Space for Growth (Spire Station #3)

Chapter 2

2

V ash-ka. I catch Paul as he collapses, his dead weight almost knocking us both over against the wall of my quarters. He groans pathetically as I use all of my strength to maneuver his surprisingly solid bulk over to my bed and set him down as gently as possible.

His dark eyelashes flutter and he groans again, a reassuring sign that he didn’t spontaneously perish. I don’t think that humans can be scared to death, but aespians sometimes go into a death-like catatonic state when threatened, and my knowledge of the quirks of human biology only extends to what I’ve seen in pornography.

Stars, if he’d died, that would make a bad situation exponentially worse.

I give Paul an apologetic squeeze on the shoulder, feeling guilty for causing him distress. Then promptly tug off his comm and pat him down to see if he has any other methods of communication on him. He feebly tries to brush my hands away, and mutters something about not wanting to undergo another physical assessment, but doesn’t open his eyes or do anything else.

Well, at least I know he's still alive.

It doesn’t look like he’s going to be doing anything anytime soon, which is good, because I need to find out what in the void is going on. We only do hot exits like this in dire emergencies, and have never needed to do so when docked on Spire. Our business may not always be strictly legal, but my crew and I know to be cautious and do as little as possible to attract the attention of station security.

I tap my comm to open a channel to my pilot, Val, but before I can say anything, her voice comes through.

“Apologies, Captain, but I’m too occupied at the moment to converse,” she says, her tone even and polite despite the lurching of our ship as we take another blast to the hull.

My comm pings with an urgent comm request from Tari, the ship's engineer. I disconnect with Val and accept it.

“Would you like to explain to me why we’re being chased by station security?” I say drolly, glancing out of the window of my quarters to see a pair of ships gaining on us. I use my ocular implant to scan them and see that they’re arming weapons again. “And why they’re firing on us?”

A frisson of adrenaline scatters across my skin as my mind and body prepare for action. I know I should be worried, but esh’et , I’ve been dying for some excitement. Sure, I wish it involved smuggler scum rather than being vastly out gunned by Consortium ships, with the threat of incarceration on one of their labor colonies or worse, a political shitstorm for Sela 2. But stars, I love the rush. It’s almost as good as sex.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Tari replies dismissively. “We’ve got a bigger problem than what’s riled up the Consortium.”

“And what’s that?” The excitement thrumming through me sours a bit.

“The energy core.”

“What about the energy core?” I prompt when she doesn’t continue.

“It’s unshielded.”

Fa-shar . So much for my rush.

“Tari, why is the core unshielded?” I ask, teeth grinding together as anger and genuine fear swell inside me. If we were to take fire near the energy core while it’s unshielded, the entire ship could explode. “We talked about this. No tinkering with essential systems.”

Tari lets out a dismissive huff that makes me want to run down to the maintenance bay and throttle her with her own four hands. “Yes, but?—”

“Put it back up!” I hiss.

“Well, I’m trying , but it’s a little hard to focus with that alarm going off and the ship lurching.”

“Oh, I’m sorry that there aren’t perfect conditions for you to fix an issue we shouldn’t even have because I told you to not do nonsense like this,” I bite out. “Figure it out.”

I end the comm, scrubbing a hand across my face as I say a silent prayer that we get out of this alive. I’m interrupted by the sound of my door sliding open, and Rema, my second in command, sidles inside a second later, her silver hair disheveled and sleep clothes barely concealing her dark gray skin and glowing markings dotting her long, slender limbs. The alarm must’ve woken her up, too. “Sorry to bother you, but you might want to get to the bridge because Val’s freaking out and—” She stops abruptly, her luminous eyes flaring brighter when she notices the unconscious human on my bed. “Who’s your friend?” she mouths, giving me a sly look and stepping into the room to get a better look.

“He’s…” A drunken mistake? My accidental kidnapping victim? I shake my head and place my hand on her shoulders, guiding her back towards the door. “Doesn’t matter right now. I need you to go help Tari, so we don’t all die in the next few minutes. I’ll be up on the bridge with Val, in case she needs me to take over the helm.”

Rema’s sharp grin falls when she hears my serious tone. “Got it.”

I glance back at the human on my bed with a frown, scanning his vitals with my cybernetic eye to make sure he’s still okay, before following Rema out into the corridor. I have bigger things to worry about right now than him waking up alone.

I sprint to the lift and take it down to the bridge, where I find Val on the verge of a panic attack. You wouldn’t be able to tell if you didn’t know the ever composed and elegant vuloi, but after working together for years, I know her tells.

Her massive hand trembles as she grips the control lever so tightly she’s in danger of ripping it right off the console. She still manages to deftly maneuver us out of incoming fire, but her usually vibrant green skin has turned ashen and her stacked eyes blink rapidly, no doubt trying to fight off tears.

I bring up the command controls and override the alarm, sighing in relief as the siren and flashing lights turn off. If anyone on board hasn’t realized that there’s an emergency by now, that’s on them.

“Val.” I say my pilot’s name calmly, knowing that if I sound distressed, she’ll interpret it as me being upset with her. Even with my attempt to be relaxed, she still winces slightly and gives me an apologetic frown.

“Apologies, C-Captain. I’m doing my best, but their ships have vastly superior maneuvering capabilities and speed. With the energy core unshielded, it’s far too dangerous to make a jump, so I haven’t plotted one yet.” Not looking away from the helm, Val jerks the ship upward, and I have to grab the back of her chair to not go sliding backward and slamming against the wall.

“Rema and Tari are fixing it now. We only need to avoid them for a little while longer, and I know you can do this.” I place a hand on her broad shoulder and try to send calming energy to her to soothe the worst of her panic. “You’re the best pilot in the galaxy, and I wouldn’t trust anyone else to get us through this.”

The tension in her body eases slightly, and Val swallows heavily, her top row of eyes closing for a long beat, before opening again with a shaky sigh. “Of course, Captain,” she says, her deep, serene tone more genuine now.

“I’ll take care of the coordinates,” I say, sliding into the seat beside hers and bringing up the holo interface. “The second we hear from Rema that the core is shielded, jump us out of here.”

“Yes, Captain.”

I swipe as quickly through the stellar charts as I can, hoping that my rusty calculation skills are enough to keep us from jumping into occupied space. Getting away from the Consortium only to die from crashing into a planet would be such an unimpressive way to die.

Time slows to a crawl as we wait for the go ahead from Rema. My pulse hammers in my ears, a new alarm to replace the one that shut off. A hit grazes against our hull just shy of the energy core, but I breathe through it, finishing up plotting the jump moments before Rema’s voice comes through on the bridge comm .

“It’s fixed, so we can?—”

Everything lurches as Val punches the jump drive before Rema can finish talking, the strange, nauseating sensation of warping through space slamming into me for a few harrowing heartbeats, before relenting as quickly as it came on.

“Told you, you could do it.” I let out a relieved chuckle, and am met by a weak smile from Val. After a quick scan to make sure we’re safe for the time being, I transfer the controls over to auto-pilot.

Val’s broad body sags in her chair for a few seconds in relief, then straightens back up as she catches herself being less than dignified. I know better than to suggest she go get some rest right now, when she’s feeling vulnerable.

Stars, I don’t know what upset my typically unflappable pilot, but I have a feeling it has something to do with a certain nexxit engineer who almost got us all killed. The urge to go down to the maintenance bay and tell Tari off grows stronger, but that will have to wait until later. Right now, I need to find out why we’re even in this situation to begin with.

I head back out into the corridor, and once I’m out of earshot of the bridge, I ping Rema.

“Now that we’re not about to die at any moment, care to enlighten me on why the fa-shar station security was trying to destroy us?” I ask as soon as she answers.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” she replies, sounding as confused as I am. “I was half-asleep when I got a comm from one of my contacts on the station that there was an alert sent out flagging our ship as a high-level security risk, and we needed to leave immediately. We barely made it out past the energy barrier before those Consortium ships were on our ass.”

“A security risk?” I rub my temples as I try to make sense of this news. This is a clean ship registry, so nothing about our credentials should’ve been flagged by security. I was on Spire for a wedding and the rest of the crew only took one job while I was busy. A simple one that involved liberating some cargo stuck in customs because of bureaucratic nonsense, which Yaz, my security officer, said went smoothly.

A stabbing headache begins to form behind my eyes. I always get one when we jump, but it’s compounded by the stressful escape and this baffling situation.

“Yeah. I don’t get it either,” Rema says with a sigh. “If anyone knows, it’ll be Frea’set.” She says the name with barely disguised disdain. Which is fair, since the contact that we got the job from is her ex, and things didn’t exactly end amicably.

We’ve both known him since we all left Sela 2 together. There’s no way that Frea’set would give us a job that was dangerous without warning me ahead of time, but with no other leads, I should reach out to him. For all I know, he might be in danger, too.

“I’ll comm him. In the meantime, can you go scan the cargo for trackers? Oh, and once you’re done, maybe check on Val? She’s not doing well, but I don’t want her to think I’m talking to her because…”

“She let her captain down?” Rema finishes for me. “Yeah, I’ll swing by and see if I can coax her to have a meal.”

“Thanks, l’thran .”

We’re practically siblings in everything but blood, so she chuckles at the over-the-top endearment. “Any time.”

I end the comm and head back to my quarters, but freeze before I go inside. I groan as I remember the unconscious human I have stashed in there.

Vash-ka , I have to deal with that, too. I unlock the door and peer inside, but he’s still motionless on the bed. How long do humans stay passed out for? That seems like a very disadvantageous trait to have.

With my quarters occupied, I duck into the small crew rec space instead, and engage the lock on the door behind me, then swipe open the holo projector on my comm to set up a secure video feed.

It takes a few minutes for Frea’set to answer, but when his face appears on the vid holo, he’s all smiles. “Hadrell! What a delightful surprise. I would’ve thought for sure that you’d be sleeping off a hangover after a weekend of wedding celebrations.”

I sigh. “I wish that were the case, but we’ve run into a bit of an issue. One that I’m hoping you might be able to provide some insight about.”

I hate that I watch his immediate reaction to my words with practiced focus, searching for any indication that he’s lying. Entertaining the thought that one of my oldest friends would’ve intentionally lied or endangered us makes my stomach clench with guilt, but it’s my job to make sure I keep my crew safe. While I know in my heart that Frea’set would sooner die than betray us, sometimes hearts aren’t reliable.

When Frea’set’s brow markings draw together, but the glow of his eyes doesn’t fluctuate at all, the knot in my stomach eases. He truly looks as confused as I am. “An issue? What kind of issue? Is Rema—” he clears his throat and frowns in concern. This time, his eyes flare brighter, showing his emotion. “Is everyone okay?”

“Rema’s fine,” I reply, trying not to let my amusement show that he clearly still cares for his ex. He’s never told me exactly what happened between them, and Rema’s rants about him being an asshole are clearly biased. Sometimes I wish I could trap them together in an escape pod and force them to talk things through. Though, I’m not sure if that would end with them back together or with one or both of them dead .

“Good.” The tension on Frea’set’s face bleeds away.

“We had to make a hot exit from Spire. Apparently, our ship was flagged as a high-level security risk. I’ve got no clue why since we were only there for the wedding and?—”

“The job I gave you,” Frea’set finishes, letting out a heavy exhale and pushing a lock of cropped white hair off of his face. “Right.” He reaches for something offscreen, and a moment later there’s an overlay on his feed of the job details he sent us. His eyes dim slightly as he scrolls through. “Ration provisions stuck in customs…drop off at refugee colony…” It’s clear he doesn’t remember any of the details of the job off the top of his head, which further confirms that there’s no way he set us up. Frea’set isn’t that good of an actor.

He sighs. “I don’t know what to tell you. The client was a new one, or at least using a new name, but the credits were good, and not suspiciously high for this type of job. It also came with an official document from the admin of the refugee colony out on Xyx that’s set to receive the ration bars you were hired to liberate from station customs. I checked around to see why they’d need such a large quantity and found that they’ve had a massive influx of new mouths to feed after the tidal surges on a planet in that sector made most of the place too dangerous to inhabit. It checked out. Esh’et , I’d never have sent the job your way if I thought…”

“I know you wouldn’t. But I had to check to see if there was anything I was missing.” I hate that he can easily understand the subtext that I had to make sure he hadn’t fucked me over. “Rema is checking the cargo again, so we’ll know soon if there’s anything hiding in there or off about the ration bars. You’ll need to inform the client that we won’t be able to make the arranged drop off. We took some heavy fire fleeing the station, and we used up our jump charge getting to the ass end of the galaxy to hide.” I almost mention the human I’ve abducted, but the fewer people that know about that potential diplomatic disaster, the better.

“Do whatever you need to do. All that matters is that you all stay safe and out of Consortium jail. I’ll handle the client and see if I can find some other rations to send to the colony to tide them over until they can get the ones you grabbed.”

“Thanks,” I sigh, glad that Frea’set knows me well enough to realize that the thought of people going hungry because of something I potentially screwed up would devastate me. The whole reason I became a pirate was to try to help make the galaxy a better place, outside of the often asinine bureaucracy of the Consortium and the greed of less scrupulous entities.

Of course he’d send me this job. It practically screams my name.

Wait.

Is it possible this job was a trap designed with me in mind?

The pressure in my head pounds harder as I consider the possibility.

“Can you send me all the data you have on the client? The name, comm feed routing, times—anything you can give me, I’ll take it.”

“Already on it,” Frea’set says, and my comm pings with a data file. “You know how it is with clients. They used an encrypted remote feed, so it’s next to impossible to trace.”

Next to impossible, but not completely impossible. I groan as I realize how many credits it’s going to cost to decipher the tangle of data. Credits I won’t have once all the ship repairs and refueling are paid for. Vash-ka , what a nightmare.

With no other leads, I’ll have to find a way to pay for it.

I end the call with Frea’set, then turn off the lights and sink onto the worn vinyl couch with a groan.

Esh’et , I need to lie down and sleep off this headache before it gets worse and debilitates me, but I can’t go back to my quarters. I close my eyes and rub my temples, dragging in a few slow breaths, which unfortunately fill my nostrils with the musty odor of the ancient couch cushions.

I wriggle out of the top of my jumpsuit, then pull out my undershirt and use it as a makeshift mask to cover my nose with. I expect it to smell of my stale musk from a night of drinking, but a pleasant, spicy scent greets me. It has a soothing effect, easing some of the tension in my head and making it easier to ignore how I have to fold my legs into an uncomfortable position to lie on the too-small couch.

Before I know it, I’m drifting off to thoughts of a warm, muscular form nestled next to mine, their even breathing and solid presence a balm I’ve been craving for ages.