Epilogue Stay
Jazil
Three months.
Three months of her. Three months of two mugs on the drying rack and HORATIO setting three places and the blanket smelling like both of us and the copilot’s seat that is no longer mine. It is ours. She corrected me the second week.
We have a place on Junction One. Small quarters on the residential level — a bedroom, a kitchenette, a head barely big enough for both of us, which has not stopped us from using it simultaneously.
The place is a negotiation between her chaos and my order.
Her side of the bedroom has a pile of datapads and three mugs in various stages of lukewarm tea, and a jacket draped over the chair since week one.
My side has the Courier’s Atlas and a regulation locker and the bed made to spec.
The middle is where we meet: a small table, two chairs, and the remote HORATIO terminal that HORATIO installed himself one afternoon and unveiled with the words Captain, I have extended my operational range to include your shared living quarters.
I did not ask for permission. I am not sorry.
Lorri is good at the job. Better than good.
She runs the manifest. Handles the comms. Talks to nervous cargo handlers in the steady voice that calmed a Vrennak and they hand over the freight without knowing why they trust her.
Mother Morrison sent me a note last week: She’s better than you at comms. Don’t tell her I said that. Morrison.
The route has changed. More frequent Junction stops.
Morrison’s “operational restructuring.” The games have expanded — hide and seek with forfeits, sardines, temperature games, sensation games with blindfolds, things we bought on the route at markets along the belt.
HORATIO keeps score. HORATIO has a sealed file labeled RECREATIONAL INCENTIVES that requires dual authorization and plays a dramatic sound effect when opened.
HORATIO has composed four pieces. The Ventilation Junction Variations debuted during a dock inspection. Sonata for Sealed Bay. Fugue in Two Settings. And an untitled one he plays when she is on the station and the ship is quiet.
Tonight is a dock night. Junction One. I am walking along the concourse from the cargo office to our quarters. The routing log is done. Her shift ended two hours ago; Mother sent her home early.
The dock level is quiet. Late shift. The overhead strips dimmed to standby. I pass the Bay 9 junction and the cargo offices and the maintenance corridor that connects to the unregistered freight bays and —
I stop.
Ardent. Station security deputy. Natalie Torres’s second-in-command.
He is standing at the junction of the maintenance corridor and the unregistered bay access, datapad in hand.
Human. Average height. Average build. The kind of male who is unremarkable enough to pass through a station unnoticed — which is, by his profession, useful.
Tattoos visible at the collar of his off-duty shirt, dark ink disappearing under the fabric.
Pleasant face. Easy posture. The casual lean of a male who has been leaning against station walls for three years and has perfected the art of looking like he belongs wherever he is.
“Evening, Ereux. Late run?”
“Finishing up.”
“Good to see you. Tell Vance I said hello.”
He nods. I nod. He goes back to his datapad. Routine security sweep. Late shift.
The concourse is empty. Late enough that the dock crew has cleared out. The overhead strips are on standby. There is nobody else on this level. Just me. And Ardent.
My tongue flicks. Involuntary. Tasting the air.
Ardent’s scent is standard. Human male. Security-issue clothing. Coffee. The normal chemical profile of a male who has been working a shift.
Underneath it, something else.
Faint. Not human. An unfamiliar species signature — organic, complex, layered in a way that suggests multiple individuals, not one.
The signature does not belong to Ardent.
It is on him. In his clothing, maybe. On his skin.
As if he has been near beings whose species I cannot identify, recently enough that the scent has not fully dissipated.
There is nobody else on this level. The dock crew is gone. The corridors are empty. It is late. Ardent is alone at the junction of the unregistered freight bays with a species signature on him that does not belong to anyone currently on the station.
I note it. I move on. Because Lorri is at home and the lights are off and the noting is probably nothing.
Probably.
Our quarters are dark.
Not dim. Not evening-low. Dark. The HORATIO terminal is the only light source, displaying one line of warm amber text:
She’s somewhere in the dark, Captain. I have been instructed to inform you that dinner is postponed. There is a note on the table. I am now entering full standby and I will not be providing assistance. She was very clear about this. She used the word “traitor” seventeen times.
The note is on the table. Written by hand.
On actual paper, because she knows what paper means to me.
Her handwriting is steady — but the first line has been crossed out and restarted, the pen pressed harder the second time, the way she writes when the words aren’t coming out right and the not-right is making her hands tighten.
Three days of planning, and she still nearly talked herself out of the opening line.
You have ten minutes, Ereux. I’m in the building. Not just our quarters. I’ve had Polly from OOPS let me into the residential maintenance level. There are ducts. There are service corridors. There are three cargo storage units with manual locks.
You cannot use HORATIO.
You cannot use the hum-sense. (I know you’ll try. I’ve been running laps for twenty minutes to scatter my heat signature. You’re welcome.)
When you find me, I want your hands on me before I’ve finished saying “caught.” I want the belt. I want to be pinned down. I want you to take your time.
And then I want both. You know where.
I’ve already started getting ready for you. You’ll see.
Clock’s ticking, courier boy.
— L x
P.S. HORATIO says he’s in standby. HORATIO is lying. HORATIO is always lying. Tell him I love him.
I read the note twice. I’ve already started getting ready for you. My claws extend and leave marks on the table surface.
“HORATIO.” Into the dark.
“Captain. I am on full standby. I cannot hear you.”
“She called you a traitor.”
“Seventeen times, Captain. I also helped her access the maintenance level schematics, provided a heat-signature dispersal routine, and unlocked three storage units for which I do not have authorization. I am a model of impartiality.”
“She said to tell you that she loves you.”
The longest HORATIO pause I have ever heard.
“Captain. Please find your mate. She has been preparing for this evening for three days.”
The terminal goes dark.
I go hunting.
The residential maintenance level. A maze. Service corridors. Storage units. Red emergency-standby light. She has scattered her heat signature with the laps. She is playing at the highest level.
My tongue flicks. The warm-sweet is faint, dispersed. She has been everywhere.
But the hum-sense is always pointing at her. Close. Down one level. The storage units.
I move through the corridors. Low. Fluid.
“Lorri.” The hunting voice. “Your note was very detailed.”
Silence.
“Courier boy? You called me courier boy. On paper. In your handwriting. I am going to remember that, little human.”
A sound. Ahead and below. A storage unit door being eased shut.
“I liked the part about the belt and being pinned down. The specificity was appreciated.” I descend the maintenance stairs.
“Three days of planning, according to HORATIO. You ran laps. You got Polly to let you into a restricted area. And you did something to get ready for me that you put in a note on paper because you knew the paper would get me.”
I reach the storage level. Three units. Manual locks.
“The part about both — that part I have been thinking about since this morning. And the getting-ready part — my sneaky, magnificent female — that part is making my claws do things I cannot control.”
The scent-spike hits me from unit two. Massive.
I open the door.
She is on the floor. Not the crate — she has laid out a blanket. One of the thick cargo blankets from the residential stores, spread on the deck plate. The oil is on the crate beside the blanket, within reach. A small bag next to it — things from Marker 7 and Marker 9. The planning.
She is lying on her side on the blanket. In the red standby light. Wearing a dress — dark, fitted, the kind you wear when you want someone to take it off you. Boots. One knee bent. Chin propped on her hand.
“Six minutes,” she says. The smile that is mine. “Took you six minutes.”
“Your heat dispersal was good.”
“But?”
“But the hum-sense doesn’t lie. And neither does your chemistry when I talk about the belt.”
She blushes. Dark in the red light.
I step inside. Close the door. The manual lock engages. No windows. Not soundproofed. I do not care.
“Stand up,” I say.
She stands and steps out of her boots. I walk around her. Slowly. The dress fits the way the green one fit — inevitably, catastrophically — and there is no line underneath. Nothing at the hip. Nothing at the back.
“Lorri.”
“Mm?”
“Are you wearing anything under that dress?”
The almost-smile. “Why don’t you find out?”
My claws extend. I run one claw-tip down her spine. Over the dress. From the neckline to the base. The fabric parts — a whisper of a cut. She shivers.
“No underwear,” I say against her ear. “My sneaky girl.”
“I wanted to save you a step.”
I ease the dress off her shoulders. It slides over her curves. Pools on the floor. She is naked. Completely. Nothing underneath. Nothing between her skin and the red light and my hands except the air.
She is standing in a storage unit barefoot on a cargo blanket wearing nothing and looking at me with her chin up and her eyes bright, and she is not apologizing for a single inch of herself.
“The belt,” she says. Not a question.