smile spreading across his wide mouth. “Yiwren are connoisseurs of sound. Of course I liked it.”

“Me too,” Safia laughed. To my surprise, she took a deep breath and mimicked the electronic sound almost perfectly, her mandibles rattling like the cone of a speaker. We grinned at each other, and I opened my mouth and played a few more bars with her while Misila wriggle-danced in her harness.

Fásach butted heads with them while they were still laughing and told them each to sleep well, his tresses arching over his brow to tickle their spires. They put their arms down at their sides as the pod hatches closed, then they closed their eyes with smiles still plastered on their faces. Fásach stared lovingly at the holos hovering over each of their pods as they both relaxed into sleep, then minimized the projections of his daughters.

“Thanks,” he gruffed, clearing his throat. The veneer of confidence cracked apart as a frown drew down his features. “Our turn. Let’s get your mane under control first.”

Fásach twisted my silk into two fat braids while Traveler helped me don the Slab4, twirling me around so Fásach could learn how it worked too. The sodium-ion battery plugged into my charging port and overrode the protocol that required me to enter sentinel mode while charging. Like placing a cup inside another cup, I’d still be able to charge normally in any standard pod without taking it off, and the little dongle now magnetized to the plate behind my ear meant that it was paired with me and no one else. My parumauxi drifted towards the dongle with what felt like curiosity, learning the new addition to my body.

Half a turn later, we were ready to go. I wore a set of thick polar coveralls with encased feet and gloves that fit me perfectly, but Fásach’s were too large still. It was obvious he’d expected to transition more quickly as he belted on his backpack. The excess gathered up beneath his straps when he pulled the ones across his waist and chest tight.

“Here,” he said, handing me one of the bracelets that would tether the vital pods. I took Misila’s and secured it to my wrist. He activated them both and the pods’ keels began to vibrate, lifting them off the metal floor.

“Hold onto the rail, kids. Casting off in ten, nine…” The Mummer groaned as we all grabbed hold of whatever sturdy thing was closest. I hugged one of the ship’s transverse I-beams and pressed my cheek to the cold metal. This was the last time I’d see the beautiful river of code overhead.

“It was nice to meet you,” I said out loud. “I’d talk to you more if I knew how. I hope you don’t think I’m being rude—”

“Brace yourselves.”

KUNK.

The pressure compartment disconnected from the rest of the ship, and we fell straight down like one of those elevator rides at an amusement park. My lungs clamped up and I hugged the Mummer for dear life. I had memories of this sort of thing, but their fuzzy edges paled compared to the sudden surge of terror.

It didn’t last for long, though. Within seconds, the pace evened out as we descended from low orbit. The airlock was a massive levislab with no rumble of ignition or thrusters at all, just a magnetic vwomp that felt like swinging on the playground. No heat outside of the ship’s vantaplates to track. It was genius.

Traveler punched open the pressure lock when we reached the ice sheet, and a frozen gust caught us all in the face.

The tundra was dark, our drop ship’s glaring white lights catching on a wind of snow pellets that raced through the black abyss, blinding in contrast to the absolute nothingness for miles. My stomach somersaulted, and I swayed on my feet, looking up at the sky.

Like every other sky Rosy had ever seen, I’d expected to see stars. Maybe clouds.

But the sky was clear without a single star in sight.

Instead, Big Blue blotted out the universe, its spiraling whirlpools larger than a city raging across its surface. An entire sky of dark teal water hidden from the sun’s view, filling its own atmosphere with poisonous gas and spray. The massive water planet glowed around the edges, but suffocated the sky as if I could reach out my fingertips and touch it.

It was terrifying. Exhilarating.

We were really on Yaspur. Even if Rosy had never seen anything like this, I felt it in my bones.

Traveler yelled over the screeching wind.

“Good luck!”

Fásach stopped in front of him. They shared words that were stolen by the howling tundra before my aural sensors could pick them up. Traveler bumped his head against Fásach’s and tapped his own forehead with two fingers, grinning. My friend snorted, turning back to the vital pods and carefully setting them outside in the blaring white landscape.

“Goodbye, friends!” I hugged the Mummer one last time, then headbutted it like Fásach and Traveler had just done. The captain leaned back on the wall, hands in his pockets.

“Aw, that’s precious,” he cooed as I stopped in front of him.

“Thank you for everything, Captain Traveler.”

“Just Trav, little bit. Not too late to stay on the Mummer forever, you know.”

“No thank you. But can I visit again sometime?”

He took my elbow, locking me in place with an intensity that caught my breath. The smile vanished from his face, and his stare bore into mine like a laser cutter. “Watch yourself out there. I mean it.”

[Warning] I nodded once, the code at the edges of my mind flaring up again, tickling my LMem, pushing me to leave. “I will. I promise.”

He let me go but said nothing else as I stepped away, our eyes still caught and an unsettled sickly feeling building inside my gut.

Of course I would watch out. I’d make sure all of us got there safely, no matter what. I’d promised Fásach already, hadn’t I? That I’d do anything at all to help him and to get home? I needed to get home. The thought of not going scorched my synapses. There was no way I’d abandon ship and—

Fásach tugged on my pant leg from outside of the pod, motioning for me to jump down to him, and I breathed away that sickly feeling. Fásach always made me feel better. I crouched, put my hands on his shoulders, and broke eye contact with Traveler.

He watched me, deathly still, colder than ice, as I hopped out into the howling wind and darkness.